Record win by Springboks in Wales defaced by Etzebeth red card for eye gouge

CARDIFF, Wales (AP) – Every fear for Wales came to pass as South Africa bossed their rugby mismatch to an inevitable 73-0 victory in a half-filled Principality Stadium on Saturday.

The Springboks handed Wales its worst loss at home – second worst overall – and Wales was nilled in Cardiff for the first time since 1967.

But the triumphant end to an unbeaten tour of Europe by South Africa was scarred by Eben Etzebeth eye-gouging Alex Mann in a melee in the dying moments. Etzebeth was issued a permanent red card in his record-extending 141st test for the Springboks.

“It was a justified red card,” Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus said. “I’m not sure if it was provoked but that’s not the way we want to play.”

South Africa scored 11 tries, two of them by flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, whose nine-of-11 goalkicking lifted his personal haul to 28 points. The player of the match was wrecking ball midfielder Andre Esterhuizen.

The Welsh Rugby Union has stabilized its finances to the point of earning a profit, and booked this money-making matchup with the double world champion outside the test window. That meant Wales could not select 13 English- and French-based players for a flagship team which had already conceded 52 points each to Argentina and New Zealand this month.

A skeleton crew was left to be slaughtered.

“We could not play a game today and take the benefits from that. But we need caps,” Wales coach Steve Tandy said. “We don’t want to put the boys through this but we did.”

The Springboks had to release nine players from the Ireland win last weekend including the last two world players of the year Malcolm Marx and Pieter-Steph du Toit, but showed their ruthless streak by picking their first 7-1 bench of the year.

The bench alone had more caps (374) than the entire Wales team (306) and all eight reserves made an impressive Bomb Squad appearance in the 51st minute when the score was 49-0 and Wales was playing with 14 men.

Wales back-rower Taine Plumtree was doubly unfortunate; he forced off teammate Aaron Wainwright briefly after accidentally putting a fist in his eye then was yellow-carded. Just when his time was up, Wainwright was sin-binned for a high tackle. In the 20 minutes they were off, South Africa bumped the score from 35-0 to 61-0.

The most inexperienced Wales forward pack since 2018 couldn’t live with the Boks scrum, which was the launch pad for their first five tries to Gerhard Steenekamp, Ethan Hooker, Jasper Wiese, Morne van den Berg and Wilco Louw.

“My forward pack is next level,” Feinberg-Mngomezulu said.

South Africa, up 28-0 at halftime, had barely used its backs. But the backs were more active after halftime and tries followed for Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Canan Moodie, Esterhuizen, Ruan Nortje and Etzebeth.

It was all too easy for the fourth South Africa side to nil Wales at home after the original Springboks of 1906 and the Grand Slam tourists of 1912 and 1960.

Erasmus was a try-scorer for the 1998 Boks who gave Wales its worst defeat, 96-13 in Pretoria. He was proud of the hunger and fight his 2025 team showed for their year-ending 13th win in 15 tests.

“I thought it was one of the more clinical performances,” he said. “We put our soul into the game.”