Keep an eye on this young man! In Saturday’s crushing defeat of the Wallabies, Jongki Nokwe dotted down no less than four times – a record try-scoring performance for Springbok. (Was this really only his second test for South Africa?) Despite this try-scoring blitz, Nokwe wasn’t even the best Springbok on the field – not by a long stretch.
New lock Andries Bekker was dominant in the line-out and scored the first try of the evening. Odwa Ndungane, starting his first test, was superb and scored the last try of the evening. Also noteworthy were Pierre Spies, the Beast, and Jean de Villiers. Even Butch James played above himself.
How did the Boks get so good so fast? A better question might be, what happened to the Wallabies? They lingered at sea-level all week, dominated for all of five minutes, and were huffing and puffing just trying to keep up for the rest of the game. They let in eight tries in 80 minutes. In their other tests this year the Wallabies have conceded, on average, less than two tries per game. Clearly something went very wrong in Jo’burg.
The most obvious gap – as Jongki Nokwe showed – was on the wing where Peter Hynes did a passable interpretation of the invisible man. But there were huge gaps inside as well. The pairing of Stirling Mortlock (13) and Timana Tahu (12) was a match made in rugby hell. The Boks were able to penetrate time and time again.
Matt Dunning was Beast-fodder in the scrum. He was the first to be subbed and rightly so. Both hookers (Tatafu Polota-Nau and his replacement Stephen Moore) threw the ball very poorly. The Aussie line-out was hopeless. Matt Giteau was about the only Aussie player to play with evident conviction, but he made a few regrettable errors.
Enjoy it South Africa! I was actually starting to feel bad for you after the last two weeks. But having handed Australia their biggest defeat in the Republic you’ll now be back in second place on the IRB world ranking. Once again the Tri-Nations Trophy has eluded you by a long stretch, but you do have a fairly easy Northern Hemisphere tour to look forward to. All the lessons you should’ve learned from a shocking 3N will probably be lost in the emotion of tonight’s win. The beautiful thing I take away from this is you’ll probably see tonight’s performance as a vindication of your flawed style of rugby. Wiser heads will take the longer view.
And Australia? Your day of reckoning is at hand. Robbie’s honeymoon is well and truly over. See you in two weeks in Brisbane!
Filed under: Jongki Nokwe, Robbie Deans, South Africa, Springboks, Wallabies, rugby
