Australia v Springboks: Five key takeaways from Bomb Squad’s crushing Wallabies: Planet Rugby

Here are our top five takeaways from the Springboks’ 30-12 win over Australia in round two of the Rugby Championship.

The top line

In a rain-battered Perth, the Springboks continued their impressive run of form and emerged victorious. Playing in appalling conditions, their defence and rolling attack ensured that the Wallabies far outperformed them.

A beautiful opening try from the impressive Aphelele Fassi was the only score from open play, as both Marco van Staden and Malcolm Marx (twice) secured the score after a short attack.

Australia struggled to threaten the whitewash due to a combination of the sheer ferocity of the South African defence, with Lukhanyo Am and Jesse Kriel both producing superb performances in leading the famous Bok blitz to all that wore gold, and their own unforced errors, with the mental pressure of that blitz and the conditions conspiring to produce 19 handling errors in open play.

The Bok defence has now conceded just one try in 160 minutes of play in this year’s Rugby Championship and that try came when they were reduced to 13 men in the first Test. Their display in this match simply underlined the fact that they are a team for all conditions as they battled their way to a memorable but rather damp victory.

Bomb squad shoots

It was a long-awaited Springbok victory. Australia did their best to defy the conditions and produced an impressive first half that could have put them ahead at half-time.
But to put it into context, this was an experimental setup and while a few newcomers got away with honorable mentions, it was too early for a number of other changes.

It was no surprise that South Africa clawed their way back into the game as the likes of Eben Etzebeth, Malcolm Marx, Kwagga Smith and Vincent Koch pushed on. They adapted to the conditions with their devastating rolling attack, with the impressive openside wing Van Staden and the ever-worldly Marx scoring three of the Boks’ four tries.

There will be frustrations as other chances were not capitalised on, with both Makazole Mapimpi and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu wasting chances they would normally have converted in the blink of an eye, but the biblical rainfall that fell on Perth for most of the evening provided some relief.

Once again, the most impressive things about the world champions were their adaptability and rugby intellect in the context of the match conditions in front of them. From the brilliant tactical experiments of last weekend to the switch to forward-oriented precision rugby in wet weather, they showed once again that they set the bar high for other teams to aspire to.

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Springboks change fight

As for changes in South Africa, Rassie’s experiments had mixed results.

At scrum-half Morne van den Burgh struggled in the conditions, with a stuttering and inaccurate pass that saw him revert to bringing in one-off runners and not getting any momentum or space into the Bok back line. He offered little variety at nine and when Grant Williams came on, so the Boks lifted their game with ball in hand.

Hooker Johan Grobbelaar struggled to find his man, not helped by a number of ambitious calls to the back of the lineout in persistent rain and wind, which deprived South Africa of a key part of their usually immaculate set-piece platform. It took the simple method of front ball and a maul drive in the second half for SA to gain any mojo in an area of ​​their game where they usually dominate.

On the positive side, Ruan Nortjie put in an impressive performance on the park, living up to his reputation as an extremely mobile lock. Along with him, Elrich Louw also made some big dents in the carry, but there is an argument to be made that his eagerness to assist with the scrum hit does not help the stability of the Bok pack.

Lifting locks at the moment of engagement is a tactic that divides scrum coaches; it can help with the momentum of the hit, but more often than not it destabilises the locks at a time when they crave a steady but powerful engagement. On three occasions Louw’s eagerness saw Nortjie shift position as the front rows converged and on each occasion Australia benefited from a free kick or a penalty due to the lack of control caused by his over-enthusiastic lifting of his locks. Sure, it looks impressive, but more often than not it creates more problems than benefits.

The biggest changes for Erasmus came at right back, where Fassi made a huge impression. He combined brilliantly with the impressive Mapimpi for the Boks’ first try and was a real security at the back. This gave SA another option as Willie le Roux approaches the end of his incredible career.

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Wallaby Bonuses

On the other side of the Bok changes we saw impressive returns from world class loosehead prop Angus Bell and proven veteran winger Marika Koroibete for Australia.

Koroibete gave the Wallabies much-needed contact through the carry, a real target for metres in difficult conditions, while Bell largely contained the immense power of Thomas du Toit on his side of the scrum.

Noah Lolesio, a man whose name rather aptly suggests he is built for 40 days of biblical rain, kept his team well together at ten, showing the progression in the shirt that many were looking for from the talented young fly-half, but he will rue his hooked penalty just before half-time that should have left Australia with the psychological blow of a half-time lead with them to the sheds. His quick thinking and control under pressure almost created the moment of the match when Test debutant Max Jorgensen came within a tackle of a try in his first Test.

Nic White drew on all his experience of Premiership Rugby in mud and rain, and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, despite a simple pass under the Bok posts, produced perhaps his best Test performance to date against the SA giants. Joe Schmidt can take a lot of positives from the way this match went, even though his charges didn’t quite get the result they deserved through their play and failed to overcome the whitewash despite several chances.

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Schmidt lessons

The conditions lent themselves to the close pop running game off nine that Schmidt coaches – although those handling errors cost them any continuity of possession they enjoyed. They’ll also admit that the uncontested scrums for 30 minutes of the game took away any dominance the Bomb Squad front row was planning to exert and that makes this Aussie performance a little hard to judge.

Their front row did well until half-time though, with the returning Bell and captain Allan Alaalatoa refusing to buckle under the pressure of the Bok starters. They will also be pleased with the work of their lineout, with Salakaia Loto and Angus Blyth doing as well as they were given despite the poor conditions for throwing in.

At halfback, Lolesio and White worked well together, with the fly-half showing plenty of variety and ambition in his passing to move the Bok attack around the park and create a gap in their line.

But for all the good stuff, there was a distinct lack of cutting edge in the midfield and back three as they struggled to get any sort of width on the ball to bypass a narrow but fast rush. That, combined with the Wallabies’ inability to deal with the high ball, particularly down their own right wing, proved costly for the hosts and they will be looking to get the traditional qualities of heads-up running rugby back into their stuttering back line.

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