Boks chased tries when they should have chased points
The Boks needed to beat Argentina by 40 to win the Rugby Championship. The performance in the first 40 minutes was good enough to get the 40. The execution never matched the intent.
Rarely has a team been so dominant in 40 minutes led by just 10 points at halftime.
Scoreboard pressure builds points and there were many kickable three-points on offer in the first half, all of which the Boks turned down to seek out tries.
The only time SA kicked for goal was from 55m in the 38th minute.
It was a great kick from Frans Steyn, but a bizarre decision because Argentina were down to 14 players. A kick to the corner to maximise the one player advantage seemed logical.
The kick was successful, but the return kickoff gave Argentina rare-field position in the Boks’ 22m area, and from there Argentina scored just before halftime.
Any chance of a Bok 40-point winning margin ended and so did the prospect of winning the Rugby Championship.
But this title was not lost in Durban and it was not won at Eden Park in Auckland.
Cast your mind to Ellis Park on August 13, specifically to the final seven minutes. It is when the Springboks lost the Rugby Championship.
The Springboks won the first Rugby Championship match up 26-10 in Mbombela. It represented a rare three successive Test defeats for the All Blacks, who had been beaten in a Test and series by Ireland in New Zealand for the first time in their history.
The All Blacks were one defeat away from an implosion that would take a few years to fix. It was the moment for modern-day Springboks to disregard the aura of a black jersey made so potent in SA’s sporting isolation.
Instead, many Boks spent the entire week telling the media how good a team the All Blacks were, how sorry they felt for the All Blacks in their lowest moments and how quickly the All Blacks could turn it around.
The Kiwis believed what they read and raced to a 15point lead before the reality of the situation settled. As the minutes ticked, so did the All Blacks fatigue and, on 72 minutes, the Springboks finally went ahead. The Boks, with a one-player advantage, at altitude and at the famed Ellis Park, were primed to bury the All Blacks and bury them in a way that would have haunted the next generation of All Blacks playing. Instead, this next generation of All Blacks soared, as the 2019 World Champions stumbled, and the All Blacks scored 14 unanswered points to win, with the final try coming on full-time.
It was this moment that gifted the All Blacks a bonus-point win and it was the minute that separated the two teams as champions.
The All Blacks have grown monumentally in the final month of the tournament. The Boks have not been quite as liberal in their selections, and it has hindered their growth in terms of the 2023 World Cup in France.
The qualities of Pieter-Steph du Toit and Duane Vermeulen need no analysis but what gain was there to the depth development of the squad when the veterans were recalled for the tournament finale and two of the most talented youngsters in the country, Evan Roos and Elrigh Louw, were playing in the United Rugby Championship?
Their presence would have been a long-term win bigger than any Bok short-term win by less than 40 points.
The Boks won in Durban, but the team’s coaching leadership, when it comes to selection, lost much more in the Rugby Championship.