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Sun 25 Oct 2015 | 09:41
All Blacks through to another World Cup Final after tense battle with the Springboks

12
Comments

The defending champions are through to their fourth Rugby World Cup final after holding off South Africa in another epic battle between the two sides. New Zealand scored two tries to win 20-18, despite the Boks pushing them all the way at a rainswept Twickenham stadium.

The Springboks persisted with the maul, kick chase game, but came up short in the creativity deparment when they needed a little more attacking threat against an organised All Blacks outfit.

While young Handre Pollard kicked 5 from 5 kicks, with Pat Lambie slotting one after coming on, the defending champions scored two tries and never had their tryline threatened. 

New Zealand's nous allowed them to hold off the powerful Springboks, who tested the champs for the first time in this year's tournament.

"We did it the hard way today. It was always going to be that way but we've got a crack at it next week," said captain Richie McCaw. "We've been saying they would bring everything. There were no surprises and we had to dig deep to get the result."

A lot of the Bok troubles came from poor kicking and lost lineouts, giving them a poor platform.

Coach Heyneke Meyer said they simply weren't good enough on the day. "We believed we were good enough to beat them but we just weren't. We wanted to make our country proud and we didn't."

New Zealand now have a chance of becoming the first country to ever retain the title.

Highlights below, plus post match interviews and pre-match anthems and Haka

Posted By: Grant Constable

12 Comments

  • katman
    8:59 AM 28/10/2015

    Yep. Louw, Vermeulen and Burger are three line-out options that are almost never used.

  • 45678
    11:24 AM 27/10/2015

    id like to see the stats on this game, but I believe SA lost the game in the lineout. every other area of the game was competitive, but they were turned over 5/6 times in the lineout after winning important ruck / scrum penalties

    they have become so predictable in the lineout. It used to be that 95% of balls were thrown to matfield, now 95% are thrown to de jager. matfield used to be so dominant, but is obviously way over the hill, de jager and etzebeth just aren't in the same league as targets as VM pre 2010. they need some variety

  • katman
    7:06 AM 27/10/2015

    There's a new generation of SA stars that have shone in the Currie Cup and will hopefully continue to shine in Super Rugby next year. And they will step into some of the Bok positions vacated by the old guard. Jaco Kriel in for Schalk Burger and Malcolm Marx in for Bismarck du Plessis are two that spring to mind. Other players who could be in contention over the next couple of years include loosehead prop Steven Kitshoff, blindside flank Sikhumbuzo Notshe, fullback Warrick Gelant, lock Franco Mostert and centres Howard Mnisi and Francois Venter. Despite not making the finals this year, I feel pretty upbeat about Springbok rugby.

  • vladimir
    5:24 PM 26/10/2015

    I believe Meyer trusted his old guard for too long until it was too late.
    Leaving Matfield on the bench was a good choice and it did him very good.
    But De Villiers should have left his place before the WC (and stayed in the coaching staff to support the team). Du Preez had an horrible night and Pienaar should have come into play way sooner. Strauss was hungier than Bismarck (he should have been on the bench like Matfield).
    That's a shame, thanks to Leroux and Pollard the boks had started playing thrilling and powerful rugby, but in the last months, Meyers suddendly changed to core of his team taking it back many years before.

  • eddie-g
    4:52 PM 26/10/2015

    Damn right. Very proud of this team. I'm gutted for them, but exiting the world cup this way (as compared to 2011) is a whole other stick of biltong.

  • eddie-g
    4:49 PM 26/10/2015

    The real consolation here is that the outcome was not unexpected. All credit to New Zealand for how consistent and excellent they are, if World Cup final places were handed out on merit alone, they'd be there.

    But here's the rub. Every Bok player and supporter will remember this as the game where we led by 5 at halftime. Even the weather played into our hands in the second half. It was as good a platform as anyone could have dreamed of.

    But no. So now most of the chat is about the limitations of our game; Pollard made to play against his natural style, Willie le Roux's lack of confidence basically eliminating our most creative attacking force, and the almost complete lack of tactical kicking acumen that led to most of our problems on Saturday.

    So while we will rue this loss, it's a weird situation of ruing the circumstances rather than our own team's limitations. That we could have burgled a result that few people would have scripted. 1995 all over again... That was a one-off.

    Anyway, for now we can look forward to four years time when Pollard should be in his prime, and there's time to build a skilled backline outside him. I'm comfortable we'll have a strong forward pack, but we need to have full confidence in numbers 1-15. We didn't this year, and that's why we came up short.

  • colombes
    11:05 AM 26/10/2015

    Sad final show for Matfield with his neck tackle and knock-on in the final minutes.
    Small margins, not so marginals.

    NZ-Australia, i wonder which side would be helped by a rainy day during the final.

  • stroudos
    9:57 AM 26/10/2015

    Imagine being Bryan Habana waking up on Sunday morning. Must have had a crushing sense of disappointment. Atrocious indiscipline in defence for that Kaino try, flying up out of the line and creating a massive hole; and that deliberate knock-on at the ruck for his yellow was so brainless. Oh, and the premature rush on Carter's conversion kick - two potentially crucial points when you look at the scoreboard, (although I reckon Carter would've nailed it first time if he hadn't had Habana in his grill).

    I thought he had a decent game on the whole, but if I were in his shoes those errors would haunt me for a long while.

  • stroudos
    9:43 AM 26/10/2015

    Was the interviewer referring to that massive lump as "disappointment writ large on your face"??

  • katman
    6:34 AM 26/10/2015

    Meyer says they didn't make the country proud, but he's wrong. There's no shame in losing by two points to this All Blacks team. I'd say most South Africans are very proud of the Springboks, despite losing in the semis.

    And well done to New Zealand. This team is as good as any I've seen. Their ability to limit mistakes while playing high-risk rugby is phenomenal. The final (against a fired-up, on-form Australia) should be brilliant.

  • drg
    11:56 PM 25/10/2015

    That is a hell of a lump of du preez face!!
    Ouch!!

  • i_bleed_green_and_gold
    5:13 PM 25/10/2015

    Good game. Pity we ended on the wrong side.

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