Rugby Championship 2022

Following a 38-21 victory for South Africa over Argentina in their Rugby Championship clash, here's our five takeaways from the match in Durban.

Out of position, out of shape and out of gas, any suggestion of South Africa playing for the 39-point win they needed ended whenever the ball came his way. Now don’t think for one moment that we are criticising the actual cards, the key here is that there are far too many offences that now appear to warrant a sin-bin. Frustratingly, time and time again they conceded the same penalties: three for binding on the leg at maul time, four for collapsing the maul (and two penalty tries with matching yellow cards). Their defence at times was superb, they won the aerial battle and bossed the drop zone, but the hammering they took at scrumtime against a world-class set-piece simply meant that at every point of the match they were trying to play catch up rugby. But this weekend he turned up and turned up big time as his massive scrummaging performance was the key to the Bok win. At times, their rolling maul stuttered (especially when Eben Etzebeth was in the bin) and their lineout was less than its certain self, with a number of squint throws from Malcolm Marx resulting in turnovers.