Padova – There were five minutes left on the clock at Twickenham, and the Springboks were leading 28-23 against England on Saturday.
But while Jean de Villiers’ team looked to be in reasonable control at that point, they were battling to put the English away. That is when Bok flyhalf Patrick Lambie decided that enough was enough – he needed to kill them off.
His forwards did the hard yards, bashing away with a series of pick and goes inside the English 22, but then the moment came when Lambie fell back into the pocket and with a smooth swing of his right leg, slotted the match-winning drop goal.
“We had a line-out, and the call was to drive the line-out,” Lambie said after earning his 38th Test cap. “The talk was that if we got a penalty advantage, we could look for a chip over the top, a cross-kick or even a drop goal. And in those conditions, it’s very hard to get quick ball. In the slippery conditions, we were battling to build pressure and build phases.”
“So, I guess I thought the time was right and that it was time to close the game out. Thankfully, it came off and it was a very, very pleasing moment. It went over, that’s all that counts. It’s on the scoreboard, it doesn’t matter how it looks!
“There were a lot of pick and goes, so it was nice that we held on to the ball there and built the pressure and we came away with points, which was crucial at that stage of the game.”
But it was another big moment where Lambie delivered under tremendous pressure, coming after he converted a 55-metre penalty in the dying moments of the Ellis Park cliff-hanger against the All Blacks last month, giving coach Heyneke Meyer his first victory over the world champions.
The Sharks pivot has also had a good goal-kicking record on the November tours since 2012, although he did miss two out of six goal-kicks on Saturday. He had a personal tally of 16 points at the weekend in the 31-28 victory.
And apart from the drop goal, his other moment of magic came when he put in a well weighted chip kick over the English defence, and Willie le Roux caught the ball and drew the last two defenders to get a breathtaking offload away in the tackle to Cobus Reinach, who raced over to score his first Test try.
“I guess there were some good moments, hey! It’s something that we spoke about during the week and it was very nice that that one came off, that we executed it well,” he said.
But it wasn’t a perfect performance from Lambie, who made a couple of unforced errors – like missing touch with a penalty and curving it into the in-goal area, although it was a close call – and he probably didn’t attack the advantage line often enough with ball-in-hand or exert more pressure with tactical kicks.
He was well assisted in that regard by scrumhalf Cobus Reinach, who took a lot of responsibility on himself to relieve the pressure with touch-finders and a couple of snipes around the fringes.
Lambie stated that he could’ve done better, but his cool temperament and general game management sees him pushing hard for a permanent berth in the No10 jersey, with 20-year-old Handré Pollard the other major contender.
The fact that Meyer kept Lambie on the field for the entire 80 minutes at Twickenham, can be viewed as a vote of confidence, but the 24-year-old didn’t want to read too much into that.
Asked if he thinks he’s done enough to be regarded as the first-choice flyhalf now, Lambie said: “You will have to ask the coach that! Look, I really enjoyed being out there, and that was my attitude and my approach towards this game. And there were some good moments and some bad moments, but it was wonderful to be part of that Springbok victory.
“Look, it (his performance) wasn’t a very pretty from all of us out there, myself included. We all made some mistakes that put ourselves under pressure, and maybe kept England in the game.
“Maybe you need to read between the lines (about not coming off). I don’t know. I’m not taking anything for granted at all. I had some mistakes out there, but you have to put it behind you and you have to move on. I would’ve loved to have put in a much better performance than that, but again, it was what was needed and we came out with a victory”. - The Star