South Africa’s Springboks scored eight tries on their way to a 56-23 Test victory over Samoa to win a four Nation Rugby tournament in South Africa.
South Africa were the only unbeaten team in a Quad Nations tournament featuring the hosts South Africa, Samoa, Scotland and Italy.
The Springboks have now played Samoa seven times in International Test matches and won all seven. Four out of the seven matches were at home and the rest were world cup matches as the Springboks have never visited Samoa on tour.
Samoan back Alesana Tuilagi was shown a Red card for a high tackle on Springboks captain Jean de Villiers after which the Springboks ran in in tries almost with ease.
The Springboks made up for last week’s lacklustre performance against Scotland
in the final of the four-nation Series.
The addition of Francois Louw and Willem Alberts to the forward pack added
some grunt as they made strong runs with the ball in hand and on attack.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer this week said their struggles against Scotland
were due to a lack of quick ball.
The South Africans made up for it in abundance against Samoa which translated
into the eight tries they scored on the evening.
Samoa took the game to South Africa from the word go as they attacked the gainline
with speed and intensity but the Springboks were up to the task on defence.
Despite two early handling errors, fullback Willie le Roux played a pivotal
role for South Africa on attack as he regained his confidence.
Le Roux had a hand in all the tries as he came into the line at speed and set
up the players on his outside with well-weighted passes.
South Africa opened the scoring with flyhalf Morne Steyn converting a penalty
three minutes of the match.
The Springbok pivot had another opportunity at the uprights five minutes later,
but his kick was not on target.
Samoa levelled the scores in the 11th minute when fullback James So’oialo succeeded
with his kick at goal. Four minutes later, he lined up another penalty to hand
his side the lead.
Winger Bryan Habana claimed the first try, scoring at the far side of the field
as the ball was spread wide from maul, with Steyn converting (10-6).
The try provided the spark which saw the Boks play with greater freedom.
They were clinical at the breakdowns, allowing quick ball to the backline which
looked dangerous every time the ball went wide.
In the 25th minute, South Africa’s driving maul from a lineout again paid dividends
as Louw controlled the ball from the back of the maul to score.
Steyn converted the try to extend the lead to 17-6.
The Samoans were left a man short when Logovi’I Mulipola was yellow-carded
for the repeated offence of coming in from the side at ruck time.
In the 10 minutes he was sidelined, South Africa added a penalty conversion
and a try as JJ Engelbrecht showed great individual skill for his five-pointer
in the 33rd minute.
The outside centre survived three tackles and sidestepped another to get over
the advantage line and score with Steyn’s conversion missing the target (25-9).
Shortly before half-time, Bok winger Bjorn Basson scored the fourth try of
the evening when he received a skip pass from Le Roux to touch down in the left-hand
corner.
Steyn converted giving South Africa a 32-9 advantage at break.
Samoa finally opened their try-scoring account in the 47th minute, after taking
a tap penalty allowing lock Teofilo Paulo to go over and So’oialo converting
(32-16).
The tourists suffered another debilitating blow when physical winger Alesana
Tuilagi received a red card for a stiff arm tackle on Springbok captain Jean
de Villiers.
A minute later, Habana scored a milestone 50th try for his country a
