Frabce - SA Gane - Player ratings

The following is the ratings of the players playing 40 minutes or more:-

Willie le Roux - Safe as a rock at full back - excellent strategic kicks  -             8/10

JP Pietersen   -  Very good individual try scored - Otherwise modest in performance

                          with 2 tackle made - one missed - Very little else in attack    7,5/10

Jaques Fourie   -  Defence was solid - nothong on attack - gave away a penalty  6/10

Jean de Villiers  -  Played a good game and did some driving forward carries    7/10

Bryan Habana   -   Carried the ball well - but made some handling errors        6.5/10

Morne Steyn     -   Other than his kicking at goal - he had a nightmare of a game -

                             not a single element of his game that was acceptable         4/10 

Ruan Pienaar    -   Really inacceptable performance                                       4/10

Duane Vermeulen -  Solid in defence - effective ball carrying                         7/10 

Willem Alberts   -  Made one good ball carry of about ten meters when line out

                              over throw allowed him some space - Very poor in defence 5/10

Francois Louw     -  solid game - spoilt his otherwise acceptable game by getting

                               carded                                                                          6/10

Flip van der Merwe -  Solid game  - not much to write home about                 6/10

Bakkies Botha      -   Very quiet game.   Took some line-outs -  but for the rest one

                                great big nothing                                                       5/10 

Coenie Oosthuixen  -  Very hard worker in tight phases of the game           7/10

Bismarck du Plessis -  Solid game                                                            7/10

Tendai Mtawarire         -  Not as active  as he should have been                   6,5/10

Pine

What you write is absolute BS 90% of the time.

Lets get into some details then.  

Morne Steyn

Missed two line kicks when taking penalties - nothing new since he had made the same mistake a number of times in the RC.  Totally unacceptable.   His ball handling was wicked - especially one pass that you apparently missed completely.     

You say elsewhere that stats do not reflect contribution.   When my own impression of the player performance is negative - I check the stats to see whether I am not wrong and only  use the stats to confirm or deny my initial assessment.      

 Oh Mike, you must have missed this....and just in case you've missed who I'm quoting......Pssssssttt it's Da French Cappie himself.

Here we go....

This from SuperSport...

“The Springboks were just so physically strong in preventing us from getting anything going from the rucks that we were just unable to play and to make an impression, and that was where they won this game tonight,” said Dusautoir at the post-match press conference at Stade de France.

The game was dominated by the defensive systems of the two teams, with the Bok attack not working as well as it has on other occasions this year, but it was the Boks’ tendency of knocking the French back in the hits that was, as Dusautoir says, the difference between the teams. Alberts was again central to that, and yet he nearly missed the game.