With Francois Louw and Adriaan Strauss to the fore, the Boks won the turnover battle, and together with the first phase pressure, set up an ugly, but key, victory.
Tank Lanning
It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, with the Boks never looking close to scoring a try, but at this stage of their evolution, coach Allister Coetzee will just be mightily relieved to have notched up another win at Fortress Loftus.
Morne Steyn was brought in at flyhalf to do a job, and that he did – via 4 penalties and 2 drop goals. He also took control of the Bok kicking game, making 11 of their 25 kicks. But given that the Boks only enjoyed 40% of the territory, that, and their chasing of said kicks, will be a definite work on in the build up to the All Black Test next week.
The Wallabies also enjoyed 55% of the possession and absolutely owned the attack stats. They made 26 more carries, 2 more clean breaks, beat 12 more defenders, made 179 more metres with ball in hand and made 22 more passes than the Boks.
So the Wallabies beat a defender every sixth carry, while the Boks beat one in every ten carries. And this while playing 10 minutes of the game with 14 men. Had the visitors been better finishers, this game could have been very different.
That said, the Bok scrambled defence was really good. They made 99 tackles for a tackle success rate of 82.5%. Of concern will be the 21 they missed, but on the night, those were not at crucial times.
Up front, the Boks were superb. They attacked the Australian lineout and came away with three vital steals. They put the Australian scrum under pressure in the final 20 minutes, and while not managing a tighthead, they did milk 2 vital penalties that lead to points via the Steyn boot.
With Francois Louw (3) and Adriaan Strauss (2) to the fore, the Boks also made merry at the breakdown, winning the turnover battle 10-6. These often put pay to promising Wallaby attacks, and together with the first phase pressure, were enough to set the Boks up for an ugly, but key, victory.
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