The Rugby thread

[cavedog]

Rassie has doomed any chance we may have had winning the RWC next year. Refs, the world, crowds etc hate us more than ever now.

SA 'A' seemed disheartened and not interested at all.

We are the second most penalised team at the moment w.r.t cards, only behind the Wallabies but we've got more reds thos year.

Twrrible discipline. Du Pond was France's first card of the year. Ireland has 2 cards whole year. England 5.

SA and AUS sit on double digits.

I've seen less mistakes from primary school rugby than tonight. A shambles would be putting it mildly.

I did say we have no chance. How can you enjoy rugby @SAguy if things are turning out like this?

Disjointed, disheartened, tiredness call it what you want we are on a downward trend in terms of performance and the Rassie saga is making refs hate us more.

 

[netstrider]

Thought we may give England a bit of old fashioned revenge come the last game. With 16 players ruled out due to intl Window I reckon they will win by 20-30. England, that is.

 

[netstrider]

I did say we have no chance. How can you enjoy rugby @SAguy if things are turning out like this?

Disjointed, disheartened, tiredness call it what you want we are on a downward trend in terms of performance and the Rassie saga is making refs hate us more.

It does seem unusually dire at the moment. Toetie era stuff although thr main Boks are keeping the loss margins low.

 

[cavedog]

Thought we may give England a bit of old fashioned revenge come the last game. With 16 players ruled out due to intl Window I reckon they will win by 20-30. England, that is.

It does seem unusually dire at the moment. Toetie era stuff although thr main Boks are keeping the loss margins low.

Let's take it one game at a time. I think we are strong enough that we can win against Italy but with all the Rassie drama and the fact that we are not making friends with officials and the whole rugby communities worldwide anything is on the table to be honest.

Italy can come with some fancy game play that might put us under serious pressure.

Then there is England which should be a relatively simple win for us but the way the tour is going all hope is lost from my side.

 

[netstrider]

Let's take it one game at a time. I think we are strong enough that we can win against Italy but with all the Rassie drama and the fact that we are not making friends with officials and the whole rugby communities worldwide anything is on the table to be honest.

Italy can come with some fancy game play that might put us under serious pressure.

Then there is England which should be a relatively simple win for us but the way the tour is going all hope is lost from my side.

Yeah, best thing may actually be another loss.

Boks missing a trick not getting Ackerman as consultant at least, or Jake White. He is already in country.

 

[cavedog]

Yeah, best thing may actually be another loss.

Boks missing a trick not getting Ackerman as consultant at least, or Jake White. He is already in country.

I agree. If we lose against Italy and England people will write us off as real contenders for the WC and maybe just maybe, we can get a winning recipe for the WC but this is me just trying to make these poor performances sound better.

 

[cavedog]

I don't want to disrespect the Bristol Bears but the fact that the SA A side couldn't secure a win against this team makes the future look bleak.

 

[Agent_Smith]

It's difficult to put together a solid performance when you haven't played as a cohesive unit for a while. That does need to be factored in when reviewing these two tour matches. Combinations take time to gell and that was never going to happen on this short tour.

You need to understand the players around you when on defense and particularly on attack and that comes with time spent together on the field.

 

[SAguy]

@SAguy Will say I'm negative but is the worst performance ever. Last week was better they actually got worse.

Downward trend. If this is the pool of players we have to pick from for the national squad there is NOOOO hope.

Nothing wrong with negative or pointing out the obvious, but it's the attitude of "oh we've lost another game, we are the worst team in the world and should never ever play rugby again" that's tiring.

 

[Werner1975]

Im sooo glad that I didnt stay up for this. What the hell is wrong with our rugby???

 

[netstrider]

It's difficult to put together a solid performance when you haven't played as a cohesive unit for a while. That does need to be factored in when reviewing these two tour matches. Combinations take time to gell and that was never going to happen on this short tour.

You need to understand the players around you when on defense and particularly on attack and that comes with time spent together on the field.

Yeah, except the Barbarians could beat an All Blacks XV and showed some cohesion and enterprise against Harlequins at least.

There's no way you can excuse the PLAYER mistakes that happened in the SA 'A' game. Nobody asked Zas to kick backwards or for players to make more knock-ons than passes.

 

[Agent_Smith]

Yeah, except the Barbarians could beat an All Blacks XV and showed some cohesion and enterprise against Harlequins at least.

There's no way you can excuse the PLAYER mistakes that happened in the SA 'A' game. Nobody asked Zas to kick backwards or for players to make more knock-ons than passes.

Absolutely not. Knocks ons, missed kicks to touch etc are all basic skills that need to be executed. No excuses for that.

 

[L-Dog]

We have lost 4 out of 4 on this tour so far, hopefully we can turn it around this weekend.

 

[cavedog]

I agree with Rassie but we aren't going to change anything, and we end up just not getting the calls.

Last night SA A was pathetic, but officials are just not giving us anything and I wonder how much of this is due to Rassie?

Fair contest we are winning the ball but gets cleaned out from a completely offside position and all of their players go off their feet right in front of the official and this end up with a penalty for Bristol Bears.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1593338338907492352

Then there are the comments made in public by Eddie Jones and Dave Rennie. I don't recall any sanctions from World Rugby yet Rassie is banned so quickly without a hearing and now we have World Rugby CEO speaking out saying he is concerned about the criticism from Rassie etc etc.

I would have expected something from WR about the Australia vs New Zealand saga in TRC but there was nothing.

 

[MuterOfWorlds]

That's my gripe. The singling out of Rassie. There's plenty noise from coaches in general about state of ref'ing, but not a peep from world rugby about any of it.

Also, nobody cared about Rassie and his utterings or anything until the WC and the introduction of the bombsquad tactic. Suddenly officiating has changed around the breakdown and other areas of the game, yet, no there's been no official actual rulebook amendments. Ref interpretations have just flipped on their proverbial heads since.

 

[OhYeah84]

I agree with Rassie but we aren't going to change anything, and we end up just not getting the calls.

Last night SA A was pathetic, but officials are just not giving us anything and I wonder how much of this is due to Rassie?

Fair contest we are winning the ball but gets cleaned out from a completely offside position and all of their players go off their feet right in front of the official and this end up with a penalty for Bristol Bears.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1593338338907492352

Then there are the comments made in public by Eddie Jones and Dave Rennie. I don't recall any sanctions from World Rugby yet Rassie is banned so quickly without a hearing and now we have World Rugby CEO speaking out saying he is concerned about the criticism from Rassie etc etc.

I would have expected something from WR about the Australia vs New Zealand saga in TRC but there was nothing.

View attachment 1424443

It's because Rassie is using logic whereas the others are using emotion. Logic shows thought and intelligence behind the statements which should give more weight behind those statements.

 

[Avbob se stoep]

I don't understand why people are so negative after the first games of the euro tour. The normal sheep with no rugby knowledge are already calling for the coaches heads after the SA A side lost. Our team is starting to play much better in terms of cohesion and game plans, and it will only get better once we get to the WC. As was the plan from the start of the season that I preached. On top of that Rassie will bring the players together again and hype them up by showing them how sided world rugby are against us.

Also don't understand why our own people are so critical of Rassie, they forget what he meant for us so quickly. They should stand behind him and against world rugby for this needless ban.

The coaches have a plan you show your lack of knowledge if you are doubting them.

 

[Agent67]

Then there are the comments made in public by Eddie Jones and Dave Rennie. I don't recall any sanctions from World Rugby yet Rassie is banned so quickly without a hearing and now we have World Rugby CEO speaking out saying he is concerned about the criticism from Rassie etc etc.

I would have expected something from WR about the Australia vs New Zealand saga in TRC but there was nothing.

View attachment 1424443

It's how it always is...

/Anglosphere (UK, IRE, NZ, AUS) complains about reffing
/World Rugby cries and tackles the complaint posthaste or ignores it

/SA complains about reffing
WR and Anglosphere: "SHUURRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP SHUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPP, YOU ARE JUST BAD LOSERS. STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT REF"

 

[Agent67]

I don't understand why people are so negative after the first games of the euro tour. The normal sheep with no rugby knowledge are already calling for the coaches heads after the SA A side lost. Our team is starting to play much better in terms of cohesion and game plans, and it will only get better once we get to the WC. As was the plan from the start of the season that I preached. On top of that Rassie will bring the players together again and hype them up by showing them how sided world rugby are against us.

Also don't understand why our own people are so critical of Rassie, they forget what he meant for us so quickly. They should stand behind him and against world rugby for this needless ban.

The coaches have a plan you show your lack of knowledge if you are doubting them.

Yeah SA A isn't exactly our best team either, so the expectation that they should dominate everything is a tad stupid (doesn't excuse stupid mistakes they make on-field tho).

Same with Springboks, people are acting as if we lost all our games with a 20+ point deficit.

We lost against Ireland (by three), cause our kicking was kak.
We almost won against France (with a man down for much of the game), but Barnes lost his **** in the last 15 mins making cringe calls and the TMO just disappearing for some reason.

 

[MuterOfWorlds]

Yeah SA A isn't exactly our best team either, so the expectation that they should dominate everything is a tad stupid (doesn't excuse stupid mistakes they make on-field tho).

Same with Springboks, people are acting as if we lost all our games with a 20+ point deficit.

We lost against Ireland (by three), cause our kicking was kak.
We almost won against France (with a man down for much of the game), but Barnes lost his **** in the last 15 mins making cringe calls and the TMO just disappearing for some reason.

Seems like a sense of arrogance by the southern hemisphere media and by implication fanbase. Folks just do not want to acknowledge NH have closed the gap, was always going to happen with their ever growing exposure to SH rugby via so many players now plying their trade there. Just can't accept that the likes of Ireland, France and even England are genuine top 3 contenders able to beat any of the SH teams unlike pre-2019 WC.