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Rugby Union

Wales thumped 43-17 by Springboks

07/06/2008

Wales suffered their first defeat under coach Warren Gatland's as South Africa underlined their dominance as world champions at Bloemfontein.

The world champions led 22-10 at half time as the Welsh struggled to cope with the power and pace of the Springboks.

Home tries fell to Conrad Jantjes, Jean de Villiers, Pierre Spies and Percy Montgomery with Butch James's boot adding the rest of the points.

Jamie Roberts and Shane Williams got Wales' consolation scores.

Bath fly-half James kicked penalties in the seventh and fifteenth minutes before Wales showed signs of settling into the contest.

Half-backs Gareth Cooper and Stephen Jones executed sound tactical kicks in the opening minutes, but the rest of the first 30 minutes belonged to the hosts.

The Springboks were intent on bringing their physical presence to bear at the breakdown, forcing Wales into defensive errors and earning penalties through the pressure imposed on the visitors.

The six nations champions found it hard to make ground against the Boks defence and found themselves increasingly disjointed and isolated.

Skipper Ryan Jones seemed to make good headway on several occasions, yet Wales found themselves conceding penalties at the breakdown despite his good work.

Fly-half Jones struck back for the visitors after 15 minutes only for James to add two more penalties, firstly after Ian Gough fell offside and five minutes later when Shanklin failed to roll away from a tackle.

When the scoreline reached 29-10 a nuner of replacements were brought into the Welsh side with James Hook, Morgan Stoddart, Duncan Jones and Richard Hibbard introduced to try to stem the tide. But there was little the Welsh could do stop the South Africans who went on to win the contest such as it was 43-17.