{"id":38828,"date":"2026-07-05T14:03:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T12:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=38828"},"modified":"2026-07-05T14:03:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T12:03:43","slug":"ellis-park-roars-as-sa-beat-england-in-nations-championship-opener","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/ellis-park-roars-as-sa-beat-england-in-nations-championship-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellis Park roars as SA beat England in Nations Championship opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa (SA) have made a bold statement in their opening match of the inaugural Nations Championship at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the late withdrawal of captain Siya Kolisi and lock Eben Etzebeth, plus the early departure of prop Ox Nche, the Springboks recorded a convincing 45-21 victory over England.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time defending World Cup champions were quick out of the blocks, scoring three tries inside the first quarter.<\/p>\n<p>However, England clawed their way back into the match and the Springboks went into half time with a narrow 17-14 lead. In the end, they outscored their opponents by seven tries to three.<\/p>\n<p>They next host Scotland at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria next Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13973,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-38828","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The two-time defending World Cup champions were quick out of the blocks, scoring three tries inside the first quarter.","published_date":"","news_description":"The two-time defending World Cup champions were quick out of the blocks, scoring three tries inside the first quarter.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38829,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38828\/revisions\/38829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}