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Wallabies clinch second Rugby Championship win over Springboks

(Photo by Jono Searle/Getty Images)

The Wallabies have secured the Mandela Challenge Plate for the first time since 2018 after registering their second straight win over the Springboks in as many weeks.

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A week after Quade Cooper’s heroics were enough to clinch a 28-26 victory on the Gold Coast, the Australians ran the South Africans off their feet as their attacking flair trumped the cautious nature of their opponents in a 30-17 win in Brisbane.

The match was marred by controversy in the first half when Lachlan Swinton escaped a red card thanks to the help of the TMO after a high tackle on Duane Vermeulen, which was still deemed worthy of a yellow card in controversial fashion.

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In The Know with Michael Cheika | Can the Wallabies beat the Springboks for a second time in a row?

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In The Know with Michael Cheika | Can the Wallabies beat the Springboks for a second time in a row?

That wasn’t enough to salvage a result for the Springboks, who had their own disciplinary problems with Faf de Klerk sent to the sin bin for a professional foul early in the first half.

Held try-less by Dave Rennie’s impressive Wallabies outfit, the Springboks struggled to contain their opponents who looked to keep the ball in play where possible and occasionally overpowered the South African pack at the set piece.

When they did have the ball in hand, the Wallabies looked sharp on attack, with rookie midfielder Len Ikitau running in a pair of tries inside the opening 20 minutes on the back of some swift distribution skills and impressive footwork.

Springboks playmaker Handre Pollard landed four penalty goals to make it a 15-12 scoreline in favour of the Wallabies at half-time, but a genius box kick from De Klerk early in the second half was latched onto by Lukhanyo Am in the in-goal area.

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That try gave the Springboks a brief two-point lead, which was lost nine minutes later thanks to Quade Cooper’s boot, but it took a piece of brilliance from Wallabies prop Taniela Tupou to give his side some breathing room.

Attacking down the short side via reserve halfback Tate McDermott, Tupou flicked the ball into the hands of Marika Koroibete with the deft of a veteran backline player, which was enough to put the winger away for a try.

That piece of play capped off an outstanding showing from Tupou, who was close to Australia’s best throughout the encounter as he racked up a mammoth 78 minutes of action.

Just six minutes later, Koroibete doubled down on his try-scoring feats after the Wallabies hit the Springboks on the counter from a breakdown turnover in a sequence of play that spanned about 60 metres of the field.

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Koroibete’s second try proved to be the killer blow for the Springboks, whose woes were compounded when reserve loose forward Jasper Wiese was given a yellow card in the dying minutes of the contest for an illegal clean-out on Samu Kerevi.

The result leaves South Africa’s hopes of retaining their Rugby Championship title in tatters as their credibility as world champions side is now seriously damaged.

By contrast, the win will be immensely satisfying for the Wallabies as they lock away one of their most prized pieces of silverware for the first time in three years.

Wallabies 30 (Tries to Len Ikitau (2), Marika Koroibete (2); 2 conversions, 2 penalties to Quade Cooper)

Springboks 17 (Try to Lukhanyo Am; 4 penalties to Handre Pollard)

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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