Boks latest – Beast misses training
22 Nov 2010
Keo.co.za brings you the latest from the Springboks’ end-of-year tour.
Beast misses training – Beast Mtawarira sat out of Monday’s training session due to a knee injury incurred in the Boks’ defeat to Scotland. The decision on the prop’s availability will be made later in the week.
Should Mtawarira fail to pass fit, CJ van der Linde will be considered as a replacement. This would lead to Coenie Oosthuizen coming onto the Bok bench.
The team for Saturday’s Test is due to be named on Tuesday.
Poms buzzing ahead of Bok clash – England No 8 Nick Easter says his side is feeling confident about the coming tussle with the Springboks. England beat Australia two weeks ago, and despite a lacklustre showing against Samoa, he felt there were positives.
‘We’d created chances but had not nailed them,’ Easter wrote in his Daily Telegraph column. ‘We did in the second half. In many ways, we’ll get as much from this as we did from Australia. We’ll have to bring the best of both performances to beat South Africa.
‘I’ve played against them five times and lost the lot. England have lost their last six against them. Trust the Scots not to do us a favour. It’ll be a wounded Boks who come to Twickenham. It’ll be a full-blooded affair. It always is.
‘We want to finish on a high note. It would put a dampener on the autumn if we don’t manage to do that, difficult as it will be. We’ve got to make the most of these moments, all the more so as this is the last chance we get to clock a win against the southern hemisphere before the World Cup.
‘There’s a buzz in camp. We’re very much up for it.’
Matfield regrets poor tactics – Springbok captain Victor Matfield said his side employed the wrong approach and that contributed to a crushing loss to Scotland. The Boks tried to run the ball, even though atrociously stormy conditions prescribed a percentage approach.
‘There has been a lot of talk about us needing to be more expansive in our approach and maybe we paid too much attention to that,’ said Matfield. ‘These weren’t the right conditions to play expansively, and we made too many mistakes in our own half that Scotland were able to punish instead of us getting the ball down into their territory and playing from there.’
Bok coach Peter de Villiers defended his decision to sub goal-kicking machine Morne Steyn for Pat Lambie in the second half. Lambie went on to miss a crucial kick.
‘If we look at the Morne Steyn incident in isolation then it might have been a mistake, but if you look at the bigger picture towards next year’s World Cup then you have to say that the players need to get experience of playing in these conditions,’ De Villiers offered.
Poms take aim at Boks – Despite a disappointing showing against Samoa, England are feeling confident about the coming clash with the Springboks. Manager Martin Johnson wasn’t satisfied with the performance against Samoa, but said the fact that England ground out a win was important.
‘We had to keep our composure and keep on playing and it was a good experience for them,’ said Johnson. ‘I think we’ve clearly taken steps. This week was a new experience – not all of it good, but in a sense it is good because things like not finishing, going behind in the second half, are all ultimately good experience.
‘We’ve got one big shot at the world champions next week. Everything about us has got to have a little bit more intensity and accuracy. If we’d got that against Samoa we could have scored two or three more but we didn’t.’
311 Comments
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21 Nov 2010, 18:56 pm
@Hondo(Hondo) : Well they need to ask for a refund seeing the drugs they supposedly had taken did definitely not work yesterday
21 Nov 2010, 18:58 pm
@Transformation(Transformation) : although i agree why did the coaches in the past use someone else to kick when they played a flyhalf that was not the best kicking option around??
honiball was not the greatest kicker nor was butch, but other players covered that
percy for example kicked instead of butch for the most
we had ruan and f steyn that could kick yet our coaching staff and capt would rather put the pressure on the kid
thats plan silly when you have options as the boks do
and good day boet
21 Nov 2010, 19:02 pm
You cannot expect young players like Lambie to be given short cameo roles in a game and then have to succeed under extreme pressure with potentially match winning kicks. That is a recipe to destroy a talented player. Give the bloke a full game to get up to speed with International rugby and leave the kicking for now to guys like Ruan (if he plays)or Francois Steyn. One thing is for sure Morne Steyn is not the answer. I also think trying Spies on the wing is a great idea. We do not have creative centres anymore that can give players like Aplon the space to be dangerous. Spies can create his own space ala Lomu. Hell it might not be a bad idea to put Kanko on the other wing.
21 Nov 2010, 19:05 pm
Very disappointing loss.
Seems like if it close and wet keep your reliable kicker on.
And how about starting Alberts
21 Nov 2010, 19:06 pm
My Bok team for England test
15 Frans Steyn
14 Gio Aplon
13 Jean De Villiers
12 Patrick Lambie
11 Lwazi Mvovo
10 Elton Janjtes
9 Francois Hougaard
8 Willem Alberts
7 Juan Smith
6 Keegan Daniel
5 Victor Matfield
4 Bakkies Botha
3 Jannie Du Plessis
2 Bismark Du Plessis
1 Tendai Mtawarira
16 Adriaan Strauss
17 CJ Van Der Linde
18 Alistair Hargraves
19 Pierre Spies
20 Ruan Pienaar
21 Zane Kirchner
22 Adi Jacobs
My team is picked on the fact that it doesnt matter about the result, SA strongest team will always beat Englands strongest team at the moment. It is time to give other a chance.
21 Nov 2010, 19:08 pm
@Karen(Karen) : hey karen long time no see , hope you are well?
look i am not one for just sacking coaches etc , and yes to my surprise even transie was yesterday calling for pdiv to resign
and who can blame him , reason i cant blame lambie is that he comes on in terrible conditions for 10 and is now expected to save the game??
that game was lost in the first half already,, hougaard and steyn struggle as a combo , and kicked away 95% of possession as did kirchner to a degree
my problem also is not that we kick all the time, but that we dont think on our feet to change the plan on the feel as needed at the time
the problem starts with pdiv yes but capt and muir and gold are just as guilty
matfield is a great player , but again when the chips were down instead of getting the players to focus and work together he was concentrating on the ref
then i also find the team is not really a team , to many individuals , a good example is the sharks , not the biggest names but they play for each other
i dont want to knock cockott here but the reason he is mostly on the bench is because just that, he cant seem to get the team thing, and this seems pretty much the problem in the bok setup ,
we all know they fantastic players , but do they play for each other ?? for the jersey?? pride?? somehow i dont think so
21 Nov 2010, 19:08 pm
@malcolm(malcolm) : Vic and Bekker on 12 and 13
21 Nov 2010, 19:09 pm
Seems like the boys are tired
Too much rugby
21 Nov 2010, 19:10 pm
@malcolm(malcolm) : agreed
21 Nov 2010, 19:10 pm
@Karen(Karen) :
Looking at many of the Samoans and the Tongans players, I must say I regard the credibilities of drug tests in World Rugby a fraud, dictated by many interests of various Test Unions.
21 Nov 2010, 19:11 pm
@Two Eyed(Two Eyed) :
should actually be Vic and Pierre wys my jou spiere Spies on 12 and 13
21 Nov 2010, 19:12 pm
@malcolm(malcolm) : Seriously though. I want to see Spies on the wing. He is not a no8. But he is a super athlete. Need to utilise that somewhere.
21 Nov 2010, 19:12 pm
Duuuhhh… So yesterday the Boks played expansively? Wow!!! That explains how each of our wings at least touched the ball.
Vertically expansive maybe, as the ball spent more time at extreme altitudes while the Scots gratefully awaited gifted possession.
If that was their idea of expansive play, we’re in even bigger trouble than we realise…
21 Nov 2010, 19:12 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) : Hallo Sharks_Lover – yes long time. Hope you are well and yes it was a major disappointment yesterday. I actually love seeing who blames who in the zoo – the blame game actually is better than plan A of the Boks at the moment
21 Nov 2010, 19:15 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) : he seemed to kick well in the currie cup final yeh?
21 Nov 2010, 19:15 pm
@Rhys7(Rhys7) : Lambie and Jantjies should be left out of that mess. Jantjies must come home under the watchful eyes of Mitchell and Carlos. Keep Snorre away from him pse.
21 Nov 2010, 19:18 pm
my team would be
15 F Steyn
14 Aplon
13 Adi
12 Jdiv
11 Mvovo
10 Lambie
09 Pienaar
08 Spies
07 Alberts
06 Juan (yes i know he is not as fetcher but nor do england)
05 Matfield
04 Bakkies
03 Jannie
02 Bissy
01 Beast
16 Strauss
17 CJ
18 Flippie
19 Kanko
20 Hougaard
21 Morne
22 Kirchner
21 Nov 2010, 19:18 pm
How can you run on to a field seeing the stormy weather and try and play expansive rugby?
21 Nov 2010, 19:26 pm
@CoachPete(CoachPete) : Well they had no clue what expansive rugby is. When mullet eventually decided to pass, Morne was standing 20m behind the advantage line, catch the ball while standing still and he would pass that to JdV who would bash it up. I have no idea what it was they were trying to play.
21 Nov 2010, 19:27 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) :
Sharkie, you, like the majority of doff Saffers, fail to understand that you CANNOT improvise a gameplan out of nothing. The players are not coaches, it’s not their job to do what the coaches should be doing. Rugby is a game that relies massively on the cohesion of individuals as units, without the proper planning off the field it will never materialise. Hence why Nz are better than us. This belief that they just wing, so we should too, is a lie. They are always well prepared off the field, whilst every four to seven years we have a coach who will do likewise for us. Look at this years S14, then look at the Boks, if you cannot see this then this really does signify that SA fans really are as the rest of the world claim them to be, defiantly stupid.
21 Nov 2010, 19:28 pm
Okay, must’ve watched a different match, cause to me there’s nothing EXPANSIVE about running straight into tacklers when in possession and kicking the ball away the rest of the time.
21 Nov 2010, 19:31 pm
@Two Eyed(Two Eyed) :
You want to know where the problem lies? Then read this quote from de Villiers. It was from an interview with him when he took over in 2008, upon reading it, tell me whether he has achieved his vision or not.
“Structure in rugby came from Australia, a country which doesn’t have a lot of rugby talent,” he explains. “I believe the more talent you have, the less structure there should be.”
Well, they certainly look like they have no structure in any aspect of their play, so job done de Villiers. Too bad that, as Eddie Jones said, nobody on planet Earth plays rugby like he is talking.
21 Nov 2010, 19:31 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) : 167 – Howzit Sharky, I would play McLeod at scrummie. Wont even give it a thought. He has been the best scrummie this CC. Also wont kick every damn ball away. Play the Sharks loosies Sharky. They being playing together as a team. Helps I think. Or Alberts at 8 Juan 7 and Keegan at 6. Someone above mentioned Spies on the wing, well maybe not a bad idea that.
Just wish we had better centres. Fransie just not doing it at 13 nor JdV at inside centre either.
21 Nov 2010, 19:33 pm
I think I watched the wrong game, I never got the impression that the Boks wanted to run the ball. What I saw was the Boks giving the ball away with poor kicks and ****** handling.
Am I going blind?
21 Nov 2010, 19:34 pm
@Two Eyed(Two Eyed) : Yes Spies has all the gift to be a great winger. He is certainly quick enough not to be embarrassed by most of the wingers out there while his physical size will give all of them problems. The choice is in my opinion to keep him at eighth man where he seems set to remain at best an average international player or move him to the backline where he may become a great winger. At the moment we have nothing to lose by at least trying something different.
21 Nov 2010, 19:35 pm
@Puma(Puma) :
You can play any 9 you want, it wont have any real impact on the Boks as they’ll still have the same flawed, poorly coached gameplan. They’ll still kick, as that’s the only way they can get around defences.
As for Fransie, he is not a 13, he is however our best 12. Jean would be better suited to 13 than Frans.
21 Nov 2010, 19:36 pm
@Alucard(Alucard) :
that makes
div
about as
intelligent
as half
a small bag
of
charcoal
yesterday
i credited him
with
the intelligence
of
a small bag
of charcoal
i was wrong
he is only
worth
half a bag
maybe
21 Nov 2010, 19:36 pm
The big reason why we lost was that we came second in the collissions. What changed?- Spies didn’t play. And when he doesn’t play and Kankowski replaces him our forwards gets smashed.
Spies deserves more credit for the physicality he brings to the pack. He does a lot of work preventing counter rucking and stopping opposition drives.
21 Nov 2010, 19:36 pm
@Porra the Fat and Clever Speedster(Porra) :
half a
small
bag
21 Nov 2010, 19:37 pm
@Alucard(Alucard) : Go read Dan Retiefs site. He is one rugby writer that makes plenty sense.
http://www.danretief.com I agree with what he had to say about this game.
Also once the players are out there playing, gameplan or not it is up to them if anything is not working to change the dame gameplan. Which I hardly saw any of yesterday. WE WERE CLUELESS!!
21 Nov 2010, 19:37 pm
@crowbar(crowbar) :
actually for most of the first half the Boks were trying to run it, but ran out of steam trying to bludgeon their way through the Scots and resorted to kicking to try and get around them.
21 Nov 2010, 19:38 pm
@Puma(Puma) : 180 – typo – dame = damn
21 Nov 2010, 19:38 pm
@Puma(Puma) : **** forgot mcleod was there lol
howzit bro
div wont make much changes mate ,2 prolly at most
i was thinking of keegan on the bench and playing only 2 reserve backs
21 Nov 2010, 19:39 pm
For all the Shark fans and now Bok selectors, you only won the CC this year, there is actually another league between the CC and test rugby…
21 Nov 2010, 19:39 pm
@diewareouboet(diewareouboet) :
Give Spies credit? That’s far too much to ask, as most Saffers get on the player bashing bandwagon with relative ease. whatever is the common thought is usually wrong and stupid.
21 Nov 2010, 19:41 pm
@Alucard(Alucard) : if you read all my posts you will see 99% i blame on the coaching staff
its not only div , but muir and gold too
21 Nov 2010, 19:42 pm
@Alucard(Alucard) : 176 – Agree that JdV and Fransie should change positions. Frans is better at inside centre but not great at all at outside centre. Jean has played there many times he could do it. Adi on form would be great too, but has not had enough game time. Anything will be better than the game we playes last night. We were very poor not only the coaches buddy, but the players were not great either. We have to have them thinking for themselves on the field if nothing is working.
21 Nov 2010, 19:44 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) :
don’t
split
the blame
it lies
with the
coach
his name
is div
the quota
21 Nov 2010, 19:46 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) : 183 – Div should gamble this week..hehehe. Damn I would just play McLeod. Nothing to lose. Think we gonna get a smack this week if we don’t come up with something different against England. Hate to even think what the score will be. Hope nothing like 2002 when we lost 53/3 to them.
21 Nov 2010, 19:49 pm
@Porra the Fat and Clever Speedster(Porra) : actually the blame starts higher then Div lol
21 Nov 2010, 19:50 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) :
true
21 Nov 2010, 19:51 pm
Dan Retief’s summary is worth a read. Most sense I’ve read in a while.
21 Nov 2010, 19:52 pm
@Two Eyed(Two Eyed) : 192 – Good writing there by Dan hey!! He makes very good sense for sure. I read his site on a daily basis.
21 Nov 2010, 19:57 pm
@diewareouboet(diewareouboet) : I do not agree. Kankowski more than holds his own when the Sharks play the Bulls and many would rate the Bulls pack as being far better than Scotland (before yesterday anyhow). Kankowski is not my first choice either although he is talented and a potential gamebreaker but in his defence he has not been given a fair chance to prove himself. He gets very few oppertunities to start for the boks and then its one off with 6 or 7 games before he gets another chance. No player can become test quality if treated like that. Spies has been given every oppertunity to succeed at 8th man. He is in my opinion very average in the position although not as bad as some make out.
21 Nov 2010, 20:02 pm
Blown away, washed away, kicked away. Take your pick because they’re all applicable to the Springboks’ desultory performance in going down to Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday.
Blown away by the whistle of Stuart Dickinson, washed away by the Highland rain and kicked away by the Springboks themselves.
My contention is that the biggest cause of what really was a shocker was the latter. Sure Dickinson confounded the Boks with his infuriating inconsistency and stream of penalties, although part of the problem was because the Boks’ support of the ball was not close or intense enough, and the rain teaming down was not helpful but the Boks’ kicking game was downright amateurish.
Dickinson is an old adversary and Victor Matfield, his frustration boiling over, might have “managed” the official in a friendlier manner and the rain was a given. It started pouring down well before the start and it was astonishing that the Boks had made no allowances for the conditions the way they bulleted passes around that were difficult to hold, the ball thus ending up on the sodden turf and making constantly releasing the pressure on the Scots.
The Boks’ all-round kicking game, though, is a far more serious problem. It has been evident for some time now that Morné Steyn’s out-of-hand kicking is, well, injudicious. When it comes to putting the boot to ball, as one sometimes has to, especially in rainy conditions, Steyn is not in the league of a Naas Botha, or Dan Carter and even Dan Parks, while neither Francois Hougaard nor Ruan Pienaar are close to Fourie du Preez when it comes to kicking the ball to put defenders under pressure.
The kick-chase, which used to be a strength when Du Preez was steering the ship, has slowly been getting worse and less focussed – for instance the way two or three players converge on the catcher without anyone anticipating the catch-and-spin or the catch-and-pass. In all three tests on this tour there have been instances of the Boks being put under great pressure when a catch has been made and the player evaded the first wave of chasers. One shudders to think what the All Black counter-attackers might do to them the way they are playing at the moment.
There’s a maxim that you must kick to land and not to hand but the Boks seemed to be trying to give the ball to a Scottish catcher.
To me it was as if no preparation has gone into the tactics of kicking the ball. There are a great variety of kicks available but the like of Steyn, Ruan Pienaar, Zane Kirchner, Geo Aplon tend to kick when they should hold the ball and run when they should be kicking… and not putting it where it might be retrieved when they do kick it.
The most obvious example of this was when they finally managed to mount a promising wide attack in the 73rd minute. Kirchner was 30 metres out when he grubbered – a ball eventually saved with steely application by Hugo Southwell who bravely waited for it to cross the goalline before dotting down – but that ball should have been kept in hand.
Two minutes later when Kirchner was gifted possession near his own goal line when Parks tried an unwise grubber and there were acres of unprotected space in front of him he chose to run, and was caught.
The decision to opt for an up-and-under in the 77th minute when the only way out of the hole was a try was breathtakingly daft – both Matfield’s calling of it and Pienaar’s poor execution by kicking it too long.
I’ve asked it before and I’ll do it again – where is the brain power in the side? I see nothing new – no innovative moves, no adjustments for specific conditions, no rectifying of problems that have been apparent throughout the Tri-Nations and this tour.
At Murrayfield the substitutions were again incomprehensible. Francois Hougaard, behind a struggling pack, battled to come to terms with the conditions but just when it seemed he was getting into it he was subbed. In the 46th minute? Why not then just have sent Pienaar on at halftime?
Why send on Pat Lambie, a mobile flyhalf adept at running onto the ball and taking it up to the line, in a game we were not winning the ball, in conditions not conducive to moving it, with a referee not allowing us to set platforms? Or was that a concession by the coaches that they are as worried about Steyn’s enduring inability to take control as the rest of us?
Makes no sense… seeing as the Boks know how to do it. Remember how we praised them for adapting to conditions in Dublin.
The weather at Murrayfield was almost certainly worse than it looked on television but when I saw the sheets of rain I thought we would be rubbing our hands in glee. Instead we got our approach badly wrong and lost to an ordinary Scottish side. Even our try, by Alberts, was a fluke because the lineout throw was intended for Victor Matfield.
As the correspondent for the The Scotsman, the incongruously named Tom English, so aptly put it: “There are days in rugby when things get primal, when the weather is Biblical and the game is ugly and when the winner and loser are determined not by line breaks or tries or moments of genius but by altogether more straightforward qualities. Scotland achieved a famous victory because in the maelstrom they managed to keep their heads better than their celebrated opponents. They were smarter. When the rain was coming down in sheets their game management was a level above the Springboks and their discipline was streets ahead. Sometimes it’s not about who is the most aggressive and the most passionate on days like this, but who is the coolest in the madness.”
A final word: TV coverage of the match was abominable. The director kept getting caught on close-ups, had no sense of the breadth of the game and I’m still trying to find out how, in the 73rd minute a drop-out to the Boks became a penalty to the Scots on their own 10-metre line? And as for comments man Brian Moore? … a man seemingly intent, with the encouragement of his employers, on being a parody of himself.
21 Nov 2010, 20:04 pm
181. ALUCARD(ALUCARD
Accepted, they tried to run it, but as individuals. A JdV putting the ball under the arm and trying to run over the defender does not equate ro expansive rugby. My understanding of the expansive game is players combining through the running of intelligent ilines, drawing defenders to free space for a team mate and getting off well timed passes to nullify defenders.
The Boks of yesterdays debacle give no indication that they possess the aptitude, intelligence or intent for such a gameplan.
21 Nov 2010, 20:04 pm
Hey Puma How are you
Yes McLeod was the form 9 at end of CC
Ruan is hot and cold and is basically a reserve to cover all positions
Alberts should have started at 8
21 Nov 2010, 20:06 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover) : Sharky, Good you copy and pasted this article. Nice read I thought by Dan.
21 Nov 2010, 20:07 pm
@Puma(Puma) : brilliant article by Dan
21 Nov 2010, 20:08 pm
This game should have been kept tight with the forwards grinding scots into the mud.
Kicks yes smart kicking, high balls in the wind and wet
And yes long touches across fild once you have commited a wing and fullback who maybe out of position
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