{"id":73696,"date":"2025-08-16T22:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73696\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T22:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:50:11","slug":"rugby-championship-australia-produce-sensational-comeback-to-secure-historic-win-over-south-africa-rugby-union-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73696\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby Championship: Australia produce sensational comeback to secure historic win over South Africa | Rugby Union News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australia produced a momentous comeback and scored six straight tries to beat South Africa 38-22 in the Rugby Championship on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The world champions were beaten by the Wallabies at Ellis Park for the first time in 62 years following a stirring comeback from the visitors, as they rallied from 22-0 down to take a marvellous win.<\/p>\n<p>The Springboks were cruising after three well-made tries but Australia didn&#8217;t panic and took their first lead in the 64th minute as captain Harry Wilson scored his second try.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson opened the second-half scoring a soft try from replacement prop Angus Bell&#8217;s pass into a gap 25 meters out.<\/p>\n<p>Len Ikitau limped off and Australia patched the midfield with Andrew Kellaway, and put flyhalf backup Tane Edmed on the wing for the injured Dylan Pietsch.<\/p>\n<p>Australia blew two consecutive attacking lineouts to narrow the 22-12 gap, and managed it only when rugby league convert Joseph-Aukuso Sua&#8217;ali&#8217;i intercepted scrumhalf Grant Williams from 55 metres out for his first Test try.<\/p>\n<p>They finally hit the front when fullback Tom Wright stepped Canan Moodie and set up Wilson, who appeared to be cramping as he crossed the try-line for a second time, and he left the field immediately following the try.<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/skysports-australia-rugby-championship_6993191.jpg\"   alt=\"Australia's players celebrate following a historic victory in the Test match at Ellis Park (AP Photo\/Frans Lombard)\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Australia&#8217;s players celebrate following a historic victory in the Test match at Ellis Park (AP Photo\/Frans Lombard)<\/p>\n<p>Two minutes later, a giant double miss-out pass by James O&#8217;Connor released right wing Max Jorgensen to score another long-range try as South Africa and its renowned &#8216;bomb squad&#8217; of replacements couldn&#8217;t break an inspired Wallabies side.<\/p>\n<p>The comeback was completed with five minutes to go when Jesse Kriel&#8217;s overhead inside pass to Andre Esterhuizen was knocked on straight to Wright, who cantered to score at the other end.<\/p>\n<p>The Springboks feasted on Italy and Georgia last month but coach Rassie Erasmus gathered them for the Australia game a week earlier than scheduled, a compliment to the Wallabies&#8217; resurgent effort against the Lions. The decision paid off early.<\/p>\n<p>        Twitter<\/p>\n<p>                This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies.<br \/>\n                To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.<br \/>\n                You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Twitter cookies or to allow those cookies just once.<br \/>\n                You can change your settings at any time via the <a href=\"#privacy-options\">Privacy Options<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies.<br \/>\n                To view this content you can use the button below to allow Twitter cookies for this session only.<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-permanently\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\" data-show-on-fallback=\"false\">Enable Cookies<\/a><br \/>\n                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-once\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\">Allow Cookies Once<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Wing Kurt-Lee Arendse jogged in for the opening try inside two minutes. Manie Libbok converted, added a penalty, then hit the post when he tried to convert a long-range try finished by center Esterhuizen set up by Kriel.<\/p>\n<p>Five minutes later, captain Siya Kolisi slipped through a ruck defense to score. At 22-0 after 17 minutes, the lack of tension prompted the crowd to start a Mexican wave.<\/p>\n<p>Ruck penalties against South Africa gave Australia momentum, and Ikitau looped around O&#8217;Connor to free left wing Pietsch for Australia&#8217;s first points after a half-hour.<\/p>\n<p>Pietsch walked off soon after, clutching his jaw after tackling Kolisi&#8217;s shoulder but Australia seized upon the momentum swing and produced a marvellous victory, just their second at South Africa&#8217;s spiritual home in 92 years.<\/p>\n<p>Watch every game from the 2025 Rugby Championship live on Sky Sports or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nowtv.com\/watch-sky-sports-online?DCMP=ilc_skysports_nc_articlelink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stream with NOW &#8211; no contract<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia produced a momentous comeback and scored six straight tries to beat South Africa 38-22 in the Rugby&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-73696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}