Four debutants scored tries as the Springboks shrugged off an early red card to charge to a comfortable victory over Portugal in Bloemfontein on Saturday.
Despite losing Andre Esterhuizen to a red card in the third minute and conceding an early try, the Springboks powered to a 64-21 win in a festive clash at a sold-out Toyota Stadium.
While the quality of opposition will make it difficult to read too much into the Test , it was a major positive that the Springboks stuck to their attacking gameplan after being reduced to 14 men, when it would have been comfortable to turn to a more conservative plan. Portugal did give all they could in the match and grabbed three tries – two of those through outside back Jose Paiva dos Santos – but were outgunned and outmatched by a Bok team looking to finish the July internationals on a high before the start of the 2024 Rugby Championship next month.
Cobus Reinach, Manie Libbok and Lukhanyo Am all fared excellently in their first Test of the year, pulling the strings superbly and creating plenty of opportunities from open play.Meanwhile, Buthelezi and Wessels – both workhorses around the field – capped their debuts with a try each, while Ben-Jason Dixon further enhanced his reputation as a successor to Pieter-Steph du Toit by covering nearly every blade of grass and reaching over for a try of his own.
Makazole Mapimpi scored a hat-trick in the second half, with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu – on early in the second half to replace Libbok – playing a key role in two of those tries.There were also debut tries for Quan Horn – set up by a lovely flick between the legs by Lions teammate Morne van den Berg – and hooker Andre-Hugo Venter, after Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicked a 50/22.
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