England vs South Africa - Minute by Minute

[Puja]

Minute 61: Another drop-out, this one from the 22 and it's belted long to Steyn for a change, although that's only because he's standing where Pollard used to. Steyn doesn't kick high to Steward, so maybe they can learn, but instead tries a raking kick to the corner that Steward intercepts with good positioning. He then runs, looking like he's going to kick, only to step inside the onrushing Steyn and is unlucky to get an ankle tap that just knocks him off balance, cause otherwise he was away down the middle. He's still made ground up to our 10m line and Quirke organises the forwards before letting Marler take it up. Ewels has come on at some point - I'm not surprised as Hill had given everything he had - and he's the back of the caterpillar as Quirke sets himself. Unfortunately his box-kicking routine isn't quite snappy enough and there's no blocker in place for him, and Etzebeth manages to get a solid charge down in. The ball bounces loose and Dombrandt does well to get there and fall on it, but he's alone and the holding on penalty is inevitable.

Minute 62: Slow-mo replay - Quirke's kicking routine was just too slow and great work from Etzebeth. South Africa kick to the corner and we compete ineffectively again, this time lifting Maro way too early. To add injury to insult, Stuart then drives right through the South African lifter, taking Etzebeth out in the air and giving away the most obvious penalty of the day... except the referee hasn't given it! How?! I mean, I'll take it, but how?! Because of that cheating, England are right amongst the SA maul and nearly drive it out, but Marx manages to swivel and form a ruck just in the field of play.

Minute 63: The relief doesn't last long - we defend well, but Dombrandt misreads Reinach and steps up too early, and then doesn't go back when he's got the chance. Poor workrate there - the mistake is understandable, but he's got to make the effort to go all the way back. Itoje wins the ball from the next ruck and we're going back for the penalty. Lawes gets a final warning from the referee while Etzebeth gets medical treatment after that last tackle and the TMO thinks we ought to have a look at it.

I'm going to stick by my original decision from watching it live and say that there is no case to answer for Ewels there. In the series of events, Etzebeth runs and Lawes takes his ankles like a lasso. Etzebeth falls like a felled tree and effectively headbutts Ewels's outstretched arm on the way down. Given Ewels's arm was about 4ft off the ground, I don't think there's any way that he was at fault for the head contact, which is the second question in the 'Head Contact Protocol' that the referees use, so it should be ruled as play on. Thankfully, that's what the referee decides, although there's a worrying period of thought that goes into it before he comes to that conclusion.

Minute 64: Jantjies-The-Kick knocks over the simple penalty and South Africa are ahead for the first time in the match. Smith puts the kickoff high on Steyn again, but this time Dombrandt slips off the tackle and just brings him down rather than demolishing him, so South Africa are free to kick for touch just inside England's half.

Minute 65: Dolly nails his first throw and Quirke puts in a lovely long cut-out pass to Slade. This is exactly the same setup that led to the Steward try - Slade with the ball, Smith floating behind, Marchant running a hard line and Steward outside. However, South Africa have read it perfectly - Steward is a little bit deeper this time and is clearly placed for when Smith is obviously getting the pull-back, so Am and Mapimpi aren't getting suckered in this time and are instead staying wide to cover Steward and Malins.

Unfortunately reading it perfectly hasn't helped, as Slade drops a no-look pass to Marchant who walks through, draws the full-back and sends Quirke over for his first England try.

On first look, this feels like poor defence and mistakes from South Africa, but it's actually exquisite attack from England. Firstly, the set-up of showing South Africa exactly the thing that they screwed up in the first half, showing them what looks like one variation and then doing another. Secondly is Marchant's line. He looks like he's running an out-to-in crash-ball line that is targetting the gap between Jantjies and De Allende that is well covered. However, in a split-second, he changes his angle and, instead of running full tilt at De Allende's inside shoulder, is now running full tilt at the gap between De Allende and Am. It's massively reminiscent of his try against Italy (although not quite as good or big a step) and it suckers the South Africans just as much as it did the Italians.

[Danno]

I caved and read through this so far with a rewatch, and Brace is really poor. Both sides can feel hard done by for entirely the wrong reasons.

The SA cheerleader on the sideline was weird, more than once she got in the way of the line judge while shrieking. I've never noticed that before, is it a thing? There wasn't an England equivalent

May did well as you said, Puja, but those cock ups were proper lowlight reel stuff.

[Puja]

I caved and read through this so far with a rewatch, and Brace is really poor. Both sides can feel hard done by for entirely the wrong reasons.

The SA cheerleader on the sideline was weird, more than once she got in the way of the line judge while shrieking. I've never noticed that before, is it a thing? There wasn't an England equivalent

May did well as you said, Puja, but those cock ups were proper lowlight reel stuff.

I think she was one of the doctors, so allowed to be there although probably bending the rules to be supporting quite so loudly. South Africa have form for this kind of thing - quite apart from the Erasmus waterboy thing, Nienaber was in the deadball area in the RWC final shouting instructions to the South Africans when we were camped on their line because, quite apart from being the defensive coach, he also is qualified as a physio.

Puja

[Danno]

It's so shitty and you just know it's going to be adopted by every national team within a year unless it's stamped out quick.

[WaspInWales]

After watching key moments, Brace really does bottle a few big decisions against SA. I still think some of the penalties against us were a little harsh, but have no complaints for quite a few.

Did anyone else notice Kolisi seem to grab one of the England players after Steward scored? After Steward had been helped up, Kolisi put his arm between several England players and it's not clear what he did, but a couple of the England players reacted and pushed him away. If looks could kill Youngs would've ended Kolisi right there and then

Also, I remember seeing Smith getting a bit vocal with Dolly after the restart just before full time. England had won the penalty after Steward was taken out in the air, then in all the commotion, Smith seemed to grab Dolly. That said, he may been shouting at and grabbed the SA player attached to Dolly...the angle wasn't clear and it cut away immediately.

[Puja]

Minute 66: Smith slots the conversion and we get more replays of a very tasty try. Quirke's face is a picture - it's just EFFORT and MUST RUN FAST and MUST SCORE TRY. Steyn genuinely isn't getting anywhere near him, but there's no celebrating before the line here, just nerves and terror and making really really sure that he scores, before he gets up and literally screams at people. That is a man who could not even, not even a little. Love to see that passion.

Minute 67: England take the kick-off and Raffi Quirke orders the captain to come and stand in as blocker. Twice, actually, as Lawes isn't interested until Quirke *insists*. Good minerals from the young man and sensible decision as Etzebeth is definitely after the charge but this time can't get anywhere near. It's a beauty of a box-kick as well - dropping just on the touchline, 41m out from his line. Kriel can either catch and get eaten by May or let it land in touch. He chooses the latter and it's a South African throw.

South Africa take the lineout and set a maul, which England appear to deliberately whip around the side of. It might be a ploy to get people on the wrong side, but they've missed the bit about having people there to stop the actual drive and South Africa threaten. We probably have it covered with Dombrandt, Stuart and Dolly coming in, but Stuart decides that it's a good idea to come in directly to the side of the maul, right in front of the referee. Braindead. Even if we weren't on a warning for a yellow, that's giving South Africa a lineout in our 22 with their maul doing what it's doing. How has that helped the situation, Will?

The ref doesn't even let South Africa have more than a phase's worth of advantage (not that they looked like they were do much with it) as he's keen to get his yellow out and get Stuart off and, really, I can't blame him in the slightest.

Minute 68: England once again compete at the front and South Africa just throw over them. Why are we doing this? Mind, at least the jumper doesn't get in the way of the maul defence this time and we actually do a very good job of fighting it. The referee is incredibly generous with the number of stoppages that the SA maul is allowed - it does move all the way up to England's line with various rolls and manouevres, but it stops still on several occasions and most refs would've issued a use it. On the other hand, I think we do collapse it at the end and get away scot free, so it's fine.

Minute 69: South Africa roll around the corner and Smith is stupidly offside - that was just not taking the necessary step back because he was too focussed on the ball and is a waste of all the effort that the forwards just put in to defending that maul without giving away a penalty. It matters not though, as South Africa are emboldened by the penalty and we have a full 9 players either on the blind side or within 5m of the ruck trying to pick themselves upand go again after the monumental effort of the maul. Once Jantjies-The-Pass gets the ball to Jantjies-The-Kick, it's a 4-on-2 out wide and simple hands get the ball to Mapimpi. If I was being super-harsh, Steward makes the wrong decision - if he flies up and jams in on Am, then he can take him man and ball and kill the move - but frankly, we were heavily screwed from the minute the ball was spun out and at least we didn't give away another yellow.

Minute 70: Just watched the replay from another angle and I am completely wrong about Steward - there was no way he could get to Am and his choice of going for an unlikely intercept was the only possible way of stopping the try. Sorry Freddie!

Jantjies-The-Kick fails with a tricky conversion and England stay 1 point ahead. That kick felt like a very important moment in the match - it's a different game if SA are still chasing.

[Puja]

After watching key moments, Brace really does bottle a few big decisions against SA.

Which ones, out of interest? So far I've seen him very much as 6-of-1, with my main ire being him giving South Africa 6 points with incredibly bad decisions, but I don't know there were many big ones that South Africa came off worse from.

Puja

[16th man]

Interestingly on the De Allande flip of Curry, I've just had a watch of sone of the highlights from the France NZ game and there were a few bits of really blatant, post whistle player throwing from the all blacks which also appeared to go largely unpunished.

Its the sort of snide cheap stuff the refs really should be marching 10 every time, but that appears to be being accepted.

[Puja]

Minute 71: England go for a short kick-off, but it's not quite as delicately weighted as the last one and South Africa get to it before Itoje. They set up the caterpillar and Jantjies-The-Pass uses the full 9 seconds of his 5 seconds allowed after "Use it!" was called. He puts in a belting box kick that Steward just fails to take - there's a reasonable case that Kriel does take him out in the air, but it's not a big contact and you'd normally expect Steward to claim that. South Africa regather and recycle into the centre, before Jantjies-The-Kick puts up a high ball.

Minute 72: It's not a great high ball, but I think England are waiting for Steward to come in, having forgotten that he's over the other side of the pitch, and no-one really claims it. The ball bobbles and Itoje dives onto it, only to land right at the feet of Vermeulen and Mapimpi who gleefully claim the holding-on penalty.

Minute 73: South Africa are going for goal with Steyn and it's a good solid connection, straight through the middle. 24-26 and I thought this was the beginning of the end.

Smith kicks off and we're back to abusing the Bok full-back again. He takes it like a champ and SA recycle.

Minute 74: Janties-The-Pass puts up another box-kick and Steward comes in to claim it from a very long way away. Too long, in fact - he doesn't get close enough to be at the top of his leap when he catches and Mapimpi can bat the ball away from him, which the ref harshly gives as a knock-on. Great box kicking from the Bok 9.

Etzebeth takes the tap back and carries hard and South Africa have quick ball against a very dishevelled England defence - we contain them, but at the cost of another 10 metres and more quick ball.

Slade then makes the biggest mistake of the game and comes flying up on his own. We've not got anywhere near the numbers in defence to be trying to blitz, he's entirely on his own and he charges at such a speed that he's got no control over his footwork. I don't even know what play he thought he'd read and who he was charging up on. It's just bizarre. Ewels is originally expecting a drift and has left a gap sufficient for Slade to drift into, sees Slade go, panics that he's supposed to be blitzing as well, tries to go up and close the dogleg and De Jager on the burst just walks through the gap between them.

He charges through up to the 22, at which point Slade redeems himself by busting a gut to get into the passing lane between De Jager and Marx, De Jager realises he's not going to run over the 6ft 5 Steward, panics and tries to throw a miracle ball, which then goes forward to the floor in front of Marx (before Steward tackles him just on general principles). On replay, this isn't quite the open goal that it felt like watching it live - Slade is doing a great spoiling job blocking the pass and, even if Marx gets it, he's going to be hit by Marchant and Slade. If De Jager holds onto it, he's very solidly stopped by Steward and England have two players who would get to him before the nearest Bok. But still, heart in mouth time.

I don't actually know whether the ref was going to give the forward pass - as it is, he gives us the penalty as both Koch and Mostert launch themselves over the top of Marx like they're Captain Chaos and I think we'd all prefer that outcome to another scrum right now.

Minute 75: A replay shows I'm wrong - De Jager's pass did go backwards, but Marx was never reaching it anyway. Smith kicks out to the 40m line and we all take a deep breath. We're very slow to the lineout and I'm surprised the ref doesn't lose patience with us. The call is a terrible one - we lift Curry alongside a ready and primed Etzebeth and, unsurprisingly, he gets a hand to the ball to tap it to South Africa. We should be running 4 man drills while we're down a lifter and be moving so we're throwing to where Etzebeth isn't. I wonder if we'll learn that lesson for the rest of the game?

Somehow, Itoje comes up with the ball from that - minor miracle of some kind - and we recycle.

[Danno]

After watching key moments, Brace really does bottle a few big decisions against SA. I still think some of the penalties against us were a little harsh, but have no complaints for quite a few.

Did anyone else notice Kolisi seem to grab one of the England players after Steward scored? After Steward had been helped up, Kolisi put his arm between several England players and it's not clear what he did, but a couple of the England players reacted and pushed him away. If looks could kill Youngs would've ended Kolisi right there and then

Also, I remember seeing Smith getting a bit vocal with Dolly after the restart just before full time. England had won the penalty after Steward was taken out in the air, then in all the commotion, Smith seemed to grab Dolly. That said, he may been shouting at and grabbed the SA player attached to Dolly...the angle wasn't clear and it cut away immediately.

It was a bad tempered match at the end, and there was some thoroughly dirty stuff from Steyn, Koch and Malherbe.

[Danno]

After watching key moments, Brace really does bottle a few big decisions against SA. I still think some of the penalties against us were a little harsh, but have no complaints for quite a few.

Did anyone else notice Kolisi seem to grab one of the England players after Steward scored? After Steward had been helped up, Kolisi put his arm between several England players and it's not clear what he did, but a couple of the England players reacted and pushed him away. If looks could kill Youngs would've ended Kolisi right there and then

Also, I remember seeing Smith getting a bit vocal with Dolly after the restart just before full time. England had won the penalty after Steward was taken out in the air, then in all the commotion, Smith seemed to grab Dolly. That said, he may been shouting at and grabbed the SA player attached to Dolly...the angle wasn't clear and it cut away immediately.

It was a bad tempered match at the end, and there was some thoroughly dirty stuff from Steyn, Koch and Malherbe.

Forgot about De Allende. Fuck him as well.

[Puja]

Minute 76: The ball goes back to Smith who puts a very nice chip over the onrushing South African defence, Marchant soars to take it and Kolisi clumsily clatters into the side of him.

A yellow is possibly a little harsh from the referee - it's definitely not intentional by Kolisi and he has got his eyes fixed on the ball at all times (and the referee's interpretation that he's "grabbed him in the air" is nonsense - Kolisi's as blindsided by the contact as Marchant was and his arms are always going to grab the solid object that he's just run into). That said, it's an established point of law that it doesn't matter if you're looking at the ball, you have a responsibility to make sure that you're not about to clean someone out if you're running into a high ball situation. Kolisi clearly wipes out Marchant, causing him to land on his front/face and, accident or not, it's probably still a yellow card. I wouldn't've complained if it'd just been a penalty though.

Slade tries making a case that he could kick it from 51m, but no-one's that interested and the right decision is made to give the ball to Smith to bang it up to the 22.

England go for a 4 man and then, with absolutely no disguise, run to the front and try to take on Etzebeth with Ewels. I mean, it's marginally better than trying to do it with Curry, but only just.

Minute 77: This time the bobbling ball falls to South Africa and they reset for a more stable ruck to kick from. Marler is stuck on the wrong side and does everything possible to be out of the way, but this same referee who penalised Jonny May for not evaporating earlier now is very understanding and tells South Africa "don't look for it; the ball is there."

Minute 78: This lineout is even worse. We dummy to the very front, then make our real lift one player back... where Etzebeth is patiently waiting having not reacted to our dummy at all. Dolly is getting blamed for these lineouts and it's not fair at all - his throws are accurate and well timed and it's not his fault that we're calling for him to throw straight to Etzebeth.

South Africa attack the broken defence up to their 10m line and Curry is lucky to get away with a flying tackle that wasn't high, but only just and more by luck than by judgement. Stuart then has his moment of the match - tackles a hard runner, picks himself up and spots Mostert is doing a cursory job of bridging over the ruck and drives through to chuck the lock on top of Jantjies-The-Pass who was looking to get the ball away. Top work! Dombrandt and Dolly follow him in and the ball is secured. There is doubt over whether the ball is still in the ruck - if it is, there's about 5 Springboks offside, but Quirke decides it's better to play away in case the ref doesn't give the decision and he's right to. The ball ends up with Malins who rounds a defender and suddenly we have a 4-on-2. Only problem is that the ball needs to go through Ewels's hands in order to get to Smith and May on the outside - if he catches and passes, then there's a try, but he's not quite slick enough and, while he does get the pass in before Am tackles him, Am flings out a hand that's close enough to being part of the tackle to count as just a knock on and not a yellow card.

And to make things worse, May's studs go from under him and he falls on his arse as he starts to resuscitate the attack, so we set a slow ruck while May lies at the bottom, trying to find his dignity. Third flashy mistake of the game for him, although I do still maintain he was a vital part of this victory with his other contributions.

Quirke spins it wide to Smith who thinks about kicking before getting the call from outside - South Africa are narrow again. Two more wide passes and Malins is rounding the corner of the Springbok defensive line. He offloads to Steward who unfortunately trips over Malins and we have a ruck.

Minute 79: Marchant doesn't wait for Quirke at the base and goes on a little snipe of his own, but it might've been better if he had waited, as he's surrounded by Springboks. He gets tackled and it looks like an all-ends-up penalty for being isolated, but late-game hero Will Stuart comes flying in to clear out the jackallers. He definitely owed his team for the stupid pen and yellow, but he appears to be repaying them now.

Marler runs the world's most obvious dummy line - it should absolutely not go to him as he'd be running isolated into the same Springbok defensive pod that we've sent a few other forwards to die in this game but, just to be certain, Marler is running with one hand behind his back pointing behind him at Smith. Not subtle, but given some of our decision making so far, probably necessary. Mind, I don't think Quirke's fed any solo forwards to the meat grinder yet, albeit he hasn't had much ball to do it with.

The ball duly goes to Smith who fakes a chip, looks like he's passing to Dolly, does a hitch kick like he's going to run, and instead pops to Itoje. Quite glad Itoje caught it, as it fooled just about everyone else. It buys Itoje enough room to make a couple of metres, allowing Dolly to get back behind and clear out, and we've suddenly got very quick ball. Quirke to Smith who throws a lovely cut-out ball to give May a one-on-one with Vermuelen. The 8 does well - gets beaten by May but forces him to go inside where the cover cuts him down after 5m.

Simmonds then runs onto the ball, does a bit of footwork to attract two defenders and pops to Ewels on the burst on the inside. Ewels attempts the try-scoring offload to Quirke, but it's not high enough, however Slade sweeps up the loose ball and carries it forwards. South Africa are there at the breakdown, but Jantjies-the-Pass just flops over the top with no effort to stay on his feet and the ref calls Advantage England!

Will Stuart does another great rucking job to free the ball and May rips it out and gets it wide to Smith. The Iceman looks at the cross-field kick, before stepping inside two onrushing defenders and almost beating the third. He's brought to ground and Steyn comes in with a fairly nasty knee drop on his back. It's not as bad as the slow motion makes it look as he is running in and is off balance, but he had the choice to pull out and decided against.

The ref gives the penalty, May stands and crows like he's Flintoff and Quirke nearly takes the tap before realising that it might mean the end of his life if he doesn't immediately score from it. Itoje then threatens nearly everything by going around to shake Steyn by the lapels for hurting his precious fly-half, Marx and Etzebeth take offence and start shoving Itoje and Wiese takes advantage of the scrimmage to charge in at the side of Marchant. I love him making big carries for Leicester, but he is a horrible c*nt of a player, and not in a good way. Just wasn't necessary.

There's a lot of threatening words and angry looks, but no-one's quite willing to start the fight. The ref and touch judges confer and one of the touch judges has actually spotted Wiese's cheap shot, but gets confused when the TMO chips in that "It was number 23" and the ref decides it's not worth looking at further.

Minute 80: There's a bit of chat about whether Smith can run down the clock to the end of the game, which I don't think is particularly helpful to him. It's a fairly straightforward kick, but it's the biggest one of his career to date and it's perfectly possible to miss from 26m out when the pressure is on. The ref confirms that we will restart and Smith is free to go through his routine.

The posts look very narrow from the camera angle behind Smith. He puts it straight down the middle - if there was a third post in the centre, the ball would've bounced back to him. ICEMAN.

[Puja]

Minute 80+1/2/3: Just catch it England. Just catch it.

It was at this point, when watching the match for the first time, that my television decided it needed to crash and I had to wait 5 minutes for it to reboot before I could watch the end. I was slightly tense.

South Africa kick long, which is a bold decision, and drop it onto Steward, which is a stupid one. Steward claims and is absolutely cleaned out in the air by Etzebeth. The referee originally calls it "a good contest" (?!) before getting a call from his touch judge that it's the most obvious foul in the world. Lawes and Tuilagi have a "They think it's all over" moment and come onto the pitch hugging and cheering, but there's now a tussle between England and South Africa and the referee is saying that he wants to send it to the TMO. Don't quite know how he would've restarted if it turned out not to be a penalty - South Africa could claim they were close to a turnover if play went on, England could claim they would've got it out if he hadn't blown his whistle and an England scrum restart in front of the England posts wouldn't exactly be the most neutral of options. Thankfully, the penalty remains just as blatant on replay as it was in real time.

Etzebeth uses our valuable time to whinge about Lawes having come onto the field, which is just not a classy look. Then when the referee explains why the penalty has been given, he then whinges more about "But substitutes coming onto the pitch!" They came on when the ball was dead, after the penalty, so even if the ref wants to punish them, it'll have no impact on the fact that England will have the penalty. Shut up Eben.

Smith does a worryingly high tap kick of the ball, but catches it and belts it dead to end the game. Gods, that was stressful!

[Mr Mwenda]

It's so shitty and you just know it's going to be adopted by every national team within a year unless it's stamped out quick.

This. They're not stupid about where they stand as well. I remember in the lions tour they made a good show of standing in the defensive sweeper's position.

[Mr Mwenda]

I chose not to click the link myself, but I saw there was a 100% objective refereeing analysis video on YouTube titled "will world rugby and Brace apologise to South Africa?" Fans are the worst.

[FKAS]

After watching key moments, Brace really does bottle a few big decisions against SA. I still think some of the penalties against us were a little harsh, but have no complaints for quite a few.

Did anyone else notice Kolisi seem to grab one of the England players after Steward scored? After Steward had been helped up, Kolisi put his arm between several England players and it's not clear what he did, but a couple of the England players reacted and pushed him away. If looks could kill Youngs would've ended Kolisi right there and then

Also, I remember seeing Smith getting a bit vocal with Dolly after the restart just before full time. England had won the penalty after Steward was taken out in the air, then in all the commotion, Smith seemed to grab Dolly. That said, he may been shouting at and grabbed the SA player attached to Dolly...the angle wasn't clear and it cut away immediately.

I think Dolly was incensed by the foul on Steward in the air and was probably generally frustrated by his less than ideal debut. I think Smith was trying to get him out of the scrap before he escalated it. Didn't want to risk giving the ref something to reverse.

I liked that by Smith, again cool headed and exerting a bit of leadership there even if it was with somebody the same age as him it doesn't matter you want your flyhalf to be the voice of reason.

[Mikey Brown]

Old news now but that just reminded me - did nobody else see the Aus winger Wright slap Smith in the face as he was tackled (and had his arms by his side) in the game last week? I’ve never seen Smith look that pissed. Farrell looked like he was ready to go full northern on him. I wish he’d had the chance.

He’s become a frequent target with Quins, understandably, and is generally very good at rising above it. Maybe I read the Wright incident wrong, but that’s what it looked like to me and I certainly don’t blame him for losing his cool a bit on that one.

[loudnconfident]

Thanks for this "Minute by Minute" effort. I enjoyed it (and watching the game on Prime catch-up yesterday). I remember he last two lost line-outs were nerve-shredding - but the open play before the final penalty admirable. A great day (Did I say I was there? )

[chris1850]

Old news now but that just reminded me - did nobody else see the Aus winger Wrigjht slap Smith in the face as he was tackled (and had his arms by his side) in the game last week? I’ve never seen Smith look that pissed. Farrell looked like he was ready to go full northern on him. I wish he’d had the chance.

He’s become a frequent target with Quins, understandably, and is generally very good at rising above it. Maybe I read the Wright incident wrong, but that’s what it looked like to me and I certainly don’t blame him for losing his cool a bit on that one.

Wright is a dirty t*** at the best of times. He was at it again against Wales

[Banquo]

Interesting to see how many mentions Itoje gets; I staggered by some of the commentary on how he isn't playing that well tbh...

[Puja]

Interesting to see how many mentions Itoje gets; I staggered by some of the commentary on how he isn't playing that well tbh...

I noticed that while doing this - he's not doing the flashy turnover work and made no impact on the SA lineout, but he was always in the right position in the loose, whether than be to make a covering tackle or to dive on a loose ball. Unseen work.

Hill did impress me and certainly made a case for keeping the 5 shirt (not least because he didn't give away a single stupid penalty), but he didn't have even half the number of positive interventions that Itoje did.

Puja

[Greebo]

Thanks Puja. I have no idea why I like these minute-by-minute recounts, but I do, and read them all. Perhaps I need help....

[chris1850]

Puja. Thanks for putting these together. Must take ages but they are great to read and quite entertaining!

[Scrumhead]

Interesting to see how many mentions Itoje gets; I staggered by some of the commentary on how he isn't playing that well tbh...

I noticed that while doing this - he's not doing the flashy turnover work and made no impact on the SA lineout, but he was always in the right position in the loose, whether than be to make a covering tackle or to dive on a loose ball. Unseen work.

Hill did impress me and certainly made a case for keeping the 5 shirt (not least because he didn't give away a single stupid penalty), but he didn't have even half the number of positive interventions that Itoje did.

Puja

This is the difference between analysis and perception though.

If you’d have asked me which players I thought had a poor game 5mins after the final whistle, I’d probably have said May and Stuart because of what were fairly high profile errors. That’s what the average person takes away and it’s only when you look at the detail in this kind of analysis that the full picture is actually clear.

This is also why people will get frustrated when they see May getting selected again because they only remember the errors from the last game and expect wingers to score every game.

Very similar to how people think Simmonds is the best 8 because he scores the most tries. Unfortunately, perception often outweighs analysis.

[Puja]

Thanks Puja. I have no idea why I like these minute-by-minute recounts, but I do, and read them all. Perhaps I need help....

Probably less help than I do!

Thank you all for the comments; they are really appreciated.

Puja