Home » Fired-Up Springboks Beat Argentina’s Pumas 34-21

Fired-Up Springboks Beat Argentina’s Pumas 34-21

South Africa’s Springboks beat Argentina’s Pumas 34-21 – scoring six tries which earned the Boks a bonus point – at King’s Park in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, on Saturday, winning the opening test of the Rugby Championship. It wasn’t looking great at half-time with the Pumas leading 14-10 in what has become an uncomfortable slow-burn trend with […]

By Jenni Baxter
18-08-18 21:38
in Fab South African Stuff

South Africa’s Springboks beat Argentina’s Pumas 34-21 – scoring six tries which earned the Boks a bonus point – at King’s Park in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, on Saturday, winning the opening test of the Rugby Championship.

Source: Springboks

It wasn’t looking great at half-time with the Pumas leading 14-10 in what has become an uncomfortable slow-burn trend with the Boks – lagging in the first half, with at least five poor line-outs in the Puma’s 22, before turning it around. At one point the Boks were 5-14 behind Argentina!

But fortunately, after half-time a fired-up Bok team ensured that when the final whistle was blown, they left the field victorious.

SA’s two wings – Aphiwe Dyantyi and Makazole Mapimpi – soared, each securing two tries.

Supersport’s Gavin Rich said: “There wasn’t too much doubt after halftime that the Boks would win it though, and a three-try blitz in the space of 13 minutes after the restart effectively ensured that they’d go to Mendoza in Argentina next week with the confidence that comes from getting their campaign off to a winning start.”

The Durban crowd was unfortunately disappointing – with only around 25,000 spectators, meaning the stadium, which has a capacity of 52,000, was only half-full. Many rugby fans took to Twitter to complain about the poor support.

Source: Springboks

A lot of tweets were also targeted at Handre Pollard’s performance, after he missed several kicks.

Faf de Klerk, who also scored a try, excelled… with Rich heralding him for “his livewire attacking play, good decision making and skilled tactical kicking”; and Eben Etzebeth put in a “barnstorming performance” in his return to “big rugby”.

Despite the win, Rugby Director Rassie Erasmus gave only qualified praise after the match, insisting that the team still has a lot of room for improvement.

“The only positive was the first 30 minutes in the second half; it was the only decent rugby we played,” said Erasmus.

He said the first half was “worse than I thought. Thankfully Siya (Kolisi) and the boys picked it up after the break.

“We lost a few lineouts that were crucial and there were some technical errors but for all of that it was a dominant performance, but it wasn’t the crispest performance. Technically and tactically we weren’t on par today.”

Springboks are… “the most physical team in the world by far”

Pumas coach Mario Ledesma had only high praise for the Sprinboks, calling them “the most physical team in the world by far”.

Erasmus said the poor lineouts and not capitalising in the first half were the “most frustrating thing”… but looking on the positive, he conceded “there is some gelling to be done in this team but as long as the effort is there it will come and we saw good effort.”

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi said the team now needs to focus on recovering, and cutting out the mistakes for the return match in Argentina on Saturday.

Kolisi said: “Our discipline set us back a bit and we missed a few opportunities but the best thing was our intensity. We always want to get better and better and we’ll be focusing on that this week.”

Erasmus revealed he’ll be making four or five changes to the team. “They know what we’re about now… [and] we’re expecting a massive physical onslaught; they are fuming.

“They have always been tough there – but we got five points out of this game; not the most beautiful and perfect game but we’re well in it. Going there I don’t think we have the luxury of experimenting.”

Ledesma joked that the only way to stop the Springboks is if “maybe they get sick or something”!

Erasmus himself was praised by many, with one rugby fan tweeting: “I love Rassie Erasmus for giving most players a chance and I respect him for that. Our brothers are excelling given the chance ???”

SCORES

South Africa 34 – Tries: Lukhanyo Am, Aphiwe Dyantyi 2, Makazole Mapimpi 2 and Faf de Klerk; Conversion: Handre Pollard 2.

Argentina 21 – Tries: Nicholas Sanchez, Pablo Matera and Matias Moroni; Conversions: Nicholas Sanchez 3.

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