Depleted Wales crushed by South Africa
Wales suffered a record 73-0 thumping to South Africa as Welsh rugby ended a miserable year with further humiliation in Cardiff.
Steve Tandy’s under-strength side simply had no answer to the Springboks’ power game that produced 11 tries at Principality Stadium and Wales’ heaviest-ever defeat on home soil.
There was an unsavoury end to the contest as replacement Eben Etzebeth was red-carded for gouging Alex Mann’s eye.
South Africa – who will end 2025 top of the world rankings for the third year in a row – surged into a 28-0 interval lead with Gerhard Steenekamp, Ethan Hooker, Jasper Wiese and Morne van der Berg crossing.
Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu went over twice in the second half, and there were also tries for Wilco Louw, Canan Moodie, Andre Esterhuizen, Ruan Nortje and Etzebeth as the Springboks bettered England’s 68-14 Cardiff victory in March.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu – who was educated at Llandovery College in Carmarthenshire as part of an exchange programme with his school in Cape Town – added 18 points with the boot for a personal 28-point haul.
In a year of numerous lows, Wales were ‘nilled’ for the second time in 2025 following their 43-0 Six Nations defeat to France.
While the post-match video debrief by Tandy and his staff will underline the huge gulf between Wales and the world champions, serious questions will be asked as to why the Welsh Rugby Union arranged this fixture in the first place.
Wales were forced to field a weakened side minus their 13 England and France-based players with the match falling outside World Rugby’s official Test window.
Test caps
South Africa had also lost players to club duty but were still able to call on a dazzling array of talent, with their bench alone boasting more Test caps than Wales’ entire matchday squad.
A predictable pattern was set from the first legal scrum that resulted in shivers down Welsh spines and a penalty on halfway.
The ball was clinically recycled for prop Steenekamp to dive over from close range and Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicked the first of his nine conversions.
South Africa’s scrum dominance led to a second score as Hooker sliced through some weak tackling and they were 14 points ahead in as many minutes.
Wiese dotted down from another scrum five yards out, but Wales’ first-half pain was not over as the visitors claimed their fourth try in the final moments.
Esterhuizen punched a hole through the Welsh midfield and scrum-half Van der Berg was in close attendance for a fifth Test try in only six appearances.
Carnage
The carnage continued in the second half as Louw profited from another Esterhuizen burst, Feinberg-Mngomezulu strolled through unchecked, and Moodie successfully chased a loose ball he had kicked on.
Three tries in under 10 minutes and South Africa then sent on their entire eight-strong ‘Bomb Squad’ bench to join the party.
Wales spent 20 minutes of the second half down to 14 with yellow cards for back-rowers Taine Plumtree and Aaron Wainwright, and South Africa were in no mood to let up.
Esterhuizen raced through and Feinberg-Mngomezulu added his second before Nortje and Etzebeth – who would not see the game out and now faces the prospect of a lengthy ban – went over to kick-start Welsh rugby’s latest inquest.
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But Agent Abi said when she started two years ago that her agenda was more important than winning, with Chairman Collier- Keywood stating that that every day of the last two years has been fun.
Such pathetic comments reverberate right down through the game from day one, their corporate Key Performance Indicators prove the most rapid demise of any rugby nation in history.
Whether it’s sabotage or complete ineptitude is irrelevant, time for both to walk or sent home to England.
Not content with pricing us out of attending matches, the WRU are now routinely humiliating us. The best advice I can give the WRU is to have a chat with the FAW, after all when did the Welsh football team lose 11-0?
You mean the Welsh football team that drew with Gibraltar last year and famously once lost to Leyton Orient.
They may be awash with foreign money and foreign players from England, but have just ‘celebrated’ not qualifying automatically for a football world cup in the first century it has existed.
The question that needs to be answered is: Who is sabotaging and humiliating Welsh rugby? These English top executives need their marching orders and the ones that employed them.
They were employed by other English following the English takeover report!
Well, it’s about time the ‘loyal’ supporters protested against how things within the WRU are run.
Enough is enough. The WRU are taking the proverbial out of the fans. They were aware this match was outside of the international window but still arranged the fixture? Pure exploitation. A money making exercise at our expense plain and simple. It was doomed from the start. How many times do the Welsh fans have to put up with humiliation before something is done? And I don’t just mean the regions or the players themselves. I included the WRU hierarchy too who need removing. Let’s be honest. Wales players were nowhere near the Springboks level. They were lightweights. And to… Read more »
We lost to the Saffers by more in the 90’s, then a season later beat them in the first ever match at the new national stadium.
The sabotage has been done through politics, but a season is a long time in politics.