Boks too good for Wallabies in Perth: Five takeaways

The Springboks beat the Wallabies 30-12 in their second Rugby Championship match in Perth on Saturday to give the world champions a clean sweep in Australia over the last two weeks.

The Boks also won in Brisbane last week, 33-7, to bank 10 log points from their trip Down Under.

Even though the Boks made 10 changes to their starting team and opted to rest several World Cup winners, they still managed to dominate the game on Saturday.

Here are the five big takeaways from the 30-12 win.

Boks’ error rate

Conditions were poor which made handling extremely difficult, but the Boks were sloppy at times with their handling, and knocked on the ball on a number of occasions.

They also missed a number of lineout throws, especially in the first half, with Johan Grobbelaar struggling to find his jumpers. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu also didn’t have the best kicking day, with some kicks going directly into touch.

Try-scoring chances missed

While it turned out to be an easy win for the Boks, they let several good chances go begging.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu dropped the ball from a pass and not a Wallaby player in front of him, while Makazole Mapimpi also let a chance slip away after tucking the ball under his right arm, when trying to go in at the left corner. He lost control of the ball in the tackle.

Then, in the second half, Ruan Nortje was penalised in a maul as the Boks powered towards the tryline and then Pieter-Steph du Toit failed to get over the line late on when catching a cross-field kick, with his pop up from the ground going forward; the chance lost.

Players coming in impress

Aphelele Fassi was impressive in defence and attack, and under the high kicks, and he scored a great try, too. Mapimpi, too, enjoyed a good outing, as did Lukhanyo Am at inside centre.

Morne van den Berg’s service at scrumhalf was swift, while upfront Jan-Hendrik Wessels just about held his own in the scrums, Nortje put in a busy shift, and Marco van Staden made life difficult for the Wallabies. Thomas du Toit scummed strongly and was busy in the loose.

Grobbelaar struggled a bit in the conditions, but did some good things, while sadly for Salmaan Moerat he went off early with an injury.

Uncontested scrums

Much of the Boks’ fire-power was taken away from them in the second half when the Wallabies were unable to fill their front row with experienced props and hookers.

It meant most of the second half was played with uncontested scrums, which didn’t help the Boks, who’d stacked their bench with quality, experienced men to do a job in the latter stages of the match.

Fortunately it didn’t matter as the Boks managed to stay on top anyway, but one’s got to wonder if the Aussies tried to pull a fast one on the Boks’ “Bomb Squad”?

Bomb Squad

All of the Boks’ bench sitters got on during the game; in the case of Eben Etzebeth early in the match because of an injury suffered by Moerat. And the veteran lock performed brilliantly, dominating at the front of the lineouts and carrying the ball on several occasions.

Malcolm Marx, too, was excellent when he came on just after half-time. He scored two tries from the driving maul and really got stuck into the action, while his lineout throwing steady an unstable lineout.

The rest of the “Bomb Squad” also did their jobs well.