Boks open up All Blacks
Rugby Union: South Africa 32 New Zealand
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Your support makes all the difference.Joost van der Westhuizen restored battered South African pride and cruelly ruined New Zealand's dreams of a place in rugby history. Van der Westhuizen popped up to score two vital tries to give the Springboks just enough breathing space to carve out their first win in five starts against the All Black.
The full-back Andre Joubert raced in for another brilliant score to push South Africa 32-8 clear midway through the second half but as the capacity 66,000 Ellis Park crowd started to celebrate, New Zealand found one last effort in the final 20 minutes.
First, in the 75th minute, Walter Little latched on to Andrew Mehrtens to score and three minutes later the scrum-half, Justin Marshall, forced his way through to ground the ball, but it was just a little too late.
South Africa had cruised away to the best possible start. In the fifth minute Henry Honiball, back in the side ahead of Joel Stransky, drilled over a penalty and five minutes later he made it 6-0 with another. Mehrtens pulled them back with a penalty from fully 60 metres in the 13th minute, but he was off target with another long-range kick and South Africa sensed they were very much in with a chance. In the 25th minute they got the score they needed when van der Westhuizen went in under the posts.
Joubert added another penalty but a Sean Fitzpatrick try moments from half-time looked like reviving New Zealand. The tries from Joubert and van der Westhuizen inside a five-minute second-half spell, however, were just enough to earn victory.
South Africa: A Joubert (Natal); J Swart (Western Province), J Mulder (Transvaal), D van Schalwyk (Northern Transvaal), P Hendriks (Transvaal), H Honiball (Natal), J van der Westhuizen (Northern Transvaal); M Hurter (Northern Transvaal), J Dalton (Transvaal), D Theron (Griqualand West); M Andrews (Natal), K Wiese (Transvaal); A Venter (OFS), R Kruger (Northern Transvaal), G Teichmann (Natal). Replacements: F van Heerdon (Western Province) for Andrews 39, J Stransky (Western Province) for Mulder 46, G Pagel (Western Province) for Theron 66, W Fyvie (Natal) for Venter.
New Zealand: C Cullen (Manawatu); J Wilson (Otago), F Bunce (North Harbour), W Little (North Harbour), G Osborne (North Harbour); A Mehrtens (Canterbury), J Marshall (Canterbury); O Brown (Auckland), S Fitzpatrick (Auckland), C Dowd (Auckland), I Jones (North Harbour), R Brooke (Auckland), J Kronfeld (Otago), M Jones (Auckland), Z Brooke (Auckland). Replacements: G Taylor (Northland) for I Jones 52, A Ieremia (Wellington) for Cullen 6.
Referee: D Bevan (Wales).
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