New Zealand may have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the final of the Nelson Mandela Bay Sevens tournament in Port Elizabeth at the weekend, but their 31-26 victory over the Blitz bokke showed the South Africans are a team on the up.
40 games down and eight cracking games to come in the race to take ‘Bill’ home. This is how the Rugby World Cup is set up for the next three weeks and this weekend sees four massive quarter-finals.
So the Springboks won their Tri-Nations encounter against the All Blacks 18-5. The way the Boks went about it suggests to me they did everything in their power to ensure they did not suffer the embarrassing feat of having their first winless Tri-Nations tournament ever.
Barring a massive upset, All Black’s McCaw’s fingerprints will be all over the trophy on October 23 after the final at Eden Park, where the All Blacks haven’t lost an international since 1994.
The All Blacks were far too good for the Springboks in their Tri-Nations opener, beating the Boks 40-7 in a commanding performance in Wellington over the weekend.
James McDonald closed a highly successful short-term stint in Hong Kong with a quartet at Sha Tin on Sunday
