This was hushed up by the SA media and all the fantasy peddlers on the Board. But D'arcy's description matches my post match take....the only one I could find on any SA rugby blog. This is of course why Kriel is not starting against the big Samoan backs.
Gordon D’Arcy: Surviving at centre not easy – just ask Kriel
Rugby supporters may not know who is to blame for mistake – but your team-mates will
South Africa’s young centre Jesse Kriel looks stunned after Japan’s Karne Hesketh scores the winning try during the Pool B match at Brighton. Photograph: Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images
- Topics:
- Rugby World Cup
- Jared Payne
- Jesse Kriel
- Joe Schmidt
- Keith Earls
- Luke Fitzgerald
- Japan
- South Africa
- More Topics
First published:Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 07:08
Centre as an art form begins with defence. Not tackling, defending. Japan’s Ayumu Goromaru running through the Springbok defence unharmed was a replica of Brian’s try against Cardiff in 2012 that I mentioned last week. Exact same move. If nothing else Eddie Jones and Joe Schmidt are eternal students of the game.
Jesse Kriel, the young South Africa 13, made two of the worst reads a centre can make during that sequence and for the winning Japanese try.
Both times Kriel broke a golden rule of defending in midfield: stay relevant.
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A centre must develop spacial awareness to survive in Test rugby. If you get too close to an attacker, you end up following him into the space and it’s almost impossible to get back out. It’s about hovering two or three yards outside the tackle area so if he doesn’t get the ball you push off to the next guy.
If you dive into that hole and don’t make a clean tackle you disappear from view and it looks like someone else has missed a tackle. Your team-mates know who is to blame. So does your coach.
So, probably, did Eddie Jones. Kriel is 21 and a genuine talent who has played a lot of rugby at fullback or wing. It showed.
Japan flooded the space Kriel should have been holding and he took the bait. Then he emptied their outhalf late to leave a gaping hole for their blindside winger to run into. That might look like a worthwhile exercise to the untrained eye but rugby players know what he did.
For Japan’s winning try he was handed off by Al Mafi as punishment for invading the space too early. That forced the covering Springbok defender to go towards Mafi and leave JP Pieterson with a two-on-one scenario.
High stakesHigh pressure, high stakes, two bad decisions by a young outside centre and South Africa lose the game.


