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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1 Oct 2012, 19:18 pm
@STBUR-445: bALLS(READ TESTICLES)
A BIT WITHERED THESE DAYS.
1 Oct 2012, 19:20 pm
@STBUR-443: what is so racist about this constitution.. your previous illegitimate legislation was what .. humanitarian?
are you that fck’d in the head that you actually condone your repressive governance for all of your illegitimate existence on this continent .. and now you want to cry out in repressed anguish at the injustice of BEE or the current constitution..??
You better fck off back to Europe pal this place will never be what it was ever again..
1 Oct 2012, 19:24 pm
I suggest Sweden or Norway, like our friend Dusky.
1 Oct 2012, 19:25 pm
@ryecatcher-447: try tell that to the k’affir (goffel) lover
1 Oct 2012, 19:27 pm
@STBUR-443:
I have never heard such a load of pseudo intellectual claptrap for quite a while now. Have you actually read Das Kapital? Marx says nothing about race and the only groups are those based on class. Ironically, the National Party had its roots in the SACP and grew by giving protected employment to the poor white Afrikaaner.
As for identifying with the “white” group, which particular group of whites is that?
1 Oct 2012, 19:28 pm
“Goffel” is actually derogatory coloured slang for a prostitute.
1 Oct 2012, 19:32 pm
yeah these k’affir loving barbarians should all fck off back to their ancestral Valhalla.. they hang around here and cry about all their lily white spilled milk in Africa when they were never ever African ever to begin with… gaan kak daai anderkant in die wit gesneeude mielies oorkant by die barbiere se plaas waar jy eintlik vandaan kom Jan Van Riebeek se ou nooi en Verwoerd se seun…
1 Oct 2012, 19:35 pm
so that’s what I am.. a colored prostitute in slang.. nice to know I found my true heritage after so many lifetimes of suffering under delusions of ethnic grandeur.
1 Oct 2012, 19:38 pm
@PielNeus-450: poor whitey he actually seriously believes he is the custodian of everything civilized about this creation.. how fckng deluded can the poor backward barbarous idiot actually be?
1 Oct 2012, 19:45 pm
@456 dawn
yip or sometimes its even used to refer to a not-so-pretty woman… as in ” my bru wat maak jy by daai goffel! ”
so I dunno wa val stburnard uit.
1 Oct 2012, 19:52 pm
@Dawn-456: I know lots of Whiteys back in the day that used to use the term as a general fit for any non white woman.
1 Oct 2012, 20:02 pm
Keo.co.za at its finest today
1 Oct 2012, 20:23 pm
@fitz1ella-457: Come on Skop.Despite
your rants and our differences I have always thought that you were better
than that.Where does reconciliation start?Are you the end?
1 Oct 2012, 20:42 pm
@STBUR-248: check this white moron crying like a stuffed pig when that is exactly what he was doing for the first 350 – 400 years of his illegitimate existence on a continent that was never his or his peoples to begin with
1 Oct 2012, 20:49 pm
@ryecatcher-463: what is reconciliation? do you see any level of ‘reconciliation’ in this moron’s logic?
this poor moron is crying like a stuffed white pig because his illegitimate ‘rights’ or rather ‘prejudicial privileges’ have been taken away from him…and not even so.. he still enjoys privileges as a result of his white ethnicity and classification above the majority of this country population yet still has the audacity and gall to cry and moan as if he ‘deserves’ a more favorable slice of the action than he actually deserves, under his ‘peoples’ oppressive ideological legislation for far too long he now wants to be afforded the equality he was NEVER ever willing to afford others..
If hypocrisy is what this idiot is crying about he represents the epitome of the term.
1 Oct 2012, 21:29 pm
@fitz1ella-459: only enemy in the mirror, fitzy
1 Oct 2012, 21:53 pm
@fitz1ella-464: he has lived for 300 years?
probably exp[lains why he is smarter than you (even if i dont agree with eyerything he says).
because its clear you are the thickest plank to ever drive a keyboard.
1 Oct 2012, 22:07 pm
@rangerman-467: listen you little fucknut ******** .. you want thick go crawl up your pseudo boertjies little fcknutanus
this fckup arsehole STBUR moron that you now want to go creep up his over fed nazi ideology backside with your pathetic excuse as being a little rancid fckng whitearse liberal punkass, just like your two faced little boertjie gone wrong pseudo liberal anglicized prick bumchum is a fckng IDIOT supreme.. just like you are pratassed little fanny wobbling scottish whitey colony hopping doos.
his ALIEN ‘people’ have usurped a place in Africa which they are NOT indigenous to.. just like you are neither.. and this little punkass prick is crying like a fat white pig that his ‘privileged’ utopia has been taken away from him.. who the fck are you whitearse.. a nobody who thinks you are important??.. well you AIN’T .. get it THROUGH your thick white barbarian brain…
1 Oct 2012, 22:20 pm
@fitz1ella-468: Is this really all you have? Night after night of potty mouthed rants on a rugby blog. Who on earth would want to be you?
1 Oct 2012, 22:26 pm
@katman-469: what you doing here kntface.. you and your little pseudo arsed scottish ‘african’ bumchum wanna come soek more kak.. come soek it fckface.. I fck your white arse kak straight back where it belongs up your pseudo ‘intelligentsia’ liberated white fascist snout…
1 Oct 2012, 22:41 pm
@fitz1ella-465:
Hmm speaking of illegitimate privileges now that our democracy has begun to mature you are left chumming for long drop work.
1 Oct 2012, 22:52 pm
@fitz1ella-470: “I fck your white arse kak straight back where it belongs up your pseudo ‘intelligentsia’ liberated white fascist snout”
Not sure what to make of this. Apart from being anatomically challenging, it also sounds like you’re propositioning me.
Also, is it possible for all these body parts to have their own complex political leanings?
1 Oct 2012, 22:54 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-375: Bakkies.I think that the word for cleariing the back of the throat and spitting the
resulting pleghm is called “Hawking”(Courtesy of James Clavell- author Taipan,Shogun)
Finally got spelling right with help of word”Phleghmatic.Dont see the
connection however.Lekker slaap.
1 Oct 2012, 23:00 pm
@katman-472: Anatomically impossible.
1 Oct 2012, 23:05 pm
@ryecatcher-474: I believe Skoppie was a contortionist in his grandfather’s circus act that traveled around the mines of the East Rand in the early fifties, so I guess nothing is impossible for him. But I can’t see myself pulling that arse up the snout move without risking a career ending injury.
1 Oct 2012, 23:07 pm
@rangerman-467: Hello Rangerman.
This morning can best be described as the depression that I liken to’apres sexe tristesse” A phenomenon usually,but not always,experienced by females
after ******.
Like having a post coital cigarette while your partner lies rigid and
resentful besides you Not that this was the case. .Have a good night.
1 Oct 2012, 23:08 pm
smorga
1 Oct 2012, 23:13 pm
@katman-475: LO very L
2 Oct 2012, 03:45 am
@ryecatcher-433: There are very few of us.
2 Oct 2012, 07:31 am
@ryecatcher-473:
yes, that’s it thank you.
a most disgusting phenomena to experience close up and first hand.
2 Oct 2012, 07:31 am
@PielNeus-466: profound statement
2 Oct 2012, 07:32 am
@ryecatcher-476: Very information
overload
2 Oct 2012, 08:49 am
I agree with Jon.
SA need to get their kicking game sorted, because despite what the fans think about the new style of the Bokke, they are not equipped to match the AB’s in running rugby.
And there will be no chance of the AB’s only being left with 14 fit players like Aus.
SA are behind NZ in the head to head try scoring stakes by 38 since ever.
Only one of those try differentials was scored pre 1991!
2 Oct 2012, 10:00 am
@fitz1ella-468: You are so filled with hatred you fail to see that you are by far the biggest racist on this blog. OK, maybe Pielneus gives you a go, but at least he´s mildly entertaining when he isn´t trying too hard.
I do feel for both of you, though. It´s obvious that Bantu education has put you both back big time and for that I, as a whitey scumbag fcknut, would personally like to apologise.
I assume, since you´re obviously against non-indigenous people living in SA, that you´re also actively swearing at Africans living in Europe or the USA to stop leeching off the first world and get their non-indigenous backsides back to Uhuruland. You yourself know this would be a difficult task, because it isn´t that easy breaking out of a honky jail or escaping the slums and projects of Babylon. There´s also the risky business of the 5th class seat in the A380 wheel well to consider.
Maybe they can come and stay at your place. I´m sure they´ll be impressed by your indigenous credentials (just don´t mention the Bushmen) and you can all do a few laps around the fire before you go off into the suburbs to plunder, rape and murder.
2 Oct 2012, 11:09 am
@umfezi-484: Oh, he’s not a d.arkie. Make no mistake. He’s an old Jewish fella, whiter than the driven snow. Except for a few patches of unsightly skin discolourations, for which he’s using an ointment.
He’s an old Jewish ballie who made lekker hay while the sun shone on his white hide for a handful of decades, and now he’s trying to reinvent himself as the white Biko through the innovative media of a rugby blog.
2 Oct 2012, 11:35 am
@katman-485: OK, now I´m gob-smacked!
2 Oct 2012, 11:44 am
@umfezi-486: Don’t fall for his struggle rhetoric. He’s just flipping and flopping whichever way the wind blows.
2 Oct 2012, 12:22 pm
@PielNeus-450:
We are speaking English right? I would think it is obvious I am talking about that.
2 Oct 2012, 12:23 pm
@fitz1ella-452:
The constitution says that you may discriminate against whites based on their race. That is racist. Very simple.
2 Oct 2012, 12:25 pm
@Dawn-453:
I would love to, but my wife doesn’t want to. But I would just have the same argument over there. Like I said, BEE is not something non-whites are doing to whites. Whites allow this to happen to themselves by tacitly accepting the implicit racism. And I have had a enough of politely talking about it pretending we are all treated equally and that blacks are not rabidly racist themselves.
2 Oct 2012, 12:27 pm
@David-455:
That is my point. Marx doesn’t care about race. He is all about “we are all equal”. It is that mantra that has invected the West while the rest of the world still looks out only for themselves. That is the problem.
2 Oct 2012, 12:28 pm
@Dawn-456:
Nice, we learn something new every day. But personally I couldn’t care what use the coloured community have put it to. I will use it my way.
2 Oct 2012, 12:29 pm
@fitz1ella-459:
Nah, plenty of races have done wonderful things. I just want my race to exist into the future without having to pander and bribe our African brothers and I want to expose racist pricks like you for what you are.
2 Oct 2012, 12:32 pm
@ryecatcher-463:
This is what you need to understand. Group dynamics will always be at play. They will always leverage that identity for economical benefit. It is only once we acknowledge this and stop pretending that BEE is not downright racist that we will be able to “get along”.
What guys like Fitzy make perfectly clear is that he love BEE because it is revenge. He wants to punish and hurt white people in any way he can. It is not about redress or fair opportunity. He illustrates my point perfectly.
2 Oct 2012, 12:36 pm
@fitz1ella-465:
Reconciliation for animals like you is revenge, plain and simple. You want whites to suffer. Some whites are deluded enough by this annoying marxist-liberalism to think that the rest of the world all believe in the same “we are all just individuals”. But it is abundantly clear that the rest of the world fully embraced group politics to try and bring us down.
The funny part is that you think this is happening because you are somehow “good enough” to achieve it while it is actually just the West allowing you to do it. Eventually they will wake up and your free ride will be over.
2 Oct 2012, 12:37 pm
@STBUR-494:
I think fifz1ella may be whiter than you are St Bur.
Would be a close run thing.
2 Oct 2012, 12:39 pm
@cane-496:
What do you think of Cory’s fend?
2 Oct 2012, 12:43 pm
@katman-485:
That explains his fixation about the Nazis. Still hates all the Germanic peoples which is probably the group that most, or large percentage at least, white South Africans belong to.
Doesn’t matter really though, ultimately this entire self-denial mindset the West has got needs to stop and whites can only do that for themselves. Non-whites are irrelevant to that process.
2 Oct 2012, 12:44 pm
@cane-496:
Ja I see that. But I better understand his Nazi-fixation now.
2 Oct 2012, 13:06 pm
@STBUR-489:
Where in the constitution does it say that? BEE is a government policy with various laws to enforce it. But I don’t remember seeing anything in the constitution about it.
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