SA vs Wales match report.

A capacity crowd at the Cake Tin in Wellington witnessed a tense close affair between a young energised Wales team and the old guard from South Africa.

For me mixed feelings, great that we won, but not good for the nerves.

Within the first five minutes South Africa scored a very well worked try which was well finished by Frans Steyn who overall had a good match for the Springboks.

But the Welsh never stopped pressurising the Springboks, they came into the game after the first ten minutes and dominated territory and possession for the res of the first half scoring 2 penalties to South Africa’s one.

Going into the dressing room at halftime the welsh must have felt they were in with a good shout trailing by 6 points to ten, and immediately in the second half started their fight back, a early penalty saw them trail by only 1 point. As south Africa started gaining some possession and territory they had two very good opportunities in the Welsh half with some good attacking phase play only to have indiscipline cost them penalties and possession.

When Wales scored their only try of the match they took the lead by 16 points to 10 on the 60 minute mark and there was a resurgence in their attacking play. It was only when SA made some replacements, that they started gaining some front foot ball and it was the busy little utility back Francois Hougaardt who managed to burst through under the posts to bring up South Africa’s second try. With ten minutes to go it was all to play for and Wales got a penalty that went wide.

In the last five minutes it was clear that both teams were desperate to stay in the oppositions half to avoid penalty opportunities.

Eventually a hard fought win the Springboks outscoring Wales two tries to one.

Positives for Wales.
They focused for 80 minutes, Warburton deservedly the man of the match, but overall you have to admit that their forward pack did very well against the much touted Springbok pack.

Something to work on for Wales
I felt they kicked a little too much especially during the first half, and although their runners did gain metres in the second half they were looking very busy but often gained no ground in the first stanza.

Positives for South Africa
They showed guts, they played 80 minutes of hard rugby and scored some well worked tries.

Something to work on for the Springboks
They need to work on their discipline on attack, too often they give away penalties after putting together phases and getting into a scoring position. Victor Matfield, his injury may not be sorted. They also need to work on retaining more possession.

Match Statistics
Tries SA 2 Wales 1
Penalties Wales 3 SA 1
Conversion SA 2 Wales 1
Territory Wales 58% SA 42%
Possession Wales 60% SA 40%
Braekdowns Wales 123 SA 87
Turn overs won SA 5 Wales 3
Penalties conceded SA 10 Wales 5
7+phases Wales 8 SA 4

Congratulations to the Bokke, you made my heart stop a few times, well done to Wales, it is getting closer every time.

I agree with this for the most part, things are looking up for Wales now that we've had a couple of years in the dark, the new players emerging in the last season has been a small revelation, we're now starting to produce some genuine talent who are playing with the confidence that can beat these sides.

Despite the loss, I didn't think there was that much between the young Welsh guns and the experienced Springboks, maybe we could have done with replacing some players just to get some fresh legs on the field.

That's what makes we proud of the young guys they were not phased by the very experienced South African side.
We matched them physically and often came out on top.

I think the positive for SA was that they played well below their best but still won.

Wales played above themselves and came up short. It's up to them to try and maintain that (if possible) to try and beat Samoa and stay in the the tournament. Have they given too much too early? If they play as well as today they should beat Samoa, but was it a one-off?

I don't think SA played well below themselves SafeAs, I just don't think Wales gave them a chance to play the game they wanted. There's a huge difference there.

Good post biltong.
I thought wales just failed to show the right composure at the key times to close it.
The rushed drop and missed penalty at the end combined with some rushed passes and knock ons let SA off. A touch more patience and theyd have nailed the 3 points.

Funny thing is the presence of fiji and samoa makes this pool wide open.
SA will probably top pool with that win but wales will not like the fiji and samoa matches.
Can actually see wales finishing 3rd or 4th now as i cant see them coping with the open styles.

Veeeerrry lucky biltong. But well done and still early days.

SafeAsMilk wrote:I think the positive for SA was that they played well below their best but still won.

Wales played above themselves and came up short. It's up to them to try and maintain that (if possible) to try and beat Samoa and stay in the the tournament. Have they given too much too early? If they play as well as today they should beat Samoa, but was it a one-off?

Could it be that Wales played well and forced South Africa to fight hard rather than South Africa being off form ?

I wont lie for 60min of the match i was expecting Wales to blitz the Boks and a part of the me the tiny tiny neutral side is saying Wales should have won that game . next week should see them Beat Manu Samoa easily if they can keep up that intensity and probably have an easier route as runner ups than the Boks who are definately going to lose to the Kiwis if we make it to the Semi.

On the plus side the belligerent Bokke have honed the skill of winning when logic says they should lose even when they play horribly they still retain that winning mentality . I just dont know how many times they can do that this World Cup ,might be they've used up their 9 lives .

Rugbydreamer I would disagree with you on that, Wales did pretty much everything they wanted to do, they scrummed well, they did very well in the lineouts after Victor went off, they were effective at the breakdown, Priestland controlled territory well in the second half, the only thing I would say they came up short with is in the fisrt half they didn't gain any meterage in the first hlaf with their back line, it was only when Jamie Roberts started breaking the gain line that they started looking dangerous.

Overall Wales had enough opportunities to win.

Cymroglan wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:I think the positive for SA was that they played well below their best but still won.

Wales played above themselves and came up short. It's up to them to try and maintain that (if possible) to try and beat Samoa and stay in the the tournament. Have they given too much too early? If they play as well as today they should beat Samoa, but was it a one-off?

Could it be that Wales played well and forced South Africa to fight hard rather than South Africa being off form ?

There was a bit of that but SA weren't firing at all. They did just enough to get the win but no more.

To be honest so far you'd have to say this World Cup is like 2003 for Wales. We gave New Zealand a fright in the pool with a young team, then we went out in the quarters to England after giving them a fright.
As I said in other posts I hope we haven't gambled and tried too hard in the South Africa game, if Wales are flat and tired next week it could be fatal for us.

The next game Wales lose will be the game that knocks them out of the World Cup.

Cymroglan wrote:

Could it be that Wales played well and forced South Africa to fight hard rather than South Africa being off form ?

Wales played brilliantly cant be denied but Boks were woefully off form ,matter of fact wasnt that the same argument you used yesterday concerning the Bok All black game???

Biltong - agreed, missed opportunity for us, which makes it all the more painful to take. Da iawn (well done) on the win

That Hook penalty was blates through the posts.

Taylorman wrote:Good post biltong.
I thought wales just failed to show the right composure at the key times to close it.
The rushed drop and missed penalty at the end combined with some rushed passes and knock ons let SA off. A touch more patience and theyd have nailed the 3 points.

Funny thing is the presence of fiji and samoa makes this pool wide open.
SA will probably top pool with that win but wales will not like the fiji and samoa matches.
Can actually see wales finishing 3rd or 4th now as i cant see them coping with the open styles.

Veeeerrry lucky biltong. But well done and still early days.

Not so sure if I will call it lucky. We were down by 6 and actually played rugby to win the match. We didn't milk penalties we ran at them, instead of kicking for posts, Schalk Burger decided to go for a lineout and backed his players to score a try, something normally sA are criticised for.

On one of our attacks in the welsh 22, 5 metres out warburton got a penalty as it was adjugded our player didn't release the ball, while he didn't come through the gate and wales could have conceded a penalty there.

But I don't want to start playing the if this or that game.

Both teams played a hard fought match and I think even though we weren't at our best, people must have been surprised with the way we played.

Well, I think we missed Bakkies a lot. We weren't really that physical were we? Only when Bismarck came on our physicality was more than theirs. If Bakkies doesn't play we should definitely start with Bismarck. And Schalk showing that he will be the future Springbok captain there.

Bullsbok wrote:

Cymroglan wrote:

Could it be that Wales played well and forced South Africa to fight hard rather than South Africa being off form ?

Wales played brilliantly cant be denied but Boks were woefully off form ,matter of fact wasnt that the same argument you used yesterday concerning the Bok All black game???

No what I said was that the Blacks missed numerous opportunities due to basic handling errors today it was far more even.

Bullsbok wrote:On the plus side the belligerent Bokke have honed the skill of winning when logic says they should lose even when they play horribly they still retain that winning mentality . I just dont know how many times they can do that this World Cup ,might be they've used up their 9 lives .

We do too much of that bullsbok, but to be honest we never had possession.

FerN wrote:Well, I think we missed Bakkies a lot. We weren't really that physical were we? Only when Bismarck came on our physicality was more than theirs. If Bakkies doesn't play we should definitely start with Bismarck. And Schalk showing that he will be the future Springbok captain there.

I think South Africa's most pressing concern is what to do about du Preez, one of the worst things you can do is cheese off the ref, and du Preez was really getting on Barnes nerves today, and when you have annoyed the ref then 50/50 calls go against you.
When your team is on the back foot, the worst thing a scrum half can do is point at the ball at the base of the ruck with your arms out and scream at the injustice of something. Most refs hate it, and du Preez was doing it all game, several times Barnes seemed to find a reason to penalise South Africa. Personally I think du Preez needs a bollucking.

The Boks were resilient - you would expect nothing less of them - and crucially Wales lost their composure in the last 10-15 minutes, going for broke every time we had possession rather than showing the patience we had displayed in the previous 65 minutes.

We have only ourselves to blame for that, but remaining calm and making the right decisions comes only with experience, as the South Africans showed in exemplary fashion. This Welsh side can and should learn from that.

Du preez tends to do that when he's under pressure (most notably 2008 season when he captained the bulls ) ,glad he cut it out when hougaard came on . Speaking of hougaard him and Du Preez have a very good understanding of each other on the field . That same relationship used to exist between Fdp and Habana before he went to the stormers and its clear Hougaard has replaced habs in the setup and should probably replace him in the team too

Really proud of the Welsh effort - the best I have seen them play for a while.

The Boks got out of jail with a little bit of experience and composure that Wales lacked in the final 20 mins.

Don't understand how the ref went against the 2 touch judges for the controverisal moment of the match which sadly will dominate the discussions. I would rather we lost by more so that it wasn't such a crucial decision.

Although South Africa won, that is the only positive they should take and it will probably spur them on and I'm sure that their players will be relieved to have sneaked it. Before the game, not many people outside Wales saw anything but a hiding for Wales. South Africa weren't allowed to play their usual game and I think were surprised at how well Wales played. After the first 3 minutes it looked like it would have one the way everyone predicted but all credit to Wales for the way they made a game of it. South Africa were clearly rattled and made mistakes because they were under pressure not because they were playing poorly

I hope that isn't it for Wales now and we can pick ourselves up and get out of the group. On this showing we should but we do have a habit of coming up short. However I have renewed confidence we can do it this time.

AlynDavies wrote:

FerN wrote:Well, I think we missed Bakkies a lot. We weren't really that physical were we? Only when Bismarck came on our physicality was more than theirs. If Bakkies doesn't play we should definitely start with Bismarck. And Schalk showing that he will be the future Springbok captain there.

I think South Africa's most pressing concern is what to do about du Preez, one of the worst things you can do is cheese off the ref, and du Preez was really getting on Barnes nerves today, and when you have annoyed the ref then 50/50 calls go against you.
When your team is on the back foot, the worst thing a scrum half can do is point at the ball at the base of the ruck with your arms out and scream at the injustice of something. Most refs hate it, and du Preez was doing it all game, several times Barnes seemed to find a reason to penalise South Africa. Personally I think du Preez needs a bollucking.

And He played really badly today. Hopefully it is just the conditions. Frans Steyn also made a few really bad mistakes.

great match, heart was in my mouth- but i guess that shows why SA are the world champs.

That was probably the best welsh performance I have ever witnessed. They were great and missed the finishing line by a whisker. I was really hoping they would win. Don't forget that was the Boks A-team and Wales matched them toe to toe.

By 'A' team you mean top team yeah? Not like the Saxons

Well played Wales, I wanted them to win because they were very positive and tactically quite clever however reckon they threw it away because they failed to turn the screw when in the lead and had all the momentum. They also had a few chances to regain the lead in the last 10 minutes that they should have taken. Must be disappointing for Wales fans because they were the better team for long spells.

Warburton, Roberts and Priestland were very good. Pity priestland missed his drop goal chance cause he had a good game and is an exciting player. Wales deserve a lot of credit. That performance would have beaten all bar France in the NH.

Well done SA - a good win from a below par performance. Took the limited opportunities well. IMO for SA to reach the late stages they have to field their best players which they are reluctant to do.

Best Welsh performance for years from a young side not quite good enough yet to close out the win. Shame - because Samoa now becomes a huge test. Very proud of the performance but this WC might be a year early for this team. I,m still backing us to get out of the group.

We can't have any complaints at the result, we had enough of the ball and played enough rugby - we just weren't quite good enough.

HammerofThunor wrote:By 'A' team you mean top team yeah? Not like the Saxons

Absolutely for clarity's sake I meant the Boks 1st team. That was the best side they could field and Wales were better for most of the match.

englandglory4ever wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:By 'A' team you mean top team yeah? Not like the Saxons

Absolutely for clarity's sake I meant the Boks 1st team. That was the best side they could field and Wales were better for most of the match.

I think Wales had more 2nd team players than SA!, although they are probably all first choice after that game.

This is becoming old news fast but I feel bitter as a lemon. Best chance we've had to win big in the WC against a top-ranked side and we've blown it. When will an opportunity like this present itself again? From here we could have taken incredible self-belief into the Samoa and Fiji games and made it who knows how far into the KO rounds. Now just another fantasy.

With that out of my system (for now) I'd say positives for Wales include- heck I'll risk the word, domination from the forwards, a skipper who leads by perfect example and Jamie Roberts. Negatives are definitely the failure at finishing off such a great platform, the last pass or step remains our worst enemy when all else is going well.

Positives for SA include being able to come away with the result despite so much time on the back foot. Negatives will be low percentage in possession and territory, they'd pay for it against more clinical sides than us.

wales606 wrote:

englandglory4ever wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:By 'A' team you mean top team yeah? Not like the Saxons

Absolutely for clarity's sake I meant the Boks 1st team. That was the best side they could field and Wales were better for most of the match.

I think Wales had more 2nd team players than SA!, although they are probably all first choice after that game.

Do you really want to start this argument ....reallly?

Knowsit,

I agree with you, despite the performance I am again fed up of us being gallant losers.

Yes this was one of the best performances I have seen in a long time and (generally) from a team that will be around for the next WC so we have to take positives BUT we have to also start closing out these games against the big sides.

In competitions like this, dare I say it, it is all about the win. If we had won today then it would have given us that little bit of breathing space.

Now we have to win all our reamianing games otherwise who will remember a 1 point loss if we don't get out of group?

Thespacedragon wrote:Don't understand how the ref went against the 2 touch judges for the controverisal moment of the match which sadly will dominate the discussions. I would rather we lost by more so that it wasn't such a crucial decision.

are you on about the penality?

wales now need to dust themselves down and concentrate on getting out of this tough group,if we finish second (not a certainty by any means) we will give australia or ireland a run for their money in the quarters.

Bullsbok wrote:Do you really want to start this argument ....reallly?

I agree, let's not initiate a blast of insignificant fringe stats. Normally I'd be delighted that we matched a full-strength Boks XV regardless of what side we put out but the lingering numbness in my stomach when I think over how close we came cancels out any optimism for now

Incredible performance by the welsh but in the end our bench won the game for us and some lessons need to be learnt from this shambles.

I must say that Warburton is definitely a star in the making, managed to just outplay Brussow (who had yet another immense game IMO). Jamie Roberts had a superd second half and really took advantage of Steyn's powderpuff defending especially when JDV went off injured.

Barnes had an awful game in my opinion, he should have gone to the TMO for that penalty (even though I'm certain it only curled back after passing the post). Both sides should've been penalised a few times for being offside and going off their feet and Warburton got a bit of a free pass in the 2nd half.

It was good to see Steyn testing the defensive line but FdP surely has had one bad game too many, he nearly ended up costing us the game today. John Smit had a decent game but surely PdV can't ignore BdP any longer, he won us the game in the last 20 min.

All in all very disappointed with the performance but very satisfied with the result, again credit to this young welsh side for pushing us all the way

To me thats what you call a classic game two teams fighting to the bitter end.
Obviously I'm gutted that we lost but that was a very watchable rugby match.

I am so gutted. We should have won that one....gutted

yes the sad thing is is that that penalty will remain a big talking point, and i agree i would have rather us lost by 4 points so the kick wouldnt have made a difference and i know nothing can happen now but its in the back of my mind if they checked that kick we may have won =(

Knackeredknees wrote:

Thespacedragon wrote:Don't understand how the ref went against the 2 touch judges for the controverisal moment of the match which sadly will dominate the discussions. I would rather we lost by more so that it wasn't such a crucial decision.

are you on about the penality?

Yes, people will go on about it - whether it was over or not!

im with a few people on here, im fed up with losing against the southern hem teams and thinking that its ok we played well...fact is they were there for the taking and we didnt finish the job...im not celebrating the performance, its the result that counts

BridgendBoyo wrote:im with a few people on here, im fed up with losing against the southern hem teams and thinking that its ok we played well...fact is they were there for the taking and we didnt finish the job...im not celebrating the performance, its the result that counts

You're right, attitude (and skill of course) is the biggest difference between the 2 hemispheres. If the roles were reversed today I guarantee you I and every Saffer would not be the least bit consoled knowing "at least we outplayed them for 75 min".

For all the pre-game talk the welsh backs didn't create enough chances to reward their forward dominance, even being outscore 2 tries to 1 by a bok team with no possession or territory. Priestland acquitted himself well and put your forwards in the right part of the field but was unable to ignite the backline to really punish us.

deadgoat, slight difference in that you've beaten Wales more than once ever.

However Wales are good enough now that performance alone isn't considered enough.

Good point Goat , dont really want to kick people when they're down but all that talk about the Boks not playing rugby really looks silly now with hindsight . Keo got it spot on with his tweet "It will take another 100 yrs for wales to have as good a chance to bt Boks. Diff was one side never believed they would lose."

At the end of the day Wales beat/matched the Boks skillwise and Physicality wise but mentally the Boks had the jump.

BridgendBoyo wrote:im with a few people on here, im fed up with losing against the southern hem teams and thinking that its ok we played well...fact is they were there for the taking and we didnt finish the job...im not celebrating the performance, its the result that counts

Fed up with falling short - yes but we have to pick ourselves up and take the positives. If we don't then we will never move on. I would have taken a 1 point defeat at 9.30!!!!

Bullsbok
You know I know that you were lucky today so stop all this we did not believe we would lose nonsense.
You won and thats all that matters but to think that it's a god given right that you won is extremely arrogant.

Cymro mate, don't bother trying to reason with him.

Cymroglan, why were we lucky?

Because you missed a penalty, or because you couldn't maximise 60% territory and possession.

Wher did Bullsbok say it is our God given right?

Cymroglan wrote:Bullsbok
You know I know that you were lucky today so stop all this we did not believe we would lose nonsense.
You won and thats all that matters but to think that it's a god given right that you won is extremely arrogant.

Get over yourself , which part of me said its a God given right to win ?? Wales bottled it when they should have won after all the talk we've been subject to over the last week or two its as simple as that . Dont get your panties in a bunch