Springboks level Rugby's Greatest Rivalry tour with gritty performance in Cape Town

The result was built on a strong kicking performance from Cheslin Kolbe, who added 21 points with the boot, and a dogged defensive effort that forced an uncharacteristically high number of handling errors by New Zealand.

It took less than two minutes for the Springboks to get on the board, with centre Jesse Kriel smashing his way over the line after a strong lineout maul by the forwards took the ball up to the All Blacks tryline.

New Zealand hit back shortly afterwards after Will Jordan broke down the right wing and teed up a simple finish for Cam Roigard.

Kolbe added a penalty to put the Springboks back in the lead and Damian de Allende scored a poacher's try in the 22nd minute. The All Blacks answered again with a flowing backline move that cut the Springbok defence open and allowed Damian McKenzie to score.

Siya Kolisi then went crashing over the line from close range on the stroke of half-time to put South Africa 24-14 up at the break. There was some bad news, though, as Damian Willemse was injured in the play and is now in doubt for the remainder of the tour.

The Boks stretched their lead with a couple of Kolbe penalties early in the second half before Leroy Carter crossed the whitewash to claw the All Blacks back into the contest.

They reduced the deficit even further when Ardie Savea scored a try in the 76th minute to bring the score to 33-26.

Things got even more tense for the home side when Lood de Jager was shown a yellow card for a head-on-head challenge with only a couple of minutes left on the clock, leaving them to defend their lead with just 14 men.

However, a late turnover by Malcolm Marx, who had been superb at the breakdowns all game, allowed them to win possession and boot the ball to touch to secure the narrow victory.

The result leaves Rugby's Greatest Rivalry tour wide open at 1-1 with two Tests still to play, meaning no matter what the result is at the FNB Stadium next weekend, it will not be definitively decided until after the final Test of the tour in Baltimore, USA on 12 September.

It was a special Test for Ox Nche and Pieter-Steph du Toit, who celebrated their 50th and 100th Test caps for South Africa with a win, as well as Deon Fourie, who became the oldest player in history to win a Test cap for the Springboks at a few days short of 40 years old.