Telling stat underlines Springboks' glaring Achilles heel against All Blacks

A combination of brilliant defence by the All Blacks and butchered attacking opportunities nullified the Springboks’ ability to turn territorial pressure into points at Ellis Park last weekend, resulting in their 33-16 loss.

Following on from an unconvincing 17-10 win against Argentina, over the last two games South Africa have mustered just 33 points, their joint-lowest total in back-to-back Tests since the very early days of Rassie Erasmus’ reign in 2018.

Despite dominating the scrum and the gain line, the Springboks only led by a point at half-time and their high turnover count and general profligacy when in possession ultimately cost them dear when the All Blacks found another gear in the second half.

It could have been a very different story had Malcolm Marx not knocked-on under pressure from Jordie Barrett in the 36th minute when a try seemed certain, or Feinberg-Mngomezulu not booted a crossfield kick into touch when recycling possession seemed to be the more sensible option.

Other than the kicking of Cheslin Kolbe, all South Africa had to show for their endeavour was a 16th-minute try by hybrid replacement, Andre Esterhuizen, who understandably refused to trust teammates on either side of him to get the job done and went for the line himself.

Fixture

Internationals

South Africa

08:10

29 Aug 26

New Zealand

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Ten times the Springboks entered the ‘red-zone’ at Ellis Park and they came away empty-handed in nine of those raids, with Kolbe keeping the scoreboard ticking over three points at a time until the All Blacks pulled away in a devastating second-half display.

The Springboks only yielded an average of 0.7 points for each of those 10 visits into the opposition 22, the first time in just over two years that they’ve fallen below the one-point ceiling. It’s only the third time overall (66 matches) that this happened since Opta started collecting such data in 2020.

Unsurprisingly, they were beaten in both previous clashes where they failed to cross the one-point rubicon, although they only lost to Ireland by a point (25-24) in July 2024 when seven raids yielded them a miserly average of 0.43 points per visit.

Handre Pollard’s eight penalties looked to have won them the game on that occasion, only for Ciaran Frawley to kick a match-winning drop goal right at the death.

The other occasion was in a 30-17 defeat to the Wallabies in Brisbane in 2021. South Africa managed one try, through centre Lukhanyo Am shortly after half-time, in what was an otherwise flat attacking display, which brought them an average of 0.8 points from 10 entries into the home side’s 22.