South Africa beat Wales at the Millenium Stadium

intercept king!

Pretty good second half, but SO frustrating to watch Wales perform so well, only to never quite have that ability for the last push to cross the try-line. The announcers during the game, as well as Gatland afterward, were spot on - if Wales wants to be a true world power (meaning capable of beating SA, NZ and Oz) they HAVE to execute in the moments that open for them. They did so well so many times in making the initial break through and then shot themselves by not having proper support or keeping the ball instead of passing or a myriad of other mistakes . . . disappointing, but still an entertaining match to watch.On a bonus - Powell and the new kid, Halfpenny were fantastic.

the ref was terrible, killed the whole game

Where's Habana???

when shane williams jumped for the high ball and JP peterson turned him over, it was blatant playing on the floor

gutted....we weren't clinical enough, the springboks were. simple as that. 5 bloody points...does my head in.

i thought it was a pulsating 2nd half of the 2nd half when wales were pushing for the win.. and is it just me or was Andy Powell more than just fantastic? He shrugged off at least 10 South Africans in the entire game including the likes of burger, spies and co.! I thought he was sensational!

Haha. 9 penalties for wales in the second half!! how many for SA: diddly squat, even with the welsh forwards hitting rucks from every point of the sodding compass! it's like refs up here just assume that Bokke don't know the rules and blow up whenever they go to ground "just to be sure". Allain Rolland : You nob.

pietersen winning the ball for the first try was a great bit of work and whoevers side the ball came out on it would have been playing on the floor.didnt watch the whole highlight so i dont know if it was on but pietersen crunching williams in the 2nd half was impressive after hed just stepped 3 tacklers.

I know one of the Wales squad and he reckons no one trains as much or does more weights than Powell. Now that he is injury free and getting games under his built at good level (Blues and now Wales) we are seeing his class.He was man of the game by far on Sat.If Wales want to be the best then that 2/3% (like that high ball Hook dropped and the line outs lost) is all they need now.I can see them beating Aussie.

Pietersen was SA man of the macth. What a performance. Welsh n.8 can dream about Lions selection. Wales dominated ball and territory. The difference between southern and nothern ELV's is not good for the game. SA and New Zealand here killing the ball all time.

Absolute shocker of game for Alan Roland! Could not have been any more of a blatant cheater if he had tried. Shows just how far Wales ara from being able to compete with the "Elite" ref on their side and still couldn't win. Northern Hemisphere ref's are out of their depth with the ELV's...Bokke far from perfect during that game - lots to work on, but weldone for keeping it together against the ref!

The ref was on Wales' side??? absolute bullshit, i was watching the match with 4 or 5 other welshmen and we all spent a decent proportion of the match shouting at the ref. Saffers were lucky to only get the 1 yellow, dirty play as usual from them.

Clearly you know very little about rugby... BTW Bakkies ends upi with a gouged eye and Saffas are the dirty players... get a life!

i love peterson hammering shane.lol..shane who?

As an Englishman who has been reading the welsh and south african posts in various forums about this game before and after, I have to say a lot of SA fans seem to be douche bags - really one sided and aggressive...

Hey they (WALES) would get line breaks and just couldn't finish it was so frustrating. There never be up the until they can execute when they need it most.

Good game to watch, was gutting we couldn't finish it off with a win, can't see us beating NZ but am hopeful against Australia.On a low note, a large number of SA fans in the ground that day should be ashamed of themselves, was shocked to hear them screaming and hissing during the minute silence before hand. They lost an awful lot of respect from that.

Great to see wee Shane have pretty much the same type of game he's had his whole career, bar the last year. Loved seeing Pieterson smoke him too. :)Well played Wales though, nice fightback.

To be honest the ref made bad decisions against Wales and S.A.The reason S.A. won is because they know how far you can push the rules before giving away a penalty.And I'm Welsh.If Wales could do that there was an upset on our hands for sure.By the way do you believe Powell is a Lions choice for 2009? I don't know about Halfpenny though.

Your All fucking pick pointing shane What about habana The Quikest winger in the world and he never got the ball Your all just jelous of the true legend shane williams

Just a Fan YOu Are a absoulte Dick spring bok forwards spet most of the game killing the ball like they always doo Cheats

lol..shane has nothing on habana ..wow so shane got more ball than habana ..lol..dat means jack shit..But wales playd wel..sa wer no wer at times..poor performance

Nah habana Had done fuck all apart from race a cheater wopti fucking doo

hahaha..his won a world cup..or is that fuck all as wel..and he was top try scorer

most of the people writin here are ignorant and have no knowledge of the game...1st of all the ref is a professional the day you get an international licence for refeering is the day you can talk realistic facts...2ndly u all know that south africa were not at their best and if they were wales stood no chance...you brought your best squad to sa and u were whitewashed by sa newly reformed squad..and lastly shane williams is a class act and possibly AMONGST the best in the world but as far as i am concerned he never won irb player of the year and equalled lomus record..they are both talented individuals in their own way..but to declare shane as the best in the world is propostorous...gud day fellaz

"when shane williams jumped for the high ball and JP peterson turned him over, it was blatant playing on the floor"he did, the ref failed to pick up on that as he did with others.Wales should have won, not our best team and at time we weren't clinical enough, but regardless it was our game to win and we should have won it. We also, as usual, sucked a little in the line-outs, half because we suck, and half because Matfield and Botha are top line out players and because we've lost our line-out specialist (J.Thomas) to injuries. ;(I think it's safe to say we killed the scrum though ;D and our front-row playing 80 minutes and still going strong is a testament to their fitness.On the plus side, we blooded two great players and we've proved what we can do, though i doubt many SH people will think much of it as they're too arrogant.And as for SA, the reason why we didn't score from our forward brakes, such as andy powell's to AW jones to Ryan Jones is because of the speed of their back 3, especially their 15 who i thought was great.Great game, just a shame we didn't get the win we deserved.

williams number of defenders beaten=7habana number of defenders beaten=1shane missed tackles=3habana missed tackles=4enough said

did you write those stats ur self

Why people just don't say, "I enjoyed the game" is beyond me. I thought Wales had a chance until Henson pulled out last minute and we had a weaker and 1 dimensional centre partnership.Then at least the game turned out to be entertaining.I thought the ref was fairly poor for both sides but hey, that's rugby. It happens all the time. Well done SA for having the killer instinct with fewer chances.

to the guy who said that wales brought our best squad to SA and got white washed. Do you even know what our best squad is? We had so many ijuries it was stupid. We had a wing playing at full back and then centre(Jamie Roberts). Many injures in our forwards (Martin Williams for one and he has a huge impact in any game he plays in) and a huge scrum half problem with our first 2 scrums halfs out injured. So please stfu.About the game on saturday was a brilliant game. The bokkes were clinical with their try and then sat back and let us come at them. I am really suprised they only got 1 yellow. But we shot oursleves in foot really with lost line outs and silly penalties in their 22.Also i was there the the bokke fans who boo'ed and jeered in the minute silence are utter wankers. How disrespectful do you want to get. We were giving our respect to heros.

I really dont think SA sat back. it was clear to me that wales gradually dominated the cillision area during the match even in the first half when they were loosing. when ever south sfrica got into our 22 they were leathal and looked like scoring every time. In the secound half when south africa werent sitting back they were just out on the feet, and wales were able to keep the ball away from their 22, south africa didnt have any answer to them other than long distance drop goals. Wales just lacked that killer instinct. But that will come over the next few matches. SA were lucky hook gifted them a try when he came on because it was clear at that point that wales were dominant.p.s im english and dnt care if the taffs loose b4 any bias dilusional boks churp in

As an SA supporter I am saddened by the abuse from both sides. Shane and Habana are both talented wings, but offensively Habana did not have a good game, he seems to have lost some confidence, or something. He did however have a good game defensively. Shane on the other hand is playing some amazing rugby. I hope Habana comes back to form. Anyway well done to Wales, for the amazing comeback, and to SA for holding on.

Yeah pretty pointless argument about shane and habana, this seems to come up all the time. Their both different bloody players mun!

stop blaming the ref, wales lost because they were weaker than sa that's all. and probably because of james hook too

I sat and read every single comment..and fairplay some people really need to grow up shane and habana are what someones said 2 different players, wales wer unlucky with that 1 pass hook gave, the ref was maybe a little bad but to both sides and as for the idiot who said that we brought our full squad to south africa..Bryne,Henson,Williams,Phillips,Peel..and cant u remember when shane stepped 4 of ur idiots in the summer to score that try?and then left habana lyin on his ass for the second? and as for the arragont horrible twats who shouted in the minutes silence shame on yourself, its true (8)iv never met a nice south african

NO BILLYBOB THE BOKS R JUST REALLY GOOD!

HABANA AND WILLIAMS WERE CRAP!!but habanas still better

Pretty good game by both sides honestly.The Boks were stronger, but still...

I THOUHGT shane williams was arrogant when he came to sa showing no respect 4 any of the boks...shane is lank cocky..habana is a humble nice guy who shows respect..shane shud take a lesson from that

Almost there for little old Wales, the northern hemisphere sides need to learn how to get away with cheating though if they're aiming to get on top in the pro era. Maybe Botha and McCaw can setup a cheat school showing how to lie on the ball and get their hands in on the floor, we all know the people from the southern hem need the money.

3 out of 3 - home and away,a comprehensive lesson in rugbyhahaha

jealousy makes u nasty..haha

shane williams arrogant?quote from shane talking about habana before the 1st test in SA"i have HUGE respect for the guy hes definately one of the best"doesnt sound arrogant to me tbh

rich,"Also i was there the the bokke fans who boo'ed and jeered in the minute silence are utter wankers. How disrespectful do you want to get. We were giving our respect to heros."Maybe these are the same fans who are silent during the ZA anthem's Xhosa/Zulu/Sotho verses, then scream "Die Stem" at full throat, and then back down the English verses to normal talking levels.

[disclosure -- I am a Boks fan]I saw the match, and I found it disappointing how much the Boks killed ball, kicked it on the floor after a clear penalty call.The IRB is so worried about speeding up the game. How about penalizing teams that throw away or kick the ball, preventing quick tap penalties? Can't the TJs see it?As for the Boks playing the ref better than Wales. Sure enough. However, the Boks usually meltdown in this respect when playing ZA or AUS.Put it this way, I was not 100% proud of being a Boks supporter. I saw some rather cynical actions during the game (Bismarck first comes to mind), and I thought Rolland should have been quicker with the card.Fourie was a victim of a team card (but deserved nonetheless).

Loved to see this Powell guy run. Has a swerve akin to Luke Watson. However, I didn't see Powell try and vomit on the Boks jersey, so I think the similarities end there.

dude you dont sound like a bok fan 2 me

eng you only show your lack of knowledge, Bryan Habana, great winger that he is, has said many times that shane williams is one of the humblest and talented wingers around. They both have huge respect for eachother. speaking as a welshman i was gutted we couldnt get a win, but fair play to south africa. Wales need to be more clinical, which i'm sure they'll get. Some of the bias and bullshit you get here is just sad...and with regards to booing fans, every country in the world has some disrespectful idiots.

"dude you dont sound like a bok fan 2 me"Why? Coz he's being objective?

Great site this, but most posters here are absolute idiots.Good game by Wales - I dont think it's unfair to say that South Africa is the better side by some margin, so the close score, despite the loss, leaves Wales one up.

haban hasnt scored a try in 11 tests now nowhere near shane