For 20 minutes, it was South Africa rugby’s game in Yokohama.
The Springboks started superbly, building around their defence and keeping New Zealand rugby in their own territory.
The Springboks executed their game plan perfectly. Defensively they rely on a relentless blitz led by centre pair Damian de Allende and Lukhanyo Am, getting up into the face of the distributors and forcing quick decisions, and, almost invariably, errors.
They also recognised the refereeing style of Jerome Garces, and used it to their benefit. Garces is slow to his whistle and lets plenty go, particularly at the breakdown. South Africa capitalised, throwing bodies into the contest on the floor and ensuring slow New Zealand ball, allowing the rush defence to assemble itself and coordinate.
To and fro New Zealand threw the ball, working left then right with increasingly risky offloads, with few finding hands safely. The intensity of the South African rattled the typically serene playmaking pair of Beauden Barrett and Richie Mo’unga. The All Blacks were forcing passes, trying low percentage plays and finding the increasingly spoiled and slow ball frustrating.
Their first adjustment was to try and put depth on the ball, with Barrett and Mo’unga directly in combination, and decoy runners ahead of a second receiver. But such schemes rely on efficiency and accuracy of pass, and work best with quicker ball. New Zealand had neither. There attempts to force the ball wide repeatedly met their end at the hands of Am, holding the corner expertly at outside centre, rushing up to the secondary distributor behind the line and preventing the ball being moved wider to the wings.
New Zealand’s best attacking movements in these opening stages came from such players cutting back against the grain to avoid Am, but this is not a sustainable way to build an attack, and often Barrett and Mo’unga were forced into the teeth of the defence, and often into contact against the monstrous forward pack the Springboks possess.
This is exactly how their defensive system is designed to operate. New Zealand continued to force passes and make errors.
The errors came, and South Africa can count themselves unlucky that none of the dropped balls and errant passes found Springbok hands, and had only three points on the board through 20 minutes.
Yet they were dictating the flow. New Zealand looked incapable of efficient exits, and had not yet brought any of their more destructive carriers into the game.
And then the All Blacks, as they so often do to such success, adjusted.
After getting on the board with three points after capitalising on a South African error, New Zealand remodelled their attacking pattern.
Whereas in the first 20 minutes Barrett and Mo’unga were often used in the same passing line, the pair split to each side of the ruck, with both operating as potential first receivers.
This widened the New Zealand attack. With two fine passers of a rugby ball used to operating as primary distributors, the ball could be worked wide in either direction quickly and accurately.
Key to the All Blacks’ resurgence was scrum-half Aaron Smith, too. There is no more accurate passer from the base than Smith, and, to use American football parlance for a moment, his release (the speed with which he completes his passing movement) is quicker than any other nine in world rugby.
New Zealand sent more resources to each ruck to prevent South Africa spoiling, and ensure quicker ball. Smith whipped the ball to either Mo’unga or Barrett, who could swiftly work the ball wider, before de Allende and Am were able to rush up and hinder.
Another notable change was the increased usage of the more athletic New Zealand forwards in wide channels. Ardie Savea patrolled the right touchline; Dane Coles and Scott Barrett the left. All are expert operators in open spaces, and ball-handlers, too, with an ability to pick and choose the right moments for passes and offloads. This meant that when the ball was moved wide it was used well, and the spaces weren’t wasted.
The other way of moving the ball wide quickly is to go to the boot. Mo’unga and Barrett are both strong attacking kickers. It was something the All Blacks had clearly talked about in the build-up to the game – at least twice in the first quarter one of the two looked to go to the boot to get the ball wide but found the slow ball costly, and their attempts smothered.
But with rucks better resourced and quick ball available, the two playmakers now had time to unfurl their kicks, and it was from one such moment that the first try came.
The weakest defender in the South African backline is Makazole Mapimpi. He is not a natural one-on-one tackler, and the least experienced member of the backline in a rush defence. If you can get the ball wide of Am and de Allende, Mapimpi can be left exposed. Mo’unga exploited this, prodding a deft little crosskick into the hands of Sevu Reece, with Mapimimi unsure of whether to commit to the contest for the ball, take Reece as he landed or churn his feet to try and hold his ground.
He chose the latter, but found himself on his heels and exposed in space, expecting Reece to zig inside rather than zag to the outside. Reece hitch-kicked and was away down the right touchline, finding good support from Savea – lurking in the wide channel, of course.
The ball was worked to the left and Beauden Barrett found the South African inside defence disintegrated in transition. Through a gap he knifed and fed George Bridge for the score.
Momentum was now with New Zealand, and the South Africans’ intensity had begun to dip. One of the cons of such a demanding defensive system is fatigue. It takes huge effort to repeatedly blitz, and the Springboks were beginning to pay.
The second try came as a result, even though the initial South African defence was solid. New Zealand worked the ball to the left wing and into the hands of Dane Coles. Wing Cheslin Kolbe, a more natural defender than Mapimpi, combatted the overlap superbly, and Pieter-Steph du Toit was able to hustle across and make a covering tackle.
Cole speculatively offloaded, and found the hands of Anton Lienert-Brown, who cut infield. In the game’s opening stages, this would take him into a well organised group of forwards; with South Africa tiring, Malcolm Marx and Franco Mostert were disconnected and laboured in their attempts to provide inside cover.
Through a gap Lienert-Brown surged, and the support came with him. Another con of the blitz defence is that it means covering defenders generally can’t get back if a line break is made, and that was the case here. A simple pass inside from Lienert-Brown, and Scott Barrett lumbered beneath the posts for the score.
New Zealand had scored 17 points in less than ten minutes. They had adapted, taken their chances, and, ultimately, won the game.
They had, in the process, turned South Africa’s greatest strength, the rush defence, into a weakness.
