I feel for the Bok frontrow

And Thomas is a serial flop against good looseheads. Perhaps Kolbe could swop in on the critical scrums where the blindside is small.

So you admit he was vulnerable a few years back. Well here are the stats against mighty Portugooses. We were hardly more successful than our tiny opponents. But all the scrum turnovers we achieved were late in the game when the Tank had been subbed. Mighty scrummager hahaha. .. I thought you were into ice cream not egg!

And yet his ‘dominance’ led to no penalties against weak opposition. …facts, not girly emotions.

3. Thomas du Toit – 6
Anchoring a good, if not dominant, scrummaging performance from his side with a 75% win rate in the set piece, the Bathtighthead had some moments where he looked like he might bust through contact for a decent break. Unfortunately for him, the moment never came for him to stretch his legs fully before he was replaced in the 58th minute

3 Thomas du Toit: A good return to the Test arena after a decent spell away for the Bath prop. Locked down the scrum and got himself involved in the battle in the tight. .

‘Without being dominant’ ….against Portugal. He has never been dominant. At best a neutral.

Then there is this:

So Moreira, the Tank’s opponent who played the whole game, conceded no penalties. Whereas the Tank conceded one….but I’m not sure if that was his milk toast scrumming or in general play.

Ferreira the Goose tighthead conceded 2 penalties….seems your player rating moron got the wrong prop.

Stick with moz.

I watched the game and  the stats are far more reliable than your impressions or some moron rugby journalist. His direct opponent wasn’t penalized. Who did he overpower, the other tighthead, the lock, the frigging 8th man?

The Tank is not a great scrummager. He is too tall for tighthead. Only Hayman comes to mind as a successful tall man at tighthead . A shorter powerhouse like Ox would destroy him.

Just another player you rate by the lb….today’s version of Marcel van der Merwe who nobody could ever persuade you about. Until he imploded.

Dave I respect you as a rugby enthusiast, but man do you have difficulty figuring out what is actually happening.

It’s not me you are accusing of lying Dave…it’s ESPN Rugby stats guru. They say his opponent never conceded a penalty. Good enough for me. What probably happened is the Goose scrum was penalized and one of our painfully dumb commentators gave the credit to Tank…whereas ESPN picked up the ref call.

Thomas is your next Marcel….Wilco is a far better option. The tank should have stayed at loosehead which is less technical and more about power.

I watched him against Portugal and he was bog ordinary against a nothing opponent. And he won zero penalties.

At least my ‘lies’ are all verifiable in the stats….your’s are just thumb sucks. 

Once again…..the incident at minute 21….no penalty was given against Moreira the loosehead. The tighthead got two penalties. And he got the penalty in that scrum for popping out. Take another look and you will see him popping out and arguing the call. Once again you assumed and you assumed wrong. The abysmally  dumb commentators were so fixated on Thomas they missed the call, just as I predicted.

Shame Dave finally realizes the ESPN stats are right, the Argentinian loosehead was not penalized, the tighthead was. And so having nowhere to go he does a CleverMike and pretends it’s not happening. Calling those who explained  what happened  …liars.

If I’m a liar,  you are a short fat man who is obsessed with size…with a hilariously foul mouth. Hold on….that makes me a liar, haha!

You started the insults Dave , turnaround is fair play.

Proven because you say so….the ref says nothing of the sort, nor do the match stats.  Your tough man tirades are really absurd.  

As long as the Boks have a decent platform then I'm okay with that right five. Not like Australia is going to dominate them and we have decent protection on the bench. Rassie is not afraid to pull the okea off after 10 min. He did to Dweeb and he did it to Bongi too. 

The good thing is that props is the one position you can swap back in given the importance of the other player is subbed off. 

I'm more concerned around lock. This is a make or break for Moerat for me and a chance for Nortje to live up to the praise from victor Matfield. 

I'm happy with the backline. 

I almost feel SA was too dominant they got decent scrum go forward ball but often they were going so fast that the 8 or 9 couldn't get a clean and steady base to get the ball away. 

SA must win, there is a a big chance that 70% of these guys will make the next world cup and our next pack 

"Moffie you are both a fucking idiot and a liar

No point debating with a fucking ignorant liar"

Indeed. I've often wondered why yo u expend the energy. Just treat Moffie as light comic relief. That's what I do.

Sure that’s why you spied on my daughters’ face book accounts, because you aren’t obsessed.

Minute 4.07. The first scrum is solid by the Geese.

Minute 8.23 ‘another steady set by Portugal….Dud Thomas has no effect at all.

Minute 20.44…..ref says number 3 comes forward first….that’s obvious. But she doesn’t award the penalty until the Goose loosehead pops out and he is the player who ESPN debits with the penalty.  And Thomas is simply the beneficiary of a Bok scrum which is overwhelming the Goose scrum. The only Portuguese prop that committed an offense was the tighthead, by coming up.

Minute 25.30….right under the Goose posts, the time to really turn the screws. But Portugal hold their own and clear.

Minute 32.09 …another rock solid Goose scrum

Minute 36.0 …Bok feed, but the Geese have subbed their two starting props, the loosehead looks like a scrumhalf….Boks get a scrum penalty, but the Geese aren’t happy Thomas looked to be down first. The penalty was given on the other side.

Minute 42…Both sides go down Portugal retain possession.

At minute 44, 15 metres from the Bok line the Goose pack  holds the Bok scrum very well. They did win 8 of their 11 scrums.

At minute 47 number one had been subbed, so it wasn’t #1down…it was 18 de Cunha,  the Portuguese 22 year old sub.

Minute 55 another rock solid scrum from Portugal.

So what do we have here….Moreira the starter is 5’11” and 115 kgs and within days of his 39th birthday. His sub da Cunha is 23 years old and apparently played flank for France U20.

Clearly we would expect a dominant scrummager in a Bok pack to blow these guys away.

Tank  was on for 10 scrums, although I could have missed one skipping through. Of the 10 scrums, Portugal were unpenalized and retained their own ball in 7. In one case the Goose loosehead was penalized for popping up. 

At minute 36 they were penalized having subbed their starters…but the penalty was on the other side. And it looked suspiciously like Thomas down on the other side.

At minute 47 the loosehead replacement went down.

Was this dominant scrumming….with the Geese under consistent pressure. Nope this very unimpressive loosehead duo were generally fine and conceded one penalty (the sub) on the loosehead, two penalties on the tighthead side,

Hardly impressive.

One dominant scrum, by the whole pack it didn’t wheel, attributed to the the Goose tighthead….two techical penalties, one to the tighthead, one to the young, small,  converted flank. So one solely attributed to Thomas

In the other scrums Thomas could do nothing against two guys who wouldn’t make a Bok club team.

Rubbish….the commentators don’t make the calls the ref does and the refs calls are collected and reported in the ESPN stats. One call was attributed to the Tank against the loosehead replacement.

There was no penalty called against Francisco Fernandes Moreira his starting opponent. 

But to give you some perspective…,,here are his stats against  Wales in the WC. None via Thomas, 3 via the Wallie prop.