All Blacks survive scrum crisis to seal biggest Ellis Park win

Liam Napier at Ellis Park

Tenacious, defiant – these terms don’t nearly do it justice. Amid a sea of green, against the vaunted world champions at their spiritual home, the All Blacks burst the Springboks’ bubble with one of their greatest, most courageous victories.

The All Blacks didn’t just beat the Boks and record their first success in South Africa for four years, their 33-16 win is largest victory at Ellis Park in a performance that required them to come back from the dead.

Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks started the first of four tests in the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series with everything stacked in their favour. The Boks had won 12 tests in a row, 31 of their past 34, sweeping every tier one nation in the last year, and five of their last six matches against the All Blacks.

Dave Rennie’s All Blacks didn’t care. They stared the Boks in the face and produced a second-half performance for the ages to surpass South Africa and claim the No 1 world ranking.

Five-tries-to-one is as convincing as it gets. The All Blacks restricted the Boks to three second-half points. Those numbers don’t, however, come close to revealing the true story of this epic match.

Two months into Rennie’s tenure and he has transformed the All Blacks. That is undeniable. Teams don’t produce wins such as this without true, united, spirit.

Every metric, from scrum penalties won, to metres made with ball in hand to ruck speed, pointed to a battle of contrasting styles.

Who would impose their strengths on their opponents?

For much of this match, that was the Springboks. For 50 minutes they bullied the All Blacks up front.

Through supreme scrum dominance, brick-wall defence and a sustained and highly effective aerial attack, the Springboks gradually imposed their will.

The All Blacks knew exactly what was coming. They talked all week about the set-piece battle, the high-ball challenges and lineout maul the Boks would bring. There were no surprises.

But knowing what’s coming and countering it are, clearly, different ideals.

By the 55th minute mark, the All Blacks were seemingly teetering on the verge of toppling. The Boks were winning penalties and putting down scrums for fun.

Quite how the All Blacks held a slim lead at that point defied belief. Their scrum had been dismantled. They were on the back foot. Other than Fabian Holland’s charge-down try against the run of play, it was all the Boks in the second half.

With their backs firmly pressed to the wall, with the raucous crowd baying for blood, somehow, some way, the All Blacks summoned a scrum shunt from the gods while defending their line.

If they had conceded another scrum penalty, the All Blacks would almost certainly lose a player to the bin – and they may have been out for the count. Instead, the replacement front row of George Bower, Asafo Aumua and Fletcher Newell conjured the turning point of the match.

From there, the All Blacks didn’t lose another scrum. They then imposed their speed and skill on the Boks.

That single scrum moment allowed the All Blacks to exhale, regroup and clear. And they never looked back. They seized control and crushed the Boks who, by the finish, were out on their feet floundering for answers.

Damian McKenzie’s fizzing feet sparked a breakout that finished with Cam Roigard almost scoring. Moments later, Luke Jacobson crashed over to extend the All Blacks’ lead.

The irony was inescapable when Marco van Staden was yellow carded for flying in at the side with the All Blacks hot on attack with 11 minutes left in the match – and the visitors put down a scrum of their own.

With pressure mounting, the Springboks self-imploded by conceding another yellow card. The All Blacks scored again through Will Jordan.

First blood in this series was sealed.

There were many levels of adversity the All Blacks had to overcome.

Other than the scrum pressure and high-ball issues, they conceded 14 penalties to put themselves regularly under pressure.

They suffered a telling setback just before halftime, too, when Josh Lord and Ethan de Groot clashed heads while attempting a tackle. Both players left the field to spark a major reshuffle in the forward pack, with Tupou Vaa’i switching from blindside to lock and Bower slotting in at loosehead prop.

Given their scrum dominance in the latter stages of the first half, the Boks should have led by more than one point at halftime. Malcolm Marx also blew a certain try as he dropped the ball from a lineout maul with the line in sight.

This series is sure to have many more twists and turns. But with this statement performance, the All Blacks sent the Boks a message that their spirit will never be broken.

Having witnessed two jet airliners fly over Ellis Park before the match, and after living through the deafening noise, the pockets of New Zealanders dotted around the ground applauded the All Blacks’ heart as they lingered on the pitch to revel in their moment.

One win won’t define this series. But it will rattle the cages of many South Africans who gave the All Blacks little hope of challenging their world dominance.

It’s now Rennie’s All Blacks who remain undefeated through his seven-match tenure.

What a start indeed.

All Blacks 33 (Will Jordan 2, Josh Moorby, Fabian Holland, Luke Jacobson tries; Ruben Love 4 cons)

Springboks 16 (Andre Esterhuizen try; Cheslin Kolbe con, 3 pens)

HT: 12-13

Liam Napier is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast.