KEY POINTS:
Just when the All Blacks might have thought they'd sorted the Robbie Deans-inspired Wallaby threat this Tri-Nations season with that significant win in Cape Town, it came back to haunt them yesterday.
Well, to be exact, it reared its head again. Australia will probably still need to beat
South Africa again in Johannesburg this Sunday and then roll over the All Blacks in Brisbane to clinch the Tri-Nations title.
But victory in Durban opened up the road to the title for Deans' team and, for sure, it closed it off for the hopeless, hapless world champions.
We can deal with the Springbok story pretty abruptly. This was another wannabe performance by a team that doesn't wannabe playing the type of game their coach wants them to embrace. They haven't got the players to do it and the old brutal, physical style so beloved by the likes of Schalk Burger, Victor Matfield and C. J. van der Linde sits uneasily on the shoulders of this fluid, enterprising philosophy favoured by their coach.
After the match, as Matfield and then coach Pieter de Villiers were interviewed, the stadium was filled with boos, jeers and beer cans raining down. In a country where colour is always a delicate balance, to see the first black Springbok coach excoriated in such fashion was alarming.
But then the South Africans had been abject for the most part. They don't understand the concept of continuity and releasing the ball. Mindsets that have been honed down the years on the premise of seeking confrontation, smashing into opponents and going to ground are struggling to be reprogrammed according to the new coach's wishes.
With the passing of every match, Graham Henry and his All Blacks of last year must be kicking the nearest wall ever harder at their frustration of allowing so modest a South African side to become world champions.
As in almost every Tri-Nations match this season, the side turning over most ball lost. The Springboks were guilty 16 times here, against nine by the Australians. Add on three lost South African lineouts and 17 handling errors against eight by Deans' team and the decisive factors in Australia's success become clear.
Deans wore his usual deadpan expression afterwards, but did concede: "I am smiling inside. The Springboks were desperate today so I've got to be happy. You've only got to look at the history books to see how often that happens.
"There was desperation in both sides and it certainly wasn't an error-free game. We will have to be better next week."
They may well be. Australia didn't kick particularly effectively, certainly not in the class of the All Blacks at Eden Park, and they did make mistakes. But they won because the Springboks couldn't convert anything like a decent percentage of their chances. They butchered three in the first 20 minutes alone and then watched the Wallabies reach their own line for the first time and score.
Such profligacy was always likely to eat into the South Africans' psyche.
This wasn't mind-blowing rugby from either side. But the Australians had much greater composure and control at the critical moments. Lote Tuqiri calmly took his try and six minutes later Stirling Mortlock carved a huge gap in the South African defence and ploughed past six defenders to reach the line.
South African rugby is in a mess but the Wallabies under Deans are clearly making progress.
If the Wallabies win in Johannesburg, then Brisbane could represent a very severe test for Henry's men.
* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media
