South Africa 36 England 27: match report
England’s difficulties started as early as the second minute when an England
feed to a scrum was unaccountably allowed to run though and out the other
side into the grateful arms of Willem Alberts for South Africa’s first try.
But if there was an element of good fortune to the Boks’ first score, there
was nothing remotely lucky about the rest of the half. This was a Bok side
markedly different from the disorganised, nervous rabble that turned up in
Durban. This was South Africa in all their pomp. Big, physical men taking an
almost sadistic pleasure in tossing England defenders around as if they were
rag dolls.
The Boks seemed immeasurably better for the first Test hit-out than England
did. Jean de Villiers looked like the centre he was before he moved to
Munster. The Bok captain was hungry, hounding so-called English attackers,
and he never stopped, not for a moment. Pierre Spies was another who had
shaken off the cobwebs of Durban. This was his kind of game, a dry track at
altitude where he could pick off defenders at his pleasure. Add in the work
of Eben Etzebeth, the continued excellence of men like Alberts and hooker
Bismarck du Plessis, who played like a makeshift back, too much at times,
and you have some idea of what England were up against.
At times in the first half the men against boys description did not do justice
to the magnitude of the mismatch. England had to commit too many bodies to
the breakdown to win or hang on to the ball, and their scrum and line-out
Category: Africa News
