The Big Bok Bang Theory

The Springbok Bomb Squad is a thing of brutal beauty

In the 50th minute of this wild match at Loftus Versfeld, referee Luke Pearce called time off and started a countdown: “One, two, three… four, five, six.” The payload that is the Bomb Squad was about to be released.

“He’s your head, in your head, Rassie, Rassie, Rassie-e-e-e-e…” sang Loftus for the umpteenth time as six Springboks – Malcolm Marx, Gerhard Steenekamp, Vincent Koch, Salmaan Moerat, RG Snyman and Marco Van Staden – stretched, flexed and glowered on the touchline. Franco Mostert, Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Bongi Mbonambi and Ox Nche headed to the bench.

No doubt Andy Farrell grimaced quietly and Rassie Erasmus grinned secretly. Small Irish rugby players were told by parents to avert their eyes. Young South African kids walked closer to the television, touched the screen were Snyman stood and dreamed of one day being a not just a Springbok, but, man, a Springbok substitute.

But, instead of going “bang” the Bomb Squad went “clang”, an early dud, Vincent Koch giving away a scrum penalty, Ireland’s first, for walking around. Snyman said “dang”, or words to those effect, after an oopsee at the very next lineout, Marx hitting him chest high instead of closer to his head.

The bomb was ticking, however, slowly building up to the moment that would secure the match when the pin needed to be pulled. Marx stole a ball at the breakdown, winning a penalty. Snyman hit Craig Casey with a thundering tackle that, unfortunately, saw the Irish scrumhalf taken off on a stretcher with concussion. Casey is 1.65m and 76kg, Snyman 2.06m and 130kg. Those are not fair numbers.

The Boks smashed and pounded, defended and attacked The Irish pounded back. Caelan Doris, their eighthman, was mighty on attack, Ireland’s best player on Saturday evening and later that night told the Irish Independent he doesn’t think he’s quite at his best just yet.

“I was happy enough with some elements of it,” said Doris. “I would have spoken to you guys about trying to get my attacking game back to where it was maybe a few years ago. So I’ve had a little more emphasis on my carries over the last few weeks and I’ve been happy enough with how that’s going.”

It went well enough as Doris, Ireland’s captain in waiting once Peter O’Mahony calls it a day, carried the ball 15 times. Only Kwagga Smith, with 17, had more carries. Doris won three turn-overs and came within the width of Moerat’s leg of a try. With 17 minutes to play, the Loftus DJ, an excitable chap with a very Pretoria taste in music, played “Living next door to Alice”, and, to my twisted ear, the crowd was singing “Who the f**k is Doris?”. They certainly know who he is now.

This was as terrific a Test match as the hype had promised. It had everything that is rugby, from drilled accuracy to rushed mistakes, to decisions that were head-scratching tight. It had fury and speed, it had the first signs of how the Boks will play like under the guidance of Tony Brown, the former All Black. It was a game, everyone agreed, of the finest of fine margins. The truly epic matches between great teams often come down to the finest margins.

It had the most delicate of hands from Siya Kolisi, who made the pivotal pass in the K-K-K (Kriel-Kolisi-Kurt-Lee) move that gave Kurt-Lee Arendse the space to leave fullback Jamie Osborne on his knees, head bowed, to score the opening try after three breathless minutes.

Osborne, on debut, found his redemption with a James Lowe wonder assist, the wing tip-toeing just inside the touchline to flick the ball to Osborne for Ireland’s first try with four minutes of the first half left. However, Lowe and Ireland would find themselves on the wrong side of those darned fine margins. Lowe ran 60-metres to score a try that was cancelled because of the smallest and sneakiest Ronan Kelleher infraction at a ruck.

Lowe was ruled to have been in the air when he flicked the ball back into play from a Handre Pollard touch-finder that was pounced upon by the consistently magnificent Cheslin Kolbe, who hacked it forward to score South Africa’s second try.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics, except that the stats and percentages tell of how close this Test was. The Boks edged territory and possession 52-48, they had 175 passes to Ireland’s 160, 116 ball carries to 112, made six line breaks, just two more than Ireland, and they ran 192-metres, which just lagged behind the Irish’s 216-metres. Ireland had 84 percent of the possession in the last 10 minutes and scored 12 points to South Africa’s seven, but, what a seven points it was by the Springboks.

Lowe. It had to be Lowe, brilliant and flawed. With three minutes to go, and hope springing eternal for Ireland at 20-15, Lowe fumbled Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s restart and gave away the scrum. The Bomb Squad, now ticking at full force almost 30 minutes after they had entered the field, crouched, touched, set and went “bang”. Game over.

Scores:

South Africa: 27 (13)

Tries: Arendse, Kolbe, Penalty Try; Conversions: Pollard (2); Penalties: Pollard (2)

Ireland: 20 (8)

Tries: Osborne, Murray, Baird; Conversions: Crowley (2); Penalty: Crowley

Yellow cards: Arendse (74), Kelleher (77)

Teams: 

South Africa: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10 Handré Pollard, 9 Faf de Klerk, 8 Kwagga Smith, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Franco Mostert, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Ox Nche.

Replacements: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Gerhard Steenekamp, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Salmaan Moerat, 20 RG Snyman, 21 Marco van Staden, 22 Grant Williams, 23 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.

Ireland: 15 Jamie Osborne, 14 Calvin Nash, 13 Robbie Henshaw, 12 Bundee Aki, 11 James Lowe, 10 Jack Crowley, 9 Craig Casey, 8 Caelan Doris, 7 Josh van der Flier, 6 Peter O’Mahony (captain), 5 Tadhg Beirne, 4 Joe McCarthy, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 2 Dan Sheehan, 1 Andrew Porter.
Replacements: 16 Ronan Kelleher, 17 Cian Healy, 18 Finlay Bealham, 19 James Ryan, 20 Ryan Baird, 21 Conor Murray, 22 Ciaran Frawley, 23 Garry Ringrose.

Referee: Luke Pearce (England)
Assistant referees: Karl Dickson (England), Mike Adamson (Scotland)
TMO: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)