Jean Kleyn enjoys winning start as South Africa hammer Australia

Kurt-Lee Arendse scored a hat-trick of tries as South Africa made it an unhappy return for Australia coach Eddie Jones by easing to victory in their Rugby Championship opener.

The Springboks were also awarded two penalty tries and got another from flanker Pieter-Steoh du Toit in the bonus-point victory as they dominated the aerial battle and had too much muscle and speed for the visitors, who have now lost all seven of their visits to Pretoria.

There will be few positives for Jones in his first match back in charge of the Wallabies since 2005, though they scored an early try through wing Marika Koroibete and a late one via debutant Carter Gordon, and enjoyed lineout success on both teams' throws.

South Africa sent a number of players to New Zealand this week ahead of their second fixture in Auckland next Saturday, handing a debut to Munster lock Jean Kleyn.

They were far from perfect, but still did more than enough for the comfortable win.

"I'm really proud of the boys, it was a fantastic performance," said captain Duane Vermeulen. "We played to our strengths. We can still improve, it was not 100% our best performance, but I'm very happy with the result."

The visitors received two yellow cards in the second half, for hooker Dave Porecki and wing Suliasi Vunivalu, a symptom of the pressure they were put under by their hosts.

It led to numerous unforced handling errors from the Wallabies, who gave a debut to flanker Tom Hooper, while prop Zane Nonggorr, lock Richie Arnold and out-half Gordon came off the bench to earn their first Test caps.

"There was an opportunity to put in a performance we are proud of, but we just defended the whole of the second half, they put us under so much pressure. We will learn from that," Australia