Wallabies break South Africa's aura of invincibility in win that asks: is Australian rugby back?

The Guardian

3 days ago

For 18 minutes, everything was going according to script. The double world champions were running riot at Ellis Park, stomping over the gain line with every carry, shrugging off tacklers and hammering anyone unlucky enough to be wearing a gold jersey.
Australia had touched the ball twice before Kurt-Lee Arendse scored the opening try; once when James O'Connor kicked off, then again when Tom Wright spilled a contestable kick. Twelve minutes later André Esterhuizen sliced through the right before Siya Kolisi bulldozed over under the posts. Manie Libbok kicked seven extra points to nudge the score to 22-0 in South Africa's favour. We'd not yet reached the quarter mark of this one-sided contest.
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii had his nose bloodied by Eben Etzebeth. Will Skelton was being bullied. O'Connor, parachuted in at fly-half, had been steamrolled on three occasions. The Wallabies had arrived in Johannesburg with reputations enhanced after their Lions series defeat. This felt like a reality check.
And then Fraser McReight won a penalty on the ground in his own 22. 'Momentum' is an overused word in rugby, usually cited only in hindsight. Yet this was the spark. It was here that Australia turned around, dug their heels in and fired shots of their own. It was here that Australian rugby under Joe Schmidt ascended another level. Four consecutive penalties later and Dylan Pietsch was sliding over in the corner.
South Africa's failings compounded matters. 'We were really dogshit on the day,' their coach Rassie Erasmus said. Too often they overplayed and were inaccurate in the red zone. Their inability to secure the ball was a concern against Italy and Georgia during the July internationals. Now it is a glaring weakness. Any team with a back row as dynamic as the one under Schmidt's watch will cause the Boks a world of trouble.
Two minutes after the restart Nick Frost nicked a lineout. Then Angus Bell thumped Malcolm Marx before finding Harry Wilson on a superb line. Ellis Park was hushed, as if 60,000 people realised at once that the Springboks' aura of invincibility was just a story they'd been told.
The players seemed to sense it too. Most of them lifted the Webb Ellis Cup two years ago after a hat-trick of one-point victories. They've made a habit of snatching triumphs from hopeless causes but momentum was fully against them. Perhaps this is why Libbok forced the issue from inside his own half with an ambitious floating pass only to see Suaalii pluck it from the thin Highveld air and dot it down for a try on the hour.
Wilson had his second, sparked by the magnificent Wright who didn't put a foot wrong after that opening knock-on, to give Australia the lead. Mere seconds after the restart Max Jorgensen was flying down the right tramline to open up the advantage. And when McReight stooped low with just seven minutes left, getting his meaty frame over the ball with the Boks swarming inside Australia's 22, the game was won. Wright's cherry-on-the-top, counterattacking, zigzagging try turned the result from a nail-biting upset to a bona fide shellacking. Make no mistake, this is the biggest hiding the world champions have copped since their fairytale run began in 2019.
'I don't think it was about one moment,' Schmidt said when asked how his team pulled this off. 'It was about sticking to what we'd talked about all week. The boys showed a lot of courage, and when we got a foothold, we kept building.' That is the emerging story of Schmidt's Wallabies: a side that doesn't collapse but grows when written off. They stole a late win at Twickenham last year, rallied against the Lions after a poor first Test, and now turned a 22-point deficit into a first win in Johannesburg since 1963.
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Does all this put the Lions series result in context? Are South Africa's veterans now a step behind? Are they caught between two philosophies, one that trusts in traditional might while the other compels them to run it from deep? Can we declare that Aussie rugby is officially back?
This always seems to happen when Australia flips the script and produces something special. But maybe this is the script. Maybe a team with a solid set-piece, a totem in the lineout, berserkers at the breakdown, ballers in the midfield and dazzlers in the backfield are simply a formidable outfit that deserve more respect than they've been shown.
Maybe those players under the guidance of a coach who appreciates rugby's fundamentals and knows how to get the most out of his charges can be more than just a plucky side character. If this is indeed the redrafting of a story we thought we all knew, then the entire sport will be better for it. Not that Erasmus will be too bothered with all that. He'll already be plotting a way back in the sequel next week.