Rampant South Africa crush Italy 45-0 despite early red card
Winger Edwill van der Merwe (14) now has three tries in just two caps for South Africa
- Published
South Africa (24) 45
Tries: Williams, Van der Merwe 2, Moodie, Marx, Mapimpi, Wessels Cons: Libbok 5
Italy (0) 0
Reigning world champions South Africa made light work of an early red card for forward Jasper Wiese to thump Italy 45-0 in Gqeberha.
The Springboks produced some stunning rugby, with their trademark power added to by some brilliant open running as they won the series 2-0.
Italy pushed them in last weekend's meeting in Pretoria but they offered little, even with an extra man for nearly an hour.
Scrum-half Grant Williams opened the scoring with a wonderful team try as the Boks scored four times in the first half.
Number eight Jasper Wiese saw red in the 22nd minute for a headbutt on Danil Fischetti to dampen his family's day - as brother Cobus made his Springboks debut in the second half.
They are the 37th set of brothers to play for South Africa.
Malcolm Marx, Makazole Mapimpi and Jan-Hendrick Wessels scored after the restart as South Africa extended their record of never losing a Test in Gqeberha, the city in the Eastern Cape formerly known as Port Elizabeth.
The opening try was breathtaking as South Africa ran the ball from deep in their own half. Edwill van der Merwe broke the line with a driving run before finding his opposite wing Mapimpi on the left. He took the ball on before looking up and feeding Williams to score.
Van der Merwe scored a brilliant finish while being tackled, and he then ran in after a clever kick through from Willie le Roux - on his 100th cap - foxed the recovering Italy defence.
Canan Moodie bounced off two tackles to score a fourth as Italy floundered.
South Africa were briefly down to 13 men early in the second half as prop Wilco Louw was shown a yellow card for a high tackle on Sebastian Negri.
But Fischetti soon joined him to reduce Italy's advantage and the home side added another try when Marx powered over from a maul.
Mapimpi ran in untouched on the overlap late on and replacement Wessels touched down with the final action of the game.
Line-ups
South Africa: Le Roux, E. van der Merwe, Moodie, Esterhuizen, Mapimpi, Libbok, Williams; T. du Toit, Marx, W. Louw, Moerat, Nortje, van Staden, P. du Toit, J. Wiese.
Replacements: Wessels, Nche, Ntlabakanye, C. Wiese, Roos, Reinach, Feinberg, Mngomezulu, Hooker.
Italy: Belloni, Lynagh, Menoncello, Zanon, Trulla, Da Re, A. Garbisi; Fischetti, Di Bartolomeo, Ferrari, N. Cannone, Zambonin, Negri, Zuliani, Vintcent.
Replacements: Dimcheff, Spagnolo, Hasa, Canali, Izekor, Odiase, Varney, Bertaccini.
Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU)