South Africa 32
New Zealand 29
The All Blacks found some compassion from their Springbok conquerors as they endured their latest chapter of lineout horrors.
Visiting captain John Smit said the Springboks felt they could exert lineout pressure on any rivals because of the quality of their players and the amount of research they devoted to that area of the game.
With Bakkies Botha, Victor Matfield, Pierre Spies and Schalk Burger offering a range of strong lineout targets on Saturday in Hamilton, the Springboks were also able to summon that quartet to challenge any All Black formation.
"We can claim possession from other teams, not just the All Blacks," Smit said as he dissected his side's arsenal in their march to this season's Tri-Nations title. "It is a good area where we can put pressure.
"I would be surprised if we did not have lineout domination because we spend a lot of time, a lot of production and planning, and if we did not get a return it would be frustrating."
Smit could afford to sympathise after his side completed their third straight win against the All Blacks this year. Their 32-29 margin, to follow the 31-19 and 28-19 wins in Durban and Bloemfontein, did not measure the margin of Bok superiority.
However, they could have lost the match when one of Daniel Carter's crossfield kicks just missed its target with the South Africans' defence in disarray in the last play of the test.
The All Blacks gathered pace in the last 25 minutes of the match as they tried to reel in a 29-12 deficit. But any change to their poor opening 55 minutes would have been an improvement. At the same time, the Boks sat on their lead and were almost run down.
"But you can't win test matches by only playing a few minutes of football," loose forward Jerome Kaino said.
"We had a game plan but we could not even achieve that when we were unable to recycle our own ball."
Kaino said the Boks had been together for some time. They scrambled hard on defence, disrupted the All Blacks' continuity and made them pay for their indiscipline.
It would have been an injustice if the Boks had lost as they outplayed the All Blacks for the bulk of the clash.
The All Blacks' frenetic rush to the finish should not gloss over their earlier inadequacies. They were negligent in many areas of the match, but particularly the lineout and their discipline, as Matfield and Co in the air and "rocket-launcher" Francois Steyn feasted on the errors.
The Waikato area used to revel in the goalkicking deeds of D.B. Clarke, but Steyn may have topped those by nailing three penalties from inside his own half.
It was both stunning and deflating as Steyn crunched his kicks over on an evening when he, compatriot Morne Steyn and Carter did not miss one penalty or conversion among them.
The only blemish was Francois Steyn's narrow miss from 57m with a dropped-goal attempt.
"We turned over too much ball, we had no structure up front and turned ball over at the tackle," All Black coach Graham Henry said of his side's sloppy start. The Springboks had accumulated three convincing wins this year against his side.
The experiment of using the Carter and Stephen Donald partnership had not been a success, and the side had mixed results in the tactical kicking battle.
"I don't think it was as good as we hoped," Henry said of his Carter-Donald selection.
The side seemed more settled when Carter was left as the solitary director, and Ma'a Nonu, who had a poor game with his ball retention, was brought in a place to allow Isaia Toeava a run at centre.
