Perhaps it is the Springboks psyche. The South Africans hate being the favourites, especially against the All Blacks, but in Johannesburg they did everything in the first 30 minutes to create a situation in which the battling Boks heroism would play out.
On this occasion it didn’t. To gift-wrap the All Blacks a 15-point start would haunt the Springboks. The men in black secured a famous win. They were outstanding. The Boks were decidedly awful, but then again the SA players did spend the entire week telling the media how sorry they felt for the All Blacks. It is a sentiment that will be returned.
Down a man in the first five minutes, and down 15 points against an All Blacks side potent on passion and rich in skill, the Kiwis would have been transported back to a Super Rugby assignment against an Australian side.
It all favoured the All Blacks in the way the opening 30 minutes unfolded. It was so different to a week ago, when the Boks played to their strengths, physically throttled the All Blacks and won comfortably. In Johannesburg, the intensity came from the desperate All Blacks and the charity came from the hosts.
The starting XV Bok selections were logical — which didn’t mean they were right. Joseph Dweba, starting at hooker, had a nightmare. He was penalised at the first Bok scrum feed on a technicality and his first and last throw in an underwhelming 30 minutes were skew.
Duane Vermeulen, a magnificent warrior for the Boks over the past decade, was off the pace from the outset. It is one thing to have a reputation; quite another to play Test rugby after a two-month absence because of injury.
The famed Bok Bomb Squad had won many a Test for their final 20-minute impact, but at Emirates Ellis Park they were needed to close a match out from 50 metres. They couldn’t. Referee Luke Pearce did the Springboks no favours and the Boks should have known that this was a win they would have to work for.
Mentally, they were not strong enough. The 48-minute penalty reversal against Wiese was an example of a match official looking for anything to give another team the advantage. On any other occasion the tackle on Aaron Smith, after a whistle the player could not hear, would have been play-on.
Another was his disallowing a Bok try for the most controversial overturn of a referral he initiated. What should have been a Boks 20-18 lead before the 60th minute was a 21-13 lead to the visitors.
The Boks should never have been trailing by eight points on 58 minutes, let alone by 15 before at half-time. They diverted from a winning formula a week ago.
The Boks got suckered by the nonsense that they don’t play rugby and they allowed for an opening hour in which the All Blacks were given the width and space to showcase their mesmerising ball in hand skills.
The final 20 minutes were always going to be decisive in this Test, but few would have predicted just how definitive for the visitors. The two teams have produced some of the most incredible Test matches here, dating back to the 1995 World Cup, won in extra time 15-12 by the Boks.
But few could have predicted how the Boks folded and how the All Blacks grew in the final few minutes. The All Blacks have problems, which is why they have dropped five from six Tests pre-Saturday, but in seven days it is the Boks who know they have an even bigger problem — and it is more mental than physical.
• 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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