A vociferous Port Elizabeth crowd witnessed the Springboks defeat Ireland to clinch the series two Tests to one.

South Africa 19 Ireland 13

South Africa (JP Pietersen try; Elton Jantjies conversion, 3 penalties, Ruan Combrinck penalty) 

Ireland (Luke Marshall try; Paddy Jackson conversion, 2 penalties)

The three Test series was level at one each going into this game and any Springbok supporter would have bought this result. There is still a lot for Allister Coetzee and his team to work on though. The Springboks won the series as we predicted in our lead up article, yet there will be  concern regarding the form of a few of their players.

Let’s take a look at a few points we took out of this game:

Scrum time

There was a vast improvent in the Springbok scrum during this game. They set themselves a lot lower and put the Irish scrum under serious pressure. Beast Mtawarira produced one his best scrum performances in a very long time and Frans Malherbe looked a lot stronger than in the first two Tests. Replacing these two with Stephen Kitshoff and Julian Redlinghuys in no way weakened the Springbok scrum.

Defensive Effort

The Springboks defensive effort was far superior to their two previous efforts. They showed in defending againt the multiple phases the Irish put together in the last fifteen minutes. Their chasing down and closing out of the six clean line breaks the Irish made shows great promise for the future of this group. Lionel Mapoe deserves special mention for the way he martialed the defense, but it was Faf de Klerk who made a vital decision after the final hooter had already sounded. Ireland had mounted a sustained attack on the Springboks tryline and looked certain to score. De Klerk saw that he was the last man on defence with a the Irish having a one man overlap. He made the call to shoot out of the defensive line to make the tackle behind the advantage line. The Springboks flooded the tackle area and won the vital penalty that saw the Ireland attack stopped in its tracks.

The Breakdown

This facet of play obviously received a lot of attention during the week. The Springboks were comfortably outplayed at the breakdown in the first two Tests. In Port Elizabeth, the Irish conceded fifteen turnovers to the seven of the Springboks. On a more light hearted note, not even a baseball bat would have removed the proud smile from Jaco Kriel‘s face after his long overdue and deserved first Test cap.

Time To Move On

There are four positions where Coetzee will have to seriously consider his options. Siya Kolisi does not provide the ball carrying ability expected of a blindside flanker as he is more of a linking type of loose forward. Lock Pieter-Steph du Toit has been burdened with most of the responsibility of carrying the ball up to the advantage line and bashing defenses backwards.

Fullback Willie le Roux has proved to be a one season wonder. Even if we set aside his poorly judged challenge in the air on Ireland fullback Tiernan O’Halloran, Le Roux has not been of Test quality for a while. He was within centimeters of receiving a red card for that challenge. If O’Halloran landed on the back of his head instead of the top of the shoulder, the sanction would have been a red card. The attacking play or “X-factor” his reputation has been built on is no longer there. He is also struggling to get his clearance kicks away and once again has a kick charged down. It is becoming more an more likely that Jessie Kriel will come into the reckoning during The Rugby Championship. The name of Johan Goosen has also been bandied about after a stellar season for Racing Metro in the French Top 14.

Throughout the series, centre Damian de Allende has been unable to set up the backs outside of him to attack. He has made a few attacks on the advantage line, mostly with his head down and the the ball under one arm. Coetzee has been limited with his choices, with promising youngsters such as Harold Vorster and Burger Odendaal being on the injury list. Jan Serfontein started to show some of his early promise too, but his wrist injury has put him out of contention in the long term. Ideally, an inside centre should have some of the qualities of a flyhalf to offer a kicking option and it is not inconceivable that Coetzee could opt for Jantjes as his starting flyhalf, with Pat Lambie filling the inside centre position.

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