Your team can win on the backfoot which is pretty scary. Clobbered in the tight, 15 points ahead.

1 Beast
2 Bismarck
3 Jannie Dup
4 Bakkies or Danie
5 Becker
6 Brussouw or F Louw
7 Juan Smith (if he comes back)
8 Kanko (based on form before he went to Japan)
9 Ruan Pienaar (no one else good enough)
10 Goosen
11 Habana (needs a clout regarding the leaving his wing open)
12 Frans Steyn
13 Jacques Fourie
14 JP Pietersen
15 Lambie or Taute (not really convinced by either)

16 Gurthro Steenkamp
17 Adriaan Strauss
18 Etzebeth
19 Willem Alberts
20 Houghaard
21 Elton Jantjes
22 Aplon perhaps?

A couple of issues I saw with the All Black first half performance:

- Aaron Smith’s kicking was extremely poor. ZK was able to regather his kicks easily, and not under pressure. This allowed him to return the ball into our half, from where we gave up (kickable) penalties.

- Carter probably kicked too much in the first 20 mins as well. I understand we were playing for territory, but we were not able to regain the ball (lost a couple of our own lineouts for instance, and intially weren’t putting the Bok lineout under any pressure). Combined with Smith’s bad kicking, this meant we spent long periods without the ball and were unable to impose our game plan on the Boks.

Carters’ kicking did lead to Whitlock’s try, when we stole the ball off a Bok lineout in their half. But on the other hand, I think we put ourselves under more pressure than we needed to.

I guess that is the sign of a good side though – we obviously changed things at half time, and by the 70 min mark the Boks had stopped trying.

As well as the inexperience in your side, I wonder if fitness was a problem? We seemed to be outplaying you even when we were down to 14 players?

On the other side of the coin, how good is this AB defence? Twice our forwards kept you out when you were smashing the ball up only 1-2m from our try line. In years gone by, you got a lot of tries off the AB’s soft defending in this area of the field. (Or maybe your forwards aren’t as hard as we all think???)

I guess it is the hope of winning/turning the corner/continuing a streak is what brings us all back….

For all teams, to beat NZ, its about slowing the ball down, and then pressuring the 12/13 channel. If you cant do that, you come second in the contest.

Watching the final, thats all France could really do, with the one exception where they chanced their arm and scored a great try – you have to ask the question, why dont more teams play like this – ie with a bit more flair?

Whenever Aus have beaten NZ, its always by playing full on running rugby. Not sure about the Boks, I guess its where we get starved of possession, then forced into errors, giving away penalties, then playing catch up rugby.

I watched the NZ-SA game again last night. There is not as much between these sides as what many may think. A couple of defensive errors by SA – caused by lazy forwards and confusion in the backs allowed 3 NZ tries. Having said that, NZ were good enough to capitalize on the opportunities given.

What used to be a big strength of SA – their flat line defence – seems to have gone missing this year

Tightheads: Jannie, Coenie, Marcel VD Merwe, Bj Botha
Hookers: Bismarck, Schalk Brits, Craig Burden
Looseheads: Beast, Gurthro, Kitshoff
Locks: Bekker, Etsebeth, J Kruger, Flip
Opensiders: Francois Louw (captain), Heinrich
Blindsiders: Alberts, Burger, Coetsee, Josh Strauss
Eighthman: Vermeulen, Ashley Johnson, Keegan Daniel
Scrumhalves: Hougaard, Fourie Du Preez, Ruan Pienaar, Charl Mcleod
Flyhalves: Jantjies, Goosen, Lambie
Inside centres: Frans Steyn, Jan Serfontein, Jean De Villiers
Outside centres: Jp Pietersen, Jaqupaul jordaan, J Fourie,
Wings: Habana, Gio Aplon, Daniel Adongo, Chavangha, Spies, Mvovo
Fullbacks: jaco Taute, Andries Coetzee, Zane Kirchner, Willie Le Roux

An All Black fan having a go about players “suffocating” the ball. HA. To be fair though I think most rucks have some sort of infringement going on in them these days. They are quite out of control in my humble opinion.

As for Dickinson, wasn’t it him who refused to give Italy a penalty try after a 10 scrum goal-line where NZ gave away penalty after penalty. Never mind the two yellow cards he gave England in 2003, the illegal intervention to red card Shaw in 2004 and turned a deliberate blind eye when Brad Thorn speared Smit into the turf in ’08.

Hell, a ref handed NZ the World Cup at home, that’s as big as charity gets in rugby, what more do you want?

573 not bad actually. The Boks will fight again another day. I reckon 2009-style beatings will become more commonplace, but enjoy the good times while they last.

Night.

Hope you enjoyed the highlights