In the words of Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus, the Springboks “got what they wanted” in their 41-7 win over Japan on Friday.
Firstly, the Boks wanted to beat the World Cup hosts for the first time in history and they did that quite convincingly, running in six tries to one.
More importantly, the Springboks wanted to test their plan.
They controlled the pace of the game as they would have wanted to from the first whistle and allowed Japan the bulk of the possession, 61 percent of it in the first half.
When they had the ball, they attacked off their set piece and forced Japan to give them counter-attacking ball.
Like Erasmus says: “The game went pretty much as we wanted it to.
TOUCHDOWN: Cheslin Kolbe scored the Springboks’ first try against Japan on Friday. Photo: Issei Kato/Reuters.
“We put up a lot of contestable kicks because they have not faced that much and we wanted to see how they handled that. We scored four of our seven tries from contestable kick turnover, so we’re happy how that turned out.”
The first of those touchdowns came via right wing Cheslin Kolbe. From an attacking scrum, Lukhanyo Am ran a great line, before Willie le Roux followed suit, with the ball eventually going wide to Kolbe for the five-pointer.
The Boks doubled their lead in the 24th minute when Le Roux took a superb high-ball catch to offload to Makazole Mapimpi for the first of his three tries.
TIGHT ON DEFENCE: The Springboks. Photo: Franck Robinchon/EPA.
It was soon 19-0 after the Boks attacked from a scrum, with Damian de Allende being the first receiver before finding Handre Pollard behind him, with Le Roux giving the final pass to Mapimpi. A Pollard penalty gave the Boks a 22-0 lead at the break.
Japan attacked the Springboks after the two sides changed ends and at one stage took the ball through 15 phases, before captain Siya Kolisi forced a turnover.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/StrongerTogether?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#StrongerTogether #LoveJapan pic.twitter.com/kbEnmh39Fn
— Springboks (@Springboks)
The Boks can take heart from their defensive performance an area they most wanted to test.
But it was on attack where they were on fire, with Mapimpi completing his hattrick in the 52nd minute, before Japan finally broke their defence.
The game got scrappy towards the end, as the Boks ran in two more tries via Kolbe and replacement scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies, who scored his fourth try in as many Tests.