25 Oct 2019
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What Happened In The Quarters
The Welsh can count themselves very fortunate to have made it through their quarter-final with France, as Sebastian Vahaamahina, having scored his first international try and set to be one of the heroes of the evening, completely reversed all his hard work when elbowing Aaron Wainwright in the face in the 49th minute as he was given his marching orders.
That red card was a monumental turning point in the game, with Jacques Brunel’s men camped on the Wales five metre line and up by 19-10, before it all unravelled in typical French fashion.
South Africa meanwhile, were as solid as expected in their victory against the hosts Japan, conceding just three points all game and looked by far the superior side.
Wales Unbeaten But Not Convincing
Warren Gatland’s men remain unbeaten this tournament, but they’ve had their fair share of ups and downs with it all starting before they kicked a single ball as their backs coach Rob Howley was sent home for breaching World Rugby’s laws covering betting and anti-corruption.
From a results perspective, they have been underwhelming this tournament, with their only slightly convincing victory coming in their opener against Georgia (43-14), while their other four fixtures have been disappointing, yet they did still get the desired results.
In the pool stages both Australia and Fiji arguably outplayed the Welsh, while their Uruguay performance was extremely laboured as they set up that quarter-final with France.
That doesn’t exactly show the signs of a team capable of taking down the Springboks, especially since they’ve now lost half their last six matches with Tier 1 nations, including both home and away to an Ireland side who have proven to be extremely beatable, while each of those three defeats came by more than the eight-point handicap.
Boks Peaking At The Right Time
The Boks have been superb in 2019 and peaked at the perfect time for this tournament. Their sole defeat this year from their 10 outings came against New Zealand in their World Cup opener by just 10 points, but they’ve since put Namibia, Italy, Canada and Japan to the sword.
In fact, in that 2019 time frame when excluding the far superior All Blacks, they’ve won all four of their fixtures with Tier 1 nations, as three of them were by more than 17 points.
South Africa -8 Point Handicap
You’d expect World Cup semi-finals to be fairly close affairs given the nature of how these tournaments pan out. However, only three of eight World Cup semis this century have seen fewer than 12 points separate the sides, with two of them when Northern Hemisphere teams locked horns in 2007 (France v England) and 2011 (France v Wales), which have historically tended to produce tighter, lower scoring affairs.
Taking that into account, we have to be with Rassie Erasmus’ men to cover the handicap line and put themselves in contention of lifting a third William Webb Ellis Cup.
Of course, you have to factor in that Wales have won each of the last four meetings between the sides, though three of these occurred in Cardiff, with the other on neutral ground, while looking back to their results since 2000 the African nation has clinched the head-to-heads by 17 wins to five, including both in this tournament and this look like a fairly inevitable result in our eyes given their respective recent performances.
South Africa -8 Point Handicap At 19/20
WALES V SPRINGBOKS TEAMS
Wales: 15 Leigh Halfpenny, 14 George North, 13 Jonathan Davies, 12 Hadleigh Parkes, 11 Josh Adams, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Gareth Davies, 8 Ross Moriarty, 7 Justin Tipuric, 6 Aaron Wainwright, 5 Alun Wyn Jones (c), 4 Jake Ball, 3 Tomas Francis, 2 Ken Owens, 1 Wyn Jones
Replacements: 16 Elliot Dee, 17 Rhys Carre, 18 Dillon Lewis, 19 Adam Beard, 20 Aaron Shingler, 21 Tomos Williams, 22 Rhys Patchell, 23 Owen Watkin
South Africa: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Sbu Nkosi, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handré Pollard, 9 Faf de Klerk, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Tendai Mtawarira
Replacements: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Franco Mostert, 21 Francois Louw, 22 Herschel Jantjies, 23 Frans Steyn
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