The Springboks have yet to beat the All Blacks at the FNB Stadium, and will be hoping to make it third time luck on Saturday.
Springbok loose forward Pieter-Steph du Toit poses with captain Siya Kolisi after winning his 100th Test for the Boks against the All Blacks in Cape Town last weekend. Picture: Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images
The Springboks managed to break their 100-cap curse against the All Blacks over the past weekend in Cape Town, when Pieter-Steph du Toit became the first Bok to win his 100th game against their greatest foes.
Now the Boks will be targeting their first ever win over the All Blacks at the FNB Stadium in Soweto, in the third Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Test on Saturday.
The 100-Test curse was a bigger one to break, as four previous Bok centurions had lost against the All Blacks in their landmark game.
The first ever Springbok centurion, Percy Montgomery, was the first in Cape Town in 2008, losing the match 19-0.
John Smit followed in Johannesburg in 2010, going down 29-22, while Jean de Villiers in Wellington in 2014 suffered a 14-10 defeat and Damian de Allende in Joburg again earlier this month lost 33-16.
Thus, Du Toit emerging victorious 33-26 in his 100th Test this past Saturday was a superb achievement and a fitting way to celebrate the landmark game.
First of two
Former Bok captain Smit’s 100th in 2010 was in fact the first of just two matches between the Boks and All Blacks at the FNB Stadium. They met at the stadium again in 2012 with the visitors again coming out on top, 32-16.
On 11 July 2010 Spain beat the Netherlands 1-0 at the FNB Stadium, also known as the Calabash and Soccer City, to lift the 2010 Soccer World Cup trophy.
Fast forward six weeks and the Boks hosted the All Blacks at the stadium in Smit’s landmark match, in front of a record crowd of 94,713 people, and were heartbreakingly beaten in a frenetic finish.
It was the 2010 Tri Nations tournament and the Boks had already lost two games against the All Blacks, 32-12 in Auckland and 31-17 in Wellington.
The Boks held a tight 16-14 lead at halftime, thanks to three penalties from the boot of flyhalf Morne Steyn and a converted Schalk Burger try, while the All Blacks’ points came from three Dan Carter penalties and an unconverted score by prop Tony Woodcock.
Two more Steyn penalties pushed the Boks into a 22-14 lead by the 62nd minute, but a Carter penalty four minutes later brought the All Blacks back within range.
With time ticking down and just three minutes left on the clock captain Richie McCaw crashed over for an unconverted try to draw the scores level, and in the final minute replacement wing Israel Dagg cruised over to clinch the win and break the Springboks’ and packed stadium’s hearts.
Second match
The match in 2012 was in front of a smaller, but still significant crowd of 80,753 people, and they again had to watch the Boks go down from a winning position.
This time the Boks had a slightly bigger lead at halftime, 16-12, thanks to a converted try by wing Bryan Habana, and three penalties, one from the boot of flyhalf Johan Goosen and two from replacement flyhalf Elton Jantjies, while the All Blacks’ points came from tries by lock Sam Whitelock and scrumhalf Aaron Smith, with one conversion from Carter.
But the second half was a complete blowout as the All Blacks added a further 20 points, through converted tries by centres Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith, as well as a drop goal and penalty from Carter, while the Boks were kept scoreless.
The Boks did manage to get a win at the FNB Stadium, in their third and last match to date to have been played at the stadium, a 73-13 thrashing of Argentina in the Rugby Championship in 2013.
But they will now be looking to finally beat the All Blacks there as well to also take a 2-1 lead in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series, heading into the final Test in the USA next weekend.
