Sunday, 8th July 2007 at 1:02 pm

Boks start the party - but Wallabies finish it

For the first 20 minutes, it was absolutely glorious. Wickus van Heerden wrestling his way over, an ageless Breyton Paulse gleefully seizing an intercept (and getting a full house of tens from the judges for the perfectly executed Arab spring and sommersault combination, with faultless landing, after he’d scored), Derick Hougaard knocking over a penalty… 17-0 in the first quarter, and the Australian High Commission in Pretoria was on speed dial for after the game.

But in the end an inexperienced team with little time together couldn’t quite hold out against a Wallaby side that got to say goodbye to george Gregan and Stephen Larkham on a fitting note. It’s not always a surgical unit, but the Australian backline can be ruthless when it finds its rhythm, and a couple of splendid tries showed up a South African backline that didn’t have creative intent terribly high on its list of objectives.

A Wallaby win, then, but no embarrassment for the much-maligned Springbok ‘B’ squad; an eight point defeat, and the loss of skipper Bob Skinstad for the All Black Test, underlining Jake White’s reasons for leaving key players at home. Who’ll lead the side in Christchurch will be next week’s hot topic; for now, South African fans can cherish as enjoyable an opening 20 minutes as we’ve had in recent internationals, and assurance that the depth of Springbok rugby is fairly robust.