Five times the All Blacks and the Springboks made the grass suffer in absorbing SA contests | Sport

The All Blacks celebrate beating the Springboks at Loftus Versfeld in 2018.

• The Springboks haven’t always got the better of the All Blacks, but they’ve had matches where they’ve given New Zealand as good as they’ve got.
• There have been some very good games around the country, but Ellis Park has been host to some classics.
• The last time they met in SA, it was at Loftus in 2018 in a game the All Blacks spectacularly pulled out of the fire.

While its true the Boks have been on the receiving end of some lopsided beatings against the All Blacks, they’ve also been engaged in some timeless thrillers.

They will be engaged in their 100th game when they meet in Townsville on Saturday.

With the sides having met 50 times in South Africa and the Boks having won 25 (the bulk of them before 1992), here are five thrilling professional era matches that took place in South Africa:

1998: South Africa 24-23 New Zealand, Kings Park, Durban, 15 August

The Springbok 1998 vintage under Nick Mallett is probably better than the three World Cup-winning sides and in the course of their 17-match winning streak, they showed this. Having beaten Australia and New Zealand away, they needed to reprise these performances at home. In bouncing back from 23-5 down after New Zealand surged ahead through tries from Justin Marshall and Taine Randell that were accompanied by two conversions and three penalties from Andrew Mehrtens, James Dalton, Joost van der Westhuizen, Stefan Terblanche and Bobby Skinstad scored the tries that brought the win. The Springboks wouldn’t win another All Black Test in Durban for 11 years.

2000: South Africa 46-40 New Zealand, Ellis Park, Johannesburg, 19 August

Ellis Park has already proved to be a theatre of reasonable dreams for the Boks when it came to the All Blacks. They may have lost the 1997 encounter 35-32, but they’d won the dead rubber in 1996 and the 1995 World Cup final. There was a lot on the line when these sides met and when the Boks raced into a 33-13 lead in the 35th minute of this game, the hosts were odds on for a big win. The All Blacks were made of sterner stuff in narrowing the lead to 33-27 at the break. The sides shared the second half 13-all in what became a scrap, but it was a deserved win for the Boks, who scored six tries to New Zealand’s four. The next Bok win against New Zealand at home would could come four years later at the same ground through Marius Joubert’s hat-trick

2013: South Africa 27-38 New Zealand, Ellis Park, Johannesburg, 5 October

After South Africa’s 40-26 success in 2004, the All Blacks didn’t return to Ellis Park until this enthralling game, probably the best since the 2000 clash. That the All Blacks were dominant over the Boks wasn’t in dispute. They’d beaten them in successive Soccer City matches with more than 80 000 fans, but with the All Blacks controversially winning 29-15 in Auckland, this game was delicately set up. Bryan Habana’s 17th and 19th-minute tries were otherworldly but was injured after sealing his brace while Willie le Roux and Jean de Villiers provided the other touchdowns. This was an All Black side in its mid-World Cup peak and for the Boks’ four tries, they had five through Ben Smith, Liam Messam (two), Beauden Barrett and Kieran Read. The Boks tried to out-All Blacks the All Blacks and they failed, but valiantly.

2014: South Africa 27-25 New Zealand, Ellis Park, Johannesburg, 4 October

Where they failed the year before, they succeeded, but only just. In a see-saw game where superb tries by Francois Hougaard and Handre Pollard (two) were responded to by touchdowns by Malakai Fekitoa, Ben Smith, and Dane Coles, the boot and smart directing were the determining factors. With the Springboks trailing 25-24, a TV replay picked up a foul by Liam Messam that was ruled to be a penalty. It was just inside the Boks’ half, but on the highveld, distance isn’t an issue. Pat Lambie nailed the 78th-minute penalty to snare Heyneke Meyer’s only success against the All Blacks. The Boks haven’t beaten the All Blacks at home since that game.

2018: South Africa 30-32 New Zealand, Loftus Versfeld, Tshwane, 6 October

And in this game, they nearly did so, but Ardie Savea’s 78th minute try kept the All Blacks’ impeccable record at Loftus Versfeld intact. It was a heartbreaking defeat for the Boks, who had a significant 30-13 lead in the 59th minute that was gradually whittled down by the All Blacks. The month before, they’d beaten the All Blacks in Wellington as Rassie Erasmus’s Bok revival continued unabated. The All Blacks again proved to be a peerless side in the last 20 minutes as they found an extra gear the Boks failed to match.