This was a Test that provided individual player answers to the Springboks leadership that far outweighed the most disappointing of results for SA in Bloemfontein.
The disappointment was not so much the last minute 13-12 defeat but the way the Springboks folded in the final quarter and lost complete control of a match they had dominated for 65 minutes.
Sport has a way of finding balance. In Pretoria, the Springboks won a Test they had no right to, given how the match played out. In Bloemfontein it was Wales who won a Test in which they looked buried throughout.
Single moments can define Test match rugby and the most crucial in this Test came in the 75th minute when the Boks, so comfortable on their scrum feed, attempted to continue scrumming for a penalty feed and the inexperience and technique of young loosehead prop Ntuthuko Mchunu cost the home team a penalty.
It was also poor leadership all-round that the ball wasn’t simply put in, won and cleared downfield.
Wales attacked the Bok line from that scrum penalty and got the necessary reward of a match-winning seven pointer in the final minute.
It was a history-making moment as Wales won for the first time in SA.
The Bok coaches, in finishing with an inexperienced Ox Nche against Australia in Brisbane a year ago, saw a similar final minute scrum penalty result in defeat – and it was another painful reminder of why you want the experience coming off the bench, especially among the forwards.
Everything in the next year is about building to the 2023 World Cup and while Jacques Nienaber and Rassie Erasmus are very settled and comfortable with the core of those players who won the World Cup in 2019 and won the British & Irish Lions series last year, Bloemfontein was a first port of call as they sift through the best — or worst of the next best.
It would be unfair to say there was anything like a “worst of” in the Springboks performance, but there were player statements that showed a definite difference between who ranks one and who is second in the queue in certain positions.
The first-choice midfield pairing of Damian de Allende and Lukanyo Am is a class above Andre Esterhuizen and Jessie Kriel as a combination.
Individually, the back three who started in Bloemfontein have potential, but they had never played together as a unit, and it showed against very good Welsh box kicking.
For all the critique about Willie le Roux over the years, his experience in the No 15 jersey will be invaluable to the Springboks World Cup defence in France.
Le Roux is integral to the back three defence as a collective, as is Cheslin Kolbe to the defensive system. Kolbe’s reading of the play from the right wing is the most underrated aspect of his play.
Handre Pollard, back at flyhalf and captaining the Boks for the first time, made a comfortable return to the starting XV but the negative is the gulf that exists at No 10 between him and the next best.
It was unfortunate he was off the field in the final five minutes and he will rue one awful penalty miss in the second half.
SA’s super subs bench was not quite the famed Bomb Squad in Bloemfontein, with Malcolm Marx the exception.
Marx is arguably the best hooker in the world, despite a finishing role with the Springboks and third choice hooker Joseph Dweba, who started in Bloem, would start regularly in most Test teams.
Evan Roos enjoyed a good 48 minutes on debut as the starting 8, but veteran Marcell Coetzee wasn’t as impactful, and the 2019 World Player of the Year Pieter-Steph du Toit is short of a gallop after a year's absence from Test rugby. That he got through 80 minutes was a bonus.
• Mark Keohane is the founder of keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the digital content director at Highbury Media. Twitter: @mark_keohane
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