South Africa Crushes England in Rugby World Cup Final

YOKOHAMA, Japan — South Africa captured its third Rugby World Cup championship on Saturday, defeating a favored England team, 32-12, and extending the dominance of teams from the Southern Hemisphere in the tournament.

The South Africans broke open a tight defensive struggle late in the second half behind tries by Makazole Mapimpi and Cheslin Kolbe to take the convincing victory.

Immediately after the match, the South African coach, Rassie Erasmus, said the victory came because of the players’ belief in themselves.

“This bunch of guys have been together for 19 weeks; we know one another really well,” he said. “We got so much respect for England, so we really prepared well. And I think we fought hard till the end, and I’m so proud of them and I think also a little bit fortunate. But we are really enjoying it at this stage.”

The first half was a battle of attrition, with both teams delivering punishing tackles and several players leaving the game early with injuries. But it was the powerful South African forward pack that set the tone, forcing England into several penalties during scrums, which contributed to a 12-6 South Africa lead at the half on four penalty goals from flyhalf Handré Pollard.

The England captain, inside center Owen Farrell, converted two penalty goals for the English.

Six minutes into the second half, South Africa won another penalty at the scrum, and Pollard converted a long-range kick to make it 15-6. But England turned the tables with a strong scrum of its own, and Farrell’s kick made it 15-9. For a moment, the English appeared to seize momentum from the South Africans.

The two teams exchanged penalty goals again about an hour into the match, and it looked as though it would be a game without tries. Then Mapimpi broke free on the left wing in the 67th minute, delivered a kick pass along the ground to Lukhanyo Am, the outside center, who scooped up the ball and immediately shoveled it back to Mapimpi, who took it over for the score.

In the 74th minute, Kolbe got the ball on the right wing some 40 yards out and danced around several defenders to put the game out of reach; Pollard’s conversion produced the final 32-12 score.

South Africa became the first team to win the World Cup despite losing a match in the pool stage. The Springboks, as the team is known, were defeated by New Zealand, the two-time defending champion, in their opening game in Japan.

England came into the final a strong favorite because of its dominant 19-10 win over New Zealand in the semifinals.

South Africa also won the title in 1995 and 2007; it is the only country to win every Rugby World Cup final it has contested.

The 1995 title, famously recounted in the film “Invictus,” was a turning point not only for South African rugby, but also for the country more broadly as it emerged from sporting isolation of the apartheid era.

Racial divisions persist in the country, and in South African rugby, but Saturday’s victory was delivered by the most racially diverse Springboks team to represent the nation at a World Cup.

Siya Kolisi, the first black Springboks captain, led a 31-man team that included 11 black or mixed-race players, including six who started Saturday’s final.

Erasmus has been praised by the players on the team for his open, direct and color-blind team selections, but Kolisi’s leadership also played a role in fostering a team unity that was evident throughout the tournament.

The veteran flanker François Louw, who is white, addressed it at a team news conference before the final.

“Siya’s got a lot of weight on his shoulders in terms of the role as captain, with regards to the makeup of our country and our nation — where we’ve come from, where we are right now,” Louw said. “It’s a role he’s grasped fully. I’ll never forget the first thing he did as captain was encourage those around him to support him and help him lead.”

Kolisi addressed the team’s sense of mission in remarks to the crowd after South Africa’s victory.

“Since I have been alive I have never seen South Africa like this,” he said. “With all the challenges we have, the coach said to us that we are not playing for ourselves any more, we are playing for the people back home — that is what we wanted to do today.

“We appreciate all the support — people in the taverns, in the shebeens, farms, homeless people — there were screens there — and people in the rural areas. Thank you so much, we appreciate the support. We love you South Africa, and we can achieve anything if we work together as one.”