Wales 18-23 South AfricaLiam Williams denied potential try by pitch invaderYou guess it has been a long 24 hours for the South Africans in Cardiff, long enough for them to enjoy a selection of the city’s delights, the freezing-cold weather, the torrential rain, and not just one, but two, night-time
fire alarm calls in their hotel, one at 3am, which gave them a good 20-minute stretch standing around on the street mingling with Cardiff’s Friday nightlife, and then, because it was so much fun, another at 7.20am. And then, to top it all off, they had a brutal 80 minute set-to with a Welsh team who were utterly unrecognisable from the lot who shipped 54 points against the All Blacks last week.
It was a hell of a game. There were two yellow cards, one try that wasn’t and a cameo appearance by a pitch invader and a security guard, who threw themselves in the way of Liam Williams as he was closing in on the Springbok tryline. Williams skipped around them but the distraction cost him precious split seconds. Wayne Pivac was phlegmatic about it. “You don’t want to see that in the game, very disappointing, but there’s nothing the match officials can do about it,” Pivac said. “I don’t know if we would have scored. We just saw a two v one, and thought: ‘Well, here we go.’”