Springboks come back from dead to beat All Blacks: Five talking points

The Springboks produced an unbelievable finish to come back from the dead to stun the All Blacks 31-27 in their Rugby Championship clash at a bouncing Ellis Park on Saturday night.

The All Blacks edged a hard fought first half to take a 12-11 lead into the break, before the game opened up in the second half with the visitors initially taking a 27-17 lead, before the Boks came storming back to take the win.

Here are five key talking points from the incredible match:

Action packed start to game

It was an action packed start to the match, as the All Blacks dominated proceedings early doors, with the Boks defending superbly initially. Damian de Allende and Aphelele Fassi made important tackles on their line.

But a yellow card to Fassi, for tackling from an offside position in the red zone, gave the All Blacks an extra man, with them kicking the resultant penalty to the corner and mauling over for a try to hooker Codie Taylor.

The Boks finally enjoyed a dominant spell of their own and were unlucky not to score when Kurt-Lee Arendse missed the ball while chasing a grubber, but they were soon over the line after a maul and break from Bongi Mbonambi.

Set piece battle

The set piece battle was always going to be a big one and so it proved on the night. The scrum was a fiercely fought affair with neither side able to get the upper hand. After one side would have a good scrum, the next would go the other way. The Boks did earn a scrum penalty that Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu popped over for three points.

The lineout and breakdown battle however went the way of the Boks, with them impressing in both departments over the game. At the breakdown particularly the Boks got good reward with some solid efforts from their forwards.

Soft tries almost prove incredibly costly

The Boks conceded a host of soft tries over the match that almost proved incredibly costly in the end. All Blacks wing Caleb Clark was the beneficiary of two of them, scoring after a Bok knock on in the first half, while a poor clearance from a mark from Fassi gave the All Blacks perfect position to attack from in the second half, with the winger going over again.

The other soft try came right at the start of the second half, with the visitors leading by just a point, and the Boks on attack on the halfway. All Blacks inside centre Jordie Barrett intercepted the ball and ran away for a seven pointer to give them breathing room.

Boks guilty of not taking chances

The Boks were once again guilty of not taking their chances, which is one of the biggest problems they haven’t managed to fix over the years. Against the All Blacks the Boks enjoyed a number of 22m entries, but a number of knock-ons and penalties gave the All Blacks easy exits.

A number of times the All Blacks also transgressed, again giving easy shots at goal, which Feinberg Mngomezulu slotted, but with the visitors racking up five pointers, and the Boks only coming away with three most of the time it meant the hosts could never quite keep up during most of the second half, before the grandstand finish.

Stunning finish seals an unbelievable win

It was a stunning finish to the match as the Boks ran in two late tries to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. A yellow card to All Blacks prop Ofa Tu’ungafasi for pulling down a maul in the red zone with 13 minutes left proved hugely costly as the Boks scored twice while he was off.

They sent the penalty back to the corner and tried to maul again and were stopped, but eventually worked their way onto the tryline where Kwagga Smith dived over to score. The Boks then worked their way back into the All Blacks red zone, again set a maul and were stopped short, but this time Grant Williams sniped over for the try to give his team the lead with five minutes left.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu missed a relatively easy late penalty, which would have put them into a seven point lead, to keep the fans on the edge of their seats, but they saw out the win to rapturous applause in the end.