Bok blunders hamper momentum
23 Jun 2012
JON CARDINELLI writes that a series of handling errors and poor decisions prevented the Springboks from implementing their game plan to any sort of effect.
We’ve seen what this Bok side can do. They produced one of their most clinical displays during the first half of last week’s Test, a true testament to Heyneke Meyer’s simple yet effective playing pattern.
But for this game plan to work, the players needs to produce a high degree of accuracy and discipline. We saw this last week at Ellis Park when an aggressive yet controlled performance at the collisions, a superior tactical kicking game and savvy option-taking resulted in multiple scoring rewards.
On this occasion, the Boks struggled to blend all of these ingredients to produce the necessary cocktail.
There were times when their set piece fired or when they crossed the gainline, only to lose the ball in a subsequent phase via a knock on or turnover. There were also instances were they kicked well and put the English under pressure in the air, but too many where poor defence and ill-discipline allowed England to make easy metres on the counter-attack.
The weather must be taken into account, as the steady rain and swirling wind made it a difficult evening for the kickers. Before Toby Flood went off with an injury, he pushed two goal attempts wide. Morne Steyn’s wayward form with the boot also continued, with the South Africa flyhalf missing three goal attempts from six.
There was never an instant when the Boks looked in control, and this must be a concern for the coaching staff. It was also worrying to see the suspect decision-making when the ball did emerge from the set piece or the ruck. At times, the Bok halfbacks looked absolutely clueless.
Francois Hougaard produced a mixed bag on the tactical kicking front, and his service from the ruck base wasn’t nearly sharp enough. Too many times a pass would find the turf instead of a pair of South African hands.
Steyn was also guilty of compromising the momentum with some odd decisions to run down the blindside, especially in the first half when the Boks didn’t have a great deal of possession or territory.
The Bok backline as a whole looked static, which was partially down to the failure to lay a platform up front, but also down too plain indecisiveness.
England competed well at the breakdowns and were clearly the more aggressive of the two teams at the collisions. They impeded one time too many in this area, however, and captain Dylan Hartley was yellow carded at an important time of the second half.
This allowed the Boks to fight back, and it would be another error (an England player shooting out of defensive alignment) that allowed the hosts to capitalise through a JP Pietersen try in the 62nd minute.
England would level the scores 10 minutes later, leaving the game in the balance as full time approached. The Boks rightly looked to play the game down in England territory during this period. The crowd booed as a series of kicks were aimed at the England back three, but what it ensured was that the Boks stayed in sight of a late winner.
Fittingly, the Boks blew another couple of chances in the last five minutes. A drop-goal attempt by Steyn sailed wide and a subsequent sequence of Bok ball-carries culminated in a penalty for England, the visitors’ determination at the breakdown again providing them with an edge.
If the Boks were too inconsistent to be anything by disappointing, England were just as erratic. The game ended in anticlimax with Owen Farrell’s ugly drop-goal attempt skidding beyond the dead ball line. The game ended with the scores level, and it could be said it was a game neither team deserved to win.
37 Comments
23 Jun 2012, 18:57 pm
Terrible game- the All Blacks will be smoking these two teams as per usual.
Nothing new.
23 Jun 2012, 19:02 pm
Morne Steyn = k@k.
Why he brought on Werner Kruger I’ll never understand. He just gets in the way, this time not cleaning out… just lying there. He did the same bloody thing a few weeks ago in SR when the game was on the line.
Heyneke needs to move away from BB rugby a tad. This is just going to take us down the wrong path. Without someone like Frans Steyn who can just dominate, our game-plan goes out the window.
23 Jun 2012, 19:23 pm
@hendrikp(hendrikp)-2:
Werner Kruger had nothing to do with loss. 9-10 and a collective lethargy did.
23 Jun 2012, 19:26 pm
@hendrikp(hendrikp)-2:
We don’t have many tighthead props
23 Jun 2012, 19:30 pm
@victoriabok(victoriabok)-4:
You don’t have any beyond the good doctor! Lucky Alex Corbisiero wasn’t playing, other wise you would have gotten roasted as tastily as in the 2nd half last weekend.
23 Jun 2012, 19:31 pm
@victoriabok(victoriabok)-4:
I realize that… but you don’t claim to have an “impact bench”, then bring on Werner Kruger.
Seems to me we’ve got another Rudolf Straueli. Lies to our faces, claims to have a plan, and it’s only a matter of time before he panics, and we get even more humiliated.
23 Jun 2012, 19:42 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-3: The way Kruger was falling all around the show at the rucks he could easily have cost us the game at the end
23 Jun 2012, 19:43 pm
morne’s coup de gras. He got his second chance one year ago in PE to regain his spot in the bok team vs a second string all black side. His time has come to make way for the next guy. He offers nothing of value and if Meyer is worth his salt he will see it too.
23 Jun 2012, 19:52 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-7:
He did.
The penalty conceded for holding on was because of him. That was our last chance to win the game, and considering we were in their 22, we should have.
The guy is useless. Even worse then Greyling.
23 Jun 2012, 20:23 pm
Surely watching rugby of this standard is the poorest excuse for “entertainment” and recreational value there is. God, I feel sorry for that huge crowd in PE having to sit through that. Waste of freakin time.
23 Jun 2012, 20:30 pm
@kinlaw_62(kinlaw_62)-5:
Ja, ja. Lucky for you Goosen, Bekker, Smith, Alberts, Schalk, Vermeulen etc etc etc weren’t uninjured or we would’ve just steamrolled you for 240 minutes.
23 Jun 2012, 20:53 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-11:
Promises, promises… Everyone said the Boks would win by 30 in Joburg, and stretch away from England as the series went on. Well, the games got tighter and England got much closer to winning.
Lucky for you Tom Croft, Courtney Lawes, Tom Wood were off tour, and Corbisiero only played for the 20 minutes during which he obliterated your scrum.
You probably wouldn’t even have won the series at all.
23 Jun 2012, 20:57 pm
@kinlaw_62(kinlaw_62)-12:
Our first choice team would still beat the Poms
Did you forget what we did to England at Twickenham in 2012?
I think Lawes left the field too that day
23 Jun 2012, 21:02 pm
@victoriabok(victoriabok)-13:
Yep the results don’t lie, and you’re probably about 5 points per match better than us, the average of the three games – but no more than that…
And remember that when Owen Farrell came on, we had the under 20′s midfield from last season! Unheard of for conservative English selectors and a helluva lot of development in that pipeline.
23 Jun 2012, 21:10 pm
@kinlaw_62(kinlaw_62)-12:
Dude, if you can’t replace your players with decent quality all that means is your rugby is not as strong as you think. You can never moan about injuries. Everyone has them and you just got to deal with it.
England played the exact same game they did in the previous 2. Our 9-10 had possibly the worst games they have ever had. Completely unforced by anything England did. Yet you still can’t beat us. I’d rather just be quiet if I was you. We are embarrassed by this performance. The fact that you think yours is somehow something to be happy about says a lot about about English rugby.
But carry on. This is nothing new from the Poms. Every year same story. Occasionally you will beat us. You aren’t shite but you aren’t better than us and you certainly aren’t “on the up to surpass the SH”.
23 Jun 2012, 21:13 pm
@kinlaw_62(kinlaw_62)-14:
If you look at the results of the last few years you’ll see that most of your victories were in the End of Year Tour where we play at home every year and the end of a brutal season for our players, where England tours happen every four to five years
If you played a End of Season test in SA every year, against our players in the middle of their season, the win ratio against the Poms would be a lot better than the current 62%
23 Jun 2012, 21:28 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-15:
Both teams were missing people, the average gap between the teams was 5 points. That is a fact. The person who needs to ‘be quiet’ is you, because the Boks did not improve as the series went on – as nearly all of you predicted. They got worse until it became painfully obvious they can only play in one style. Do you really think that will be enough to win the SH championship coming up?? Or challenge the All Blacks?
England defended a lot better for more of the game today, and they did force many Bok errors with their improved strength in contact. If we can find a decent backs coach we’ll be in business.
@victoriabok(victoriabok)-16:
Tours are always out of season for one team or the other Victoria, it will level itself out in November.
23 Jun 2012, 22:10 pm
@kinlaw_62(kinlaw_62)-14:
The English cant even pull a full side together any more they need imports to make them fully competitive .And most the prediction stats said that the bok winning margin would be around 10 points last week.From the real rugby brains.>today we all knew the English where going to comeback firing especially with their imports.Ha Ha.
23 Jun 2012, 22:42 pm
@Dutchbushboy(jacquesknotter)-18:
Nah, everyone was talking about the Boks were going to steamroller England on the high veld [one or two excepted]. In reality, you must be worried that you only played one really decent half of football in three Tests, in the 1st period at Joburg…
24 Jun 2012, 02:05 am
I for one am worried in hat the team as a whol elooke dpretty clueless as to what teh next steps were to be, what area to attack in, and where to be. Our runners were isloated, our attack was staganant and predictable, and the variation was nowhere compared to teh first half in Jhb. the players reverted to the simple kick-chase gameplan of PdV, because that way they did not have to think hard. Seriously, Heyneke if you have to lose a few games by replacing lazy thinkers, start doing it now. Test rugby should not be easy. Playesr shghould test themselves to their limits physically and mentally – and teh mental aspect was completely missing this game. The numer of times that bad kick to us had a cross field pass begging to be made , with a large overlap on the other side of teh field a possibility. But what do our receivers do? The standard madam. up and under – zero variation. I am starting to hate Bok rugby again. Especially after just having watched the AB’s.
24 Jun 2012, 02:40 am
Having watched the game recorded here’s my impressions of the game and series.
Initially I was sceptical of some of the selections – some of these have gelled, others not.
To my mind, Hougaard was aweful, Pienaar not much better. There are better scrumhalf options in SuperRugby than these two.
Morne Steyn was a surprise dissapointment. Again, there are better options – to my mind he is in the side for his goal kicking and tactical kicking – and this let us down.
Wynand Olivier is simply not the next best centre in South Africa after Frans Steyn.
Aplon, with his courage and strength showed why he should have been picked ahead of Kirchner.
Habama justified his selection with a great intensity – I must admit I was doubtful. Jean DeVilliers was his usual competant self – I like his assured sportsmanlike captaincy – a credit to the team and the country. It’s nice having a skipper who is there on merit.
Forwards – Alberts was the standout and was really missed in the final test. Marcel Coetsee is a find and Spies had a better series than before, although I keep feeling he is capable of more. Etsabeth didn’t perform as hoped – still, he’s a youngster and good to have this exposure now. Kruger, very competant, as was Van Der Merwe when he came on. Front Row – Bismarck, as ever, was massive. Jannie was competant and has stopped conceding silly penalties. The Beast was good without being great.
I hope Heyneke Meyer has learned that picking players that he’s worked with before is a questionable line. He should realise that out and out failures like Kirchner and Hougaard need to be changed. Lambie at pivot needs to be given a run. Also Sarel Pretourius at scrummie would be better than the incumbent. Etsabeth needs some more experience before getting another run. And Olivier simply isn’t a test centre. Surely Aplon has shown that size is not all.
Meyer is better than the fellow who went before – but that wasn’t hard, but needs to show that he can learn from his cautious start.
24 Jun 2012, 06:32 am
@hendrikp(hendrikp)-2:
dont blame BB rugby.
This was terrible game alround. both sides. We lose lineout ball and they got parity in the rucks and close quarter battle.
I think Olivier played well, Steyn, Hopugaard, Spies all mixed bag.
maybe few players looking ahead to ABs
24 Jun 2012, 06:51 am
@kinlaw_62(kinlaw_62)-19:
Oh well. What a **** game. Mentally the Boks weren’t in it. But hey, they did not lose.
Have to say I do not really care. Emotionally, mentally and physically the boks just could not pick it up … it has been that kind of 3 weeks for a developing team. ANd England had EVERYTHING to play for.
They had their ‘Ireland’ game this week. Got the weather and the boks of the boil with a ‘job already done’ attitude. Happy with this as it now give HM something to hone in on.
24 Jun 2012, 06:55 am
Kick and chase. Kick away possession. If you can bully the opposition you win. If you can’t and you don’t have another approach, you lose. The ABs play our game and they play their game. They can play any game. That’s why they’re the best. I’m a Bok supporter all right, but it is so frustrating to see the selections and this dogged adherence to “our traditional strengths” and a seeming lack of desire to expand our skill set. Why can’t we play to our “traditional” strengths but be prepared to try other things and other players?
We see a succession of players in the AB team. Carter to Cruden, Mc Caw to Cane etc..We see the ABs blooding new players. The Boks seem to have the same faces. We keep hearing about all the new talent, in SA but they don’t get a look in. There’s no good reason we lack depth. We hear coaches talking about not “cheapening” the Bok jersey. We don’t seem to hear this rhetoric from NZ and yet they produce these consistently excellent teams with highly skilled and competitive players who vary their play and their game.
Are we really incapable of this? We profess to be the best and yet we seem to struggle. It’s great that the baby boks won. But can we have some consistency? Is it just political interference or is it something else?
24 Jun 2012, 06:58 am
@The Analyst(The Analyst)-23:
But what is HILLARIOUS is Kinlaw all puffed up thinking his English team has arrived??!! Laughable.
They go home VERY well beaten. The boks are in 2nd gear out of 6, the English, well they only have 2 gears. They never beat the boks this series. And the series will be remebered for Alberts steam rolling every Englishman that was put in front of him. He annihilated them. England never got REMOTELY close to looking anything like the boks in the first half of the 2nd Test, and they never will look anything like it.
Like the 2009 BIL Tour was remembered for the Boks winning and the Beast ending Phil Vickery’s career when the boks destroyed the Lions scrum
No one remember this damp squib drawn 3rd test and the English will go home with their tails between their legs telling themselves and everyone else ‘how good they are going to be and how much they learned.’
But that is it. Talk. Just like the **** Kinnlaw tries to convince himself about.
24 Jun 2012, 07:02 am
@rex(rex)-24:
Our new talent was winning the Junior World Cup.
Calm down man. Who cares. They squeaked a draw in shocking weather. HAVe you forgotten last week? The All Blacks squeaked a win in the last 30 seconds of the Irish…. a game they should have lost. They put 60 points past the Irish in the next test.
The boks are in a FINE space. No windgat attitude moving into the Rugby Championship. And best of all England did not beat them.
24 Jun 2012, 08:35 am
@The Analyst(The Analyst)-26:
As disappointed as I am that the Boks didn’t win, I think you’ve got it spot on there The Analyst. No windgat attitude going into the real tests of this year. No point in pounding an average English team only to be brought back down to earthy by NZ, Aus and perhaps even Arg. At least now HM and his team have time to assess where they need to improve. Whats more, didn’t he state that his selections for the English series would be based on familiarity, if we are to understand him correctly future selections should not be taking that into account so heavily.
24 Jun 2012, 08:55 am
Please people, I watched the game and enjoyed it. The english had a beter game plan and worked out how to nullify the Springboks game breakers. Atleast we did not lose.
Does it help saying how bad it went with each player.
One thing that got me riled up about the game was the booing of our own player, the bloke is on bad form and is better than that.
PE is known for its support of the All Blacks can you imagine what its going to be like if the Bokke play the AB in PE, they should be fined and SARU must make the Kings administration apologise to Morne and the Bokke for the fans behavior.
If you boo one Bok then you boo the team.
24 Jun 2012, 10:05 am
@kinlaw Another whingeing pom on our website it just gets worse you seem to forget one thing the boks played for the want of a better word SHITE,and at home and the poms still could not beat them they had a good oppurtunity to beat them and could NOT,they lost the series 2-0 story ended.After reading your posts why don`t you crawl back into the hole you crawled out of,and i hope they eyeties stuff the poms in euro 2012.
24 Jun 2012, 10:08 am
@Wanderer(Wanderer)-28:
The Boks game breakers were at a wedding and injured.
24 Jun 2012, 10:10 am
This is the problem with N. Hemisphere rugby … they see a ****** draw as “victory” ….always talking themselves up on how good they are…..
24 Jun 2012, 10:12 am
#28 Wanderer I agree with you that was bad when they booed morne it was bad for him and the team.Morne has played something like 28 or 29 test matches in a row plus all the super rugby games he has played in over the last two years and it is starting to show when his kicking is poor then you know his confidence is low and his form is average at the moment,hopefully he can regain both,for the bulls and the boks.
24 Jun 2012, 10:48 am
@The Analyst(The Analyst)-25:
Interested in your handle ‘The Analyst’… as you don’t appear to be capable of analysing the game, just throwing insults. No-one in the real world goes for this “Oh the Boks were only in 2nd gear”, or “The Boks will win by 30 points on the high veld”, or “The Boks will be so much better when they get their injured players back” stuff…. Your best performances always seem to be somewhere in the future eh?
The series told the tale factually. We aren’t great, but we are certainly no poorer than the 5 point average losing margin over the three matches. You’re slightly better than us, and that’s it. Believe anything else and you’ll be in deep trouble against the All Blacks and Aussies.
And btw, you were Corbisiero wasn’t starting in PE, he would’ve ended the career of both the good doctor and Werner Kruger!
@blueboy(blueboy)-29:
You don’t deserve a response, back to the bush with you.
24 Jun 2012, 14:50 pm
saffa arrogance is downright astounding, we played at home with favorable refereeing decisions keeping us out of serious trouble and only once or twice in entire 80 minutes did we ever manage to cause a relatively young developing England team any concern or trouble, and some these idiotic saffa supporters still pumping their chests pretending we smoked them outa sight.
Get f’ng REAL we were poor and if Flood and Corbisiero had been on field yesterday was a very strong chance we would NOT have gotten out of jail again. Steve Walsh attempting his saffa rescue missions or not.
24 Jun 2012, 15:06 pm
@louis schropnel(louis shrapnel)-34:
Yep, i cant believe some of these posts on here.
24 Jun 2012, 15:14 pm
@The Analyst(The Analyst)-26: Who cares? We care. That is people like myself, Rex and sjambok, who have the vision to see that is antiquated game plan is not worth shite. “traditional strengths”, “Overpowering the gainline” etc are’nt a sustainable gameplan if you don’t develop the the rest of your game. As soon as other teams figure it out and match it, then we have nothing more to offer. We care because we are worried that the HM approach is dumb and the Boks will not be succesful implementing it.
“Analyst” indeed
@rex(rex)-24: I’ve been saying this for weeks now, but got severely lambasted here by Bulls congregation. Thanks for saying it again.
24 Jun 2012, 22:06 pm
Meyer is supposed to be an astute rugby brain. I am yet to see this, however I will wait a while to see if he brings this to the boks, before I judge him.
What I was hoping for from Meyer:
An understanding that the SA game needs to evolve. We cannot expect to win every game by being stronger and more passionate. At some point we need to rely on a good game plan that includes all 15 players.
The game is evolving. The IRB have made it clear & continue to do so that they want a spectacle that will attract bigger audiences & bigger playing numbers to grow the game. As such, they are changing the rules to help evolve this aspect of the game. SA will need to adapt or get used to losing & feel hard done by.
International rugby is & will increasingly become about depth across the squad. You cannot rely on players as the attrition rate will see any team missing any number of key players on any given week. Series like this (albeit I understand, not his first series as coach) need to be used to introduce depth to allow your team to be competitive each week. Oz is a good example of this, Barnes is reportedly the 5th choice flyhalf, but can be and was a match winner.
I don’t think Meyer was wrong in this series, but he needs to change his approach very quickly. I for one think he can.
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