Brutal & brilliant Boks blank Italy
This was proper from the Boks. They were brutal, brilliant and belligerent in blanking Italy to secure a two-nil series win in South Africa, writes Mark Keohane.
For those of my mates who may struggle with English as a first language, belligerent is described as a person or persons who are inclined to or exhibit assertiveness, hostility, or combativeness.
FOR ALL OF THE ABOVE READ RASSIE ERASMUS’S SPRINGBOKS IN DISMANTLING ITALY 45-0.
Edwill van der Merwe, in the No 14 jersey, got the Player of the Match for two tries and a fine all-round display. It was his second Player of the Match in two Tests played, thirteen months apart. Van der Merwe is a symbol of the depth of Test player currently in South Africa.
Queue Rassie Erasmus for building this depth.
The back-to-back World Cup winners and No 1 team in the world, raced to a 28-3 lead at halftime against Italy in Pretoria a week ago. That match 23 included 19 World Cup winners. Then they went into neutral in a second half won 21-14 by Italy.
Erasmus wasn’t as much frustrated at the post match media conference, as he has pissed off. The Boks had conceded three tries, which could have been five, had backtracked for a 20-metre maul try to Italy and finished the match with 42 points, six tries and the most hollow sense of victory.
Just six of those 23 survived for the second Test and the intent was tangible from the Boks.
This was proper. This was hunger and this was intensity.
Erasmus this past week spoke of performance and not result. He got performance and he got result, which was not in the 45 points scored by in the zero conceded over 81 minutes.
Italy were crushed. It is the way it should be when the Boks play Italy in South Africa.
There was so much to applaud, given the Boks played with 14 after Jasper Wiese’s red card in the 20th minute. and for a few minutes they were were playing 13 v 15, until Italy got an overdue yellow and it was 14 on 15. Just in the final four minutes was it 14 on 14.
This was a LEKKER Bokke performance.
Erasmus this past fortnight picked two very different match 23s and each scored 40-plus points.
What Saturday’s second-Test winners did was show the greater appetite to defend and keep Italy scoreless.
That desperation is going to be a tipping point when Erasmus makes his calls on who gets to go to Australia for the World Cup in 2027, as the Boks aim for an unprecedented third successive World Cup.
Erasmus wanted desire, in defence, as much as in the search for the try line, and he got it.
This was a display rich in reward when it came to performance. Salmaan Moerat led from the front as captain, Marco van Staden was busy, Malcolm Marx was on another planet in excellence and Pieter-Steph du Toit defied physical in going 81 minutes in his first match in more than six months.
Van der Merwe got the popular vote from SuperSport, but for me Grant Williams at scrum half was the biggest individual winner on the night. The No 9 jersey has no owner right now and plenty visitors.
Williams has missed the past two months with injury, but in his first start he was electric, present, explosive and exceptional.
My Sunday Times column (KEO UNCUT) refers, but a summary of Sunday’s opinion is that this was pure theatre at its most intense and brutal best.
It wasn’t that the Boks got 45; more that Italy got ZERO.
THE BATTLE FOR THE BOKS NO 9 JERSEY
*The All Blacks were powerful in the first 40 against France’s C team, but indifferent int he second half in winning 43-17. The British & Irish Lions were dominant in smashing an Australian/New Zealand mix of Test rejects and Neville Nobodies 48-0, Wales won for the first time in 19 Tests and Fiji were comfortable winners against Scotland in Suva.
Zels and I will chat on Monday in detail on the Keo & Zels show.
BOKS 45 ITALY 0 – ALL THE ACTION AND REACTION ON SA RUGBY MAG
