Rugby Tries of the Year 2025

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Maybe they should show the tries Louis Bielle-Biarrey botched against the Springboks.

When I saw the title of the video I thought to myself, there had better be some tries in there from the 43-10 win in Wellington.

Sure enough, there were two . . . the AE try after Williams made a great run and the Kwagga try when Manie cross-kicked, PSdT leapt up to gather and then threw the try-scoring pass to Kwagga despite being tackled in the air . . . but they could have added all those tries.

If someone asked me to name my top 5 tries of 2025 I would immediately have nominated the 5 tries the Springboks scored in that incredible second half when we ripped the All Blacks a new arsehole in Wellington. The other tries we scored in that incredible 2nd half were Cheslin stepping the last defender after a great surge by Siya Kolisi (adding to the intercept try he scored in the first half), Damian Willemse's astonishing thrust and pace to break the All Black defence and put the game out of their reach, after taking a very awkward pass above his head and then RG running a great line at pace and storming through to score and make up for his disallowed try at the start of the game.

I'm not saying that was the greatest ever Springbok win but it is right up there with all our RWC final wins, the 52-10 thrashing of France in 1997 when the Springboks played near-perfect rugby, and that incredible topsy turvy 33-31 win against the Wallabies at Ellis Park in 2002 . . . the game where we led comfortably, then fell asleep and watched the Wallabies take the lead and then, we were still 5 points down in injury time and Werner Greeff scored a try in the corner to level the scores and then converted it to win . . . after asking Stefan Terblanche to take the kick and Stefan just pretended he hadn't heard him and walked away.

So I'm not sure that Wellington win was the best Bok match ever but where I will stick my neck out and make a call is to say that was the best half of rugby I've ever seen from the Springboks. Ever!

All the tries were brilliant and giving the All Blacks their record defeat in their back yard playing beautiful running rugby was easily the most enjoyable game I've watched in more than a decade . . . well, the second half anyway.

il2g