Could have been the quickest try in history for the boks if the take off was caught on the scots line.
Scotland have taken the upperhand for the next 2 minutes with 2 clean breaks.
3rd minute: Arno Botha looks like he has torn ligaments
As I said who will be left standing for RC!
Scots goal penalty
Kolisi replaces Arno Botha. With Coetzee playing at 6, we now have 2 fetchers than cant fetch.
Scotland the better team for the first 20 minutes. Score the first try of the match.
Either the boks defence is bad, or the Scots attack much better than usual.
Some of the one one one tackles very poor by the boks, also gaps keep opening up on the inside
Well two pap props, a pap lock and three ordinary loosies. Its going to be harder than many thought.
Scots really on fire. Bok pack lacking in authority.
32 minute: Sloppy plat at the rucks by the boks, also not protecting the ball and allowing the Scots to spoil.
Me thinks Meyer is going to explode ay half time
37th minute: A comedy of errors so far. Knock ons are the order of the day.
Jannie can't tackle for shit and Coetzee is too weak. Kolisi is looking very promising, oh and Scotland trying every dirty little trick they can think of.
Half time: The boks are losing 6 to 10. Seems like some sick joke
OMG how very poor the Boks looked in the first half!! at times they looked like headless chickens. Should come back in the second half and win the game but Oh dear thank goodness they were not playing the All Blacks.
Sharkbok this is a great lesson for Meyer re who is who in the zoo. Due largely as a result of injuries and Louw getting married he has had to filed aloose trio of Kolisi (Is he super 15 standard) Coetzee (not Bok standard) and Spies who is simply ordinary. Collectively they were a nightmare.
Then we saw against Italy how far Jannie and Beast had gone backwards. But there they are starting. Great lets learn the lesson again as its difficult to beleived theyare so ordinary. We all also know Juandre has not got the physicality for an international lock. Same lesson being learnt again.
This is a very poor Bok pack. There is much for Meyer to note.
Pienaar never does much - compare him to the Scots scrummie. he is pap.
This is a great weeding out exercise. As I said in another post before this match began. Meyer had better pick a decent pack against Samoa - if we play them!
Go Bokke!
Our hope lies in the bench and a meyer tongue lashing at half time.
a
The ruck play is pathetic. Really missing Francois Louw. Need Brussouw, especialy with Northern Hemishpere referees
Will Leroux does brilliant to setup the try for JJ Englebreght who runs a great line to run onto the space cteated by Leroux
Should bring on Bismaark at openside in place of Cotzee. We are getting kicked at the rucks.
Much better second half. Bench was very good.
Kolisi had a good debut. Played better for Boks than he does for Stormers.
However this was not a convincing display. Improvements would be Coenie and Trevor at prop. Flip for Juandre.
Spies was poorest of loosies. Who is there left to play. Labbers should have played. Maybe try Kolisi at 7, Labbers at 8 and Louw at 6. Bit of a mess right now with guys out.
Willie again showed his great vision.
What a impressive try by Jan - great strength.
As Mallet has just said Beast, Jannie Juandre and Spies were poor. Spot on observation. They didnt clean out properly. Also Louw greatly missed.
Beeno
After the euphoria of last week - dowm tto earth this week, The players identifed last week as below par - has been below par this week again.
Spies was useless again, Coetzee was poor, Kruger did his normal nnear to zero and Jannie is past it . No wonder Kolisi shownn as the best loosie - the other two were not even remotely acceptable.
However, this was not the only malfunctioners. Morne Steyn was nervous and his missed penalty from vrtually straight in front shows that he should have been replaced at half time after a poor ball handling and aimless kicking display in the first half
JJ Engelbrecht can be an asset - but his defence is still a huge liability. Going out of line and missing tackles is not the answer, He was desperately poor in the first half and the one Scots try followed a bugger-up by him. He did score a try made for him by Le Roux - with Habana the only backline player that showed some initiative. De Villiers was average and Basson might as well not have been on the field of play.
I hope Botha's injury is not as serious as it seems to be. He did not have any opportunity to show his real value because of the early injury. However, we have a case now where Meyer will bugger up again with his forward selection. He will keep Du Plessis, Kruger and Spies - and will bring in another under-performing loosie in lberts into the team.
Adter Morne's poor performance I would tthink that Lambie should start at 10 and bring in Serfontein at 12, move De Villiers to 13 and Engelbrecht to 14. Pienaar was poor at 9 = but I suppose it is because of the poor quality of balls he was getting.
The loosie combination can only go backwatds by bringing in Alberts - he is way too slow and ineffective - but Meyer will stick with him like glue - and same with Spies who was as poor as he was last week. What to do about Kruger - I think move Etzebeth to 5 and bring in Frik at 4. Jannie must go asap.
I would say that Meyer will not make the required changes - despite the flops by his favoured players - and if he does - he will change to a player like Alberts that has been useless for the past year. They must beware of the Samoans - they are a much better team thatn the Sxots and if we perform poorly against the Sctots - we may be in for a beating like nobodies business.
The may have to replace BOtha in the squad and my suggestion would be Philip van der Walt. PLay him at 8 and Labuschane at 7 and the whole scenario will improve.
But Meyer will never do that so why even mentioon it?
This article by Gavin Rich:
The Springboks regrouped timeously enough after halftime to avoid the ultimate embarrassment, but their 30-17 win over Scotland in their second Castle Incoming Tours Series test at Mbombela Stadium will have left coach Heyneke Meyer with plenty to think about.
Indeed, although beaten in the end, it was Scotland who would have ended the game feeling the happier of the teams, for theirs was a rousing display and a vast improvement on the performance they delivered when defeated for the first time ever by Samoa seven days previously.
It was on the basis of that Scotland defeat and the Springboks’ emphatic win over Italy later in the day at Kings Park on the first Saturday of the series, that the home side started this game as such overwhelming favourites.
But like they have done so often on the other side of the equator in Edinburgh over the past decade, the Scots gave the Boks a much better game than expected and it led to Jean de Villiers’ men losing composure.
Although the Boks did well to survive the character test and regain their composure to win it, if you didn’t see the game, don’t read the final score as a completely accurate reflection of what happened. ( A good point to make as some oaks just look at the score and thats it!)
What might be more pertinent in telling the story of this match than the final score is to say that with six minutes to go, there were only three points in it as the Boks led 20-17. It was then that replacement flyhalf Patrick Lambie stepped up to kick a penalty to make it a six-point buffer.
And then right on the final whistle, with the Scots out on their feet after throwing the kitchen sink at the bigger and stronger South Africans for nearly 80 minutes, young centre Jan Serfontein dropped in to score the first of what should be many tries for the Boks to give the scoreline a slightly flattering look.
That the game would effectively be in the balance until the last minute of the match would not have been anticipated beforehand.
And neither would the 10-6 halftime Scotland lead, or the 17-6 lead four minutes into the second half. An 11-point lead with not that much more than half an hour to go – surely that was a joke?
But it wasn’t, and in the end the Scots stretched the Boks and gave them a game. That may have been a good thing for the South Africans.
TIMELY WAKE-UP CALL
Although the Scots will be happy with the brave defeat, maybe it was the Boks who got more out of the game – in the sense that the way they struggled when unable to breach the gainline and knock the Scots back in the collisions (weakest loose trio seen in years and two pap props and a pap lock all contributed to this)was a timely wake-up call for the South Africans, who may have been drawn in by the hubris after last week’s game, where frankly some of the reaction was over the top.
The Boks, with their game-plan, are always ordinary when they don’t get thrust across the gainline and when they fail to dominate the first-phase battle. (Hence the need for a decent tight five)
And when the pressure was on in that first half it was much easier to see than it was in Durban why, until relatively recently, Meyer considered Willie le Roux a risky option at fullback.
In fact, considering that the retention of the starting team was a departure from the stated intention at the start of the series, the cynical among us may even have wondered if that was Meyer’s reasoning – give all the new players another go and check to see if last week was reality or just an illusion.
Not that Le Roux deserves to be picked on, for he did do some good things in the second half when the Boks were more in the game. And it was hardly the fault of the backline that the team struggled so much in the first half.
The breakdown, an area of prime focus in this match, was one of the areas where the Boks fell significantly short – and Francois Louw should be able to go into married life on Sunday resting assured that his place in the Springbok team is secure. (Obvious to all but the blind)
Yes, of course Louw is an allrounder and has other attributes, but it’s his ball scavenging and ability to process the ball at the breakdown that is his biggest asset to the Boks.
When he’s not there they need someone like him, and while not an allrounder like Louw, Heinrich Brussow is surely the man who should be relied upon as back-up.(The name you want oak is Deon Fourie)
The Boks weren’t helped by losing Arno Botha, the designated big ball-carrying flanker, early in the game to a knee injury. (Yes the best of the loosies uninjured)
Siya Kolisi, the man who replaced him, deservedly won the man of the match award on debut for what he did with ball in hand, but the Boks definitely missed Botha’s brute strength.
The Bulls flanker’s role in setting his team on the road to victory in his debut match against Italy may have been undervalued. Kolisi played well, but the replacement wasn’t really like for like in terms of what they bring.
But full marks to the Scots for the way they pinpointed where the Boks needed to be fronted – and they did it.
Their defensive game was a massive improvement on the previous week against Samoa, with their linespeed giving the Boks little space to work with in that first half.
Without someone to tidy up and secure the loose ball when they went into the collisions, that aspect of the game was a nightmare when the South Africans were unable to protect their possession, which was most of the first 50 minutes. (Spies has to go - he disappeared in the second half)
PROBLEMATIC LINEOUTS
The lineouts were problematic too, and the inability of the Boks to dominate that phase was one of the reasons their performance in this game was markedly inferior to a week earlier.
The Scots were feisty from the early minutes, throwing themselves at the Boks like men possessed, and some strong runs were made up the middle.
Visiting flyhalf Greig Laidlaw kicked the first points of the match with a penalty, but Morne Steyn equalised and then took the lead for the Boks with penalties of his own.
The first try of the match was created for the Scots by a great chip-and-gather out on the right by left wing Tim Visser, with the Boks always looking short of defenders once the ball was spun to the left, and inside centre Matt Scott went over easy as you like.
Laidlaw’s conversion was the last score of the half with 20 minutes of it left, although the Boks did turn down two kickable penalties only to see first-phase possession in the strike zone wasted by poor lineout work.
Outside centre Alex Dunbar went over in the left corner to complete the second try after a sustained build-up, but that was it for the Scots, who weren’t helped by having their lock Jim Hamilton yellow carded for slapping Eben Etzebeth a few minutes later.
A penalty try was awarded to the Boks as the pack rumbled up to the line, and then Engelbrecht did his bit by helping put in JJ Engelbrecht for the try that put the Boks into a lead in the 55th minute that they were never to relinquish.
PIenaar also brings little to the table. Invest in Van Zyl and Reinach when fit.
Hope Meyer is reading the signs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Beeno, Deon Fourie is shit.
A win...but with cap in hand....all the
respect to both teams...Scotland the brave just missed it. In truth they were better than us. Like all games there are lessons to learn/ we are vulnerable...Scotland played copy book stuff in the first half.
