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PARIS - Argentina's hopes of beating South Africa in their World Cup semifinal relied heavily on Felipe Contepomi and the man dubbed the 'Magician' Juan Martin Hernandez.
But today the magic ran out.
Instead it was South Africa's kicker and record points scorer Percy Montgomery - who kicked seven from seven attempts - and halfback Fourie du Preez who sparked the Pumas' demise.
The individual brilliance of Bryan Habana, with his two tries, only served to highlight the difference between the two back divisions.
It was Contepomi's intercepted pass that handed the alert du Preez his try - running it all the way back from just outside his 22 - and when that was followed by a badly missed penalty and a desperate knock-on deep inside his own territory, the alarm bells started ringing.
Du Preez meanwhile was roughing up the vastly more experienced Agustin Pichot around the scrum while Montgomery was finding touch with much more regularity than Hernandez, whose trademark up and unders were also lacking their usual vigour.
Indeed it was the Stade Francais star, who the Springboks had highlighted all week as the man who could wound them fatally, that handed South Africa their third try as his failure to catch Pichot's pass led to their opponents collecting it and Danie Rossouw touching down.
Montgomery also showed he is not just a running and kicking fullback but also superb in defence.
But for video referee Tony Speadbury's controversial decision to award Manuel Contepomi's try early in the second-half, he would have been seen to have produced a trysaving tackle, as it appeared from one angle he forced him to drop the ball over the line.
The spark shown by du Preez and Montgomery geed up the rest of the 'Boks backs.
The Pumas by contrast looked all at sea even though their backs have big reputations themselves.
But too often the ball they won saw Hernandez and Ignacio Corleto, who had started off the Argentinians magical run with the try against France in the opening match, kick aimlessly and with little success at finding its target.
For the Pumas' backs the night was summed up when Felipe Contepomi was yellow-carded for whacking replacement hooker Bismarck du Plessis in the face.
The Pumas failed to live up to the old adage 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going'; the Springbok backs had no such problem.
- AFP
