RUGBY: South Africa 33, Australia 20 There may be blood on the carpet when these sides complete a run of three successive matches against each other in Pretoria on Saturday, although it may come from a self-inflicted wound by Australia's coach Eddie Jones.
"We're not reaching for a knife to cut our throats yet," he said after his fifth successive defeat in South Africa and Australia's eighth on the high veld since their last win at altitude in 1963.
However, the temptation to run to the cutlery drawer may be overwhelming if that record stretches to six and nine when the Tri-Nations series opens at Loftus Versfeld.
Privately they regarded this Test as their best chance to end the hoodoo. They faced a Springbok side with eight changes and new combinations in the front and back rows and midfield compared with the one the Wallabies had so slickly dismembered 30-12 in Sydney two weeks ago in the first leg of the two-match Mandela Challenge.
But then the Springboks are as abject at sea level as Australia are at altitude and the Wallabies also had to confront what South Africans call "Madiba Magic". Nelson Mandela completed his 87th birthday celebrations with a trip to the rugby and a lap of Ellis Park on a golf cart.
The significance of the occasion - during which the former Springbok captain Francois Pienaar and the former South Africa soccer captain Lucas Radebe jointly lit the candles on a three-metre-high birthday cake - may have got to some people.
"It was quite phenomenal," said the Springbok captain John Smit. "As we walked back from our warm-up Mr Mandela was at the top of the tunnel and we gathered round to give him his present. As he spoke to us, the Wallabies came down the tunnel for their warm-up. They had to walk around us and looked at us and I think some of them were struck by the fact that this great man had taken the time to talk to us before a game of rugby."
It was Mandela's fourth Springbok Test and his fourth win, prompting inquiries to the Springbok coach Jake White as to whether he would be inviting Mandela to any more games.
"I'll pick him in the team if I have to," he said before a grin spread across his face and he added, "Then we'll have 10 black players in the team and you can put that in your headlines."
The fact that White used all of a record nine black players in a Springbok 22 that comfortably overcame the world number two side made this one of the most significant results in South Africa's 146 Tests since their return from isolation in 1992.
It would have been churlish of the Wallabies to gatecrash such an auspicious day, though that is what Jones had in mind.
"We thought we were really well prepared and everything we did in the lead-up to the game was good," he said. "It's a mystery: they definitely played immeasurably better than they did two weeks ago but we under-performed."
The Wallabies have now returned to sea level and Cape Town to lick their wounds and ponder Pretoria, where they have never won and shipped their worst Test defeat, 61-22, in 1997.
SOUTH AFRICA: Montgomery; Paulse, Fourie, De Villiers, Habana; Pretorius, Januarie; Steenkamp, Smit (capt), Andrews, Botha, Matfield, Tyibilika, Smith, Van Niekerk. Replacements: Du Preez for Januarie, Burger for Tyibilika (both 41 mins); Julies for De Villiers (60 mins); Van den Berg for Botha (70 mins); Shimange for Andrews, Sephaka for Steenkamp (both 77 mins). Tries: De Villiers, Habana, Fourie. Cons: Montgomery 3. Pens: Montgomery 4. Sin-bin: Paulse, Burger.
AUSTRALIA: Latham; Sailor, Mortlock, Giteau, Tuqiri; Larkham, Gregan (capt); Young, Paul, Baxter, Chisholm, Sharpe, Elsom, Smith, Lyons. Replacements: Waugh for Elsom (42 mins); Vickerman for Chisholm (44 mins); Dunning for Baxter (52 mins); Mitchell for Latham (60 mins); Turinui for Giteau (65 mins); Whitaker for Gregan (73 mins); Moore for Paul (80 mins). Tries: Lyons, Larkham, Paul. Con: Mortlock, Pen: Giteau.
Referee: S Walsh (New Zealand).
