Ken Borland

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi manned up to the recent problems his team have been having on the field with an heroic individual effort against the All Blacks on Saturday, so it was little surprise that he was very much in touch with his emotions after a match in which he gave so much but still ended on the losing side, thanks to a late New Zealand penalty.

The flanker dashed around the field with focused intensity on Saturday and was particularly useful at the breakdowns, doing a lot of the dirty work as he and Kwagga Smith formed a great partnership. But as much as he led from the front, Kolisi was not able to drag his team across the line as they went down 17-19.

“It definitely hurts. We prepared as well as we could, we were focused on the right now. I felt on the field that we were in there with a good chance, our set-pieces dominated. So it is really hard to lose a game like that, but we know that if we stick to our processes then the results will come.

“We wanted to stand up and fight today. We knew as a team what we are capable of and it was about making sure we played properly. New Zealand brought high speed and physicality, but I can’t fault my team – our plan worked, our structures were really good. So I don’t really know what went wrong,” Kolisi said after the match.

Many critics have pointed to the Springboks’ decision, after they had taken a 17-16 lead into the last 10 minutes, to kick front-foot ball away, including two up-and-unders from the All Blacks’ 22, as the reason for their defeat. Kolisi said this was the choice of the players and he stood by the tactic.

“The players made that call, we decided to stick to the game-plan. That’s how we know how to play and we will never change from that. And it had been working all day,” Kolisi said.

For the third time this year the Springboks were involved in a Test match that was decided by a penalty at the death as they went down 17-19 to the All Blacks in Townsville on Saturday, coach Jacques Nienaber describing it as “swings and roundabouts”.

New Zealand fullback Jordie Barrett slotted a brilliant, angled, long-range penalty to deny the Springboks, who had enough front-foot ball in the closing stages to shut the All Blacks out, but instead tended to kick that possession away.

South Africa won the series against the British and Irish Lions through Morne Steyn’s fairytale penalty, but were then beaten two weeks ago by the Wallabies through a last-ditch kick by Quade Cooper, another comeback story for the ages.

Nienaber was philosophical about the heartbreaking loss that consigned the world champions to a third successive defeat and handed the Rugby Championship title to New Zealand.

“It was a proper Test match as you’d expect from No.1 versus No.2 and there were small margins. We each have our own DNA, but it is always physical and comes down to a couple of points. That’s the contest, it’s that tight and we expected that. Our game-plan worked, we had opportunities, and it went down to the wire, decided by a call here or a bounce of the ball there.

“Obviously we are hurting because we could have pulled the result out of the game, we were in position to do it. I thought it was an excellent effort and we deserved victory. We were in with a shot at the end and it comes down to small margins. But we won against the Lions like this and Australia did the same to us, so it’s swings and roundabouts,” Nienaber said after South Africa had lost a third successive game for the first time since 2016.

While the Springboks brought their old physicality, sheer mongrel and set-piece brilliance to the contest, the criticisms that they overdo the kicking game and are poor with ball in hand will return as they wasted front-foot ball when they were still in the lead in the closing stages by kicking it away. Bizarrely, up-and-unders were twice launched from the All Blacks’ 22, South Africa losing the resulting 50/50 contests when they had been in control of possession.

But Nienaber defended the decision-making of his halfbacks.

“We always say we must attack space, but we had 14 players in front of us in the line and only one at the back, so unfortunately there was not a lot of space. We want to create a one-on-one and you can do that with a passing game or with a kick. If you can create space through the air, or by running or passing, then you must attack there.

“If we had won this match then we wouldn’t be having these questions. We could have probably shown more composure at the back end of the game, finishing the match better when we were leading up to the 78^th minute springs to mind as something we could have done better. This is a very experienced side but we sill have a lot to learn as a group,” Nienaber said.

Apart from blood, guts and glory, and enormous set-piece prowess, the Springboks could not bring enough to the table with ball in hand, leading to a gripping 19-17 defeat at the hands of the All Blacks in an epic 100^th Test between the two great rivals at Townsville on Saturday.

The Springboks were superb in playing their trademark pressure game. The scrum was dominant and their lineout was majestic, reducing the All Blacks jumpers to just standing and watching. When New Zealand had the ball, they were harried and bashed by a feisty defence, with the Springboks also causing the Rugby Championship winners big problems at the breakdown as well.

But pressure is meant to create opportunities to score and, apart from four penalties by Handre Pollard and a gifted try to Sbu Nkosi after a dropped kick, South Africa did no show enough intent with ball-in-hand. In fact, on a couple of occasions they had front-foot ball, in control of the game, on the New Zealand 22, and they chose to turn possession into a 50/50 contest by launching bizarre up-and-unders.

The strategy of kicking everything away cost them in the end as, after Pollard had given them a 17-16 lead going into the last 10 minutes, a frazzled All Blacks side began to get desperate and coughed up more ball. Which the Springboks kicked straight back to them.

Eventually it was a brilliant angled, long-range penalty by fullback Jordie Barrett that snatched the spoils for New Zealand with just two minutes remaining.

The All Blacks started the match in chilling fashion as, with not much on for them in their own half, hooker Codie Taylor stepped superbly and burst clear and one pass later wing Will Jordan was racing over for the try.

But as much as they tried to up the tempo, speed the game up and stretch the defence, the Springboks managed to drag them back into slow-mo rugby through sheer bloodymindedness. Siya Kolisi was immense as a harrying presence and Kwagga Smith was tremendous at the breakdown.

The kicking game tested the wits of the All Blacks three and, apart from Barrett, they did not look secure. But the Springboks were not smart enough to then capitalise on the turnover balls presented.

Their supporters were left praising an incredibly brave, stout effort, but also mourning what should have been if they had just backed themselves with the ball-in-hand a little more.

Scorers

New Zealand – Try: Will Jordan. Conversion: Jordie Barrett. Penalties: Barrett (4).

South Africa – Try: Sbu Nkosi. Penalties: Handre Pollard (4).

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi has enjoyed an excellent success rate as skipper of the national side over the last two years, but back-to-back losses have cut into his winning record a bit, if not his positivity.
Kolisi belatedly took over the captaincy in 2018 in one of Rassie Erasmus’s first masterstrokes and his record that year was understandably mixed given the depths to which Springbok rugby had sunk. In that first year South Africa won seven and lost six of their Tests under Kolisi.
But 2019 was nothing short of a triumph as the Springboks only lost one of their seven Tests with the then-Stormers flank at the helm. Five wins from eight Tests this year sees Kolisi’s overall winning ratio slip to 64%, pretty much on level terms with Jean de Villiers.

The last time South Africa lost successive Tests was back in 2018 – against Argentina in Mendoza and Australia in Brisbane, and then versus New Zealand at Loftus Versfeld and England at Twickenham. But with the losses against the Wallabies coming after two years of success and expectation, one might have thought these are the toughest times of Kolisi’s captaincy.

But Kolisi’s attitude is always team first and the 30-year-old is focused on how the team can get better.

“This has not been the most difficult time in my captaincy, although obviously it is very disappointing. But we have faced tougher challenges. I just try to take it week-by week, obviously you don’t want to lose two in a row. So our focus is on what we have done wrong and how we can improve.

“We’ve messed things up ourselves and the things we are normally good at we got wrong. So the focus is on our plan, what we are good at. We want to play our own style at our own pace. The last two weeks have been tough, but the biggest thing is that we get all our stuff right this weekend,” Kolisi said.

Kolisi was at the front of the Springboks again when they ran out to face the All Blacks haka with his usual intense stare. But within those muscular, powerful bodies, as tough and tenacious as a Staffy, beat hearts like the normal human being and the team know how important their success is to millions back at home.

“We can’t lie about it, we know how important rugby is, we know what people at home are expecting and want to see. That’s what we think about in our rooms, and it’s important to us too. We use that energy to focus on our game, it motivates us although we always give everything we can on the field,” Kolisi said.