Rassie Erasmus selected a team that could deliver a statement performance in Wellington and the Springboks rewarded him for his bravery.
That is the operative word — the Bok coach was brave in changing up his selection. The changes he made for Wellington were bold. Because there was always a chance that the team wouldn’t gel from the off, there was an element of risk to it. Erasmus would also have known full well how the South African rugby public might have turned on him were the Boks to go down a second time.
But it was an exciting team, geared for the attacking rugby that people began calling Tonyball because of the influence of the Boks’ Kiwi attack coach Tony Brown.
To me, Damian Willemse’s best position is inside centre rather than fullback and as a playmaker who has played a lot at flyhalf he is a departure from the traditional take-the-ball-up Bok centre. But his playmaking skills are brought into play on the gainline, which is where he is so dangerous.
The same can be said for the two flyhalves who ended up fronting the All Blacks, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Manie Libbok. Feinberg-Mngomezulu was good before he had to be replaced upon failing an HIA (head injury assessment) but the Boks didn’t miss a beat when Libbok came on.
Indeed, it may even have brought more synergy to the Bok game as Libbok and Willemse know each other inside out after playing together in the 10/12 axis so often at the Stormers.
The difference between the Libbok of this game and the one we saw in the last hour at Ellis Park was the difference between the Boks falling short against the Wallabies and them posting a record 43-10 annihilation of the All Blacks. Since Wellington many people have asked if I agree the second half was the best window of rugby I have ever seen from the Boks.
I tell them that it was equal but not superior to the first 20 minutes in Joburg. The way the team playing at Eden Park finished that game would have led you to expect them to win a week later.
Admiration
One person who would not have been surprised at the Bok performance against the All Blacks would have been Wallaby coach Joe Schmidt. He made no attempt to hide his admiration for the Boks’ start to the miniseries against his team, saying they gave the Aussies no space to breathe.
Where it went wrong was that the Boks got seduced by the ease of taking control and that they then started to overplay. Libbok was seeing space everywhere and started playing towards it with ball-in hand-rugby, forgetting that it was the contestable kicking game that inspired so much of that earlier momentum.
In Wellington he and his teammates did not forget, and the constant bombardment of the Kiwi back three brought handsome dividends. The better balance to the South African game also meant they were able to maintain their tempo.
The All Blacks felt they had done well in the first half because they assumed the Boks would tire and not be able to maintain the pace. They were wrong, and they were the ones blowing air bubbles just before the break. It was no surprise that they started to slip off their tackles in the second half.
The result was the statement win Erasmus was looking for, and that statement went beyond just the warning sounded to future Bok opponents. It also spoke about his options.
Hopefully he will stick with the flair and freshness of this team in the next game in Durban, a fortnight away. Let it bed in a bit. Give the combinations time together and there’s no limit to what this team can achieve as they execute the complete game that Brown has been working towards.
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