Rugby Championship

Couldn't see a thread.

Must say its quite good in a weird way to see Hooper being very honest on his reasoning to pull out of the match. Talking about mental health slowly getting there.

I'm going to go rogue and pick 2 away victories today. Watch South Africa win by 50 now.

Hope Hooper is OK in the long-term.

South Africa should win fairly comfortably. Argentina have the potential to either blitz Australia with a barrage of tries, or commit a succession of basic errors which makes it easy for their opponents. More likely to be the latter.

Well that could alter things with Faf de Klerk knocking himself out after 43 seconds.

Boring play but still effective.

Surprised they're not looking at that pass off the floor though.

NZ not getting much luck at the breakdown.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Boring play but still effective.

Surprised they're not looking at that pass off the floor though.

Wins them games but not fans. It’s like pulling teeth watching SA play these days

Complete dominance from South Africa. Too powerful, too robust and too clever for New Zealand. Marx had an immense game. NZ's game has fallen apart in this second half.

Same fixture next week, I see, the fallout for NZ will be typically vicious.

Thought the referee has had a good game. Minimal interference from the TMO is also lovely.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Boring play but still effective.

Surprised they're not looking at that pass off the floor though.

Yep I thought that may have gone forwards ...

tigertattie wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Boring play but still effective.

Surprised they're not looking at that pass off the floor though.

Wins them games but not fans. It’s like pulling teeth watching SA play these days

Not much better with the ABs, never thought I'd be saying that. The attack is woefully one dimensional, there's social teams with more subtlety and deception. Heavy reliance on someone producing a moment of magic. What in earth do they do in training?

Very messy game between Argentina and Australia, about 25-30 penalties conceded in the game. Argentina had a solid lead after 60 minutes, but they went on a mad run of about 6-7 penalty concessions in as many minutes, including a penalty try, and they lost the final quarter 24-0.

South Africa will destroy both on this evidence.

The ABs have made more mistakes in the last 6 games than in the last 6 years. Their skill level seems to have nosedived, as well as their attack which is incredibly one dimensional. TBF that has been the way for a while with the current ABs team, probably the last few years - very reliant on individuals making something happen instead of actual attacking shape.

With the ABs highly likely to lose again next week it'll be a remarkably bad run!

tigertattie wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Boring play but still effective.

Surprised they're not looking at that pass off the floor though.

Wins them games but not fans. It’s like pulling teeth watching SA play these days

I assume you are watching the test for the All Blacks then, eh?

If something is boring I don't watch it.

And I had you down for watching SA quite a lot.

So which part of SPringbok rugby do youfind boring?

Lack of ambition.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Lack of ambition.

In that case you must find England, Wales and France boring as well.

Got it.

England and Wales at the moment absolutely.

I thought it was edge of the seat stuff.  An absolutely off the charts defensive effort by the Boks.  Never knew when one missed tackle might turn into a break for the ABs.

SA made the scoreline far closer than it needed to be, and that's with getting gifted a try at the end there.

Almost total control but very few points to show for it.

If NZ managed to string together one of their 20 min purple patches like they used to do they'd have stolen that from the Boks.

Agree with others here though, NZ are terrible at the moment, just terrible. No one here wants Foster anywhere near the team anymore (or ever did tbh). The fans are over him and the team and are demanding change, they'll be hoping for another loss this week to hopefully seal his fate.

Not sure how the current Blacks' coaching team can survive.

Presumably if they lose at Eden Park for the first time since 895 BC, then that's the final straw.

Saturday's Springboks game reminded me a little of the World Cup final. England and New Zealand both looked beaten quite early on, and yet the scoreboard remained closer than the run of play suggested, until eventually blowing out. Both England and New Zealand fought back to parity, or just shy of it, in the scrums but the damage had already been done by the time they did.

Rugby Fan wrote:Saturday's Springboks game reminded me a little of the World Cup final. England and New Zealand both looked beaten quite early on, and yet the scoreboard remained closer than the run of play suggested, until eventually blowing out. Both England and New Zealand fought back to parity, or just shy of it, in the scrums but the damage had already been done by the time they did.

The RWC final comparison with the scrum is interesting.

In the final England had 3 put ins, won all 3 scrums and won 1 penalty. The Boks had 11 put ins, won all 11 and won 4 penalties. So both sides won all scrums on their put in with near enough a penalty every 3 scrum put ins. Difference was that England's utterly abysmal error count from pressure of the Boks physicality in that game gave the Boks 11 put ins.

The Boks had 10 scrum put ins to NZs 5 on Saturday.

I'd guess that sides may start to 'play without the ball' against this Boks team. Avoid giving them scrum put ins and kick to keep the ball in field so that if the Boks want lineouts they have to kick it out themselves.

The issue with that will be that your starting XV will have made a ludicrous number of tackles (and tackling rather large blokes in general...) by the 50 minute mark when the Boks start unloading their bench forwards.

A formula that reduces scrum put ins seems the most obvious way to nullify that set-piece strength though and the easiest way to do that is generally a kicking dominant game plan.

Australia did that last year to an extent, I think they matched the boks physically and kept the error count low, sounds simple on paper but very hard to achieve repeatedly.

Other thing they had was Hooper, who's quicker than just about any of the boks forwards so was able to get to  a lot of rucks before opponents, winning turnovers when needed.

Lastly they had a very good offloading game when they needed it, the ability to keep the ball from going to deck against the boks is also key as they're not that quick, but love rucks.

Lastly, they got a lead and forced the boks to try to catch them. All teams that play a gameplan that focusses on physicality struggle when they suddenly have to score tries against a good opponent.

The two tests between SA and OZ last year were two contrasting matches.

In the first test SA was all over OZ, scoring three tries to zero, but missed a lot of kicks at goal, Quade Cooper slotted every concievable penalty they were awarded, and eventually won the match in the final minute due to a stupid Jasper Wiese who went off his feet at the ruck.

In the second test Australia outplayed the boks mainly due to De Allende having a poor defensive match and Kerevi making a lot of yards through the defence.

Coooper also played really well putting his backlone into space.

The second test was the poorest performance from the Boks last year, but theyshould never have lost that first test.

Missed that Barrett had made the bench. Remarkable after that red card challenge thought he'd be rested for at least a week!

No 7&1/2 wrote:Missed that Barrett had made the bench. Remarkable after that red card challenge thought he'd be rested for at least a week!

He was also up there as one of only two NZ players who really stood out for positive reasons. I guess he's the gamble and hope it saves my job option from Foster if things aren't going well.

The shuffling of the pack otherwise all seems like it won't fundamentally make a big difference but I could be wrong.

NZ starting a bit up and down but a  great kick and break. They'll be wanting to add a few points while SA are down a man.

Back to the home director showing what they believe are pens again then on the big screens.

And no points during that 10 mins.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Back to the home director showing what they believe are pens again then on the big screens.

To be fair, they had a point with the shove on Mapimpi. Pearce has given the ABs most of the 50/50s so far.

The ABs are putting up a bit more resistance this week. Surprisingly error strewn from both sides so far.

Losing Kriel early with a 6/2 bench could cost them

Poorfour wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Back to the home director showing what they believe are pens again then on the big screens.

To be fair, they had a point with the shove on Mapimpi. Pearce has given the ABs most of the 50/50s so far.

The ABs are putting up a bit more resistance this week. Surprisingly error strewn from both sides so far.

I think it was a pen. Just don't think directors should be able to give the 1 sided story on those points. If there's a high ish tackle by SA I doubt you'll be seeing it repeated!

NZ actually catching passes. Crazy.

South Africa’s defence has been caught narrow several times now, and they don’t seem to be able to adjust on the fly. Carrying hard through the centre and getting it wide makes yards, and Jordan’s awareness of the defenders and his team mates is then making the most of it.

World away from last week at the breakdown. I do think it's partly at least down to actually reffing it. But then again Marx is still to come on.

Or I missed him.

Is Caleb Clarke good? Every time I've seen him he's underwhelming.

Brain dead maul defence think from Whitelock?

Now absolute brainless from wiese. Tackle miles after the whistle.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Now absolute brainless from wiese. Tackle miles after the whistle.

Referee says everyone's stopped. Which is rubbish Smith has the ball in hand and is running with it. Pearce is having a poor game in general, that for me is 50/50. Smith is playing on and Weise makes a legal tackle.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Now absolute brainless from wiese. Tackle miles after the whistle.

Referee says everyone's stopped. Which is rubbish Smith has the ball in hand and is running with it. Pearce is having a poor game in general, that for me is 50/50. Smith is playing on and Weise makes a legal tackle.

Smith has ball in hand after the whistle and is stood. Watch again no where near legal.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Brain dead maul defence think from Whitelock?

Whitelock again with the same offence.crazy play.

Why does Pollard keep running into the AB defensive line? It seems to be a deliberate tactic, but all it seems to do is lose momentum

Unlucky. Looks a clear block that though.

The Bok attack is basically “whatever Am can conjure up”… though it sounds like there are a couple of reasons it might be chalked off

If they get this, it could be decisive.

Wow. Immediate response from Mapimpi (and Marx, who made a great turnover)

No 7&1/2 wrote:Unlucky. Looks a clear block that though.

Looks like the second row ran into him and milked it to me but he's in front of the ball so it's never going to look good.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Unlucky. Looks a clear block that though.

Looks like the second row ran into him and milked it to me but he's in front of the ball so it's never going to look good.

And then he altered his run again to block Whitelock.
He may have got away with 1 but not the second being so blatant.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Is Caleb Clarke good? Every time I've seen him he's underwhelming.

To be fair, he made the initial break that led to the second try. It looks to me like he’s a dangerous carrier but his positioning needs some work as too often he’s been in the wrong place to make an impact.