Wales came up short in their quest to add a first ever series win in South Africa to their maiden Test success in the Rainbow Nation a week earlier.
As ever, there were those who fell into the winners’ and losers’ brackets – and this is how we saw it….
WINNERS
The Springbok wrecking crew
This is not the name of some hooligan faction among the nation’s fans, but a tag that could be applied to the nucleus of players that make South Africa arguably the most physical rugby side on the planet.
It would be churlish to call a world champion outfit limited – they are not – but their winning strategy owes nothing to breakthroughs in the field of rocket science.
They reverted to type to get this series won. In short, the power and physical dominance so many individual players in their ranks are able to exert.
Wales simply didn’t have an answer in the end. If the series had been a boxing match they would have gone the distance, but lost on points despite a rally in the middle four rounds of the bout.
There are very few teams who can cope with the relentless brute force the Boks exert.
Wales were brave to the point of heroism in spells, but they buckled eventually.
The Wales management
Before flying out to South Africa, rumours abounded that the Wales camp was not the happiest of environments.
And that was down to more than the natural frustration of having lost to Italy in the final Six Nations match.
There were suggestions not all were buying into Wayne Pivac’s methods and philosophy, and that such discontent would likely manifest on the pitch against the Springboks.
Who knows whether such rumours had, or have, any substance, but one thing we do know is that there’s nothing wrong with the desire and work ethic of this Wales team.
Cynics will claim that those qualities should be a given when representing your country. Fair comment.
But we know that when players stop believing in those directing them, things begin to unravel where it matters most – in match combat.
Well, the proof of the pudding and all that…there’s simply no discernible evidence from what we’ve seen on tour that Welsh players are not giving everything for the cause and buying into a common strategy.
For that credit not just Pivac, but Gethin Jenkins, Stephen Jones, Jonathan Humphreys and the rest.
Their stock as a group has risen sharply in the last month.
Eben Etzebeth
Last weekend he was something of a villain for conceding two penalties towards the end of the second Test which handed enough initiative to Wales to see the visitors win.
This week Etzebeth was winning his 100th cap and part of a series winning side that responded to an overall challenge from Wales that was almost certainly bigger than they had anticipated.
Etzebeth is following the footsteps of the great Victor Matfield, though has some way to go to be revered in quite the same way as his illustrious predecessor.
He will see this as normal service resumed. It was a fitting way to mark 100 not out.
George North
Talking of cap milestones, the Ospreys man became Wales’ most capped ever back, clocking up 105 and passing the previous mark set by Stephen Jones.
On a tour where Wales attacked so little, largely because of their failure to cross the gain-line, North did not catch the eye in the sort of way he did when making his name on the Test scene more than a decade ago.
But after the sort of injury nightmare that made him doubt he’d ever play for his country again, the 30-year-old can reflect on a solid showing across the three games.
North did nothing spectacular, but he did his job, he put his body on the line as much as his team-mates did, and there were signs in the third Test, as you might expect, that he is going from strength to strength.
To have 105 caps at the age of 30 is phenomenal when you think about it.
And while North has had his disappointing moments on international duty, he’s already down as one of the greats.
Dan Lydiate
Plenty of eyes rolled when Dan Lydiate, in his 35th year, was chosen for this assignment.
Surely the old warhorse was a spent force, surely he had the stuffing knocked out of him over the course of the Gatland years, when Lydiate rose to prominence at the highest level?
Actually, no.
Lydiate proved a shrewd bit of selection work on the part of Pivac.
The Ospreys man didn’t deserve his third Test fate in having to retire hurt in the 16th minute because he was one of the series stalwarts.
Who knows what hay South Africa would have made going forward had it not been for the brutal scything down of so many green-shirted runners by Lydiate.
How much he has left in the tank is anyone’s guess. And back row is hardly an uncompetitive area for Wales.
But if this is Lydiate’s Wales swansong, then what a way to go.
Rate the Wales players
LOSERS
South Africa
OK, this does seem perverse on the face of it, a case of sour grapes? Not really.
While South Africa deserve credit for winning the series, what has stuck out a mile has been their limitations.
You wonder whether they are on the way down following their World Cup success, whether on this evidence they can repeat the dose next year?
Their performance in the first Test was, by their standards, dismal.
They then attempted to show what strength in depth they had by picking almost an entirely different squad for the second game. We know how that ended.
And then even in the third Test, while they were comfortably the better side, and while they might have finished with a couple more tries on the ledger with a tad more fortune, there was still little for their supporters to truly get excited about.
They showed little ambition in attack save for the lineout rolling maul and, over the course of the entire series, they made too many errors and failed to work the scoreboard enough when they were in the ascendancy.
They have a series victory, but much to work on if they are to hang onto their gold pot in 2023.
The Cape Town Stadium management
Some words of advice for those whose responsibility it is to ensure a pitch of international standard at the Cape Town Stadium: get your act together.
The surface at the futuristic venue was lamentable. Huge clods of turf rolled up like a lounge rug at scrum time. Worse, players slipped and slid with alarming regularity. You’d have hated to be a goalkicker with all the concerns about planting the non-kicking foot.
It was unacceptable and harked back to the bad old days of the Millennium Stadium pallets which used to make the pitch in Cardiff look like the Horse of the Year Show was being held on it.
The powers that be in Cape Town must invest in something better.
The regions (potentially)
Well, they are potential losers on two counts.
The first is the toll this brutally physical tour has taken on their players. Let’s hope it isn’t as bad as it’s understandably feared it might be.
But what price at least a small handful of players arrive back in Wales requiring surgery of some sort and a lengthier spell away from the game than they had anticipated.
Fingers crossed on that front, but on the second one the cost is less quantifiable.
If the regions’ plight is now somehow downgraded in severity because of an upturn in the fortunes of the national team, then they really will be losers.
The achievements of this tour have come in spite of what’s going on at the elite end of the domestic game. The problems that bedevilled the professional game in Wales remain as stark as ever they were.
There should be no attempt by the Welsh Rugby Union to bask in the glow of the last few weeks, or to use it as an indicator that things are perhaps not as bad as had been made out.
Because they are. In fact, they’re probably worse.
What we’ve seen this year, for all the positives of a first win in South Africa and a better-than-expected tour, is Wales falling down the world rankings and the general international pecking order.
That hasn’t really changed.
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