Move FM Australian News

Cape Town – He may not have had his best game at Loftus on Saturday, but South Africa’s Aphiwe Dyantyi has finished his first Rugby Championship as the joint-top try scorer in the tournament.

The 24-year-old struggled to make his mark in the heartbreaking 32-30 loss the Boks suffered in Pretoria, but he can still leave the tournament with his head held high.

Having made his Super Rugby debut earlier this year, the Lions wing finished the tournament with 5 tries to his name alongside All Blacks duo Beauden Barrett and Rieko Ioane.

In terms of team tries, the Boks finished second on the overall list with 21 from their six matches. New Zealand scored 33 in the competition while Argentina and Australia scored 18 and 16, respectively.

According to the official SANZAAR website, the Boks made fewer clean breaks, carries, metres made and beat fewer defenders than any other side in the competition, but they did make the second-highest number of offloads, while their tackle success rate (85.5%) was second only to the All Blacks (85.7%).

There were two other individual categories where the Boks finished on top.

Pieter-Steph du Toit made more tackles (83) than anybody else in the competition, followed by David Pocock (72) and Siya Kolisi (67).

Eben Etzebeth, meanwhile, won more lineouts (28) than anyone else. Javier Ortega Desio (23) and Kieran Read (21) were next best.