Team announcement for the Ireland match on Saturday, it's the "controversial" and "dangerous" 7 - 1 split again, according to some Coaches and rugby pundits, according to them "we are abusing the bench, and World Rugby needs to step in, make a new law that prevents this" I cannot believe that they can whine and moan like this, any team is allowed to do the exact same 7 - 1 split on their bench if they wish to do so.
Anyways, as for the match against Romania I was very excited to see C. Moodie starting on OC again, as for his exceptional performance against Wales, but unfortunately the few chances that he and A. Esterhuizen got as a centre pair was scarce. But it did definitely show that Moodie is very young, still very inexperienced on a test level, I feel the chances that he got, he definitely made the wrong decisions in the moment with ball in hand.
But his definitely an exceptional player, with many, many more years ahead of him, he simply just need to gain test match level experience.
I'm sure as you guys know M. Marx is basically out for the remainder of the RWC, I think the "experiment" with D. Fourie and M. van Staden went well, yes I'm aware it was only against Romania, but I do think Fourie would be able to step up even against the top teams, his not Marx but definitely not a poor or weak choice.
Another thing I noticed was, that G. Williams is definitely not use to play / start on the wing on that level, not that he had a bad outing, there was just instances whereby he would run the wrong line on attack, not expecting the pass to come his way, not entirely sure how to compete for the high balls etc.
Lastly, the upcoming match against Ireland, I believe J. Sexton plays a gigantic role in that Ireland team, if we want to beat the current number one ranked team, we will have to put Sexton under immense pressure, however do it extremely smartly because if you slip up Sexton will grab that slip up and probably convert it into a try, but I'm confident Rassie & Jacques etc has a "strategy" in place, there's definitely a reason for the 7 - 1 split.
Here's the link to the team;
https://www.world.rugby/news/866319/south-africa-announce-squad-to-play-ireland
PS; Latest news on H. Pollard if anyone was wondering;
https://www.rugbypass.com/news/hand...-ireland-unless-south-africa-suffer-injuries/