Boks’ late rally all in vain as 11-man Australia triumph
Sydney – Australia held on with 11 men in a dramatic finish to beat a second-string SA outfit 42-38 at Perth Stadium on Sunday and extend their unbeaten run to five games since new coach Les Kiss took over.
Skipper Harry Wilson, Ryan Lonergan, Joseph Suaalii and Hunter Paisami were all shown yellow cards in the last 10 minutes as the world champions cut a 25-point deficit down to four at the final whistle.
Australia had looked to be cruising after centre Len Ikitau’s double and tries from flyhalf Ben Donaldson, number eight Wilson and winger Max Jorgensen combined with 17 points from the boot of scrumhalf Ryan Lonergan gave them a 42-17 lead after 65 minutes.
The last 10 minutes threatened to undo all their earlier good work but the Wallabies will move on to back-to-back tests against the All Blacks in October without a loss in six games, their best unbeaten run since 2017.
“We versed the world champions in our own backyard here. Jeez, that was a crazy last 10 minutes, but that first 70 minutes, the way we played, we implemented our game plan in exactly the way we wanted.”
SA coach Rassie Erasmus had made 13 changes to his lineup from the team which completed the gruelling 3-1 series victory over New Zealand earlier this month but stacked his bench with first-choice players as an insurance policy.
It almost paid off in the frantic last 10 minutes, but scores from hooker Johan Grobbelaar, winger Edwill van der Merwe, scrumhalf Morne van den Berg, prop Ox Nche as well as a penalty try were not quite enough.
“Australia is always a hard team to beat, and such a good game to play,” said Springboks captain Andre Esterhuizen.
“It was a pretty intense game and quite quick for a test match, but they capitalised on all our errors, and I think discipline let us down, especially in that first half.”
The visitors scored the first try after Handre Pollard and Lonergan had exchanged early penalties with Grobbelaar rolling over the line on the back of a rolling maul.
Australia responded with two tries from Ikitau in three minutes, the first from close range and the second after winger Suaalii had disrupted the restart and the ball bounced back to the lurking centre.
The Springboks responded almost immediately to lock up the scores again at 17-17, flyhalf Pollard’s long pass exposing a hole in the Australian backline defence and Van der Merwe showing his pace to finish the move.
A slanted crosskick from Wallabies fullback Tom Wright gave Jorgensen some space to run shortly before halftime, however, and Australia recycled patiently when the winger was held up shy of the line with Donaldson going over unopposed in the corner after 14 phases. − Reuters