Consistency eludes blundering Boks
13 Aug 2011
JON CARDINELLI says that a second-half dip in intensity and accuracy contributed to another gutting Springbok defeat.
Many were all but hailing a famous Bok victory at half-time, as the hosts had produced an unpolished but spirited display. The decision to appoint Jacques Nienaber as the defensive consultant was vindicated as the Boks were much improved when it came to one-on-one or system defence, and more than anything the players displayed an aggressive attitude that complemented their accuracy at the tackle.
Heinrich Brussow had the desired impact at the breakdown, as apart from a crucial turnover inside his own 22 he hassled the Wallabies at the ruck and ensured the opposition halfbacks received slow ball. Brussow was substituted in the 50th minute, and this undoubtedly helped the Wallabies’ attacking cause.
Fourie du Preez was excellent early on, and his clever tactical kicks were well chased by Bryan Habana and JP Pietersen. The spot tackles by men like Habana, Butch James and Jean de Villiers highlighted the Boks’ desire to make a defensive statement, but unfortunately it was an effort they failed to maintain for the full 80 minutes.
While the first-half defensive performance was encouraging, the Boks squandered several attacking opportunities. Many of these opportunities were created by excellent defensive pressure, such as the instant where Du Preez kicked in behind the Wallabies’ defence and Jaque Fourie put pressure on a flailing Quade Cooper. The TMO ruled that Fourie had knocked the ball on before grounding it, and it was a massive let off for the visitors. If the Boks had added a converted try to their tally at that point, the final result may have been different.
But the Boks’ lack of match fitness became increasingly apparent as the game wore on. The Wallabies, who have been playing together since the start of the Tri-Nations, came into their own, and David Pocock effected some momentum-killing turnovers when the Bok heavies failed to display the necessary intensity and accuracy at the ruck. The kicks in behind the Wallabies defence were also poorly chased in the second stanza, and so the dangerous Wallabies back three had more space to counter-attack.
What also contributed to the Boks’ lack of momentum in the second half was the ludicrous player-management of coach Peter de Villiers. The Bok scrum produced a powerful showing initially and No 8 Pierre Spies took full advantage of this platform with some bulldozing runs. But when John Smit was shifted to prop in the second half, the Bok set-piece went backwards. The lineout also struggled as the weather worsened later in the game.
The Boks have a lot to rectify before next week’s Test in Port Elizabeth. They need to win a game (they’ve lost all of their Tests in 2011) before they go to the World Cup, but to do so they will need to produce a far more consistent showing on both defence and attack.
39 Comments
13 Aug 2011, 19:23 pm
Now sbw show in PE.
13 Aug 2011, 19:24 pm
Whatever JC … it’s the clown coaches who are to blame … the same coaches who lick a certain has-beens fat one, allowing him to waddle on the field keeping a superior on player the bench, then moving this same has-been player to TH prop where he is turbo reversed 3 times, only to leave the field in disgrace.
13 Aug 2011, 19:26 pm
Fourie should have been awarded the try. It came off the Aussie, not him.
13 Aug 2011, 19:30 pm
This should be the team for next week:
15 Jaco Taute, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Jean de Villiers, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Butch James, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Pierre Spies, 7 Jean Deysel, 6 Heinrich Brüssow, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Bismarck du Plessis, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Replacements: 16 ChilliBoy Ralepelle, 17 Pat Cilliers (TH/LH), 18 Gerhard Mostert, 19 Derick Minnie, 20 Fourie du Preez, 21 Morné Steyn, 22 Gio Aplon.
13 Aug 2011, 19:31 pm
@RL(RL)-4: Make JdV the captain and Vic the vice captain.
13 Aug 2011, 19:32 pm
Whatever, just choose the best team which does not include John Smit!
13 Aug 2011, 19:36 pm
@Michael(mikeybrass)-3:
Really hard to tell. I thought the first angle would have been more conclusive but we never got a frame by frame replay on that one
13 Aug 2011, 19:37 pm
” Boks fire then falter ”
Are you boys struggling to say they fired blanks or dum-dums?
Were whites not ‘blankes’ some time ago? So ‘Boks have the same W.P./Stormer malady of being “TOO WHITE”?
But you can not be the ALL BLACKS either.
13 Aug 2011, 19:39 pm
@Peter Mkata(Peter Mkata)-1:
Why are you so scarce? Will you be at that game?
You know the 70% ABs can take this in a canter with that team of 25% dilution?
13 Aug 2011, 19:49 pm
@chch(chch)-7: I got it on the internet stream I was watching. It came off the Aussie.
I liked F. Steyn. Wish JDJ had been brought on with 15 mins to go. Danie is no flank but Deysel didn’t do anything special either. Smit was good for 40 mins and the right person to start with. He should have been substituted and Jannie kept on. the Boks need to learn to play phases better.
13 Aug 2011, 19:49 pm
@RL(RL)-4:
Thats it
No John Smit, No FdP, Roussouw only at bench 2nd row cover, and No Frans Steyn and these Boks will suddenly do a metamorphic transformation…
SMIT, FDP and FANS STEYN were the catalysts that lost this game tonight.
13 Aug 2011, 19:53 pm
These Boks are definite pensioners, I’m talking retirement annuity types. The wallabies are just woeful, period.
Keo you should be ashamed of yourself for shutting down a thread without any justification.
13 Aug 2011, 19:58 pm
@mpundulu(mpundulu)-12:
did you miss the previous 20 times he did it?
Inserted correction below …..
“Keo you should be ashamed of yourself for shutting down many threads without any justification.”
13 Aug 2011, 19:59 pm
@RL(RL)-4:
That team would have won today – but hey since Smit is picking the team he is harldy going to drop himself
Taute is a far better FB than Steyn or Aplon. I rate Aplon but not a fullback maybe wing. Steyn is overweight and ponderous, not sure why he has this free ticket to the WC? I like him but he is way off form & seriously out of shape. The AB have strong competition in their squad and it shows – the players a re fit and hungry. Out players have a free pass to the WC, their positions are guaranteed and you can see the lack of hunger and conditioning in their game
13 Aug 2011, 20:01 pm
Hi ET
We miners are very busy this time of the year. Business plans, trying to balance the books, annual pay increases, rand dollar exchange rates. Can go on and on
No man. Got caught napping when tickets were up for sale.
You know PDV is such an dissappointment. If he had persisted with the rugby he promibed when he took over, we will probably not be so upset. The denausers rugby that we play is really sad. You only have to think of players like Danie Gerber and Michael dup and they are probably shaking their heads wherever they are. Recently read an article where the great Zinzan said we will not go past the group stages in the WC. He fances Samoa in our group. Skande, skande my maat.
13 Aug 2011, 20:01 pm
You fellows should keep some perspective too. Australia lost to Samoa in their first test this season. SA will get stronger as the games come on.
13 Aug 2011, 20:04 pm
@Rugby-1(Rugby-1)-14: Taute is having a blinder against the FS right now … Mapoe is a revelation at 13.
13 Aug 2011, 20:04 pm
Hougaard to start on wing in place of Habana, John to go on retirement, Schalk or Juan on flank…… Danie to cover lock
13 Aug 2011, 20:10 pm
Where to now for Krusty.? All the controversy around leaving most of your best players behind from the Australasian leg has again exposed the myth that this would pay dividends for these dinosaurs of springbok rugby. Well it hasn’t. What a joke.
13 Aug 2011, 20:12 pm
@Getafix(phil72)-18: Schalk and Juan are injured.
@Rugby-1(Rugby-1)-14: Steyn isn’t overweight and was playing according to a preconceived plan. The plan needs to be altered.
13 Aug 2011, 20:13 pm
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-16: Yes, along with the plan being tweaked to allow an injection of pace into the backline and Smit not being moved to 3.
13 Aug 2011, 20:44 pm
WTF were the Boks doing kicking away almost every single time they got good ball and also not taking kickable penalty kicks when they were available in a very tight match.
Some good performances from Beast & Jannie, Matfield and Brussow (very good) and Francois Steyn.
K@k performances from FDP and James for kicking all our ball away, Habana was useless as usual apart from a few good tackles and Danie Rossouw, who is such a damn clumsy idiot and for goodness sakes, he is a lock, not a loose forward. Smit was also useless as a tighthead prop and was always popping up in the centre position when the Boks were passing the ball in the backline, that is not his place! will be so glad if he is in fact injured and out of the World Cup.
Apart from the way the Boks played, I thought the referee Bryce Lawrence was f_cking pathetic/biased towards Aussies, allowing two spear tackles, loads of off-sides, forward passes, not 10 metres from quick tap penalties and getting away with murder at the breakdown. It is a disgrace that the IRB allow him to referee professional rugby.
13 Aug 2011, 21:03 pm
World Cup is overrated. Winning the WC will not make SA the best team in world rugby, the All Blacks are the best team.
13 Aug 2011, 21:21 pm
The ABs are the standard no question. The team that ought to be most alarmed with today’s performance are the Australians. They were up against a team with no game time for two months, historically little skill, and could not piece together anything that would really threaten a decent team. A positive from the Boks is that they seem to be keeping ball more in hand and their defensive scramble is encouraging. The scrums in the first half were solid if not dominant, lineouts are a lottery, breakdown without Brussouw is a challenge. Though spies showed a bit of promise today perhaps his best performance for quite some time, he had defensive deficiencies and poor ball protection. Francois Steyn as per usual was just awful, he’s overweight, out of shape and has no speed at all. The centre pair is inarticulate. However FDP had flashes of brilliance and there’s something to build on for sure. As a whole, let’s see how the Boks go against the baby blacks. The wallabies need to ask themselves if deans is the answer as coach.
13 Aug 2011, 23:27 pm
Deans has coached Oz to two consecutive away wins in SA and cemented his team into the IRB #2 slot. Only 1 team can hold the top spot and everyone knows it’s NZ — only team on earth with a positive balance on the test ledger against every opponent. So it’s the dice for #2 which is the only viable contest and Deans has won that with ease.
13 Aug 2011, 23:50 pm
we lost that game because
1)Bissie didnt start
2)Beast was subbed of for Guthro and Smit stayed on
3)frans , FDP kicking was off the mark
4)crucial combo’s didnt fire i.e JDV, JF
Aussie won because
1) see above
14 Aug 2011, 01:25 am
@boktillzero(boktillzero)-26:
Correct on all points.
+ Australia never packed it in.
14 Aug 2011, 03:11 am
@daydreamer(daydreamer)-22: Yes.What is it with the spear tackles??The first one was on Bakkies. Should have been a yellow and a citing . Where is Freek Burger?? In Paddy;s ….PLEASE get us a citing comm. with some guts.
14 Aug 2011, 03:16 am
Shocking game of rugby. So many mistakes, missed tackles, dropped ball. I can sort of understand the Boks situation with the rust coming out, but the Aussies, sheez.
If Boks play like that against the All Blacks, they’ll get 30-40pts put on them. I hope Steyn plays at 15 as well, he looks slow, predictable and lacks any counter attacking skill.
14 Aug 2011, 03:28 am
It was never going to be great from the Boks this is technically their first game of the year, the defence was much improved but lack of game time was always going to be a major contributor.
14 Aug 2011, 06:15 am
@Michael(mikeybrass)-3:
Buddy go and get your eyes checked…fourie knocked it on first into cooper came off cooper into fories again.
14 Aug 2011, 06:19 am
@Michael(mikeybrass)-10</
I hope you dont belive what you see and truly hope you dont run a country.
14 Aug 2011, 06:21 am
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-16:
England will remain krap as always!
Wallabies will fire buddy hold onto your seat.
14 Aug 2011, 07:11 am
@daydreamer(daydreamer)-22: I agree with most of your post until you start whinging about Bryce costing us that game. We will probably never get a referee that gives us that much latitude again and we will probably never play a team that misses that many easy kicks.
The boks should have lost by more tonight. We were extremely lucky to have knock ons, sideways throws into the lineout, diving over the ball to slow it down and other assorted indiscretions not picked up by that moron Bryce. It’s not good for us because it makes us feel like we are better than we are.I actually thought the only time Aus didn’t deserve to get a penalty was when he awarded them one. And how we got away with diving on that ball a metre from the line right on half time I’ll never know.
Anyway, it was good to see Spies find some form again and Habana looks like he might step up again for us. Aplon probably is a bit much of a liability down the back. Let’s hope we put it together a bit better for the game next week.
14 Aug 2011, 09:18 am
@wallabie.(wallabie.)-33: would love nothing more than another England/Australia semi walla, I think we know how that would go down
14 Aug 2011, 10:02 am
@Maori_Fulla(Maori_Fulla)-29:
Tika to korero . I imagine Henry is the coach who benefitted most from the game.
14 Aug 2011, 10:27 am
From Robbie Deans after the game:
“At halftime we talked about adjusting out support lines and we talked about maintaining ball. We knew that a lot of the Springboks had not played in a while and we hoped to exhaust them and profit,” Deans said.
Anyone think anyone in the SA camp talks about support lines? Angles?
Why is it that even our most dynamic player in the tight forwards, Beast does not look to pass? Every single Aus player understands that the ball does the work, carry the ball & then give it to someone in better space than you. I can’t understand why we do not understand this.
If SA want anything good to come of this game, they should look at how the Ozzies played. Frans Steyn could learn sooo much from Beale, JDV could learn so much from Cooper & Fourie could learn from Gennia.
On Fourie, he & the rest of the team need to look to add some speed to their game. When SA won the last penalty that James kicked, it was so on on the outside. He kicked the ball to win the penalty, but should have looked for more. I would bet money Genia would have gone, not just sulked about the penalty & kicked the ball away.
14 Aug 2011, 11:33 am
PWDL = 3 0 0 3.
Can’t say that’s not perfectly consistent, surely?
15 Aug 2011, 00:53 am
Putting the captain and coach out to pasture should go some way to curing the Boks ills.
Have your say
You must be logged in to post a comment.