Boks fail to take chances

George Gregan of the Wallabies passes the ball. Adam Pretty / Getty Images

Australia 20 South Africa 18

If the Boks thought losing 49-0 in their previous test against the Wallabies was galling, it was nothing compared with the insult of playing in a half-empty stadium last night.

They so nearly got their revenge, though, scaring the life out of a Wallaby side that needed a very late Mat Rogers try to get out of a jail they most certainly deserved to be in.

The Boks had them on toast for most of the second half, scoring well-constructed tries through Jaque Fourie and Percy Montgomery.

Even when they fell 20-18 behind with just five minutes remaining, South Africa still looked like they could pull off the impossible until clumsy handling blighted their chances of working into field-goal range.

Given their supremacy, this was a defeat that would have pained the Boks possibly more than the previous hammering in Brisbane, but not as much as the thousands of empty seats at Telstra Stadium which were a massive slap in the face for South Africa. Test tickets cost a bit and the Australian public just couldn't see that the Boks were going to deliver value for money.

Lethargy, disdain or an eerie sense of what was about to come, it doesn't matter - more people turned up to watch the Wallabies play Scotland in 2004.

That's not only a sad state of affairs for rugby, it's now a major worry. There were empty seats in both Christchurch and Wellington as well.

Sanzar can prattle on about more people watching the Tri Nations than ever before, but it's false economics. Of course the total audience is bigger - the competition is 50 per cent longer than in previous years.

The reality is - and Sanzar can ignore it at its peril - that expanding the Tri Nations has turned test football into elevator music. It's always on in the background without the ability to seriously engage an audience.

The last 20 minutes were dramatic, but the first 60 were like a buzzing fridge - a seriously irritating business without a single redeeming feature.

The ball was kicked 30 times in 30 minutes, although strangely only once between the uprights. The Boks could barely go more than three passes without dropping the ball or falling over.

The Wallabies weren't much better. Their scrum was, as usual, under massive pressure. Coach John Connolly reckons his front row will keep getting better. Maybe. But maybe he should bring back Matt Dunning. The drop-kicking butterball couldn't really be any worse than Rodzilla, whose about as effective as creme brule.

It surely came as no surprise to see the opening score of the game come from a Butch James cross-kick that almost travelled backwards.

If Lady Luck had been smiling on James, the ball would have spooned into the arms of Bryan Habana. No joy, though. It was Mark Gerrard who was the grateful recipient and he took off to dot down between the posts.

Australia 20 (M. Gerrard, M. Rogers tries; S. Mortlock 2 con, 2 pens).
South Africa 18 (J. Fourie, P. Montgomery tries; B. James con, 2 pens).