New Zealand scored an emphatic 19-0 victory against South Africa in a Tri-Nations match on Saturday, to shoot to the top of the competition points table.
The victory took the All Blacks to 14 Tri-Nations competition points, with one match to play, against Australia next month. The Wallabies are in second position with nine points from three matches and South Africa now prop up the table with five from four matches.
South Africa’s chances of winning the competition are now out of their hands, even though they still have two matches to play against Australia in Durban next weekend and then in Johannesburg on August 30.
“We’ve still go a small chance of winning the competition,” Bok skipper Victor Matfield said.
“We’ve got two big weeks in front of us and want to go out and make the nation proud. All we can do is focus on the things we’ve got control over — and that’s the two games in front of us,” he said referring to the upcoming matches against the Wallabies.
All Blacks boss Graham Henry said he was proud of “the tremendous courage” shown by his men.
“They showed good fitness levels at the end and tackled well throughout the game. We’re still in the hunt and today was certainly a step in the right direction,” he said.
While South Africa dominated much of the encounter, especially the first half, they were completely outplayed in the second period, conceding two further tries to the one they gave away in the first period.
The Boks made too many basic errors, particularly at the breakdowns, to be effective against a well-drilled New Zealand side that appeared to have a set plan of grinding it out up front and starving the Boks of ball.
The plan worked well as the home side gave away a number of penalties over the 80 minutes — not taken advantage of by Dan Carter — and also frequently turned over ball at the rucks, where Richie McCaw again showed his phenomenal ball-winning ability.
Center Conrad Smith scored his team’s opener in the seventh minute after diving on to a ball that had been kicked into the Boks’ in-goal area by McCaw and in the second period Carter and replacement Keven Mealamu scored their tries to add to the Boks woes. New Zealand only led 5-0 at the half-time break.
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