Pretoria - South Africa beat Australia 44-31 at Loftus on Saturday for their first win in this year’s five Tri-Nations outings, but the victory in itself was not enough to dispel the unease surrounding the Springboks form or strength.

Nine tries, all of them converted, were scored with the Boks edging the Wallabies 5-4 in the last minute to give Victor Matfield a win in his 100th Test - the first of the three Boks to have this satisfaction.

South Africa were 14-0 behind after five minutes and trailed 28-24 at the break, but came back well in the second half with a try on the hooter to make it seem like a more convincing win than it really was.

In a poor first half, the Boks did look the more potent of the two unaccomplished sides when they had good possession but struggled on defence and in their handling.

The Boks largely have Francois Hougaard to thank for the win. He set up three of the Boks’ five tries and made a try-saving - even match-saving - tackle when the Boks were on the rack in the last quarter.

An indictment of the Springboks' present standing in the eyes of the rugby public was that Loftus was far from full, with about 7 000 empty seats telling the story of four successive losses. Only 43 152 people saw the poor first half.

Seven tries in the first period tell the story - and what’s more, there were four tries in the first 10 minutes and five in 14 minutes suggesting that the two sides seemed more intent on getting it over and done with than the match itself.

The Springboks were slightly worse off in the scrums, and did well on the ground where Wallaby fetcher Dave Pocock was rucked off the ball on two occasions, with the try of Juan Smith coming from such a ruck.

The Wallabies got their bonus-point try after only 26 minutes when lock Dean Mumm scored their fourth after a brace from James O’Connor and the opener from Will Genia.

O’Connor's second try was the result of the first of three serious blunders by Bryan Habana, two of which cost the Boks 14 points. First he missed the kick-off following the try by Juan Smith for O’Connor to take the bounce from the knock. Then he collected a cross kick from Drew Mitchell and instead of kicking was caught in possession metres from his tryline for Dean Mumm to score from the turnover with no Boks in support.

Habana’s third blunder was when he overran a pop pass from Morne Steyn that fortuitously bounced for Frans Steyn to dot down and give the Boks the lead for the first time after 50 minutes at 34-31, following penalties by Morn Steyn and Matt Giteau in the first five minutes after halftime.

The Boks were then put under pressure when they failed to score with a lost ball on the Wallabies line, and the visitors ran the length of the field only to be denied by poor handling after a ruck or two on the Springboks line.

The visitors sustained the pressure and this time it took Francois Hougaard to bring off a try-saving tackle metres from the Boks’ tryline.

The Springboks' tries in the first half came after a sublime inside pass by the scrumhalf to Smith following a good run by Jean de Villiers, and with Pierre Spies running a wonderful straight line, Hougaard’s short pass set up the big No 8’s try. The other try came from Gurthro Steenkamp; after a poor Wallaby lineout on their own line.

Frans Steyn, despite his try, didn’t have a good game. He twice kicked out on the full, missed two vital tackles and generally didn’t look sharp.

Frans Steyn increased the lead to 37-31 with a kick from his own half in the 67th minute - but it was nothing compared to the monster-kick of his namesake Morne in the 20th minute.

Then Hougaard grabbed a turnover when the Wallabies were giving their everything to salvage the match. He broke from inside his own half, fed Pierre Spies who gave to De Villiers. JP Pietersen rounded off well with an inside step beating Kurtley Beale on the cover.

The Boks picked up a full-house of five points for their victory while Australia left Pretoria with a single point for scoring four tries.

The Boks moved into second spot on the Tri-Nations log with six points, overtaking the Wallabies who have five. The All Blacks were the runaway winners of this year's Tri-Nations with 23 points in the bag.

South Africa and Australia will do battle in Bloemfontein next weekend.

Teams:

Springboks:
15 Frans Steyn, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Jean de Villiers, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Morne Steyn, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Pierre Spies, 7 Juan Smith, 6 Schalk Burger, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Flip van der Merwe, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 John Smit (captain), 1 Gurthro Steenkamp

Substitutes: 16 Chiliboy Ralepelle, 17 CJ van der Linde, 18 Danie Rossouw, 19 Ryan Kankowski, 20 Ricky Januarie, 21 Butch James, 22 Juan de Jongh

Wallabies:
15 Kurtley Beale, 14 James O’Connor, 13 Adam Ashley-Cooper, 12 Matt Giteau, 11 Drew Mitchell, 10 Quade Cooper, 9 Will Genia, 8 Richard Brown, 7 David Pocock, 6 Rocky Elsom (captain), 5 Nathan Sharpe, 4 Dean Mumm, 3 Salesi Ma’afu, 2 Saia Faainga, 1 Benn Robinson

Substitutes: 16 Stephen Moore, 17 James Slipper, 18 Ben McCalman, 19 Scott Higginbotham, 20 Luke Burgess, 21 Berrick Barnes, 22 Anthony Faainga