Wallabies flyhalf Quade Cooper shattered Springbok hearts on Sunday with a penalty conversion with the final kick of the match as Australia downed South Africa 28-26 in Queensland.
Cooper punished an ill-disciplined and wasteful Springbok side by scoring 23 points off the kicking tee, while South Africa’s kickers missed a total of 10 points and a further five points were thrown away when centre Lukhanyo Am failed to ground the ball in-goal in the first half.
Still, the world champions outscored their hosts three tries to one. But with captain Siya Kolisi (dangerous tackle) and Willie le Roux (deliberate knockdown) both yellow carded in the clash, it was South Africa’s senior players that let the team down on the day.
Vice-captain Handre Pollard, who missed eight points with the boot, had a shocking outing as well.
Of the result, coach Jaques Nienaber says: “We gave them 23 points off the tee and that’s the reason why we lost.”
He adds: “I don’t think we were great today. We were a little bit off our game – especially from a discipline point of view.
“We scored three tries, and there were more opportunities to get two more tries, we didn’t finish.
“It wasn’t a polished performance – we have to fix those things and look at our discipline.”
Nienaber will find some comfort in the fact that his charges showed some heart to make a fist of it, after trailing 19-11 at the break.
After Cooper and Pollard exchanged penalties early on, the Aussies got their first-half advantage straight after Kolisi’s yellow card when wing Andrew Kellaway stepped the last line of defence after a good run by centre Samu Kerevi in the 17th minute (13-6).
Am then knocked on the ball in goal after a rolling maul by the Boks, but they finally did manage to dot down via Bongi Mbonambi after setting up another maul (13-11).
The Wallabies, meanwhile, were also on the wrong end of referee Luke Pearce’s whistle and with 17 penalties against them – the Boks conceded 11 – had lock Matt Philip in the cooler after repeated maul collapses.
They later also played with 14 men for 10 minutes when Folau Fainga'a was sin-binned in the second half.
But while the Boks failed to punish the hosts’ ill-discipline, Cooper added two more penalty conversions to make it 19-11 at the break.
A Pollard penalty and another by Cooper made it 22-14, before Le Roux was carded.
The Boks’ Bomb Squad then entered the fray and gave their fans some hope when Malcolm Marx scored off the back of a rolling maul in the 59th minute (22-21).
A Cooper penalty two minutes later gave the Wallabies a four-point lead – 25-21.
But when Marx scored his second in a similar fashion nine minutes from time, the Boks held a one-point (26-25) lead after replacement pivot Damian Willemse missed the conversion.
They couldn’t hold on, though, with Cooper breaking their hearts with a last-minute penalty won on a Bok scrum.
The two teams lock horns in Queensland again next week.
Australia – Try: Andrew Kellaway; Conversion: Quade Cooper; Penalties: Cooper (7).
South Africa – Tries: Bongi Mbonambi and Malcolm Marx (2); Penalties: Handre Pollard (3); Conversion: Pollard.