Wayward Boks must kick on
1 Oct 2012
JON CARDINELLI writes of all the opportunities the Springboks have spurned in 2012, the missed goal-kicks have proved most costly. It bodes badly for a close contest with the All Blacks.
There is good reason to feel encouraged and inspired following Saturday’s performance at Loftus. The Springboks were at their fearsome best as far as uncompromising physicality and defence was concerned, and they also added another element to their game. With the introduction of Johan Goosen, they now pose a realistic attacking threat.
I’m not sure what point Heyneke Meyer was trying to make after Saturday’s match when he lamented the missed try-scoring opportunities. The Boks converted five of eight try-scoring chances, and that is a good return in Test rugby, especially in a competition as defensively-oriented as the Rugby Championship.
It was also the first time the Boks had managed to put five tries past top-ranked opposition since they thumped the Wallabies in September 2010. Mission accomplished. Right?
I understand that Meyer wants people to realise that these tries are the product of a game plan that has been in place since the first Test of 2012. What’s changed is that the Boks are starting to execute efficiently.
Meyer is right to say it will be tougher to score tries against the All Blacks, but I cannot understand his lack of concern regarding the goal-kicking.
He has always placed an emphasis on goal-kicking, and that hasn’t changed since he became the Bok coach. It was the reason Morné Steyn was backed for as long as we was, as Meyer believed Steyn had the ability to win matches. If Steyn could come through a bad patch of form, he would be an asset to South Africa once more.
But Steyn has struggled consistently this season, and has left Meyer with no choice but to pick someone else. That someone has proved a revelation, unlocking attacking strengths that most South Africans believed non-existent. But as good as Goosen has been for the Bok attack, the problems in front of goal have continued.
Goosen went into the Pretoria Test with an ankle injury, and this affected his goal-kicking. The responsibility was then passed to Ruan Pienaar, who succeeded with three from seven attempts. In total, the Boks were successful with three from nine attempts. It’s just not good enough.
The Boks aren’t going to score five tries against the world champions. The South Africans are capable of beating the All Blacks, and recently showed in Dunedin that they have the forwards and the defensive structures to match the New Zealanders. With Goosen at 10, they will have a flyhalf who can ask attacking questions, but they won’t run riot as they did in Pretoria.
The simple truth is that these clashes are always close contests. One kick can win the game. The Boks didn’t take their chances in Dunedin, leaving 21 points on the park through wayward goal-kicking. They can’t afford to make the same mistake when they host the All Blacks in Soweto this week. They can’t afford to miss one kick, let alone seven.
The All Blacks arrive in South Africa having already won the Rugby Championship. Will that detract from their motivation, will it make them easier to beat?
They arrived in 2010 for the final game of the then Tri-Nations, and still managed to edge the Boks in front of nearly 100 000 fans at Soccer City. The Boks must take nothing for granted. They must take every opportunity.
Their recent goal-kicking form doesn’t inspire confidence, and Meyer must treat this as a matter of urgency.
Frans Steyn injured the same troublesome ankle in training last week and was forced to miss the Pretoria Test. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was ruled out of the Soweto finale, or at least excused from any kicking duties.
Goosen’s own ankle problem stopped him from kicking last Saturday. Will it be that Pienaar is asked to continue this week? If so, he will need to be far more accurate.
Meyer claims that Pienaar ‘stepped up’ at Loftus Versfeld, but the reality is that Pienaar missed four kicks (10 points), while Goosen missed two (six points). That’s a total of 16 points that went begging. That’s more than the total of the three tries that Meyer lamented.
The Boks have been poor in this department over the course of the competition, converting just 19 of their 37 shots on goal (a record of 51.3%). It’s unsurprising that wayward goal-kicking prevented them from edging Argentina in Mendoza, as well as winning the Test in Dunedin.
Morné Steyn has goaled 13 out of 20 (65%), which is a poor return for a first-rate international kicker. Some of the individual penalties that he’s missed have also been crucial ones.
One more goal in Mendoza and the Boks may have avoided an embarrassing draw. More success in Dunedin (Steyn kicked one out of five on that occasion) and the Boks would have recorded a famous victory.
Had Steyn converted these kicks, we may have seen the Boks still competing for the Rugby Championship crown at this late stage, rather than just playing for pride. But then Steyn is not solely to blame for the Boks’ erratic and unreliable goal-kicking, as the other goal-kickers haven’t been any better.
Frans Steyn is viewed as a freak, even in Test rugby circles, due to ability to convert long-range penalty attempts. But his stats in the 2012 Rugby Championship don’t make for impressive reading (two from six) and bring the overall goal-kicking average down.
Goosen has converted one from four attempts, and Pienaar three from seven. Last Saturday was the first time Pienaar kicked in the Rugby Championship. His two from four return in the first half was enough to keep the scoreboard ticking, but in a closer contest perhaps the kicks he missed would have been scrutinised as bad misses.
What sort of form is Pienaar taking into a tight clash with the All Blacks? Meyer claims that kicking coach Louis Koen will address the problems in the build-up to Saturday’s game, but the stats over the course of this tournament, of all four kickers used, don’t inspire any more confidence in Koen than they do in the kickers themselves.
The All Blacks are the benchmark, and history will show that South Africa rarely beats New Zealand by outscoring them in terms of tries. It has so often been the case that goal-kicking edges these massive match-ups, and in that respect Pienaar, or whomever takes on the responsibility, will have a decisive role to play this coming Saturday.
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594 Comments
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2 Oct 2012, 20:58 pm
@trupisero-550:
If you live in the West you soon realise that it’s more a case of “Do as we say, not do as we do”
They’ve ALL mistreated the Indians (both Asian and North American), Chinese, Aborigines, Maoris and every aboriginal they came across, but we were made to take the brunt of both their guilt and blame
2 Oct 2012, 21:00 pm
548 – Nie heeltemal seker nie. Dink dit was ‘n “in absentia” toekenning. Ou Skoppie raak meer kens by die dag. As hy niks anders het om te se nie dan reken hy sommer almal is ‘n nazi. Jy moet oppas. As hy terugkom gaan jy as Gestapo verklaar word.
2 Oct 2012, 21:25 pm
@victoriabok-549: I never said I condone Israels minority’s political monopolization over any ‘majorities’ .. where did I say that.?
I have no answers for any political solutions if I did I might have tried being a politician, what I can say with conviction is that racist policies are abhorrent and the type of race infested ideology that drives morons like this STBUR to seek some kind of self identifying utopia for his out of place minority people to retain their separateness for his obsession with a pride in a tribal cultural heritage, because that is all it is, his white tribe being overrun by the black tribe that the white tribe had illegitimate conrtol and manipulated power over for too long, then he’s on a hiding to nothing, only he don’t want to recognize this yet.
2 Oct 2012, 21:36 pm
@fitz1ella-553:
All I’m saying is that the solution at the time, albeit wrong, might seem to be the only option
The Nats thought so wrongly and the Israeli’s still do
The only difference is the hypocritical West stays remarkably quiet about Israel
2 Oct 2012, 21:52 pm
@victoriabok-554:
what are the Israeli’s doing that the Nats did..? Jews wanted or needed a state to call their own after Nazi genocide so that they wouldn’t be subject to genocidal oppression or extermination like they were under Hitler in Germany again . so they appealed to UN for a place to call home and won a vote to occupy a portion of British occupied Palestine as a homeland for their tribe or religiously determined nationality.
Then the combined Arab world saw this as a thorn in their joint Arab side and wanted to extinguish any potential of this Israeli state from existence and give Palestine back to the Palestinians. Although the Palestine population was nowhere nearly as prolific in 1948 when Israel was declared a Jewish state as it is today.
The solution is perhaps insurmountable. I do not have any answer for it other than for the Israelis to walk away and say sorry UN made a mistake you can have your land back, and all the Jews get re assimilated back into the diaspora nations they came from.
Different scenario to the Nats here, maybe similar in some small respects, but not from a racial identification position. More so from a political or religious identity. Israeli’s by and large are not racist but politically protectionist from a position of survival for their young volatile national identity being eradicated almost as quickly as it got formed.
So you suggesting the West should move to give Israel land back to the Arabs?
2 Oct 2012, 21:56 pm
@fitz1ella-555:
> Although the Palestine population was nowhere nearly as prolific in 1948 when Israel was declared a Jewish state as it is today.
Both can lay claim to the country so the ovious solution is live together in peace
One man one vote
Simple
2 Oct 2012, 22:00 pm
@fitz1ella-555:
> but politically protectionist from a position of survival for their young volatile national identity being eradicated almost as quickly as it got formed.
That’s exactly the justifications the Nats’ used instead of “Arab Gevaar” it was called “Swart Gevaar”
2 Oct 2012, 22:03 pm
@fitz1ella-555:
> The solution is perhaps insurmountable
Yes, I agree with you
The countries around them used to be ruled by dictators who left them alone
They’ve been or are being replaced by guys spoiling for a fight
2 Oct 2012, 22:05 pm
@victoriabok-557:
So you suggesting the Israeli’s hand over Israel to Arab control like the Nats did here to the ANC. There it may become either genocide or the Jews would have to leave, I doubt the Arabs would be as forgiving to the Jew as the Africans are here to the Afrikaner
2 Oct 2012, 22:10 pm
@fitz1ella-559:
Universal suffrage seems to be the end all cure all propgated by the West (except if you happen to sell them oil that is)
They demanded it of SA
What makes the Israelis so special, why can’t the Palestinians vote for their own people in their own country?
2 Oct 2012, 22:16 pm
@fitz1ella-559:
> o you suggesting the Israeli’s hand over Israel to Arab control like the Nats did here to the ANC.
Yes, there were a lot of Jewish people like Suzman and Zille in the forefront pushing for democracy, yet they remain quiet about democracy for the Palistinians
Again as case of “Do as we say not do as we do”?
> There it may become either genocide or the Jews would have to leave, I doubt the Arabs would be as forgiving to the Jew as the Africans are here to the Afrikaner
2 Oct 2012, 22:17 pm
@victoriabok-560: The Palestinian should be able to vote for their own people in their own country.. Who knows if I were an Israeli living in Israel I might even have become a radical anti Israeli state activist.. There are a quite a few Jews living in Israel who are for more inclined toward sharing the country than the ultra right who are adamant they do not and cannot see a future in that. I see there was one who visited here just the other day. An Israeli with a conscientious objection to Israels monopolization over the Palestinians and the Zionist organizations disowned him while the Palestinian organizations lapped it up.
2 Oct 2012, 22:26 pm
@fitz1ella-559:
> > There it may become either genocide or the Jews would have to leave, I doubt the Arabs would be as forgiving to the Jew as the Africans are here to the Afrikaner
They can have a Codesa and a good constitution to protect them
> I doubt the Arabs would be as forgiving to the Jew as the Africans are here to the Afrikaner
Why not?
Shouldn’t you try first without rejecting it outright?
2 Oct 2012, 22:27 pm
@victoriabok-561: The situation is different, it is not a racially based ideology but a nationalist religious one. There are some racist right wing Jews in Israel but they form a very small minority, the bulk of the population are not in the least racist by definition but highly susceptible to being totally eradicated off their UN sanctioned sovereign territory if the territory was handed back to Palestinian political control.
Like I said I am not a politician and do not have answers for that highly volatile situation in the mid east..Neither the Roosevelt or Kennedy or Johnson or Nixon or Carter or Reagan or Bush or Clinton or Bush Jnr. or Obama have managed to solve the issue, I think its far more complex and strategical from a Western perspective than the SA situation which was run by a pariah minority government dictating to a vastly larger oppressed majority population..
I don’t think you can accurately equate the two situations though they do bare some similarities in certain aspects.
2 Oct 2012, 22:37 pm
@fitz1ella-564:
> I think its far more complex and strategical from a Western perspective than the SA situation
Nope, that’s why the West didn’t do anything throughout the Cold War
> which was run by a pariah minority government dictating to a vastly larger oppressed majority population
Same old same old
No difference, same problem same solution
Occam’s Razor
2 Oct 2012, 22:41 pm
israelis need a state and idenitity cos for whatever unbeknown reason they been persecuted by virtually every country or culture they are part of, its a bizarre thing – i cant understand it, but israelis kicked arabs to hell and gone in 6-day war.
its an interesting case tho – israelis were given land by churchill in balfour declaration in recognition of all the prejudice and pogroms they suffered.
both the calvinists and orthodox jewish theology tho seem to somehow see themselves as chosen ppl and got march off into exodus into promised land – its all fkd up.
2 Oct 2012, 22:42 pm
@fitz1ella-564:
Skop my Great Great Grandfather was a Jew who married into Maori, he was an Asher,as was my Mothers maiden name, I know little of my Jewish heritage and find your posts on Jewish history enlightening
2 Oct 2012, 22:46 pm
israelis fighting for very right of survival, they surrounded by ppl who have no interest in intergrating with them or letting them live in peace, they want to literally drive them into the ocean – so thats when you gotta band together and moer them stukked otherwise you get wiped out.
SA whites never had such a problem, black folk just want to intergrate, not exterminate, as the keo headline goes, whereas arabs want to exterminate not intergrate with israelis, completely different, their identity is essential for their very survival.
2 Oct 2012, 22:50 pm
@cab-566:
> its an interesting case tho – israelis were given land by churchill in balfour declaration in recognition of all the prejudice and pogroms they suffered.
Yes, but the same Brits had Jewish refugees from Europe and the camps die on ships in the harbour after the war, they didn’t allow them to land in Palestine
My friend is an Israeli, he told me how the Brits messed them around (like they did with everyone else)
2 Oct 2012, 22:50 pm
@Te Rangatira-567: Very interesting.. I think the Jew will very easily marry across racially identifiable lines I know I can and have and would..so the Jew is I think not at all racially protectionist but perhaps more religiously or culturally protective.
Mostly they do not like to marry outr of their faith but very many have throughout history and do so regularly. Many current mixed race Moslems in this country here in SA by name Solomons or Jacobs or Isaacs etc and etc were originally from Jewish parentage but converted to Moslem to fit in with the society dynamic and status quo.
cab is correct .. religion and its base for delineation of culture and heritage is largely fckd up.. but then so is nearly everything manipulated and orchestrated by man.
2 Oct 2012, 22:53 pm
the israelis had various governments which have tried to bend over backward to seek a two-state solution , assafat was never interested , it was offered to him on the table way back i think at camp david.
problem is they got holy places in common and fight like mad batshits over the holy of holies.
2 Oct 2012, 22:54 pm
solomons fkn hell, i got some jewish heritage afterall, but lil earnie still intact and i love the bacon.
2 Oct 2012, 23:00 pm
@cab-568:
> whereas arabs want to exterminate not intergrate with israelis, completely different, their identity is essential for their very survival.
We’re talking about the Palistinians, and it’s their country too
Why can’t they have a say in their own country?
2 Oct 2012, 23:00 pm
@cab-568: that is largely the fundamental difference between the SA and Israeli problem.. The African is not intent to destroy the white man as STBUR is so paranoid about otherwise they would have been gone from here by now.. The African is far more amiable to integration and peaceful coexistence than the Arab is or would be if they got a foothold in Israel.
2 Oct 2012, 23:03 pm
@cab-571:
> the israelis had various governments which have tried to bend over backward to seek a two-state solution , assafat was never interested
Exactly, remember the Tricameral government?
The ANC wanted no part of it either
> problem is they got holy places in common
More the reason to make it one country with one man one vote
2 Oct 2012, 23:04 pm
@fitz1ella-574:
> The African is far more amiable to integration and peaceful coexistence than the Arab
Isn’t that a bit racist, so an Arab is more violent ie backwards?
Aren’t we all equal?
2 Oct 2012, 23:05 pm
@victoriabok-573:
ja thats a good point, but its been offered – some of those israeli buggers are true bleeding heart liberals, i remember speaking to an oke and he hated his govt with a passion, there;s a book i read way back called the case for israel of iets, very good. there can be some hard ******** too, but they bred from that state of constant threat, they fighting for their lives, i doubt there is any country or identity on earth thats surrounded by such hate on all sides.
2 Oct 2012, 23:08 pm
@cab-577:
> i doubt there is any country or identity on earth thats surrounded by such hate on all sides.
We’re not talking about their neighbours, we’re talking about the citizens of Israel, the Sabras and the Palistinians
The solution for their country would be an all inclusive government
2 Oct 2012, 23:10 pm
@victoriabok-575:
but the point of the two-state system is that the israelis want to give palestinians their own land, they dont want the palestinians suicide bombing the hell out of their own families, the israelis simply want to live in peace, whereas the palestinians and every others surrounding arab state in the area want to wipe the israelis out. jew got a right to be distrustful, theyve been persecuted like no other group in history, i dunno so much about chosen, they seem to have been picked on a shitload for no sane reason.
2 Oct 2012, 23:16 pm
there is a hole history behind the jewish homeland or nation state, it was the correct thing to do, the 19th century saw countless pogroms, then the holocaust – problem is they were returned to the land they have a strong historical claim same as their semitic boeties, but they all fighting over religious ****.
sa white boertjies aint seen fkall persecution extermination talk from blacks, some of hugenuts were persecuted by their boertjie and french boeties, but not from africans, no need for homeland, boertjie not been persecuted and besides boertjie got no historical land claim whatsoever other than Jan van der Riebeek falling out the dromedaaris.
2 Oct 2012, 23:18 pm
@cab-579:
> but the point of the two-state system is that the israelis want to give palestinians their own land
Still Apartheid by any other name
And not very fair
> whereas the palestinians and every others surrounding arab state in the area want to wipe the israelis out
They’re going down s-hit creek without a paddle
All their neighbours are being or in the process of being run by Militants
Iran will get nukes
If the Israelis bomb their facilities it would only delay them for a couple of years, and it would turn the few moderates in the region against them as well
The American influence in the Middle East is deminishing and they won’t fight a war there again not even to defend Israel.
2 Oct 2012, 23:22 pm
difference between a nation state and apartheid.
you are welcome into israel, regardless if you arab or not, provided you dont want to blow their asses up – seems fair.
apartheid say you not welcome if you not white, even if you dont want to blow our assses up – seems unfair.
2 Oct 2012, 23:22 pm
@cab-580:
> problem is they were returned to the land they have a strong historical claim same as their semitic boeties, but they all fighting over religious ****.
If they’ve left it and someone else lived there for a couple of hundred years, how can you come back and claim it all as your own and kick the guys off it?
Why did you leave it unattended in the first place?
2 Oct 2012, 23:24 pm
@victoriabok-576: if I were having this discussion or argument with a religious or right wing Jew I would be taking your stance of the argument that every people is entitled to their own sovereign identity and existence and citizenship.. So yes the Palestinian has as much right to his own country as the Israeli has .. and MANY Israeli’s feel this way too..
but what cab is saying also bears some accuracy.. that if the Jew would relinquish political or territorial control over Israel he would possibly be wiped out and driven off the land into the sea. He would no longer have his own country he can call his own.. Perhaps this is his inherited lot on this world that the Jew is bound to always have to be at the brink of survival and cling to an identity by sheer survival instinct. Modern Israel is only 64 years old, perhaps if Israeli and Palestinian politicians could see eye to eye they could share the country. I’m not sure or convinced that would be possible with the ideological and religious division and fanaticism that exists there.. But perhaps it is possible after all.
2 Oct 2012, 23:29 pm
no doubt about it, they cant even relinquish golan heights, those arabs would be attacking at the drop of a hat. half the area complete barren uninhabitable dessert, they made a minor miracle appear from nothing, otherwise still be goatherders running rampant – ok maybe i better calm down.
2 Oct 2012, 23:31 pm
@cab-582:
> difference between a nation state and apartheid.
Minority ruling the majority who has a rightful claim to the land?
Same old same old
> you are welcome into israel, regardless if you arab or not, provided you dont want to blow their asses up – seems fair.
You can only become an Israeli if you’re jewish, Palestinians married to Israelis can’t become citizens
Doesn’t that sound familiar?
2 Oct 2012, 23:35 pm
@victoriabok-586:
who has the right claim? not so sure about that. minoruty not ruling anyone, you can go to school in israel buy a house there marry who you want, regardless of colour – you simply not govern them if you got a history of wanting to plant bombs in their homeland.
ja id actually smaak to go to israel – except those schlameels speaka da hebrew, cant understand a gdam word.
2 Oct 2012, 23:39 pm
@fitz1ella-584:
> Modern Israel is only 64 years old, perhaps if Israeli and Palestinian politicians could see eye to eye they could share the country. I’m not sure or convinced that would be possible with the ideological and religious division and fanaticism that exists there.. But perhaps it is possible after all.
Never say never, look at Northern Ireland, it also looked unsolveable
2 Oct 2012, 23:50 pm
@victoriabok-583: they been there and left there many times before .. they were there from Abraham and the patriarchs around 1700 BC with some sporadic colonization by Egyptians till invaded by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC and first Jewish temple in Jerusalem destroyed and horded off into slavery in Babylon
Then returned under Cyrus the great who conquered Babylon and freed the Jews back to Judah.
Colonized by Persia, then Greeks, then Romans and then a few centuries later the birth of Christianity under Roman empire and Judaism in Palestine became divested of any nationalist regimented identity.
Few hundred years later and birth of Muhammadan empire .. so Jews as such were always either colonized or controlled by more powerful rulers .. their national heritage was not powerful enough to sustain sovereign identity in a land always under siege from surrounding colonizing powers. Hence once the new controlling powers of Christian and Muslim hierarchies fought tooth and nail over control of these ‘holy’ territories the Jews simply made way and sought to make other lives for themselves in diaspora countries until the custodians in these diaspora environments persecuted them into seeking shelter and existence elsewhere. From Russia to Germany to France and western Europe and to the near east and far east, even to countries like Persia / Iran and Turkey and Yemen and India and Morocco did the Jew make his home under other religious rulers and countries.
Until the recent persecution in Germany when the UN and Balfour declaration determined they could get their own country back where they once belonged before Persian, Greek and Roman colonization and destruction overruled their existence there before.
2 Oct 2012, 23:54 pm
@victoriabok-586: you sure that a Palestinian married to an Israeli cannot become a citizen of Israel.. you sure about that?
3 Oct 2012, 00:02 am
@fitz1ella-590:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16526469
Israel’s Supreme Court has upheld a law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship.
3 Oct 2012, 00:07 am
@fitz1ella-589:
Maybe the Madagascar plan would have been better, albeit proposed by devil’s spawn, no agressive neighbours to give you c-rap
Imagine what they would have accomplished with a tropical island, if they managed to make the desert bloom?
3 Oct 2012, 00:34 am
@STBUR-525: vokken naive – skop admire germans (like Steiner..) STBUR you sooo much get wrong.. Maar you see you are defined racist ya? eg “races not equal” so my punt is, you have to be nAAAAAAaive to be racist. Very clever you, not very inteligent.
Yes BEE is JUSTIFIABLE DISCRIMINATION. Get used to it. human decency by Africa to Uropeans in SA staggering, unheard. please open eyes.
no of course you say farm murders, crime etc… of course, maar when you demonize, you get demons
3 Oct 2012, 03:10 am
@PielNeus-593: jafukkenright….one of the few places on earth where the majority needs protection from the minority. Funny how you can never be “african” unless you’re black as the ace of spades, regardless of whether your ancestors have been here for sveral hundred years after arrival from Europe or Asia.
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