Over in Cardiff Bay yesterday they were busy flooding what used to be tidal mud flats to create a permanent lagoon for the Welsh sailors and windsurfers of tomorrow. In the centre of town last night, 65,000 spectators could have done with a correspondingly impressive barrage of tries in a third-place play-off game with less of an edge than anticipated, settled as is now customary by South African drop goals.

Instead of Jannie de Beer, it was Percy Montgomery who applied the coup de grace. He had already landed a monster drop in the first half before striking again, left footed in front of the posts after 75 minutes.

For All Black coach John Hart, who had already appeared to find the evening painful viewing, it summed up a dismal week. Both these sides may qualify automatically for 2003, but New Zealand are now the team who will have to sweat.

The futures of several big name All Blacks remain even more unclear. Hart needed a red-blooded performance last night to staunch some of the bleeding from the Twickenham semi-final debacle and his counterpart Nick Mallett can scarcely be considered impregnable either, both men victims of the choking levels of expectation in their homelands.

Add Henry Honiball playing his last game for the Springboks before heading to Bristol, and speculation about the medium-term career paths of both Jonah Lomu and Jeff Wilson, and last night's game had a definite end-of-an-era whiff about it.

The sight of Wilson earlier this week walking alone 15 yards behind his team-mates as the All Black squad headed off for an evening out in the city centre, certainly suggested a man at odds with himself and the world and there was nothing much in the first half to refresh the full-back's jaded palate.

This play-off four years ago was notable only for the depth it plumbed, with England still traumatised by their mauling at the hands of Lomu the previous weekend, and in last night's match neither the All Blacks nor the Springboks had that familiar heavyduty spring in their step early on.

A Mehrtens penalty was cancelled out by a 45-metre drop goal from Percy Montgomery which bounced over via the crossbar and, apart from a serious hospital pass from Reuben Thorne to his captain Taine Randell, spectacular deeds were rare.

A notable exception was Breyton Paulse's 27th-minute try which saw the wing chip and dribble his way 40 metres downfield before pouncing on a ball which had eluded both Christian Cullen and Wilson.

Honiball's conversion and a second penalty for the out-half were countered, however, by three more from Mehrtens to cut the Boks' half-time advantage to 16-12.

Even Lomu was well shackled and with Honiball, despite one long-range effort bouncing back off the bar, proving as effective with the boot as De Beer, it needed a fifth Mehrtens penalty to keep the Kiwis in touch.

A sixth successful attempt from Mehrtens slashed the gap to a point before Montgomery capped a useful personal gain with his second all important drop.

Losing two Tests in five days is not New Zealand's style and there were still opportunities for the All Blacks to have salvaged something but confidence had suddenly dropped so low in the land of the long white cloud that even Lomu found finding miracles impossible to conjure up. 9994361

"We wanted to do this for ourselves, for our honour, for our county," said Springbok captain Joost van der Westhuizen, whose team had been devastated by their semi-final loss to Australia.

Van der Westhuisen also paid tribute to out-half Henry Honiball, who was making his Test farewell. "It was nice for Henry to go out with a win," he said. "We were up for it, but we couldn't get a couple more points," said desolate All Black captain Taine Randell. "We knew there was huge amount of disappointment back home after we failed to make the final. We wanted to perform tonight, but we couldn't break the Springbok defence."