The All Blacks won by three tries to nil and dominated throughout, starving the Springboks of ball and territory.

While New Zealand could not quite turn all their possession into points, tries from Leon MacDonald, Keven Mealamu and Joe Rokocoko sealed their passage.

MacDonald landed three penalties and a conversion, with Aaron Mauger slotting over a drop goal.

The Springboks managed just three penalties from fly-half Derick Hougaard and bow out in the quarter-finals – their worst showing at a World Cup.

In their increasing desperation to close the gap, South Africa began to make mistakes, dropping the ball and turning it over too often to keep New Zealand on the back foot.

After MacDonald had landed a third penalty, one such error from Hougaard proved costly – but only after a moment of magic from Spencer.

With New Zealand camped just metres from the line he was fed by Marshall but had his back to Rokocoko outside him down the left touchline.

It was no matter as he simply flicked the ball through his legs straight to his winger and Rokocoko had an easy passage over for his seventh try of the tournament and the 16th of his sensational Test career.

MacDonald missed the conversion, but the game was up and South Africa had been eliminated in the quarter-finals for the first time in World Cup history.

The All Blacks marched on into the semi-finals.