SOWETO, South Africa // New Zealand scored 20 unanswered second-half points to complete a perfect Rugby Championship campaign yesterday with a 32-16 triumph over arch rivals South Africa at Soccer City.
Down by 10 points early on and trailing 16-12 at half-time, the All Blacks reclaimed the lead 22 seconds into the second half through a try from the veteran inside centre Ma'a Nonu and never looked back.
Lock Sam Whitelock, scrum-half Aaron Smith and outside centre Conrad Smith also scored tries and fly-half Dan Carter kicked three conversions, a penalty and a drop goal.
Bryan Habana claimed his seventh try in the championship this season early on to raise South African hopes, but that was the only time the green and gold crossed the line.
Fly-half Johan Goosen kicked the conversion and a penalty before retiring injured late in the first half and replacement Elton Jantjies landed two penalties.
Coach Heyneke Meyer warned the Springboks before the clash of the highest-ranked teams in the world that nothing less than an 80 per cent place-kicking success rate would give his team a chance, and his words proved prophetic.
Goosen and Jantjies missed two kicks each to leave South Africa with only a 50 per cent success rate and so the poor record when aiming at the posts during the championship continued.
"We could not get our hands on the ball in the first half and you can put the fact that we were still in the match down to a wonderful bunch of guys who have been together for some time," said All Blacks captain Richie McCaw.
"It was much better for us during the second half and the boys were able to build pressure. What we worked so hard on during the week paid off," added the bruised and cut flanker.
Springboks captain and inside centre Jean de Villiers said: "We had to play catch-up rugby for too much of the game and that is pretty difficult against a quality team like the All Blacks. This is a young team and let us hope that we all learn from our mistakes. The team panicked at times in the closing stages and conceded some stupid penalties."
New Zealand have already won the championship while South Africa would have surrendered second place if Australia beat Argentina early this morning.
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