RWC Bronze Final: South Africa v Argentina, 30 October

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SOUTH AFRICA v ARGENTINA

30 October 2015
20:00 BST (UTC+01)
Olympic Stadium, London

Live on [TBC]

Ref: John Lacey (Ireland)
ARs: Glen Jackson (New Zealand), Chris Pollock (New Zealand)
TMO: Graham Hughes (England)

A. Head to Head

21 Played 21
19 Won 1
1 Drawn 1
1 Lost 19
779 Points 410

B. Recent Form

15 August 2015
Estadio José Amalfitani, Buenos Aires
12 – 26 to South Africa

8 August 2015
Growthpoint Kings Park, Durban
25 – 37 to Argentina

23 August 2014
Estadio Padre Ernesto Martearena, Salta
31 – 33 to South Africa

16 August 2014
Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria
13 – 6 to South Africa

24 August 2013
Malvinas Argentinas, Mendoza
17 – 22 to South Africa

17 August 2013
FNB Stadium, Johannesburg
73 – 13 to South Africa

25 August 2012
Malvinas Argentinas, Mendoza
16 – 16 Draw

18 August 2012
DHL Newlands, Cape Town
27 – 6 to South Africa

C. TEAMS:

SOUTH AFRICA

Willie le Roux; JP Pietersen, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Bryan Habana; Handre Pollard, Ruan Pienaar; Tendai Mtawarira, Bismarck du Plessis, Frans Malherbe, Eben Etzebeth, Victor Matfield (capt), Francois Louw, Schalk Burger, Duane Vermeulen.

Replacements: Adriaan Strauss, Trevor Nyakane, Jannie du Plessis, Lood de Jager, Willem Alberts, Rudy Paige, Pat Lambie, Jan Serfontein.

ARGENTINA

Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino, Santiago Cordero, Matias Moroni, Jeronimo De La Fuente, Horacio Agulla, Nicolas Sanchez (capt), Tomas Cubelli; Marcos Ayerza, Julian Montoya, Ramiro Herrera, Matias Alemanno, Tomas Lavanini, Javier Ortega Desio, Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, Juan Manuel Leguizamon.

Replacements: Lucas Noguera, Juan Pablo Orlandi, Juan Figallo, Guido Petti, Facundo Isa, Martin Landajo, Santiago Gonzalez Iglesias, Juan Pablo Socino.

Lacey is truly woeful isn't he ...

Well played the boks. did not see much of the second half, but Bryan Habana what as he got to do too go in front of Lomu in the try scoring department.

Well played to Argentina for scoring in the dying minutes.

Heaf wrote:Lacey is truly woeful isn't he ...

Because he didn't let the people's favourites win?

Well, to all those who managed to stay awake through that.


Congratulations

Fly my criticism of Lacey is the yellow carding of a player in the third minute, it was unneccesary, the penalty plus card far exceeded the gravity of the offence. dare I say it but it showed no empathy for the game.

The peoples favourite didnt win, however the better team did win, Argentina have brought a lot to this World Cup and their committment in improving their game across all facets is at least, worthy of a mention.

SecretFly wrote:

Heaf wrote:Lacey is truly woeful isn't he ...

Because he didn't let the people's favourites win?

No because he's just not good ... I wasn't bothered who won tbh - in fact I picked SA by 9 in my prediction league - he just seems to miss half of what's going on.

Lacey's communication is very poor

So 3rd and 4th place in the world rankings are taken care of, will the 1rst and 2nd place be comfirmed tomorrow? NZ 1 Australia 2.

OR, will we see a reverse, Australia 1st and NZ 2nd?

Don't agree at all Heaf. He did nothing wrong. People are simply angry that he didn't let the game 'flow' more as such a game would have allowed Argentina into that game more....as I say, the people's favourites.

I'd both 'blame' and congratulate SA for the style of that game more than the ref. They strangled Argentina out of the game - they weren't going to allow Argentina to play their game because they're not an idiot side and probably learned their lesson already. They smothered them.

Fair enough Fly - we can't all agree on everything

I dont think people (as in us) are angry, my take on it is that this would have been the perfect opportunity to see two major teams of the tournament carry out a great display of rugby, but the opportunity is simply wasted when one team is reduced to 14 men after 3 minutes. The contest is gone.

South Africa played to their strengths, and they did it well, they were much sharper, organised and accurate then Argentina, and so they should be.

Lacey was woeful. No way good enough to referee a game at this standard. He seemed to blow his whistle THEN think which way to award the penalty. His yellow card so early in the game (believe 4.5 mins) was shocking. If, as others have said, it was a yellow for impeding the quick pen and not being back 10, why wasn't he consistent, as in the second half the springboks where guilty of the same offence several times, and especially in the last mins when the pumas where attacking the line. IMO, he just wanted to be the centre of the game (as usual).

Also, Etzebeth try should not have stood. When Lacey went to the TMO I jumped in agreement, until I realised he only asked about the grounding. You had to be BLIND not to see that was grounded, but what about the forward pass from (think Habana) to Etzebeth that put him in for the try. It was a meter (at least) forward, but the replays NEVER showed that from the correct angle. Lacey should have asked the TMO to check the pass (as well as grounding).

All in all, the Boks deserved the win, they where the better side tonight, but Lacey was a disgrace.

Don't think I've seen an Irish referee ruin a RWC game before... well not since Rolland

Watching the match, we missed a boat load of first time tackles, luckily this Argentina team wasn't as clinical as they can be, because our tackling was really poor.
It was a really poor match though.

The yellow was unbelievable. It was in the Springboks' half - and it had so little material impact on play that the Boks worked their way into the Pumas' 22. Go back for the penalty, but to give a yellow was staggering. It's as if Lacey wanted to prove early on how little empathy he has for the game. It's not even the first shocker he's had this tournament.

And Fly, it is permissible to criticise the referee when he has such a clear negative impact on a match. We can't all be wrong about him.

The officials have generally been very good at this World Cup.

Lacey last night, however, was absolutely appalling.

SA deserved the win (Argentina were poor though).

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:

And Fly, it is permissible to criticise the referee when he has such a clear negative impact on a match. We can't all be wrong about him.

That's what I've been trying to explain to Griff.