The Rugby Thread - Part Deux

Meh. Had a feeling a loss was coming. Not the end of the world. Question marks over Fassi, Elrigh louw Mostert and Lood, my god he was woeful. I thought the starting front row was decent. You won’t get any scrum penalties from Wessels and Porthen but their overall play is great. PdV was great. Jantjies box kicking is really bad. Pollard was Pollard. Esterhuizen did some good things and bad things, Moodie the same. Hooker and EvdM was good. Fassie is absolute crap. Never want to see him again.
 
mos said:
I say it's depth issues and playing to Australia's high ball strengths. It was clear very early on they were better in the air, and yet we kept playing same aerial balls. Rassie needs to allow the team to readjust during the game, we cant bully ourselves to a win with same game plan.
Click to expand...
Maybe we aren't as deep as we thought, I think especially front row wise. Aussies always gonna be good in the air with their Aussie rules/league background. We can be glad this is only their 4th most popular sport, otherwise they would have had way more world cups.
 
With the world cup nearly a year to the day, when does Rassie stop rotating the squad so much? I get it we want to manage game time and build depth but changing 13 players against Australia (when they gave us a beating last year) was always going to be hectic and the lack of cohesion shows. Scoreline was flattering considering Australia really owned that game besides for the implosion at the end.
 
Our starting players are old. Many are probably a game or two away from falling off a cliff. You cannot play them every game and most of them will have to be babied till the WC.
 
Whether they admit it or not, if its called quota players or just plain pressure from government, we have to have certain players selected.
We lost Am, Mapimpi, Trevor, Bongi and another wing or two. SO what black players do we have left? Kolisi and Ox. So if you like it or not, Fassi will be there. In the group at least.

We just came from a long and hard series of rugby and a lot of traveling involved. Most of these players was part of that. So not all doom and gloom. I think motivation after the great rivals series was also lacking.

What are we still doing with a slow Pollard. We don't play 10 man Naas rugby anymore. Most of the kicking is done by the scrumhalf anyway.

For a team claiming to be one of the best if not the best in defence, our defence looks pretty bad the last 5 Tests. Seems teams have learned to bypass our rush defence. Time to look at new plans.

Eish and those 2 centres are pretty below average.
 
Gimli_ said:
Dirty play, 4 times
Click to expand...

And that is what really made my blood boil because I felt Australia was world class up until the last 10min when we managed to get some momentum back their game changed from playing good to they are not losing this match no matter what it costs and it was dirty play. High tackles, off side, shoulder charges at the breakdown to walking to the middle and not wanting to kick off.

That with the delays because the TMO had to call on a phone and the time not being stopped and then the coach with his F you just made me super angry.

I was ready to accept a loss from an Aussie side that countered us so well and it just left a sour taste in my mouth and yet their fans still call us cheats. I'm just shocked really. Even using the Ref on the phone to make memes about Rassie calling him yet they can't fix the comms in 2 hours. It just doesn't feel right and feels so different to us losing against the All Blacks at Ellis Park.
 
Last edited:
cavedog said:
And that is what really made my blood boil because I felt Australia was world class up until the last 10min when we managed to get some momentum back their game changed from playing good to they are not losing this match no matter what it costs and it was dirty play. High tackles, off side, shoulder charges at the breakdown to walking to the middle and not wanting to kick off.

That with the delays because the TMO had to call on a phone and the time not being stopped and then the coach with his F you just made me super angry.

I was ready to accept a loss from an Aussie side that countered us so well and it just left a sour taste in my mouth and yet their fans still call us cheats. I'm just shocked really. Even using the Ref on the phone to make memes about Rassie calling him yet they can't fix the comms in 2 hours. It just doesn't feel right and feels so different to us losing against the All Blacks at Ellis Park.
Click to expand...
That's why they wont ever have respect.

Do be fair rassie has also reacted like that before. Heat of the moment

We never deserved to win that match
 
13 changes probably 5 too many. In hindsight you could say Rassie sent a sacrificial lamb to Aus.

Fassi, Canan and to some extent Pollard looking to play themselves into form. All 3 had been mediocre at franchise rugby. Lood and Mostert returning from injury and looking for form.

Too many new combinations, 9 and 10, loose trio, front row.

The loosies never really clicked as a combo and we had zero scrum dominance until the bomb squad.

Our depth at centre and full back is weak. Andre and Canan didn't work today and Fassi just can't find the form that made him a Bok. He made costly errors under the high ball, errors Willemse isn't making.

Such a frustrating watch, some soft touches on defense. Flannery out, Nienaber in, Pre RWC2027, it's written in the stars. We've conceded 4 or more tries in our last 5 tests. When was the last time that happened? I'm guessing never, ever...

Argh anyway, a bizarre test match. Comms a mess, ref seemed to turn a blind eye to a lot but Boks never deserved to win that. At 42-17 and that intercept try that would have made it 47-17 and we were heading for an absolute embarrassment. 42-38 flatters us and camouflages what was an utter hammering.

Sets it up nicely for Bledisloe cup. Might even be a contest.

Very disappointed and depressed Bok fan today. And tomorrow is Monday to boot. FFS.
 
sand_man said:
13 changes probably 5 too many. In hindsight you could say Rassie sent a sacrificial lamb to Aus.

Fassi, Canan and to some extent Pollard looking to play themselves into form. All 3 had been mediocre at franchise rugby. Lood and Mostert returning from injury and looking for form.

Too many new combinations, 9 and 10, loose trio, front row.

The loosies never really clicked as a combo and we had zero scrum dominance until the bomb squad.

Our depth at centre and full back is weak. Andre and Canan didn't work today and Fassi just can't find the form that made him a Bok. He made costly errors under the high ball, errors Willemse isn't making.

Such a frustrating watch, some soft touches on defense. Flannery out, Nienaber in, Pre RWC2027, it's written in the stars. We've conceded 4 or more tries in our last 5 tests. When was the last time that happened? I'm guessing never, ever...

Argh anyway, a bizarre test match. Comms a mess, ref seemed to turn a blind eye to a lot but Boks never deserved to win that. At 42-17 and that intercept try that would have made it 47-17 and we were heading for an absolute embarrassment. 42-38 flatters us and camouflages what was an utter hammering.

Sets it up nicely for Bledisloe cup. Might even be a contest.

Very disappointed and depressed Bok fan today. And tomorrow is Monday to boot. FFS.
Click to expand...
Good summary this
 
sand_man said:
13 changes probably 5 too many. In hindsight you could say Rassie sent a sacrificial lamb to Aus.

Fassi, Canan and to some extent Pollard looking to play themselves into form. All 3 had been mediocre at franchise rugby. Lood and Mostert returning from injury and looking for form.

Too many new combinations, 9 and 10, loose trio, front row.

The loosies never really clicked as a combo and we had zero scrum dominance until the bomb squad.

Our depth at centre and full back is weak. Andre and Canan didn't work today and Fassi just can't find the form that made him a Bok. He made costly errors under the high ball, errors Willemse isn't making.

Such a frustrating watch, some soft touches on defense. Flannery out, Nienaber in, Pre RWC2027, it's written in the stars. We've conceded 4 or more tries in our last 5 tests. When was the last time that happened? I'm guessing never, ever...

Argh anyway, a bizarre test match. Comms a mess, ref seemed to turn a blind eye to a lot but Boks never deserved to win that. At 42-17 and that intercept try that would have made it 47-17 and we were heading for an absolute embarrassment. 42-38 flatters us and camouflages what was an utter hammering.

Sets it up nicely for Bledisloe cup. Might even be a contest.

Very disappointed and depressed Bok fan today. And tomorrow is Monday to boot. FFS.
Click to expand...
Not sure can blame the sorts errors and issues we saw on anything but poor individual performances, not about any combination issues.

Growing more and more concerned about these stubborn selections that just seem intent on ignoring every clear sign for multiple seasons now that coaching/selector team chased the wrong players and we fast reaching the point its going to be just too late to seek replacements before next year world cup.

Too many players who just not good enough to perform consistently at test lvl to warrant continued selection. Too many living on one, maybe two big performances when they first burst onto the scene and been sorely wanting since.
 
Last edited:
I wasn't sure about Fassi. I am sure now that he is not good enough. He makes mistakes where a world class player wouldn't. No, he must go back to provincial. Looked at Quan and he didn't even jump at an incoming high ball. Not good enough

In Willemse we trust

Also andre is no longer viable at centre
 
Last edited:
We played bad, but that team is better than that. Those players hadn't played for some time. Bomb squad came on a bit too late.

If the same crop could play again next week they would be significantly better.
 
Heisenborg said:
I wasn't sure about Fassi. I am sure now that he is not good enough. He makes mistakes where a world class player wouldn't. No, he must go back to provincial. Looked at Quan and he didn't even jump at an incoming high ball. Not good enough

In Willemse we trust

Also andre is no longer viable at centre
Click to expand...
Andre has 1 bad game and now he's not worth it.

Anyway.

This is a good thing. Now the coaches will have a better idea of how to whittle down the squad to the 33 that will be in Australia next year and the players will have to step up or miss out.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Whether they admit it or not, if its called quota players or just plain pressure from government, we have to have certain players selected.
We lost Am, Mapimpi, Trevor, Bongi and another wing or two. SO what black players do we have left? Kolisi and Ox. So if you like it or not, Fassi will be there. In the group at least.

We just came from a long and hard series of rugby and a lot of traveling involved. Most of these players was part of that. So not all doom and gloom. I think motivation after the great rivals series was also lacking.

What are we still doing with a slow Pollard. We don't play 10 man Naas rugby anymore. Most of the kicking is done by the scrumhalf anyway.

For a team claiming to be one of the best if not the best in defence, our defence looks pretty bad the last 5 Tests. Seems teams have learned to bypass our rush defence. Time to look at new plans.

Eish and those 2 centres are pretty below average.
Click to expand...
This really annoys me. The Springboks lose and its lets blame quotas/blacks again. Why does black players always need to be demeaned after a loss? Fassi genuinely had good games for the Boks back in 2024 but has lost form since returning from injury. Rassie obviously wants to give him time to reach that level again. He shouldn't be in the team anymore after today but it's nothing to do with quotas. He is not there because he is black. He was picked because the coach had faith that he could get back to where he was before.

Horn looked absolute shite when he came on. He looked like he could barely run. Why is he there? To make up the persecuted Afrikaner quota?
 
netstrider said:
Andre has 1 bad game and now he's not worth it.

Anyway.

This is a good thing. Now the coaches will have a better idea of how to whittle down the squad to the 33 that will be in Australia next year and the players will have to step up or miss out.
Click to expand...
He is more suited in the pack is what i said.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X