Johan Coetzee's match breakdown makes a compelling case that the Springboks were the better side at Ellis Park for long stretches — and still lost. The piece identifies five pivotal moments that together tell the story of a team that outworked the All Blacks physically but couldn't turn dominance into points. The early scrum penalty set a platform that never fully delivered. Malcolm Marx's knock-on metres out cost seven points and reinforced the night's recurring theme. The most damaging sequence came deep in the second half, when the Boks declined a kickable penalty to chase a bigger scrum reward — only for Gerhard Steenekamp to infringe at the crucial third scrum and hand New Zealand an escape. Coetzee underlines the irony: Erasmus had instructed the bench to take the points. The double yellow cards to Van Staden and Reinach then left the Boks down to 13 for the closing stages, and Will Jordan's second try — off a scrum that was no longer under pressure — sealed a result that the scoreboard flatters New Zealand to achieve. The core argument is sharp: South Africa won the collision battle and created enough to win the match, but the All Blacks were cleaner when it counted.