SPORTFOLIO • RACING DRAGONS SLAY BOKS • TENNIS, GOLF
wheeled viciously as the Welsh forwards put pressure on the Bok pack, and replacement scrum-half Francois Hougaard was unable to get the ball away.
It was kicked forward by Wales, and to add insult to injury fullback Willie le Roux then knocked that ball on as well on the Bok 10m line.
And on a night he will want to forget, Le Roux threw a forward pass to Lwazi Mvovo in the last movement of the game, which saw Irish referee John Lacey blow the final whistle and hand Warren Gatland’s Welsh side only their second victory over the Boks in history and their first since 1999.
The South Africans weren’t good on the night, but the shocking decision by Lacey to give Cornal Hendricks a yellow card with 17 minutes to go for supposedly taking out Welsh fullback Leigh Halfpenny was difficult to understand.
Hendricks had got up high and competed well for an upand-under with Halfpenny, and both players got hurt in the collision. But after watching the replay on the big screen, Lacey came to the conclusion that Hendricks was at fault and sent him off for 10 minutes.
That gave the Welsh great impetus as they could then stretch the 14-man Bok defence out wide as they were tiring in the last quarter. They nearly scored up the middle, but replacement hooker Adriaan Strauss won the breakdown penalty under his posts.
Hougaard and reserve loose forward Nizaam Carr injected some bite into the Bok attack, which had looked toothless for most of the match, but Hendricks’s sin-binning halted the turnaround.
The South Africans had opted to bash the ball up the middle most of the time, but gained little advantage out of that as Wales were ready and waiting, and often drove the ball-carrier back in the tackle.
The Bok defence harried the Welsh into mistakes in the first half especially, with a couple of turnovers won by Duane Vermeulen and Bismarck du Plessis at the breakdown.
The scrum was again strong in the opening 40 minutes when Tendai Mtawarira, Du Plessis and Coenie Oosthuizen were operating in the front row.
One almighty heave on the Welsh 22 resulted in a heel against the head just before half-time, but after the South Africans had built up some good phases through good work by Oosthuizen, De Villiers and Eben Etzebeth, the ball was lost forward 10m from the line, and another try-scoring opportunity was lost.
But the Boks struggled when Trevor Nyakane came on for Mtawarira early in the second half as he battled to handle Samson Lee.
However, tighthead back-up Julian Redelinghuys appeared with 10 minutes left in place of Coenie Oosthuizen, and in his first scrum, engineered a 90º wheel and a turnover 5m from the Bok tryline.
In the end the forwards couldn’t provide a secure platform in the final scrum 5m out, and Wales survived.
It was always going to be a big task for the Boks to get up physically and mentally one last time, and loose forwards Vermeulen and Marcell Coetzee did give their all, but the Welsh were just one step ahead on the night.
For Bok coach Meyer, the result and, in particular, the disappointing performance may force him to do some soulsearching about his team’s attacking game, and also addressing their lack of composure under pressure. SCORERS Wales – Penalties: Leigh Halfpenny (4). South Africa – Penalties: Patrick Lambie (2).