It may not have been a vintage Springbok performance, but nobody could ever accuse South Africans of lacking resilience.
The men in green and gold earned a hard-fought victory against England in the Rugby World Cup semi-final on Saturday, eking out a one point advantage to win 16-15.
It was a brutal, kick and set-piece driven match which could never have met the incredible standard of play on show when the Boks knocked over France in the quarters.
The English had a scare against Fiji in their first knockout match, but showed less signs of fatigue than the slow-starting Boks in a mistake-riddled first half.
Flyhalf Owen Farrell’s boot was the only mechanism by which England scored a point on Saturday, but it was hot enough to keep them in the lead for 78 minutes.
He kicked 4-4 from the tee and added a stunning long-range drop goal in the 53rd minute to put his team up 15-6 (incidentally a scoreline the English know well from 2007).
But the Springboks slowly grew into the game in the second half, aided greatly by Ox Nché’s fantastic scrummaging off the bench.
His addition in place of the unusually flat Steven Kitshoff made a huge difference at scrum time, and suddenly South Africa could rely on their trademark set-piece strength.
The ‘bomb squad’ buoyed the Boks who hit back first through replacement lock RG Snyman who scored after a well-worked five-metre lineout which left the score at 15-13 with ten minutes left.
But it would be Nché and his front row colleagues who made the first half of the eventual match-winning play when they dominated the English scrum on the halfway line to earn a penalty in the 78th minute.
And though there were breaths held across the country when Handrè Pollard stepped up to take his kick, he held his nerve to slam the ball through the middle of the poles. Another one point win!
It was a draining, but far from pyrrhic victory for a Bok team who again showed the value of experience in tournament rugby to reach another final.
They will face a rested All Blacks outfit, who barely raised a sweat in their semi-final drubbing of Argentina 44-6.
The Springboks are a different proposition entirely however, and the match has all the makings of a true classic.
Whichever team wins will become the most successful in RWC history and provide a fitting send-off for some legends of the game.
Eighty minutes left to decide a pulsating World Cup.
Get the brandewyn and braaivleis ready, make the ice run early and be sure not to miss a titanic final in Paris on Saturday at 9pm.
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