{"id":889955,"date":"2026-09-13T01:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/889955\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T01:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:24:14","slug":"flying-kurt-lee-arendse-helps-south-africa-clinch-new-zealand-series-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/889955\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying Kurt-Lee Arendse helps South Africa clinch New Zealand series | Rugby union"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa thrashed New Zealand 43-28 to complete a 3-1 victory in Baltimore in the fourth and final match of the Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry Test series. The Springboks, who led the series 2-1 after the opening three Tests in South Africa, produced a devastating second-half display at the M+T Bank Stadium to seal victory.<\/p>\n

Tries from Damian de Allende, Morne van den Berg, Malcolm Marx, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Cameron Hanekom clinched a deserved win for the Springboks in front of a capacity 71,000 crowd.<\/p>\n

New Zealand\u2019s tries came from the recalled captain, Codie Taylor, plus Will Jordan, Ethan Blackadder and Beauden Barrett, but the All Blacks were always chasing the South Africans in a fast-paced game.<\/p>\n

There was controversy in the first half when play was held up for more than eight minutes after a failure in communication equipment between the match officials. But that interruption had no impact on the outcome as South Africa\u2019s total dominance at the breakdown, setpiece and aerial battle proved decisive.<\/p>\n

New Zealand threatened a comeback, getting to within eight points at 29-21, but Arendse gathered a loose ball and ran from deep in his own half, side-stepped a couple of defenders and scampered away.<\/p>\n

South Africa players celebrate their victory. Photograph: Stephanie Scarbrough\/AP<\/p>\n

The Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi, paid tribute to South Africa\u2019s coach, Rassie Erasmus, after the victory. \u201cHe knows how to get us up, and when he speaks to us he reminds us where we come from, the country that we come from,\u201d Kolisi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players who are in the group who are not playing. We do it for them. The guys that are injured, the guys that couldn\u2019t make the tour, and also for the people of South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

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New Zealand\u2019s Taylor, meanwhile, had few complaints with the defeat. \u201cWe talk a lot about moments throughout the week when we review our Test matches and South Africa just stacked a few more moments against us over the last couple of games,\u201d the veteran hooker said. \u201cFull credit to them \u2013 they\u2019re a great side and they\u2019ve proven why they\u2019re world champions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor, though, said New Zealand would take positives from the series defeat as they build towards the 2027 Rugby World Cup. \u201cIt\u2019s a good stepping stone,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re at an interesting place at the moment as a rugby nation. We\u2019ve fallen short in this series but I can assure you and everyone back home that we\u2019re working hard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa thrashed New Zealand 43-28 to complete a 3-1 victory in Baltimore in the fourth and final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-889955","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\/889955","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=889955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}