The last word in the autumn internationals went to Leigh Halfpenny, his penalty settling a reasonably entertaining game between two weakened sides just when South Africa had overturned what was at one stage an 18-point deficit. Halfpenny’s kick would only have been a leveller had Handré Pollard not hit a post after scoring his side’s second try, but Wales could take more out of the game than the Springboks, who often played as if they had been lobotomised.
One of the game’s superpowers have become mind-numbingly ordinary, having to battle back from two early sucker punches. For all the virtue of persisting with players based at home to try to contain an exodus to Europe and Japan, their game is already so denuded that what used to be one of the game’s surest foundations now resembles a sandcastle.
Their best players are elsewhere, although here the hooker Malcolm Marx was a man-of-the-match contender, forcing turnovers and carrying with purpose.
After two years drifting towards the bottom, South Africa have a decision to make before 2019 because the back division they fielded against Wales had no more wit than that paraded by Georgia two weeks before.
Wales, who were without 16 players through injury and unavailability, scored two tries in the opening seven minutes that were stunning in their simplicity, born on the training ground by coaches who had noticed how South Africa had defended on this tour with the organisation skills and basic understanding of a struggling second division side. They expected Wales to run after watching their first three matches and were nonplussed when they found their opponents had not kicked an old habit.
The first try came from a scrum on halfway. It was a reset after Wales had been pushed off the ball and when the prop Scott Andrews buckled under pressure, Taulupe Faletau got the ball away quickly. When it reached the fly-half Dan Biggar, he chipped across the field for Hallam Amos on the right wing whose opposite number Warrick Gelant had drifted infield.
Scott Williams scored the try after Amos drew what there was of the cover defence and three minutes later his midfield Hadleigh Parkes marked his debut with a try after Biggar, following a lineout, had foiled the blitz defence by prodding the ball into space behind with the full-back Andries Coetzee, whose afternoon started awfully and got worse, absent without leave.
Coetzee, who under the high ball was as reliable as an umbrella in a hurricane, wasted turnover possession by dithering over whether to run, pass or kick. By the time he made up his mind, Biggar had anticipated the latter and charged the ball down for Faletau to pick up and smartly pass to Parkes for the centre’s second try on the half-hour.
Faletau was offside when Biggar made contact with the ball, but the try was not reviewed. The television match official had been called into action 16 minutes before when Marx finished off a driving maul. The ball was on the line when he was pulled to his feet by team-mates, but none of the three TV angles provided for review allowed the official to give a positive answer to the question posed to him by the referee, Jérôme Garcès: try, yes or no?
South Africa pulled back to 21-10 at the interval. Pollard’s penalty in between Parkes’s tries was followed by Gelant scoring on his first full appearance. The wing knocked the ball on and Biggar’s kick led to another try after Dillyn Leyds ran out of defence for Jesse Kriel to kick to the line and Gelant to outpace Aled Davies.
South Africa had more purpose after the break when the coaches pointed out where they had gone wrong, needing all 15 minutes, and were ahead in 14 minutes. They attacked the gainline and when Pollard scored following a lineout, Kriel gave them the lead after Marx’s flat, at best, cut-out pass gave him space on the left wing.
With Biggar off the field with concussion, South Africa should have sealed victory comfortably. Superior up front and on the floor, they just needed an element of control but their replacement backs added nothing and they finished as they had started after Halfpenny’s penalty had restored Wales’s lead, desperately needing direction.
Their head coach, Allister Coetzee, mounted a passionate defence of his position, saying that while last year had been a “fiasco”, there had been a marked improvement in 2017 having started over again with players based in the country. Yet nothing depicts South Africa’s decline more than their captain, Eben Etzebeth, who was once counted among the world’s best second rows but has been sapped by the mediocrity of the game in his country. His match ended when, with seconds remaining in the opening half, he was injured throwing an improbable off-load in his 22 – the mighty fallen.
Wales: Halfpenny; Amos, S Williams, Parkes, S Evans; Biggar (Patchell 47), A Davies (Webb 56); R Evans (W Jones 47), Dacey (Dee 53), Andrews, Hill, AW Jones (capt), Shingler, Navidi (Lydiate 74), Faletau
Tries Parkes 2, S Williams Cons Halfpenny 3 Pen Halfpenny
South Africa: Coetzee (Am 76); Leyds, Jesse Kriel, Venter, Gelant; Pollard (Jantjies 70), Cronje (Schreuder 70); Kitshoff, Marx (Mbonambi 70), W Louw (Nyakane 68), Etzebeth (capt; Mohoje ht), De Jager, Du Toit, Kolisi, Du Preez (Cassiem 76)
Tries Gelant, Pollard, Kriel Cons Pollard 2 Pen Pollard
Referee Jérôme Garcès (Fr). Game rating 6/10.
Principality Stadium 65,517.
