MARK KEOHANE | Control is where the magic lies when Boks face All Blacks

It is not so much about redemption for the Springboks in Cape Town on Saturday. It is more about accuracy, intelligence and an appreciation of what the All Blacks did to them at Ellis Park.

If the 33-16 scoreline did not reflect the first 65 minutes, there is no doubting the All Blacks deserved the win . They absorbed so much pressure in that first hour. They defended with courage and clarity and punished every Boks hesitation.

Five tries to one can’t be disguised or sugarcoated; equally the 21 unanswered points in the final quarter.

The recall from Ellis Park is necessary if the Boks are to level the four-Test series. The Boks had 11 entries into the All Blacks 22-metre area and scored just the one try from those attacking field positions. The All Blacks won 14 turnovers and their try-scoring reward was four times that of the Boks from strikes inside the Boks’ 22-metre area.

There is a difference between physical superiority and Test-match superiority. The Boks had the former and the All Blacks the latter.

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus this past week has been vocal that he got his planning and his substitutions wrong.

Erasmus this week has been calm and measured, as has been the norm for the past 12 months, in which the Boks went 12 matches unbeaten. Last week he was the opposite.

Law and order, from the outside looking in, seems to have been restored within Erasmus’s head and the Bok camp.

There has been little barking coming from within the camp and next to no noise. The Boks have also cut out the noise of the naysayers who went from predicting a four-nil series win for the Boks to a four-nil series win for the All Blacks.

The passion within South Africa for the Springboks knows no half measures.

Control would have been Erasmus’s theme all week and control will be the trigger on Saturday.

Handrè Pollard and Cobus Reinach , at halfback, and Siya Kolisi’s presence as starting flanker and captain, give the run-on XV more presence and leadership authority.

Kolisi is expected to start, having been bracketed with Paul de Villiers earlier in the week, and the inspirational captain’s value cannot be overstated.

What Ellis Park gave the South African rugby public and media is a wonderful reminder that the All Blacks are again a team, in every sense. They played with heart, pride, purpose and they played for each other.