Ken Borland

New Zealand captain Richie McCaw was delighted that his 100th Test victory was achieved in such compelling fashion as the All Blacks beat South Africa 32-16 in their Rugby Championship match at Soccer City in Soweto on Saturday.

The world champions scored 20 unanswered second-half points to end the tournament in style and ensure McCaw’s unique landmark was made even more memorable.

“It’s pretty special, a performance like that is why you test yourself and you have to be part of a pretty special team to win 100 Tests.

“The mental side is the most challenging thing in top sport, you have to pitch up regardless of what happened last week. We put in a good performance against Argentina and we needed to back that up if we’re going to keep progressing. I’m just delighted that we did that for the first time this year,” McCaw told a news conference after the game.

While the All Blacks had already clinched the inaugural Rugby Championship title with their 54-15 win over Argentina last weekend, Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer said their performance on Saturday proved that they are worthy world champions.

“They are a great team, we were beaten by a better side today. We obviously still have a long way to go even though we’ve come up from fourth to second on the rankings.

“There’s obviously a big difference between second and first on the rankings and even though the All Blacks might play badly, they always have one or two brilliant players who get them off the hook.

“It will take a special side to beat them and they will need some luck and a referee who gives them all the 50/50 calls,” Meyer said.

The Springbok coach acknowledged that his team had simply made too many mistakes after dominating the first half to secure a 16-12 lead at the break.

“At half-time, we were in the game, we’d played the right game and kept them under pressure. But just after half-time we had a turnover against the best counter-attacking team and that put them ahead.

“Dan Carter was then superb as he controlled the game and it was very difficult for us to catch up. They forced us to take risks and the mistakes came, but they were soft moments,” Meyer complained.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said the victory was an all-round effort.

“It was a great game of rugby, it’s not often you get a performance like that against a very good South African team. It was a great victory against a great opponent.

“The whole group is working well together, we’ve got the recipe for the cake right and the mental state is great. The team is well-led by Richie, who has won 100 Tests because he has great mental strength,” Hansen said.

The All Blacks took the game to another level in the second half and McCaw said the two tries they scored between the 41st and 53rd minutes had been the decisive moments.

“We didn’t get a lot of ball in the first half, but traditionally the time just before and after the break are key. We conceded a couple of penalties just before half-time, but straight away we struck back in the second half and that gave the team a lift after we had given ourselves a pretty stern talking to in the shed. From then on we were in control,” McCaw said.

It is palpably unfair, but Springbok captain Jean de Villiers is painfully aware that if his team lose to the world champion All Blacks at Soccer City on Saturday then general opinion in the country will be that South African rugby is going to the dogs.

An impressive 31-8 victory last weekend over Australia lifted the mood, but has also created unfair expectations that the Springboks are favourites to beat New Zealand, who boast 939 test caps compared to South Africa’s paltry 490, and are, of course, the World Cup holders and unbeaten in 15 matches stretching back a year.

“We need to keep on evolving and, in this country, that’s usually judged by the result alone. If we put on a bad show, then we’re back where we started. We gained some momentum last weekend, and we want to build some more to take with us on the end-of-year tour,” De Villiers said on Friday.

“We played very well last weekend, but the pressure is still on us to perform. Australia had injury upon injury during that game, which definitely had an impact, so we’re not suddenly thinking we’re a great team. We’re happy with the improvement shown, but we’re very aware that we need to step up to another level this weekend.”

South Africa overwhelmed the Wallabies and did enough up front to beat the All Blacks in Dunedin in their last two outings and that has definitely added to the expectation.

But the All Blacks received plenty of flak from their fans for that performance in Dunedin and are also chasing the world record for successive wins, currently sitting on 15 with just three more needed to equal Lithuania’s mark set in 2010.

And that means Richie McCaw’s men have a point to prove and will come out firing.

“Our big goal is to be better than we were 12 months ago and if we don’t get things right tomorrow, then we’ll undo a lot of the good work we’ve done. Even though we’ve won the Rugby Championship, there’s still this big challenge ahead of playing the Springboks at home. It will be a huge test of where we are as a team,” McCaw said.

Eighthman Kieran Read was even more demanding in his analysis of what was riding on the game.

“It would really cement our number one status to win away from home against one of the top sides. If we don’t win, then a lot of what we’ve achieved goes out the window. To be number one, you can’t just win at home and it’s really important to win this weekend, there’s no bigger challenge than playing the Springboks at home,” Read said.

The one area where the hosts should definitely show an improvement as compared to their last match against the All Blacks will be in turning their possession into attacking opportunities.

With Johan Goosen making his first start at flyhalf, they scored five tries against Australia and could of scored more, thanks to an attacking edge that had been absent until then.

De Villiers will not place the hopes of the team in one man, especially one so young and still relatively unproven at the highest level, but he did confirm the 20-year-old Free Stater would be a key figure.

“Johan will be under pressure, but not a lot seems to bother him, he just gets on with the job. The bigger the event, the bigger his response seems to be. He’s a great player with unbelievable talent and a good head on his shoulders,” De Villiers said.

McCaw acknowledged Goosen’s threat.

“Goosen certainly played well last week, he got good ball and used it well so guys like Bryan Habana could benefit. He certainly backs himself and we’ve seen his ability with the Cheetahs in SuperRugby, so we’ll have to keep an eye on him and limit the amount of good ball he gets,” McCaw said.

While the All Blacks must be favourites on Saturday and will surely not deviate much from their expansive, fast-paced game that likes to get the ball wide, there is still plenty of intrigue surrounding the match, the 85th in this great rivalry between the two greatest rugby nations.

De Villiers is relishing the cat-and-mouse build-up to what should be an epic occasion on the outskirts of Soweto.

“We expect anything from the All Blacks, this mental battle, trying to outwit each other, that’s what’s great about Test match rugby. But we have an idea what we think they’re going to bring to the table,” the Springbok skipper said.

The Springboks will be tested in the scrums by the quality front row of Woodcock, Hore and Owen Franks, although Jannie du Plessis, Adriaan Strauss and Tendai Mtawarira have been in good form themselves.

We can expect an almighty tussle in the lineouts, New Zealand coach Steve Hansen recognising South Africa’s strength in that area by choosing Adam Thomson in the squad ahead of a more traditional openside flank in Sam Cane.

The All Blacks obviously have proven match-winners in McCaw and flyhalf Dan Carter, but Duane Vermeulen and Francois Louw were destructive forces in the ruck last weekend in Pretoria and it will be vital that they keep the New Zealand loosies in check.

The All Blacks backs are the obvious danger. The masterful Carter has the world’s most accomplished current centre pairing in Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith to work with, while the attacking threat posed by the back three of Israel Dagg, Cory Jane and Hosea Gear is the stuff of nightmares.

If the kicking game is not absolutely spot-on, or the chase is tardy in any way, the All Blacks will punish the Springboks.

The previous rugby Test at Soccer City proves the point. With the scores tied up at 22-22 in the final minute, Nonu broke from deep and Dagg finished a spectacular match-winning try.

The All Blacks have shown a liking for the big stage and with over 90,000 people expected in Nasrec on Saturday, they will be out to dazzle.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-10-06-boks-vs-all-blacks-the-heat-is-on

South Africa’s players believe in the game plan employed by coach Heyneke Meyer and the environment around the team allows them the latitude to disagree, Springbok captain Jean de Villiers said on Thursday.

Meyer has been criticised in South Africa for a rigid game plan that revolves around the forwards bashing the ball up to get over the gain line, with the backline generally being used to implement the kicking and territory games the Springboks have used in recent years.

South Africa won the first two tests of their series against England in June before drawing the third, and they won their opening Rugby Championship match against Argentina in Cape Town, without a four-try bonus point, before being held to a shock draw last weekend in Mendoza by the debutants in the southern hemisphere competition that was formerly known as the Tri-Nations.

“When you don’t live up to expectations then you will be criticised. But the important thing is that we believe in what we are doing, we are set on a game plan that we believe can produce winning rugby,” centre De Villiers told a news conference at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Thursday.

“We definitely don’t feel like it’s a dictatorship. Heyneke is a new coach trying to get his message across as to how he wants us to play. But we’re all grown-ups, if we disagree then we’ll stand up and say so. We believe in what the coach is trying to do, if that changes, then I believe our environment, the system the team operates in, allows us to have the space to express our views.”

While the Springboks were panned for playing one-dimensional, forward-dominated rugby against Argentina, De Villiers said he felt the backline had been more effective than they were given credit for.

“I’ve looked at the game again and I felt a bit better about it after that. A lot of positives can come out of that game, although there’s obviously lots to work on.

“I thought we attacked really nicely at times, we created space and now the goal is to get the ball into that space. We’re not always using the forwards to get momentum, sometimes we use them to take the ball up and then the next phase we’ll go wide.

“But we have to make sure we protect the ball out wide and not let the opposition spoil it at the ends of the field,” De Villiers said.

The 31-year-old veteran of 77 tests said discipline, the set-phases and adapting to the referee’s ruck interpretations were some of the areas that needed improvement ahead of the Australasian leg of their Rugby Championship campaign that features matches against Australia in Perth on September 8 and versus New Zealand in Dunedin on September 15.

“If we were a mediocre team, then everyone would be happy with our performances, but we believe that we’re a better team than we showed in Mendoza. So these games are an opportunity to step up as a team and show what we can produce.

“We need to learn from our experiences, we can’t make the same mistakes, and we are doing that – we improved from our game in Cape Town.

“But we’re at 50-60% of where we want to be, so obviously we have to improve. The margins are very small in test rugby and it’s the small things that make the difference,” De Villiers said.

England captain Chris Robshaw will miss the third and final Test against South Africa on Saturday after he cracked a thumb in the second Test in Johannesburg last weekend, coach Stuart Lancaster confirmed on Monday.

Lancaster said Robshaw took a blow to the thumb in the first Test in Durban and then another blow in the second Test. Scans of the thumb on Monday revealed an undisplaced fracture and the medical advice was that the openside flank should not play in the third Test in Port Elizabeth on Saturday so as to avoid possible surgery.

Hooker Dylan Hartley will take over the captaincy, Lancaster told a news conference in Johannesburg on Monday.

“It’s disappointing to lose our captain and also such an influential player. Last August Chris was not even in the World Cup squad and what he has done since then has just been outstanding. He will now miss just his third game this season which, playing in such an attritional position, is amazing.

“But Dylan has always been part of the leadership group, he’s driven training, he’s the first-choice in his position, respected by the players and captain at Northampton,” Lancaster said.

Robshaw has been a tremendous force at the breakdowns, despite England’s two narrow defeats in the first two Tests, but potential replacements Thomas Waldrom and James Haskell have both produced powerful performances on tour already. Phil Dowson is also expected to return to training this week after a tight hamstring kept him off the replacements’ bench for the second Test.

Lancaster also announced the England team to play a tour match against the SA Northern Barbarians in Potchefstroom on Tuesday, with the most notable selection being that of Lee Dickson at scrumhalf.

The coach said Dickson will use the match to get some crucial game time following the shoulder injury that has forced Test scrumhalf Ben Youngs out of the tour.

Dickson has been on the bench for the first two Tests and will be competing with the experienced, livewire halfback Danny Care for a place in the starting XV for the final Test.

“It’s a useful opportunity for people who need some game time, like Lee Dickson. He’s desperate to play and he was always going to start this game. We’ll probably take him off to protect him at half-time,” Lancaster said.

Lee Dickson’s older brother Karl, who arrived in South Africa on Monday morning as the replacement for Youngs, will then replace him.

The midweek team will once again be led by lock George Robson and shows six changes from the side that beat the SA Southern Barbarians last week, including a start for British and Irish Lions wing Ugo Monye, who has recovered from a hamstring niggle.

“We want to finish with two wins this week, finish on a high. It’s important to finish on a high note,” Robson stated.

Team – 15-Nick Abendanon, 14-Christian Wade, 13-Anthony Allen, 12-Jordan Turner-Hall, 11-Ugo Monye, 10-Charlie Hodgson, 9-Lee Dickson, 8-Ben Morgan, 7-Carl Fearns, 6-Jamie Gibson, 5-George Robson, 4-Graham Kitchener, 3-Paul Doran-Jones, 2-Tom Youngs, 1-Matt Mullan. Replacements: 16-Joe Gray, 17-Rupert Harden, 18-Mouritz Botha, 19-James Haskell, 20-Karl Dickson, 21-David Strettle, 22-Jonny May.