Wales 16 South Africa 19: Brave Dragons heartbroken as Springboks battle to set up World Cup final with England

AFTER 12 years this wasn’t how Warren Gatland imagined it would end: Death by a thousand kicks.

So England and Wales fans won’t get the Anglo-Welsh final that they dreamed of.

Instead, South Africa will take on Eddie Jones’ giant-killers in a heavyweight north versus south final on Saturday.

Just 24 hours after one of the best World Cup semi-finals ever as the All Blacks were crushed by rampant England, out-going Gatland’s last stand was to see his side dumped out without really firing a shot.

They weren’t allowed to play, though, as Springboks scrum-half Far de Klerk appeared to be going for a world record attempt at booting the ball in a game.

At times it was like watching a bunch of hungover and overweight Sunday League footballers play park football.

Nothing seemed to go Wales’ way, either.

And they couldn’t catch, couldn’t pass and couldn’t stay fit.

Gatland’s boys were rocked coming into their second semi-final under the Kiwi coach as star man Liam Williams was ruled out in the week with an ankle injury.

Then Tomas Francis and George North suffered first-half heartbreak as they had to be subbed.

North limped off holding his hamstring at 9-3 down after fly-halves Handre Pollard and Dan Biggar kicked for posts.

In the crowd watching England boss Eddie Jones will feel he has nothing to worry about from the box-kicking addicts, the Springboks.

Wearing his Houston Texans NFL hat and looking like he had come straight from a college frat party, Jones made notes as he sat alongside No2 John Mitchell.

Around them in the stadium locals dressed in Japan shirts waved leeks to show their support for Wales.

But maybe they should have bought turnips instead, to show their feelings over the state of the match.

At least everyone also got a laugh when 6ft 6ins second-row Jake Ball, a whole foot taller than De Klerk, picked-up the pint-sized pocket-rocket as he finally snapped at the Boks’ wind-up tactics.

Off the resulting play Biggar kicked another three-pointer to draw level, only for South Africa to strike with their first try of the game ten minutes later to pull back ahead.

Centre Damian de Allende had the power to charge over and fend off Biggar and Owen Watkin as sleepy Wales were caught napping in their 22.

But when Wales made the huge call to opt for a scrum when they got a penalty in the Boks 22 they hit back.

The pack did the business and Tomos Williams flicked a pass to Jonathan Davies who put through Josh Adams to dive over.

Leigh Halfpenny nailed the conversion to draw level at 16-16 – but then followed more heartache.

Wales were pinged for collapsing a South African maul and dead-eye Pollard drilled over another three-pointer with four minutes to go.

There was no time to do anything about it, Wales were done and down on their feet as they failed to reach yet another final.