End of Year Tour - Springboks vs Wales

I've had a lot of requests for highlights of the Springboks vs Wales game from last weekend. It's difficult to sing the Boks' praises for this game after watching them lose to the Barbarians so badly at Twickenham only a week later. The reality is that it was a different game completely, and in a lot of ways, a different Springbok side.

So, taking each game as different occasions and to be judged differently, here are the highlights of the Boks precision and execution of some wonderful tries.

With this display the South Africans showed why they are currently the best team in the world. Soaking up the pressure and defending with great understanding of each other, the Boks took every opportunity they got when getting into the Welsh half.

Precision does not begin to describe a few of these tries, particularly Jacques Fourie's second. Continuity was also oozing out of the Springboks game, as shown by the offloading to set up Fourie's first. John Smit's pass to put Habana into space was also an illustration of the confidence that this side currently has. Perfectly timed, Habana showed great hands though and darted into the outside gap for him to straighten and offload to JP Pietersen perfectly.

Wales competed manfully, but this Bok side had a lot still left in the tank and took their foot off the gas in the second half.

Despite the latest hiccup against the Barbarians , the current group of Boks are mostly a young side that will feature strongly in four years time in New Zealand. The majority will be there at the next World Cup and will no doubt carry the tag of World Champions with great pride and continue to produce attractive, exciting, and physical rugby for many years to come.

Posted at 6:45 am | 9 comments

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