Ah the lies that are spread on this Board by the OOM and Sapp. Let's examine a few players:
1) Victor Matfield. You would swear reading the pulp fiction the Oom produces Victor is thrown about in contact. The only thing approximating this was at minute 8.25 when Botha charged into Victor and was propelled forward into him by a Bools tackle....Victor sensing Botha going down steps back. And makes the next tackle decisively on Carr.
He also pulls down Botha easily in space at minutes 1.44 and 35.45. At minute 26.30 he soars over Botha to steal the lineout.
Victor was very active and effective throughout the game as evidenced in the mach stats.
2) Juan de Jongh vs Stepfontein was a draw, with neither player cracking a big gap. De Jongh's half break at 13.00 put the Stormers on the front foot though, for the Taute try. Steppie did his usual crash ball stuff with no discernable effect.
The trouble with Stepfontein is he runs into contact but can't offload. He was also turned easily after Coleman put him away cleanly at minute 63 (wrongly ascribed to de Jongh by Bobbie). Hougaard standing at 12 showed how to break at minute 52. Steppie just cant find space....but when defending in space he is simply not very agile as we saw when Aplon ghosted past him. A very overrated player.
3) JJ's game was mostly a ball dropping sequence. At minute 76.30 he actually contrived to step Rhodes in buckets of space, but lost the ball. Something he also did at minute 29 and minute 66.
4) Taute was another serial ball dropper in spite claims he is rounding into form. ...at minute 73 and at minute 65 in a great scoring position. His pop gun boot was also in evidence....no doubt leading to the big wind up at minute 46, which led to a dangerously charged kick
5) Speaking of Hougie...another rudderless performance at scrummie....he was better on the wing. A sad fumble at the lineout at minute 10.50. Not to be outdone last year's future Bok certainty van Zyl sent one along the deck in minute 45.
6) Then there is the Monster Marcell....van der Merwe. His first scrum was decent at minute 50, but at minute 73 he was popped up and at minute 77.50 popped up for a penalty. He also had the ball stripped at minute 51 and right on the Stormers line at minute 58.45 the kindly Marcell gets stripped again.
That's about it for the detail. The Bools suffered because increasingly teams are deciphering their maul, because their hooker was inaccurate, because both sets of props can't scrum, because their scrumhalves were poor and their centres were toothless.
I thought Coleman was better than Pollard on the day. Although Pollard was fine taking one good high ball. Ndungane was the best Bools back by a mile. Actually Willemse played well I thought dominating the front of the lineout.
For the Stormers it was Coleman, Aplon, Schalk, the admirable Cilliers, Vermeuelen and especially Carr.....those players were the difference.
