{"id":510016,"date":"2026-07-04T22:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T22:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/510016\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T22:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T22:03:12","slug":"springboks-v-england-south-africa-claim-statement-nations-championship-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/510016\/","title":{"rendered":"Springboks v England: South Africa claim statement Nations Championship win"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a match of three distinct phases, South Africa dominated the first quarter to build a 17-0 lead before a 52,790 crowd on a cold night in the South African financial capital.<\/p>\n

England recovered to score twice and close the gap to just three points – 17-14 – by half-time as they sought to end a four-match losing streak started in the Six Nations Championship.<\/p>\n

The first England try came when South Africa were down to 14 men after Arendse was sin binned for a deliberate knock-on.<\/p>\n

After two more tries from the Springboks in the second half, Coles barged over and the Smith conversion left England trailing 31-21 entering the closing stages.<\/p>\n

Hopes of a dramatic comeback by the visitors were dashed after Freeman banged his shoulder against the head of South Africa full-back Damian Willemse.<\/p>\n

Three minutes later, Pepper joined Freeman in the sin bin for an early tackle.<\/p>\n

South Africa took advantage of their numerical superiority with Marx and Dixon scoring and Kolbe, given the goal kicking duties ahead of fly-half Manie Libbok, converting both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a match of three distinct phases, South Africa dominated the first quarter to build a 17-0 lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[253874,190,18239,2741,56136,1634,132086,42,25270,10543,17154,43,253873,8143,202,1240,8137,9343,10809,1529,2044,40,38,41,39,23838,6027],"class_list":["post-510016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-253874","tag-africa","tag-championship","tag-claim","tag-ellis","tag-england","tag-firstround","tag-headlines","tag-johannesburg","tag-match","tag-nations","tag-news","tag-outscored","tag-park","tag-seven","tag-south","tag-springboks","tag-statement","tag-sunday","tag-three","tag-time","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tries","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}