Killed in the pool of death?
It had seemed for so long as if this game might provide more evidence for the theory that tough pools actually benefit sides more than the softer ones do. South Africa looked messy and imprecise for all but the killer moment five minutes from the end when their two best players combined to score the telling try. Until then, despite Wales assuming their defensive mindset from as early as half an hour out, South Africa could not make their possession tell, spilling balls right, left and centre, and making a mess of the restarts. In the first half, when Dan Biggar gathered his own up and under to pave the way for Wales’s try, Willie le Roux took an age to realise the ball had gone up and allowed Biggar a clean catch. For nearly 75 minutes the Springboks smacked of a side who had not been tested in their previous three matches, up against a Wales team who were hard and insatiable, albeit loose in the set piece, as they have been throughout. But Wales’s legs and minds visibly tired in those final 10 minutes, their epic battles against England and Australia finally taking their toll. And South Africa rediscovered their class when it mattered most.
Two world-class scrum-halves
When Rhys Webb was lost to the World Cup before it had even started, Gareth Davies was finally promoted to the starting berth his richly promising career has for so long deserved. Wales held its breath. We knew about the pace and trickery. What about the game management? Here any doubts were erased. His pace was never in question, and there it was again when he was on hand for Wales’s try in the first half. If his game management was in question at this level it was only because we didn’t know. We do now. He had an excellent match in defence, his decision-making sound and his kicking cute. If only he had stayed on. He might have stayed with Fourie du Preez at the end.
South Africa’s six-point start a gift
And not from Wales so much as from Wayne Barnes. Officiating has been a blight on this tournament. Barnes is one of the best – always clear, usually consistent – but he decided in this of all matches to clamp down on something that is never officiated on, quite rightly. The knee on the floor in what is basically a maul. In the eighth minute, George North held up Handre Pollard, and Wales swarmed round to create the maul, but the South African managed to wrestle his knee to the deck momentarily. There was no way North could have known, and he continued to hold on. Did that make it a completed tackle or had it become a maul? Barnes decreed the former but he was flying in the face of normal practice. At best a technicality of the most pedantic sort, and one rarely enforced, if ever. Three-nil. Then three minutes later Alun Wyn Jones was done for not rolling away from his tackle, despite making every effort, despite a thicket of knees around him, despite clean and quick ball for South Africa. Pedantry. More importantly, 6-0. There was a similarly dubious one towards the end of the first half against South Africa that Dan Biggar hit the post from. These things make a huge difference to the complexion of a game, and they are decisions to bewilder the players. The contingency of a referee’s whim affecting the outcome is rugby’s biggest problem.
Masterclass at the breakdown
No complaints with any of the other penalties, though. For those who love their battles at the breakdown here were vintage offerings. Duane Vermeulen and Francois Louw fought an epic battle over the ball with Sam Warburton and Gethin Jenkins. Sometimes the referee’s whistle was not even required, so clean were the steals. Warburton a few yards from his try line, for example, during Wales’s long defensive stand in the second half – not just a steal, but a chance to come away, look up and play what was in front of him. This was Warburton back to his best. But what a back row he was up against. Schalk Burger, Louw and Vermeulen are not just back to their best but surely the hardest, sharpest-minded back-row hombres in the world. It was their clarity of purpose amid the post-tackle carnage that went so far towards securing them position, just as it was Wales’s that kept their noses in front, right up until the 75th minute when Vermeulen showed his prowess with ball in hand. What a contest.
