Imposing in the opening 20 minutes and inaccurate in the next 20. And a similar narrative in the second half for Pieter-Steph du Toit’s Springboks.
The hosts were always going to win this Nations Championship Test against Wales, which influenced the mentality of this Boks performance.
Strong and then sloppy. Physically the Boks looked like they were men playing against boys. The Wiese brothers, Cobus at lock and Jasper at No 8, have had tougher school games.
The duo ran with such ease in breaking tackles, but with the ease came an easing from the Boks. Durban’s humidity never makes it easy to handle a ball, but the comfort of the opening start and the lack of quality in the Welsh challenge made for a messy match.
Destructive at scrum
Collectively, the Boks were no better than a C. Individually, there were many who would have scored higher.
The debutants in the forwards, lock Ruben van Heerden and tighthead prop Carlu Sadie, were particularly good. Van Heerden showed the kind of calm in the lineout that used to be the norm for the iconic Boks lock Victor Matfield, and Sadie was destructive at the scrum engage.
Sadie starred for Bordeaux in the French club’s Champions Cup title win, and he was as good in his run-on Test for the Springboks.
The Welsh scrum was under severe pressure, but the lack of intensity in the contest proved a negative for the Boks, especially in the second 20 minutes of the first half.
The Boks had the bonus point by the 42nd minute, which makes any critique difficult
The 11 first-half handling errors were consistent with the mentality of the match but inconsistent with the standards of the world champion Boks and the world’s No 1 team.
The last time the two teams met, the Boks won 73-0 in Cardiff, but just two of the Boks starting XV wore the same jersey in Durban.
Best Bok forwards
Jasper Wiese and loosehead prop Gerhard Steenekamp were those two players. And they were the best Bok forwards in Durban.
Backline debutants Vusi Moyo and Jaco Williams were enthusiastic, and there was statistical reward for both. Moyo got his first Test points in the sixth minute, when he converted the opening try, and Williams, who chased hard all evening, got onto the scoreboard with a try within a minute of the restart.
The Boks had the bonus point by the 42nd minute, which makes any critique difficult.
But it is the accuracy that wasn’t quite there. Again, the context is the opposition’s lack of menace, considering this was a very changed Boks team that scored 45 points against Scotland and found everything easy.
Wales had one 22-metre entry in the first 35 minutes. The Boks had 10 and scored just once, which contrasts to a week ago when the Boks had six entries into Scotland’s 22 and scored six times.
A week before that, they had 11 entries into England’s 22 and scored seven tries.
Wales offered little
To illustrate just how little Wales offered, they made just 42 attack metres in the first 40 minutes.
Six of the Boks’ substitutes were introduced in the 47th minute, but this did not improve the accuracy of the Boks’ performance. The remaining two were on by the 52nd minute.
Aphelele Fassie, at fullback, was another who never looks out of place in the Test arena but threatens to explode without ever going off. I was willing to get more from him, but like with the collective, it never quite got there.
Veteran scrumhalf Cobus Reinach was my pick of the Boks. He was so good at putting pressure on Wales from the scrum and electric when given half a gap on attack, and his performance had the right mixture of energy, enthusiasm and presence.
Coach Rassie Erasmus got more gains from the combination of the three Nations Championship Tests than he got in Durban. This month was always about giving the entire squad game time, testing combinations and introducing a handful of new players to Test rugby.
It was also about winning, which the Boks did comfortably in all three Test matches to finish July as the southern hemisphere’s league leaders in the Nations Championship.
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