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The All Blacks have beaten the Springboks 25-24 in an intense, thrilling match at Newlands in Cape Town.
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A tight first half was very much like the All Black/Springbok battles of old, with the Boks looking a million times better than their shambolic display in Albany.
Rieko Ioane looked to have opened the scoring with a scything run down the sideline, but lost the ball over the line. Not long after, Beauden Barrett got in the way of an Elton Jantjies clearance for Ryan Crotty to pounce on and score.
The Boks made an excellent start to the second half, with Ross Cronje scoring a smart try after some fantastic lead up work by the forwards. The All Blacks were forced to almost empty their bench soon after the restart, with a new front row and Matt Todd coming on at flanker.
Jantjies put the Boks in the lead with a penalty, but then Ioane then picked off a Cronje pass to go 80 metres to score.
The Boks got back into the lead when Jean-Luc du Preez finshed off a Marx bust after Handre Pollard got his arms free. However, that was as good as it got for the Boks as they watched Damian McKenzie speed away for the match winner 10 mins from time.
Lima Sopoaga went to seal the victory with five minutes to go, however after his drop goal went wide Damian de Allende was red carded for a late shot.
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The Boks had one last say when Malcolm Marx crashed over, but couldn’t work the ball into a kickable range.
MORE TO COME.
