The Rugby thread

I guess is says something if we can play that garbage with many 1st choice players not playing or starting and still beat Scotland by 17 points in their backyard. Granted they also screwed up their chances.
 
My takeaway from that: Jayden shouldn't even make the bench against England next week. Much, so much, better service from Grant at the end. The forwards also needed to tighten the game up which they did to close it out, but I suspect there will be some tough training sessions this week.
 
That performance was sort of understandable, given it was our first match since the end of Sept (against Arg). Rustiness was prevalent and cohesiveness lacking. But a win is a win. We'll need to be far sharper next week though.

Rassie did the right thing with today's team, given that England is the big match and there is only a 6 day turnaround. Pleasingly it looks like we came through it without any serious injury.
 
Chalk and cheese between Grant and Jaden

Can see they’re giving Willie the chance to make 100 caps but ja, well - he is done at this level. Thanks for the service - it’s time.
 
AfricanTech said:
Chalk and cheese between Grant and Jaden

Can see they’re giving Willie the chance to make 100 caps but ja, well - he is done at this level. Thanks for the service - it’s time.
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He was one of our best players on the field tonight. "Granted", this was a poor all round performance from the boks
 
Enzo Matrix said:
He was one of our best players on the field tonight. "Granted", this was a poor all round performance from the boks
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Quite the indictment of the rest of the players.

I'm not saying that he was schit, it's just clear that he's pretty much at the end of his career - I'm comparing him to himself.
 
Was a great weekend overall for the South!

Boks played one heck of a messy game - Scots really did bring the physicality during the first 65mins or so. Can definitely see the teams are trying REALLY hard to deny us any scrums. That being said, our line out needs some work, unless Rassie was purposefully setting up the try by Du Toit.

I thought our backline was great except for the numerous handling errors. When we had ball in hand, we looked dangerous, especially with Esterhuizen being able to break the line. Moodie played fairly well under the highball but he does need more self-confidence IMHO. Hendrikse wasn't on par with the usual scrummies unfortunately. All in all, one thing is certain: the Boks find a way to win, much like the AB's from 2011-2017 era - can't count them out!
 
Never felt like we are loosing the game, messy & scrappy with a lot of unusual errors, but I always felt like we're comfortable. Scrum was awesome as usual.

Hendrikse had a poor outing and that's one of the risks with the 7-1 bench split. With the only bacline player also our scrumhalf, we couldn't risk replacing him too early in case someone gets injured. When Williams did come on he made a big difference.

It's so ironic seeing all the Northern Hemisphere supporters moaning about the refs in nearly all the games. But when we do it, Oh my lord, we're the worst supporters on earth.
 
The Cummings red was one of the most ridiculous reds I've ever seen!

The ref was s hit IMHO.

His officiating of the breakdowns was, at times, inconsistent. He seemed overly keen to award Scottish jackals but wasn't as keen when it was a Bok jackal.

Missed Jones's knock on prior to the only Scottish try, missed the hit on Siya that has probably put him out of the English test, missed the head high cleanout of Pollard early on in the game. I won't say he missed the Cummings red card foul, cause it wasn't...

Anyway, I watched the game in a pub, need to re-watch and analyze cause there's every chance I'm talking s hit...

Overall I hated the match! Scrappy stop/start affair. Boks were incredibly inaccurate and rusty and it was bloody frustrating watching them drop mundane passes and butcher lineouts. Not to mention Pollards missing touch twice from penalty kicks!! WTF was that?

What they did well was take points when opportunities presented themselves. 4 tries to naught you'd think it was an absolute hiding. In reality, it was in the balance going into the final quarter and the scoreline flatters the Boks somewhat...

The starting XV v England will differ vastly from the one starting against Scotland.

England is a tough one to call. What worries me is England/s desperation and the weather.

England and Borthwick are fighting for survival this coming Saturday. They will be hungry and desperate. Beat the Boks and every defeat prior will be (almost) forgotten. Lose and they 0 from 3 in the Autumn series and Borthwick's fate all but sealed. These circumstances worry the fck out of me...

The weather has been balmy this week (for the most part) law of averages suggests rain and cold this coming week.. for all our endeavors in the URC and wet CT conditions, we are not up to playing in the wet...
 
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