Van der Westhuizen sets up escape

New Zealand's gloom deepened on Saturday when they surrendered an 18-point lead to lose to South Africa, their fourth defeat in succession and their worst run since they lost six consecutive Tests in 1949.

The All Blacks fully deserved their 23-5 lead going into the final quarter and there seemed little chance of a lacklustre Springbok side escaping their fate.

But a typical darting break and try by the scrum-half Joost van der Westhuizen in the 68th minute, and a further try by the replacement flanker Bobby Skinstad four minutes later, closed the gap to four points as the previously ruthless All Black defence went to sleep.

With the match in stoppage time, the Springboks opted to kick a penalty to the corner and from the resulting line-out the hooker James Dalton was carried over by his pack for the winning try.

The New Zealand coach John Hart remained upbeat in defeat. "My faith in the All Blacks has never wavered. I'm proud to be associated with them," he said. "Our performance tonight proved we are a great side. We went out to attack the Springbok scrum and I thought we outscrummed them consistently.

"When our number eight Isitolo Maka was taken out of the game it was a huge blow to us. We lost a lot of presence. We are hugely disappointed but we have made a lot of progress from a few weeks ago."

Springbok captain Gary Teichmann said: "It was a pretty big effort from us to win. It was sparked off by Joost's try. We needed someone to take the initiative. We played superb rugby in the last 15 minutes and it showed the character of the side."

The wing Stefan Terblanche had barged through the tackle of the full-back Christian Cullen for his seventh try in eight internationals to put South Africa 5-0 ahead in the third minute. However, a 40metre break by Jonah Lomu set up the first All Black try for the scrum-half Justin Marshall before Maka powered through weak tackling to leave the way clear for the No. 8 and captain Taine Randell's ninth Test try.

Andrew Mehrtens converted the two tries and also kicked three penalties on either side of half-time against a Springbok side diminished by indecision and mistakes. Yet South Africa finally came good for their 13th successive victory whereas New Zealand will try to overcome their barren patch against Australia in a fortnight's time.

South Africa lead the TriNations table by three points from Australia, who can still claim the title if they win the final match of the series against the Springboks in Johannesburg on Saturday.

Scorers - South Africa: Tries: Terblanche, Van der Westhuizen, Skinstad, Dalton. Conversions: Montgomery 2. New Zealand: Tries: Marshall, Randell. Conversions: Mehr tens 2. Penalties: Mehrtens 3.

SOUTH AFRI Terblanche, Snyman (Smith, 64 min), Muller, Rossouw; Honiball, Van der Westhuizen; Kempson, Dalton, Garvey (Le Roux, 52), Otto (Skinstad, ht), Andrews (Otto, 71), Erasmus (Ait ken, 64), Venter, Teichmann (capt).

NEW ZEALAND: Cullen; Wilson, Clarke (Berryman, 63), Meyerhofler, Lomu; Mehrtens, Marshall; Hoeft, Oliver, Brown, Willis, Brooke, Randell (capt), Kronfeld, Maka (Robertson, 50).

Referee: P Marshall (Australia).