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Marx (5'), Kolbe (9'), Tshituka (22', 69'), Wessels (45'), Arendse (57'), Jager (59'), Allende (82')
Tries
Jaminet (64')
Feinberg-Mngomezulu (10', 23'), Libbok (46', 58', 60', 69', 83')
Conversions
Jaminet (65')
With more than 45,000 tickets sold and the fans trying their best to create a vibe at DHL Stadium in Cape Town in very wet weather, a team with limited preparations, and the torrential rain meant the well-drilled Springboks easily defeated the visiting Barbarians for only the second time on Saturday, 28th June.
The 54-7 scoreline meant they claimed a third Qatar Airways Cup, and the Barbarians said online, “Congratulations to the Springboks on a great win - Too powerful for us today, but we’ve loved being in the Mother City.” It was also a final swansong for Cian Healy and Peter O’Mahony as the two Irish legends played their final professional games.
Captain for the hosts Jesse Kriel explained after the final whistle, “We came in here to be bold and positive and not let the conditions affect us and keep the ball in hand, and I thought we looked dangerous on turnover ball.
I thought we looked dangerous when we got the ball into guys like Aphelele Fassi, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Cheslin Kolbe’s hands. They’re special rugby players, they can make something out of nothing, and we saw that today.”
Mid-week, former Springboks and Barbarians in a South African themed jersey presentation saw Fracois Louw and recently forced to retire Steven Kitshoff do the honours for the visitors.
Barbarians captain Peter O’Mahoney showed a touch of class as he presented Cornal Hendriks' family, who were the flag bearers for the host nation, a Barbarians jersey with Hendriks' name embalzened on the back following his recent tragic passing.
That was followed by a fly-over by Qatar Airways above the stadium in gloomy weather - all the elements of what Barbarians rugby is about were on display before the whistle got things underway.
However, aside from a couple of poor trick play attempts at lineouts, we didn't see too much, unfortunately, from the Baabaas that will make it onto the highlights reel, and their single try was fine from a discarded Frenchman Melvyn Jaminet - it was not vintage Baabaas. It was a team that looked undercooked and probably nursing a week of indulgence, but it was always going to be a hard task to upset the hosts in their backyard.
There can be those who say the way the Boks approached the game might not be in the spirit of the fixture, as they pulverised the Baabaas but they scored some excellent tries and all week had said the approach was about getting the structure and processes right, while deepening their talent pool at the highest level.
All four players who wore the green emblem for the first time did well, props Asenathi Ntlabakanye and Neethling Fouche, Vincent Tshituka on the flank and Marnus van der Merwe at hooker - with the latter two both scoring tries.
A team already blessed with bountiful locks, front-rowers, and scrumhalves, added more depth in those ranks. They even looked to be forced to play the large frame of centre Andrew Esterhuisen on the flank after injuries forced their hand. But the Springbok Head Coach Erasmus described it as a new hybrid role, and that it had been in the planning for some months.
“You can call him a hybrid player, but he is a backline player who can also play in the forwards now. He has been training with both the forwards and the backs, and I must say Felix Jones handles his load very well in how much he does with the forwards and how much he does with the backs. We started chatting to him about it five months ago, but he is a backline player who can also play forward.”
Esterhuisen himself said of the hybrid role, “We obviously spoke about it, and we came to an agreement. I said I would like to try it, and it gives you so much more options…It has been brought up in the past, and then just shrugged off for different reasons and by different people.
“But as I get older, you learn how you can slot in everywhere, and how you can get yourself in the team more consistently. You have to adapt as a player. I’m looking forward to what it can be, and what it can work out to be.”
The back three from the Boks, so dangerous on paper, delivered as both Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse found meters and defensive holes as their magical quick feet were too much for the tiring defenders. Fassi was solid at the back and good with the ball in hand.
Up front, the forwards, for the most part, bullied their opponents and got the driving mauls and set pieces working really well. The team produced 8 tries in a mix of power and finesse.
Springboks 54 (19) – Tries: Malcolm Marx, Cheslin Kolbe, Vincent Tshituka (2), Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Lood de Jager, Damian De Allende. Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (2), Manie Libbok (5).
Barbarians 7 (0) – Try: Melvyn Jaminet. Conversion: Jaminet.
South Africa hosts Italy over the next two weekends, and the Azzurri were in Windhoek and played a very rare test match in Africa outside of South Africa, and thumped Rugby World Cup hopefuls Namibia 73-6 (without a few players as the match is outside of the international test window).
They scored 11 tries in their convincing win, and one to watch will be fullback Jacopo Trullo, who scored a hat-trick of tries.
Rassie Erasmus said, “We won’t get carried away with this performance. Certainly, some of the newer guys showed us that they can do it at this level, but we’ll layer them in.
We know who is going to play in Italy one and two, and certainly by the end of the Georgia game, which will be a grind, we’ll have a group of 45, 50 that have had some game time.”
Italy face the Boks in Pretoria on 5 July and Gqeberha on 12 July and Erasmus commented, “Italy gave Namibia [a hiding]; I know they’re not one of the Tier 1 nations but they gave them 70 points, and we saw how well they played in the first two Test matches in the Six Nations.”
