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, 12:00 pm
@poppa69-82:
The only way NZ has managed to get ahead of SA in rugby was being party to its political isolation from world sport for a generation and the subsequent immigration of 20% of its rugby population. Talk about underhanded tosspots.
I don’t quiet get why all you real & fake NZers on this blog keep on bringing up crime. 90% of the crime is committed by the non-white, non-rugby playing community, i.e. the *******. It really goes to show how ignorant you are of the reality in SA.
The only parts of the SA population that have ever had a proud and successful history are the ones that are now the most maligned, its European descendents. The only reason they are not still in charge is because the entire Western world colluded to bring them down and even then it took many decades. Without other Western countries having helped the ******* in Africa would still be milling about ineffectually.
So overall it is rather disturbing how you sick, f-u-ck New Zealanders are taking great pleasure in the carnage that the ******* are causing in SA that has led to your rugby success. Winning at any cost? Low life scum you are.
1 Oct 2012, 12:01 pm
d.a.r.k.i.e.s = **************? Stupid liberals. Everything to protect the poor darlings feelings hey?
1 Oct 2012, 12:02 pm
If d.a.r.k.i.e.s. is a banned world then “********” should also be. Hypocrits all over the place. In the long run we will still laugh last. Genetics always come out on top.
1 Oct 2012, 12:02 pm
@fitz1ella-129: who was it that said 70% of an international coaches role comes in his selections?
dont tell me Johan van Graan coached Louw to do the things he’s been doing on the park!
1 Oct 2012, 12:03 pm
Yay D.u.t.ch.m.an. is. Stupid liberals. Why even have ablog?
1 Oct 2012, 12:04 pm
@STBUR-153: your other word was also banned
so whats the problem?
1 Oct 2012, 12:05 pm
@papaown-156:
I see so. Stupid liberals. But that is a recent change. Funny though because for the longest while the goffels on this blog pretended they don’t use it in a racial manner.
1 Oct 2012, 12:07 pm
@Kaizan-148:
****.
Too compare Bakkies (the most carded player in the history of International Rugby) to Brad Thorn……………………………………………………,or anyone else for that matter!
Is pure folly.
1 Oct 2012, 12:07 pm
@CharlesM-147: I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor spent a little time with him in Pretoria. (On van Graan’s request of course…)
I also wonder if Andries’s back injury is a thing of the past (for now…..)
@cane-149:
Just read some of the sh yte cretins of the ‘Blitzbok’ sort index finger type on here…..
1 Oct 2012, 12:09 pm
@papaown-154: Yes, Louw was merely playing the way he is used to play !! It sure helped that Vermeulen has regained match fitness. The 2 of them played well (together)
1 Oct 2012, 12:11 pm
@STBUR-151:
So are you saying Brian Habana should never have equal rights to one such as yourself?
1 Oct 2012, 12:11 pm
@cane-158: Good point, cane. Brad cannot wash Bakkies’s jockstrap.
1 Oct 2012, 12:12 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-159: I’m not convinced that the back injury is gone but I hope it is starting to disappear. He was much better on Saturday than before.
If Victor can teach him, Bekker should listen. It was about time that Bekker started thinking more at lineout time
1 Oct 2012, 12:13 pm
@cane-161:
I love Habana. He was ***** for a few years but now he is back.
But your one track racist mind/hypocrtical, brainwashed white liberal mind (whichever you are) will struggle to accept what I said in my initial post. It goes against the deeproated white-brainwashing/race-hate you have.
1 Oct 2012, 12:13 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-159:
Hey we all got cretins.
I’m barely human myself.
1 Oct 2012, 12:13 pm
@STBUR-157: Hitmeontheheadwithafuckingawbflagwhydontyou? You seem to be having a hard time controlling yourself on this very public platform? Cable tie your grubby little paws behind your back, as this will prevent you from further soiling this thread with your ‘posts’.
Genetics always come out top? Deargodinheaven, you have made this ‘bleeding liberals’ day……..**struggling to maintain my composure in the face of this comedy central wannabe**
1 Oct 2012, 12:16 pm
@cane-161:
So you deny that NZ has benefit from SA’s political isolation, subsequent rugby population loss of 20% and repeated racist government intereference into our sport? Because before that (all due to politics enforced by our cousins in the rest of the Western world) the ABs lost more than they won against the Boks.
1 Oct 2012, 12:16 pm
@STBUR-157: goffels?
wtf man?
seriously bud, i think your rant is the result of a hangover.
the boks won, chill. and whilst our anc govt are a bunch of absolute thieving lying mafia tuncs led by a rapist misogynist pig, our country is not alone in having developemental challenges, ask the east europeans.
we are being punished for an illiterate and ignorant electorate who happen to be predominantly black but there are millions of black south africans who contribute daily to our country, be they educated or not.
lets all join hands and sing some songs about our mighty bokke, that will be the ticket.
1 Oct 2012, 12:19 pm
@STBUR-167: straueli was black?
really?
that idiot was the biggest stain on the history of the boks and he was a dutchie.
1 Oct 2012, 12:20 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-166:
*shrug* I am enjoying myself. A while ago I thought this was a rugby blog. But it has become clear this place is nothing but a thin veneer for many to post their national hate and anti-this-or-that agenda. So essentially I am just trying to fit in. Kinda fun.
The liberals get no benefit from referring to genetics. They are managing to singlehandedly destroy the Western world because good people are too scared to speak up. Besides genetics exists. Its why the Islanders make such good rugby players. Funny though how white liberals are happy to accept that as reality but not that genetics plays a role in anything else. Hypocrits.
1 Oct 2012, 12:21 pm
@rangerman-169:
Jeez, he WAS a dumbass! Somebody should’ve taken him out back and put him out of his misery.
1 Oct 2012, 12:23 pm
@STBUR-171:
and now he is at the sharks, making me mal by buying players like joubert who is 103yrs old.
1 Oct 2012, 12:28 pm
@rangerman-168:
Sure, why not goffels? We get called “********” all the time and that is essentially a racial slur. Let us all play on the same field I say.
I am perfectly happy with the win on Saturday.
But after reading post after post of fake/real NZers spouting rubbish on this blog, not to mention the many barely concealed goffel racists here I have decided to sink to their level. This high-brow approach of whites (especially liberal whites) thinking you are going to “lift” the level of conversation is flawed. It is that same “let us not cause any trouble” mindset that is allowing the handwringing liberals to destroy the Western world from the inside out.
Illiterate and ignorant electorate or not; the underlying lesson to be learnt is that racial groups cannot live in harmony. One either obliterates the other or after many generations of violence etc they miscegenate into a new group. Sometimes a group manages to hold out but the minority one will always be discriminated against. It is how group politics works. So all this “let us get along BS” is exactly that… BS.
1 Oct 2012, 12:30 pm
@cane-158: Firstly, can you show me your source in claiming Bakkies Botha is the most carded player in the history of International rugby?
Secondly some players get carded on reputation. Bakkies is one such player.
Don’t forget, Brad Thorn spear tackled John Smit off the ball and injured him for the rest of the tournament not so long ago… It was cynical and dangerous and deserved a red card… He didn’t even get a yellow.
The point is that sometimes players get carded when they don’t deserve it and sometimes players don’t get carded when they do.
I’m well aware of the fact you lot don’t like Bakkies Botha. How could you? His role was to be aggressive and bully your players about. Whilst this will obviously make you hate him, he is a national treasure for us.
We hate Richie McCaw for always pushing the boundaries of legality and you hate Bakkies Botha for the same reason.
1 Oct 2012, 12:30 pm
@STBUR-167:
” So you deny that NZ has benefit from SA’s political isolation…………………………….”
SA Isolation was something that SA brought upon itself.
What I deny or otherwise is of little consequence.
1 Oct 2012, 12:31 pm
Been saying it since the season started Jantjies should have been the Bok 10 with Goosen and Lambie fighting him for the jersey
1 Oct 2012, 12:41 pm
@cane-175:
Oooh… fuzzy thinking my goffel/white-liberal friend. Why is Russia not isolated for banning free speech and not having an open democracy? Why is China not isolated from gross human rights violations? That’s right, they are too powerful and there is no benefit for the West to do so. In SA’s case it was to your benefit because you were able to use that action as a “proof” how pro-lib you were. That and we were not powerful enough economically to stop you, although we lasted a pretty impressive long time.
You are appealing to some moral position that places you in a position where you had no choice but to isolate SA. But as I have said that is still a choice and a choice you make because it was in your own self interest. It is not a principle on which stood because that principle is traded in a heart beat. SA’s constitution is the most racist legislation since Apartheid – yet you muppets celebrate it.
Ignorant savages that celebrate the carnage in SA because it removed your no.1 rival for the top rugby spot. That is sick.
1 Oct 2012, 12:42 pm
See Ranger it wasn’t arrogance just absolute belief that we would go to Argentina win well and take the first RC, I have the same feeling about this weekend we have a better team and will beat you in Soweto.
1 Oct 2012, 12:43 pm
@Bok fan-176:
*lol* Jantjies is good and should be there ahead of Morne but Goosen is a cut above. What agenda do you have I wonder?
1 Oct 2012, 12:44 pm
@Kaizan-174:
Bakkies is a c u n t. (I’m sorry if this offends you……………………..but hey …………..that’s the truth).
-head-butter.
-gouger.
- torpedo entry into rucks and mauls.
-puncher (sometimes even his own teammates).
-scratcher.
-seeks out the little guys……………………then homes in like an Assassin.
-biter.
etc, etc, etc, etc………
Actually ………………………………………..you name it……………. Bakkies has done it.
All this while claiming to a Christian……………………Yeah right.
Bakkies turns the other cheek.
He gives Christians a bad rap.
1 Oct 2012, 12:45 pm
@STBUR-173: no man, goffel is a racist word.
i dont really have the energy for the rest of the debate bud.
1 Oct 2012, 12:46 pm
@cane-180:
And you sick f-u-c-k-s celebrate the carnage in SA because it gives you an edge in sport. That is cnut-like behaviour my friend. Bakkies was just a bit over zealous at times, but at heart he is a gem of a person.
1 Oct 2012, 12:51 pm
@STBUR-151: vokkof racist kont
1 Oct 2012, 12:51 pm
@rangerman-181:
D.u.t.c.h.m.a.n. is a racist word because it is used with racial intent and as an insult. That is what makes a word racist. Then again perhaps we should revisit what “racist” means. Calling a black person, black is not racist, although that is what the current liberal thought police is trying to achieve; to eradicate any colour reference as if it doesn’t exist.
But is does exist. Our constitution could not exist with the existence of race and its political mobilization. People plan their lives around it. They vote according to it. They give support according to it. Except white liberals of course.
The greatest flaw the West has is pathological altruism. To assist the “other” even to the extent where it jeapordises our very survival.
1 Oct 2012, 12:52 pm
@PielNeus-183:
Hey goffel/white-liberal!
1 Oct 2012, 12:53 pm
All guns blazing here, I see
1 Oct 2012, 12:53 pm
@PielNeus-183:
But you are in favour of our racist constitution I guess? What does that make you? And what kind of name is PielNeus? Do you want people to think you are a ******?
1 Oct 2012, 12:55 pm
@STBUR-182: hahaha I see the shoe is now firmly on the other foot and someone doesnt like it one bit..
classic..
1 Oct 2012, 12:57 pm
@poppa69-188:
I can see you have dispensed with even denying it is the truth. The problem with your smugness however is that you are merely laying the groundwork for more conflict. Blood is on your hands if you see the reality but refuse to do anything to save the future.
1 Oct 2012, 12:58 pm
@poppa69-188:
And you do realize you actually give justification for Apartheid with that response?
1 Oct 2012, 12:59 pm
@poppa69-188:
It’s now 13h00
Any update on the murder rate?
1 Oct 2012, 12:59 pm
@STBUR-177:
Many wrongs don’t make a right.
I understand SA is a very complex Nation. But the issues you faced in the 1950′s 60′s 70′s, and 80′s had been faced by many other Countries.
Why did it take SA 400 yrs to face these issues.
Was it because of people like you?
THE WORLD was almost unanimous in condemning apartheid.
(SA Friends at the time……………..Israel, Argentina, Countries that needed your minerals,………….can’t think of anothers. Germany if the Nazi’s had won perhaps).
1 Oct 2012, 12:59 pm
@poppa69-188:
Also, please don’t think I am writing for your benefit. Goffels like you are just the mirror on which my argument can reflect, making it more clear and potent to those I want to reach. So please… display more racist smugness and make my point for me.
1 Oct 2012, 13:03 pm
@STBUR-184: Ok, you either need a healthy dose of stilletoinbeteweenthefuckingeyes, or an overdose of something that can’t easily be traced.
Here’s a challenge for you Eugenie (if you can work this one out…there might be hope)Lose the colour obsession, and focus on what I call the ‘scum scale’. View each person as an individual (not as a colour), and then decide if he/she is “pond scum” or not.
Group all the pond scum together (and I can tell you there will be white, yellow, black, beige, brown and pink in the pile) and then group all the decent people together (and yes, there will be white, yellow, black, beige, brown and pink in that pile as well).
Hate the scumfuckers. Love the decentfuckers. That’s life in the end – fuckeduppeople VS decentpeople, simple as.
1 Oct 2012, 13:04 pm
@STBUR-189: no blood on my hands champ.. I dont know what the truth is in SA, my “highlighting” things is in direct response to Saffas who feel it appropriate to use things other than rugby as “banter”..
how is my “smugness” laying claim to more bloodshed? and please, do justify apartheid for me, this should be a beauty…
@Dawn-191: like I said Dawn, people want to make jokes about NZs social ills, I will do the same… if you dont like it, then dont read my posts..
1 Oct 2012, 13:04 pm
@STBUR-177:
“Ignorant savages that celebrate the carnage in SA because it removed your no.1 rival for the top rugby spot. That is sick’
NO STBUR.
Go to the mirror…………………………………………..look sickness in the eye. Give him a wink.
1 Oct 2012, 13:09 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-194:
Hallelujah,
1 Oct 2012, 13:11 pm
@cane-192:
You have the quite wrong. SA’s situation is a lot different and also due to the inherent randomness in human “reaction” not every case will play our exactly in the same manner, although they will approach a “average” result.
SA was in a unique position in the colonies with regards to population. Oz/America for example completely obliterated the locals and swamped the landscape with colonists. SA is the only colony in Africa to have had a significant number of European settlers, so much so that around 1900s they were 50% of the population.
Then you need to take into context how the “in-power” European descendents came to be. Dutch/Afrikaners was faced with constant discrimination, invasion and genocide by the British Empire. The Afrikaners as a nation was forged in the most oppressive and harshest of environments. I remember as a child how depressing Afrikaans poetry was because that is the crucible that they, as a people, emerged. When SA was finally given autonomy by Britain the by then slightly a minority Afrikaner was never going to just give away its country.
Apartheid, given the Afrikaners origins, strength and location was as inevitable as the rising tide. It was never about racism. It was about national identity, destiny and their very survival.
And it is being born out today in SA. Language, community and places of learning is under attack by the government. Afrikaans as an official language is debated to be removed. There is constant pressure to destroy Stellenbosch as an Afrikaans university. There is constant pressure to “integrate” white communities with more black people. Why? Because they know if they can crack these islands they can rely on low level miscegenation to obliterate our presence in a few generations.
Why do you think the Jews refuse to stop building settlements in the West Bank or to let Palestinians settle in theirs? Because they know demographic control of your geography is the only thing that ensures your survival as a people. The moment that is gone the Arabs/Muslims will flood them and obliterate them.
1 Oct 2012, 13:13 pm
@cane-196: It would be waste of time. STBUR would be confused asallfuck when sickness winks back at him. He would in fact think that old sickness was making a move on him……
1 Oct 2012, 13:14 pm
@cane-197: Don’t get too excited too soon. We are still not sure which category to put you in.
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