All the talk of the week came to a head this evening when the All Blacks fought back to win the first of four matches convincingly. The local fans were stunned as this was not part of the script. The All Blacks deservedly won 33-16 by 5 tries to 1 which is a rugby hiding.
The much anticipated forward dominance was a major factor and what kept the All Blacks under the pump up until the 60th minute. The scrums as expected went the Springboks way shoving the All Blacks off the ball. The big problem was that these were All Black scrums with their put in and there were very few scrums for the SA team. The SA team kept dropping the ball handing possession to the All Blacks which is not going to win you any matches.
The SA team were poor and their was just no cohesion or flow to their game which was littered with handling errors. The rustiness was still evident from two weeks ago when they narrowly beat Argentina. The All Blacks on the other hand were free running and just seemed better organized.
The positives which there are few for the SA team is they know how badly they played and were just not clinical. The team tossed away two tries when they lost the ball forward when crossing the try line. Even if they had scored those points and won the game they still would not have deserved this result.
The All Blacks averaged a 3.6 point return when entering the 22 and the Springboks on 0.9 compared to their average of 5.5. The errors were seriously costly and against a class side like the All Blacks they will make you pay dearly and today they did just that.
The All Blacks have lost two players and the Springboks one for next weeks game due to concussion protocols which requires a 10 day break from any contact sport. We all knew this was going to test the squads depth and after todays non performance certain players will be dropped from the starting team.
Next weeks game is in Cape Town and for the Springboks to win this test series they need to win the next three matches. A tough task but their backs are against the wall and they cannot play any worse than they did today. Sometimes a team needs a wake up call to get them properly focused and expect a response next week.
We have seen this before with most of the top sporting teams in the world and this is better to happen in the first game and not next week. The game was in the balance for 60 minutes with the SA team playing the worst rugby they have played in over two years and is kind of scary what will happen when the team clicks. The All Blacks are not stupid and know todays win was a proper gift handed to them on a plate with a team not firing on all cylinders.
The preparation failing before the big games is what has happened in the past and the team needs to discover why this is happening. They have lost their first round match in the last World Cup and went on to win that tournament plus lost the opening game to the British and Irish Lions before winning the next three games. This is going to be tough winning the next three on the bounce, but is still very possible.
