South Africa 39 - 41 Australia: South Africa coach De Villiers keeps job for now despite dire results

Springbok coach Peter de Villiers' job is safe for now although the South African Rugby Union will review his side's poor run of form and some of his controversial comments later this month.

Defending champions South Africa lost their fifth match out of six in this year's Tri-Nations on Saturday, a 41-39 defeat by Australia fuelling media speculation that De Villiers would be sacked.

"All rugby followers are extremely disappointed with results in the Tri-Nations, as are the Springbok team and management, of course," SARU president Oregan Hoskins said in a statement yesterday.

"We take the situation very seriously but there is a process in place and we will follow that through."

He added that the Springboks' poor Tri-Nations performance would be subject to an annual review, "as per normal", with De Villiers later this month.

De Villiers, whose three-year tenure has featured several fiery tirades, has found his comments under scrutiny again this week after saying the team fully supported Bees Roux, the Blue Bulls prop accused last week of murdering a policeman.

Hoskins said his organisation would hold "formal discussions" with De Villiers about "some of his reported comments" and added that SARU had written to the policeman's family.

De Villiers was last month cleared of misconduct by southern hemisphere governing body SANZAR following television comments suggesting New Zealand were being given preferential treatment by referees because they were hosting next year's World Cup.

Full-back Kurtley Beale struck a dramatic long-range penalty with his only kick of the match to give Australia a 41-39 win over South Africa in what was a magnificent Tri-Nations clash on Saturday. Beale's nerveless goal in the final 30 seconds from 55 metres climaxed a game which see-sawed dramatically after the Wallabies had run the Springboks ragged in the first quarter.

It also atoned for two previous mistakes by Beale who had thrown a wild pass that went out touch-in-goal to give South Africa a five-metre scrum, from which centre Jean de Villiers scored.

Beale then slipped when he tried to field a kick.The ball rebounded off his head to Springbok outside centre Jaque Fourie, who sparked an attack that led to fly-half Morne Steyn's 77th-minute penalty which gave the home team a 39-38 lead.

The match began at a frenetic pace with Australia scoring four tries in the first 26 minutes to lead 31-6 through some exhilarating broken field running.

Beale, wing James O'Connor, hooker Stephen Moore and flanker and captain Rocky Elsom scored tries, all of which were converted by Matt Giteau.

The Springboks struck back with a converted try by Fourie on the stroke of half-time to cut the deficit to 31-13.

They then dominated most of the second half through converted tries to prop Gurthro Steenkamp and de Villiers plus three penalties by Steyn to take the lead in an astonishing comeback.

Wallaby wing Drew Mitchell then flew through the defence for an impressive try with O'Connor's conversion returning the lead to the Australians.

Steyn succeeded with another penalty with three minutes remaining, which looked like proving the match winner, but flanker David Pocock forced a ruck penalty and, after some deliberation, Beale was given the ball for the kick which was to break Springbok hearts.

South Africa: F. Steyn; Pietersen, Fourie, de Villiers, Habana; M. Steyn, Hougaard; Steenkamp, Smit, du Plessis, Rossouw, Matfield, Burger, Smith, Spies. Replacements: Ralepelle, van der Linde, van der Merwe, Kankowski, Januarie, de Jongh, Aplon.

Australia: Beale; O'Connor, Ashley-Cooper, Mitchell, Giteau; Cooper, Genia; Robinson, Moore, Ma'afu, Chisholm, Sharpe, Elsom, Pocock, McCalman. Replacements: S. Faingaa, Slipper, Mumm, Brown, Burgess, Barnes, A. Faingaa.