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Wallabies self-destruct - and then clinch it!
The Wallabies have finally broken a 47-year hoodoo on the Highveld with a last-gasp 41-39 win over the Springboks at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein -- but boy, did they try hard to lose it.
The Australians looked to be cantering to a massive victory when shortly before half-time they led 31-6 and were on the attack just metres away from the Springbok line. On a couple of occasions they were held up just short of scoring what would have been their fifth try to take them to the break 32 points clear, and once they turned down an opportunity to kick a penalty at the posts.
But the Boks won a penalty with less than a minute left in the half, and then ensued a freaky moment of inspired magic from Victor Matfield, who chipped over the top of the advancing Wallaby defensive line and then fed Jaque Fourie for the try.
The Morne Steyn conversion meant the Boks cut the deficit to 18 points going into the half-time break. It was still a long, long way away for the Boks, but the score seemed to be a massive lift for them, for they came out in the second half in an inspired mood.
They put their bodies and hearts into a passionate assault that lasted for the next 14 minutes, and in those moments of madness, with the Wallabies helping out by completely losing all sense of poise and composure, they took that amount of time to bring the deficit down to just one point.
The first try of the comeback came in the fifth minute of the second half, with the Boks being awarded a penalty which they could have kicked for goal but which instead they elected to employ to set up a lineout. From that set-piece the Boks launched a series of drives which stretched across the field and eventually resulted in Gurthro Steenkamp driving over.
A Steyn penalty a few minutes later made it 31-23, and suddenly the crowd, so quiet and subdued in the first half when the Wallabies were all over the hosts, was buzzing. Every Bok act was met with a rousing ovation from the 38 000 crowd, and the Boks held onto the ball impressively as wave after wave of green jerseys attacked the Wallaby line.
But the Wallabies, in the manner that the Protea cricket team used to do in ODIs against Australia a decade ago, also appeared to choke quite spectacularly.
As the Boks fought back, so the Australians made mistakes. After the one Bok score they kicked off too long. They battled to hold onto their passes where in the first half they had been so assured. And then, mistake of all mistakes, they turned over a Bok loose-scrum near their line -- and passed the ball over the dead-ball line!
MASSIVE GAME
The upshot of the mistake was that the Boks were able to sustain the pressure, and Jean de Villiers, who had a massive game in the South African midfield, at least on attack, made it look all too easy as he scored off the switch.
Steyn’s conversion made it a one-point game with 26 minutes to go and the momentum was now undeniably with the Boks. It seemed only a matter of time before they took the lead, and they did with a long-range Steyn penalty that put the Boks in front for the first time with 19 minutes to go.
It now looked over for the Wallabies, even more so when another Steyn penalty, after a horrendous spear tackle from replacement hooker Saia Fainga’a, put the Boks five points in front with just under 12 minutes left.
Fainga’a was carded, so the Wallabies were down to 14 men. That really should have been that. But you always sensed, given the way the Boks had struggled with their defensive structures in the first half, that all the Wallabies needed to do was get their hands on the ball and they would threaten again.
Maybe it was asking a bit much of them to do it with 14 men, but they decided that this was the moment to show they do have some bottle and when Drew Mitchell went over between the posts off an inside pass from Quade Cooper, they were in front again.
MOMENT OF MADNESS
But then came a moment of madness, with just three minutes left, that looked for all the world to have cost the Wallabies the game. It was Beale who made the mistake, a pass from a teammate smacking into his head and bouncing forward into the hands of a Bok player, and the resultant pressure netted a penalty.
Steyn is one of the best pressure kickers in the business, and he bisected the uprights from the right touchline to take the Boks into a one-point lead. All they needed to do was wind down the clock, and for about two and a half minutes they did that as they just kept it close and retained possession near the halfway line.
But the game was not finished. Big lock replacement Flip van der Merwe tried to seal the ball off illegally, referee Wayne Barnes rightly penalised him, and Australia had a choice -- kick for the posts, which were half a field away and at an angle, or set up the lineout.
Beale, the cause of so much that had gone wrong for the Aussies earlier, bravely elected to kick it -- and when the flags were raised he and his teammates jubilantly celebrated a deserved first win at altitude in South Africa since 1963.
The Boks, so brave yet so short of any real finesse, defensive organisation or tactical nous, slunk away to the realisation that surely they can deny it no longer after five defeats in six -- passion just isn’t enough at this level.
They were never in the game in the first half, with the Wallabies re-enacting the feat of the previous week at Loftus by building up a big lead.
As with the Loftus game, the Wallaby ability to see space and then run through it was almost freaky, and it has to be said that they were a step up from their performance at Loftus. One of the things they did much better this time was defend when the Boks were near their line, and they steadily built up a lead which by half-time looked impregnable.
It probably would have been had Matfield not set up that freaky turn-around try, and the Boks can probably feel relieved that this was not a day to rival the 49-0 in Brisbane in 2006. Had the Wallabies not conceded that try, they may not have lost their composure after half-time, and they could have won comfortably.
It’s a good thing they didn’t, for it would have robbed us of one of the most amazing second halves in the history of test match rugby -- and the Boks have suffered enough ignominy for one Tri-Nations season.
Scorers:
South Africa - Try: Jaque Fourie, Gurthro Steenkamp, Jean de Villiers. Conversions: Morne Steyn (3). Penalties: Morne Steyn (5).
Australia - Tries: Kurtley Beale, James O`Connor, Stephen Moore, Rocky Elsom, Drew Mitchell. Conversions: Matt Giteau (4), O`Connor. Penalties: Giteau, Kurtley Beale.
