An impressive century from Jacques Kallis set up a relatively straight forward home victory, almost confirmed once Makhaya Ntini cleaned up the New Zealand 2nd innings tail to leave a target of just 101.

Weakened by the loss of all their front line bowlers: Cairns, Nash, Allott and Vettori through injury, Shayne O'Connor led an attack short on experience and wickets against the might of the South Africans.

The home side came off the better, and in return Donald, Pollock and Ntini showed the Kiwis what they were missing, as they failed to hold on despite some rearguard batting by young Mark Richardson, skipper Fleming and Craig McMillan.

But any hopes of a decent lead were dashed by Ntini, as the last four wickets went down for 17 runs, South Africa's batsmen were merciless, particularly he strong Kallis, and it was only Boeta Dipenaar (first ball 0), and Klusener with 9, who missed out. The next lowest contribution was no. 10 Allan Donald's 21*.

The Kiwi's were always struggling in the face of 471, and Donald and Pollock made short work of the tourists first time around. But the second innings brought hope, at 247-4 with Fleming needing a single for his century things looked promising.

Then Donald struck, having the captain caught by Kirsten, from then on it was a struggle despite McMillan hanging around for his 78, but when Ntini returned and mopped up the tail, the home side were all but home and dry.

All credit to the Kiwi's in particular Darryl Tuffey, whose 3-38 had South Africa almost on the wobble until Mark Boucher came in and finished the job with three successive boundaries. Ntini picked up the man of the match award and shows real promise as back up to Donald and Pollock, which is bad news for the Kiwis.