Official Tri-Nations 2011 Thread

O they have my backing 100000000% just disappointed we never pomped the all black b team harder with no lube. Good to have a positive result just before the world cup.
 
AB's teams never get pomped. Even their B teams. Incredibly powerful rugby playing nation with massive depth.
 
Pixual said:
I think Carter is over-rated. The last couple of seasons he hasn't been all that great.
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Best flyhalf ever IMHO... He's had injuries the last couple of seasons, missed most of 2009 and injured his ankle towards the end of 2010 Tri-Nations too...
 
Pixual said:
Jean De Villiers shouldn't be there. He's a selfish, moronic player who's only trick (the intercept) has long been sussed out by all opponents.
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Seriously:confused: JvD is by far the best inside we have, he has amazing vision and works for the players AROUND him. Have you not seen what shambles our centres become when he is not on the park? What I can say is he is better on attack with Butch, but Morne's boot- man in tight games it wins.

The team just needs a little game time to get back on it which was seen by some holes in the scramble defence at the end and a little lack of flair in the attack, but it was a tight game against NZ. Look at the improvement from last week, the team is starting to gel again.

Special mention for JP Pietersen, awesome - not quite Lomu, but loved seeing him swat off a few NZs!

Pavan said:
AB's are a bit hazy without carter and mccaw.
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Agreed, Slade may have played himself off the bench, let alone starting.

sandmanm34 said:
Best flyhalf ever IMHO... He's had injuries the last couple of seasons, missed most of 2009 and injured his ankle towards the end of 2010 Tri-Nations too...
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For sure, Carter is a complete master - even when the ABs scrum isn't on top he still manages.
 
Pavan said:
SBW had a solid game, but he's nowhere near Ma'a Nonu right now. Nonu's impact on the game is massive. Was seriously impressed with Habana's work rate and overall impact - defensively he's coming to the party. Bismarck and Brussouw were awesome, was a sad moment when Bismarck was sub'd. Morne held his own, but remember, this game was on home soil where he always plays well - overseas he crumbles somewhat. And remember, he was up against Slade (not one of the top 5 flyhalfs) in the world, who still managed to run around him a few times... Jacque Fourie also did well in defense I thought, and it seems our seasonsed centre pairing have become a defensive pair! Sad to note that the backline has no confidence in themselves, and rarely did we see the ball distributed throughout let alone creatively. All in all, I'd say there were more positives than negatives that came from the game.
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Maybe Bismarck can be moved to the loose to accommodate Smit...
 
alf101 said:
How many tries did we score our last 2 world cup finals?
How many tries did the All Blacks score in the last 5 World Cup finals?

We play winning rugby.
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Only concern I have is that we had home-ground advantage, we should have played better, we only scored 3 vs 5 if you look at created points, the rest of our score was based on their mistakes.

Also with the World Cup being played on their fields, I do think New Zealand is going to kick our backsides.
 
Pixual said:
... Jean De Villiers shouldn't be there. He's a selfish, moronic player who's only trick (the intercept) has long been sussed out by all opponents.
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For a moment there I thought you were confusing him with Olivier, but then you mentioned the intercept, so you must be talking about JdV. ;) He is our best inside centre at the moment and creates many opportunities for those around him. After all the justified hype about SBW so far this year, I thought JdV as handled him the best out of all SA inside centres (incl S15) this year and offers loads defensively. Having Jaque outside of him surely helps a lot and they are a great pairing. Hopefully getting better with a bit more game time.
 
sandmanm34 said:
Best flyhalf ever IMHO... He's had injuries the last couple of seasons, missed most of 2009 and injured his ankle towards the end of 2010 Tri-Nations too...
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I have to agree with that, his kicking is not as good as morne but his general and tactical kicking is the best i have ever seen.

Absolute legend
 
I won't read to much in yesterday's game.

Nevermind playing AB's in semi-finals, we first have to beat Wales in the first game.
 
We played far better but I'm still perturbed by how many first-time tackles we're missing. Our scramble defence saved us on many occasions and that's good to see, but if we can't make first-time tackles we simply won't make it against a fired-up, running team like Fiji or even Samoa. Yesterday's AB team were far from their best so I don't use yesterday's win as a comparison. Another major problem is John Smit but that's going to continue to be a talking point for a while - Bissie just plays a far superior game to John right now and his disappointment with being taken off so early in the game speaks volumes about his attitude for his country.

But a few positives came out of that game:

Our scrum - was fantastic to see us push back an AB pack like we did on so many occasions. Seems our tight five are finding form at the right time.
Heinrich Brussow - wow, wow, wow. That's all that needs to be said about the man. He will go down in Springbok history as our finest loose-forward ever if he continues playing like he did on Saturday (and most other games come to think about it.)
JP Pieterson - he had a great game at wing and deserves his place in that team the more he plays. Unfortunately he was out of sorts at fullback though I think we've left it too late to be comfortable with whoever is placed in the fullback position.
Centre pairing - the best in the world imo. Jean and Jacque are also finding form at the right time and they instil massive amounts of confidence for our entire backline to feed off of.
Bryan Habana - I eat my earlier words about him being past his prime. He showed commitment ala 2007 in that game and if he can build on that in our first game against Wales, I will be a happy man.
Morne Steyn - has finally won me over. You guys were right in giving me flack about Morne because he proved the worth of a solid kicker in a test game. He's my number 1 selection at 10 - sorry Butch.

All in all that game has done us wonders (although the doubt over Lambie is worrying). I am however still worried that we're struggling to get over the try line enough...
 
@ DJ you make valid points but regarding our defense I think it's prudent to consider our efforts against Australia's A team the week before where we conceded just the 1 try. I do believe our defensive patterns are being refined and tweaked thanks in large to Jacque Nienaber who is the Stormers defensive coach.

Fullback and lock are our positions of greatest concern. With Lambie untested and Frans over weight and un-fit we could have serious problems at 15.

At lock our 2nd choice locks are not quite up to world cup knock out stage quality. I'm talking about Flip, Alastair and Danie. Bakkies and Victor are minutes away from career ending injuries!!! The legends are broken and tired and I just hope the Elastoplast will keep them in one piece till the end of the world cup. The loss of Andries Bekker is a significant one.

Generally I'm reasonably confident though. As mentioned in previous posts Wales 1st up is going to be a tough fixture. They are a quality outfit. Fiji and Samoa will come with their usual over robust and flamboyant style but force them to play our style of rugby and we will roll them like we have on countless occasions before.

Knock out stages Ireland in the quarters, also a useful outfit but we would expect to beat them 7/10 times, NZ semi's, potentially the game of the world cup and easily the toughest game. I won't lie, we will need NZ to carry on their age old tradition of choking if we going to win this one but the balls not round so anything can happen!!!!

Must say, I, as I am sure the rest of you are, am looking most forward to this tournament!!!! BRING IT THE F UCK ON!!!!! HOOHAH!!!
 
sandmanm34 said:
@ DJ you make valid points but regarding our defense I think it's prudent to consider our efforts against Australia's A team the week before where we conceded just the 1 try. I do believe our defensive patterns are being refined and tweaked thanks in large to Jacque Nienaber who is the Stormers defensive coach.
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Agreed, but as Mealamu said in the post-match interview, they had many try-scoring opportunities and imo they were as a result of missed tackles on our part, for which there is no tweaking of a formation/game-plan that can resolve the problem. Look at Ashley Johnson - they simply ran straight passed him on a few occasions without blinking an eye. JP was flat-footed on defence in fullback position but that's more of a selection problem than any reflection on him. In fact most of our boys missed their fair share of first-time tackles for which we will be punished in the World Cup.

PdV needs to start fining players for missed first time tackles - simple as that. I mean we won 2007 based on our defence and what has really changed since then? Well the game has loosened up even more now and offloading through the tackles has become more prevalent. So first time tackles become even more important because missing those opens up bigger gaps if a guy like Sonny B-W breaks two tackles and has support running off of him on either side when he's eventually taken down.

I'm still confident that our defence will be up to scratch come Wales purely because the nature of the event will buoy a few guys into a new level altogether. Lock I'm not too worried about though - Danie and Flip will get a run-in in the group matches and I think we'll see them playing to the form we've come to expect from top SA locks, which they are.

15? Well that's always been a bone of contention for me and like I said earlier, we've left it too late for even a specialist to be comfortable in the position - schit coaching on PdV's part imo...
 
DJ... said:
Agreed, but as Mealamu said in the post-match interview, they had many try-scoring opportunities
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So as much of an indictment on our missed 1st time tackles as on NZ inability to finish, enough said...

15? Well that's always been a bone of contention for me and like I said earlier, we've left it too late for even a specialist to be comfortable in the position - schit coaching on PdV's part imo...
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I don't see how PDV can be blamed for that. We not producing world class fullbacks at provincial level. PDV is working with what is available, no?? or should he continue picking Zane Kirchner week in week out in the hope that one day he will be of international quality??
 
sandmanm34 said:
So as much of an indictment on our missed 1st time tackles as on NZ inability to finish, enough said...
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A better NZ team would have made the most of some of those opportunities...

sandmanm34 said:
I don't see how PDV can be blamed for that. We not producing world class fullbacks at provincial level. PDV is working with what is available, no?? or should he continue picking Zane Kirchner week in week out in the hope that one day he will be of international quality??
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He's been cocking about with that position for ages now and has never allowed anyone to settle into the position for long enough to feel comfortable. I don't think anyone considered Percy to be a formidable 15 until he showed his true colours leading up to the World Cup. No he shouldn't be picking Zane all of time, but he should have an idea in his head about maximum two players who would be wearing 15 and rotate them with the odd experiment thrown in for good measure. Instead we've seen lucky-packet 15 selections and permanent experiments. A better coach would have had Frans Steyn on a diet before he even got back from France, however those two tend not to see eye to eye if media reports are accurate, so it's no wonder there's been a lack of communication between them.

Who knows actually, maybe they had a huge fallout because PdV took one look at Frans and said "ney djou vet poeth. Leave some French food for the Americans, ek se..." :D
 
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