Peter Bills: Pietersen only spark in disjointed match

South Africa 24 Australia 16

JOHANNESBURG - A Tri-Nations season that started disastrously for South Africa and continued with uncertainty ended in suitably unconvincing fashion for the Boks at Ellis Park yesterday.

Victory over the Wallabies after the single point defeat of the All Blacks has at least stabilised the South Africans' season.

But they cannot look back overall with anything remotely suggesting satisfaction.

Australia and Johannesburg seem to go about as well together as iPods and dead batteries.

The Wallabies have won only once here in 73 years and there was insufficient life and spark from them again.

One reason may have been the three-week break they'd just had in this hopelessly lopsided tournament.

The Springboks couldn't claim they sparked for much of the time either.

If ever a single movement defined a match, it was Stephen Larkham's 44th-minute try for Australia, the first of a badly disjointed, disrupted test.

Australia took the ball into the Springbok 22 but turned it over. Victor Matfield emerged from the maul clutching it, set up a ruck for the Boks but it was promptly turned over again.

Johann Muller then badly missed his tackle on Wycliff Palu and when he was caught close to the line, Larkham supported for the score. It was a comedy of errors.

The many mistakes were often of a schoolboy standard and you could hardly blame New Zealand referee Steve Walsh for penalising players who constantly went off their feet at the breakdown, dived over the top or entered the ruck from the side.

Don't international players know these rules?

The way both sides coughed up possession would have alarmed their coaches. It meant that continuity and flow of movement was at an absolute premium throughout the game.

But there was another reason for this poor match. Both sides looked physically weary and mentally jaded.

This endless diet of non-stop tests for the sake of bloody television is threatening to ruin rugby at this level.

One thing is for sure - the public are increasingly voting with their feet and staying away.

Great swathes of the Ellis Park stands were deserted in a crowd of around 48,000 (just as the stadium at Rustenburg was sparsely populated for the New Zealand match the previous week).

But there was one considerable silver lining. Sometimes you witness for the first time a player of enormous potential make so impressive a debut that you know he should go on to become a super performer. JP Pietersen's skills at fullback lit up this match, from his confident handling of the high ball (one "bomb" by Larkham excepted which he spilled), to his expert positional play and lovely, gliding running style.

Springbok coach Jake White said after: "JP reminds me of Serge Blanco when he was just starting out on his international career". Praise indeed.

South Africa will take the win, breathe a huge sigh of relief at a decent finish to the protracted tournament and look to build for the next 12 months culminating in the World Cup.

But they'll be fools if they kid themselves it's business as usual after these two narrow wins.

This game merely served to confirm New Zealand's considerable superiority in the Southern Hemisphere.

* Peter Bills is a rugby writer with Independent News & Media.