The Boks were clearly the better team in this contest:
11 line breaks to 8
32 tackles beaten to 30
52% of the territory
54% of possession
523 meters to 369
A narrow lead on most stats, except meters gained where Arendse’s big night of 169 meters to second best Rooiigard at 77 accounted for two thirds of the difference. Individually:
In terms of offense Arendse 8 defenders beaten, followed by Wiese 5 and Sacha 3 were our most productive runners.
In terms of tackling Wiese 17, Eben 15 the Duds 13 and 12 made the most tackles….but again Dud Toit missed 5 tackles topping the tackles missed stat for both teams, Dud Allende missed 4 and Libbok missed 3, one for a try, in the blink of an eye. Dud Toit’s numbers have now settled at a third of his tackles missed.
There’s no stat available for lineout steals, but Etzebeth’s dominance in the front of the lineout was a factor through all 4 tests and limited NZ’s options.
This was an encouraging test for the Boks, a big win in metres gained, more tries than NZ and less reliance on the set piece. The backline structure on our very first move looked much more sophisticated. And individually Willemse, Arendse and even Dud Allende looked more potent than their NZ opponents.. much of that slickness is down to the very mature play of Morne van der Bergh at 9, who outplayed Rooigard, one of the edges in NZ’s favor when Reinach started.
We can play rugby and when we do all our players look better…after Wellington and Baltimore I hope we finally accept, we win more convincingly when we trust our backline to compete.
A word on the new players, MvdB and Hanekom look like two new incumbents. Finding two more before year end would go a long way towards calming the geriatric fears with a WC on the horizon.
The other learning from this series is, even a clearly weaker team like NZ can beat us on any given day. The same is true for France, Ireland, England and even Australia. Wanting to win more convincingly helps build the kind of cushion that can offset the vagaries of any rugby contest.
