Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town – Punk-era band The Stranglers stubbornly refuse to drop off the musical map, after several decades. Might they even reinvent themselves as The Springboks?

For if the band’s name quickly and obviously conjures up images of methodically slow, sadistic squeezes to hapless throats, then the Boks of the last two Saturdays similarly qualify as stranglers extraordinaire.

And the poor souls spluttering for oxygen have been their traditional foes the All Blacks, clinically pounded into submission and heading home after their least productive ever Vodacom Tri-Nations tour of South Africa – zero log points from a possible 10 here tells you everything.

This weekend it was the turn of the Durban populace to witness a slow-roast of Richie McCaw’s defending champions, marked by Morné Steyn’s competition-record individual haul of 31 points in a 12-point victory that perhaps ought to have even been by more.

Indeed, such was the Springboks’ mastery of this Test match that it is amazing to think the visitors actually remained in with a sniff into the final quarter, facing only a six-point deficit in the 62nd minute and forever desirous - despite chronic option-taking and butterfingers ineptitude at times - to give the ball “air” among their outside backs from just about anywhere.

The try tally, just as remarkably, ended 1-1 and perhaps we are entitled to charge the Boks with excessive resorting to the dropped-goal crack in wonderful attacking situations where they have the opposition under the cosh and potentially ready to drop to the canvas for a full count.

But that is where any minor negative sentiment deserves to end, because a greater truth is that the Boks, overall, played the wet-weather, greasy-pitch situation very shrewdly and once again were great value for a win over the weirdly skittish All Blacks with daylight eventually to spare.

Ever-wily and cerebral captain John Smit pointed out afterwards that South Africa were blessed by their “nine, 10 and 15 all having monster boots” and Fourie du Preez and the two Steyns certainly made life a misery for the mostly back-pedalling All Blacks’ back three of Messrs Muliaina, Rokocoko and especially error-prone Sivivatu.

But again, in so boomingly street-smart a team, there were Bok heroes scattered right across the park. That is reflected in the fact that, on any other day, Morné Steyn getting man-of-the-match might have been accepted as a fait accompli.

He did get it anyway – and why not? – but it would not have been an unpopular call had the mantle gone to any of Jaque Fourie, who stalked everything aerial like a man possessed, or a swollen list of candidates in an inspiringly abrasive pack.

Their ranks included Bismarck du Plessis, the ferocious hooker who gets in peoples’ faces and ultimately deeper into their demoralised, agitated heads, Bakkies Botha, the second-row mangler par excellence, the vastly improved Pierre Spies, and of course world rugby’s fetcher find of the year in Heinrich Brüssow.

The high work-rate and mauling and shoving strength of Beast Mtawarira continues to impress, and his 30-yard breakout rampage would only have been more memorable had it ended in a try before his home faithful.

“The pressure just got on top of us,” valiant but battered All Blacks leader McCaw conceded afterwards.

“They’re big men and made their tackles felt … they were the team going forward a lot at the breakdowns.”

He was certainly not far off the mark, but another remark he made to immediate post-match interviewer Joel Stransky also served unusual notice of his team’s torment.

When the former Bok flyhalf ventured that the All Blacks getting back into the Tri-Nations was not yet an insurmountable task, McCaw struggled to muster an enthusiastic affirmative.

“Er, I suppose not,” he stuttered.

The All Blacks are certainly a side feeling mounting critical heat, as their international season thus far has struggled to get out of second gear – Graham Henry and company are sure to feel a pretty icy media and public blast when they get back home.

Problem areas abound, and the way their bench was emptied summed up the broad state of unease.

Their lineout has gone from ordinary to utterly spooked, the selection circus at scrumhalf shows few signs of abating, and they are bound now to desperately fast-track flyhalf maestro Dan Carter back into their mix to give their tactical game more direction and purpose and less helter-skelter madness.

Still, the Boks can’t simply sit back and bask in their two-game glow.

Another four remain for them in the unforgiving competition, three of them overseas, and if they were to be upset by Australia at Newlands next weekend, then their lofty status on the table suddenly faces fresh vulnerability.

But there’s dreamy momentum right now, isn’t there?