RugbyRebels

24 - 9. pen Pollard., 75 mins.
Another scrum infring.

SA completely bossed terr. & poss. 2nd half.
Talk of Vermeulen back for 3rd T.

Mostert saved by irony, tacking Farrell with his shoulder.

Buggaluggs wrote:RSA players will be as fired up as a paedo in a playground. One of two things will happen:
They hump us 30-9
They fizzle out and get three players carded and lose 26-17

I'm leaning towards the latter.

I guess the former after all.

Boks thoroughly deserved that and Gatland got selection wrong for this test. Suggestions:

Swap Alan Wyn Jones for a lock who carries more powerfully - Henderson? ( or even move Lawes to lock)

Replace all 3 of starting backrow with 6 Beirne 7 H Watson 8 Falatau

Neither Conor Murray,Harris or Hogg have convinced me in the backs

- this result was highly predictable

Some god awful performances today.

Murray, Biggar, VdM, Watson and Hogg in the backs should all be under pressure for their places. Watson probably keeping his spot. Harris didn't really do a great deal either.

AWJ, Conan, Curry at least from the forwards should be looked at being replaced.

We should stick Smith and/or Finn in. No point dying by a thousand papaercuts.

On another tack please Sky do something about match commentators Having both a referee and Will Greenwood together is nothing short of the torture for which orange overalls have been handed out in the past

FT: 27 - 9, Pen. Pollard

Credit SA, stormed 2nd half.
Back 3 struggled with high balls, breakdowns 2nd best ( lost turnovers 6-1), out-mauled, out-scrummed.
May as well go down trying to play a bit of rugby next week.
Harris, VDM & Watson hardly had a sniff.

Big D wrote:Some god awful performances today.

Murray, Biggar, VdM, Watson and Hogg in the backs should all be under pressure for their places. Watson probably keeping his spot. Harris didn't really do a great deal either.

AWJ, Conan, Curry at least from the forwards should be looked at being replaced.

We should stick Smith and/or Finn in. No point dying by a thousand papaercuts.

Thought Biggar and Curry we're ok, the latter seemed to be doing most of the backrowing. But I have been drinking. The rest fits my impression.

Fair play to SA. The Lions knew how the Boks were going to play but were unable to counter it. Sad lack of invention from both teams. Don't know what changes for next week, but DVDM does not look up to it and the Lions back row went missing in action. Itoje is a nuisance to the opposition but he does look a bit short of real ballast with ball in hand.

Mr Mwenda wrote:

Big D wrote:Some god awful performances today.

Murray, Biggar, VdM, Watson and Hogg in the backs should all be under pressure for their places. Watson probably keeping his spot. Harris didn't really do a great deal either.

AWJ, Conan, Curry at least from the forwards should be looked at being replaced.

We should stick Smith and/or Finn in. No point dying by a thousand papaercuts.

Thought Biggar and Curry we're ok, the latter seemed to be doing most of the backrowing. But I have been drinking. The rest fits my impression.

Might be me but I thought Lawes carried better and did all the tackling for the back row when he was on.

Buggaluggs wrote:RSA players will be as fired up as a paedo in a playground. One of two things will happen:
They hump us 30-9
They fizzle out and get three players carded and lose 26-17

I'm leaning towards the latter.

So close

Sent from my CPH2195 using Tapatalk

Our only forward with any kind of carrying impact from the starters was Cowan Dickie as far as I could see

The thing with Duhan, and I said this earlier in the tour. If this is the game plan then there is no point playing him. He is one of the most potent attacking weapons in the game and we are using him to chase kicks.

If this is our game plan then play Williams or Adams on the wing.

SA were deserved winners but goodness what an absolute dog of a game. I know the stakes are high but the contrast with some great Olympic sport couldnt have been starker. it was unwatchable at times.

fivepointer wrote:SA were deserved winners but goodness what an absolute dog of a game. I know the stakes are high but the contrast with some great Olympic sport couldnt have been starker. it was unwatchable at times.

Not helped by the commentary - can someone please,please tell Greenwood less (in terms of shear number of words in a sentence) often means more - it was like Janet and John play rugby 2B

Was Curry even on the pitch? Duhan needs replacing with Adams. Falatau to start with Simmonds on the bench. Rest of the pack can stay for me but with George on to the bench in place of Owens. Williams for Hogg as well. Centres went okay.

Would love someone to flatten Faf, and La Rue as well.

Shiny wrote:Was Curry even on the pitch? Duhan needs replacing with Adams. Falatau to start with Simmonds on the bench. Rest of the pack can stay for me but with George on to the bench in place of Owens. Williams for Hogg as well. Centres went okay.

Would love someone to flatten Faf, and La Rue as well.

For me Curry was doing what he does well fetching and defence but his strength isn’t carrying - Conan and Lawes should have been doing this but I don’t think Conan has the power at this level and Lawes who can put in a good carrying performance didn’t in this match. Gatland was imo wrong not to Start Falatau, Watson and Beirne and not having a penetrative carrier in our second row has cost us dear - and it was clear enough from the first half of first test that despite scraping a win we were underpowered ball in hand - goes for much of the backline too.

Ouch

Another comedy commentary moment was describing Lood de Jäger as being 6’11” - yes he’s tall but not that tall

jngf wrote:Another comedy commentary moment was describing Lood de Jäger as being 6’11” - yes he’s tall but not that tall

Greenwood also described Mostert as one of three "gargantuan" S.A. Locks. At 17 st 9lb, Mostert is actually on the small side for an international lock (though he does play with a lot of fizz.)

On the plus side, at least the Irish, Welsh and Scots now know how the English fans felt during and after the World Cup final.
Not sure where Gatland goes from here.

Well Gats, what will you do for the decider? The bokke have hit their form and the scrum was awful, so too the management of high ball.

How many changes will he make? There is no point bringing Farrell down to chase a game. Either start him or have Smith on the bench. AWJ May have to stand aside next weekens, although not the only forward to go missing in the second half.

Sutherland is a penalty waiting to happen. A good player but he can’t be in the squad again.

Sandydragon wrote:Well Gats, what will you do for the decider? The bokke have hit their form and the scrum was awful, so too the management of high ball.

How many changes will he make? There is no point bringing Farrell down to chase a game. Either start him or have Smith on the bench. AWJ May have to stand aside next weekens, although not the only forward to go missing in the second half.

Sutherland is a penalty waiting to happen. A good player but he can’t be in the squad again.

Furlong was struggling, the SA tighthead was also getting away with murder, but Mako did OK. The scrum really struggled when Mostert went to 6- funnily enough, PSDT going off forced a couple of changes which worked really well for them.

Back three has to change; but imo we don't have any midfield combo that will enable us to radically change the game, plus we have struggled wide at the breakdown. Difficult to see how they can roll the dice in a week, with no other game plan remotely practiced.

Yep. It's the midfield that is lacking. Jamie Roberts and Jon Davies where are you? The back three on the park and the three sitting it out are all good. Punch a hole midfield and any of them could exploit the space. I'd go Adams instead of VDM next week. Maybe Liam too with Hogg on the bench. Watson wasn't great today, but he's dependable and I'd keep him in.

To be fair, you could have a lions all stats back line and it would make little difference when the pack get stuffed like that.

But the aerial bombardment was overdue and we handled it very poorly.