BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — World champions South Africa gave the previously unbeaten Wallabies a harsh reality check on Saturday, leading 14-0 at the start and beating Australia 33-7 in the teams’ opening match of the Rugby Championship.

South Africa led 7-0 in the 10th minute when captain Siya Kolisi charged over the goal line after a rolling maul to give the visitors the lead in front of a sell-out crowd of over 50,000 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.

Despite continued strong defence from the Wallabies, South Africa took a 14-0 lead when Pieter-Steph du Toit found a gap and stormed through for the second try.

Another try gave the Springboks a 21-0 half-time lead from which the home side could never recover – despite optimistic comments from Wallabies assistant coach Laurie Fisher at half-time.

“There’s a lot of heavy artillery coming at us,” Fisher said. “So we’ve just got to pick ourselves up, come out in the second half and win one moment at a time.”

That didn’t happen though. The Springboks took a 28-0 lead with 13 minutes left after their fourth try of the night and scored a fifth try on the ensuing kickoff. The Wallabies finally got on the scoreboard with four minutes to go.

It was the Springboks’ first win against Australia in Brisbane since 2013. The Wallabies have a chance to recover from that heavy defeat when they face South Africa again in Perth next Saturday in the second game of both Rugby Championships.

The Springboks won their first game of the season against Ireland 27-20 before losing their second game 25-24. They then beat Portugal 64-21 at the end of July.

Australia, led by new coach Joe Schmidt, began their new season with two wins over Wales and one over Georgia. The Wallabies are looking to bounce back from their worst World Cup performance in France last year, when they failed to progress past the group stage for the first time.

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AP Rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby