Congratulations to Coach Rassie Erasmus and the Springboks. Seven days after a 33-16 hiding at Ellis Park, the Springboks beat the All Blacks 33-26 at DHL Stadium to level Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry at 1-1 with two Tests to play.
Jesse Kriel scored inside the opening two minutes. That is how quickly the answer came.
Cam Roigard hit back on fifteen, Cheslin Kolbe landed a penalty on eighteen, and Damian de Allende went over on twenty-one. Damian McKenzie replied on twenty-nine. Siya Kolisi scored on thirty-seven.
Five tries and a penalty inside thirty-eight minutes, and the Springboks walked in at 24-14. That was the match won, even if nobody could say so yet.
How the Springboks beat the All Blacks without a second-half try
They did not score one. The entire second-half return was three Kolbe penalties — forty-eight, fifty, seventy-one — nine points from the tee and nothing else in forty minutes of Test rugby.
The All Blacks scored twelve in that time. Leroy Carter crossed on sixty-five, unconverted. Ardie Savea went over on seventy-six and Ruben Love landed the conversion, and suddenly 33-26 with four minutes left.
Then Lood de Jager was yellow-carded in the final minute for a high tackle, and the Springboks had to close it out with fourteen men under Angus Gardner’s whistle.
They closed it out.
“They built the win in the first half and then defended it for forty minutes with the All Blacks coming at them — that is a Test match won twice!” – 🎙️Jay
Kolbe finished with 18 of the 33 — three conversions and four penalties — and took Man of the Match for a shift that went well beyond the tee. Better than half the Springbok total came off one boot.
Kolisi scoring is worth its own line. He and Savea both crossed, two captains who have carried this rivalry through its most demanding years, and only one of them ended the night level in a series.
The context makes it land harder. Ellis Park had been ugly — Will Jordan scored twice, a 12-Test winning run ended, and Erasmus did not soften it afterwards. He called it a hiding, promised the group would regroup, then made a series of late changes and asked them to prove him right inside a week.
There is still work in it, and this squad will know it before anyone else says it. Four tries conceded to the All Blacks is not a platform you build a series win on, and a scoreless second half is not something the Springboks will want to take to Johannesburg.
But a win in a Test South Africa had to have, off the back of a defeat that had the whole country questioning the group, is exactly the kind of night this team was built for.
The series goes to FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 5 September, then finishes at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on 12 September, taking the oldest fixture in the sport onto American soil.
Johannesburg owes them one. Well done, Bokke — go and collect it.
