Is any International Team playing well this year?

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Opinion

OPINION: The New Zealand rugby public's expectations of the world champion All Blacks might be getting a bit high.

There has been a bit of criticism over the All Blacks' efforts in the Rugby Championship and the standard of play in general in this tournament.

But I think a bit of that comes down to the fact that we expect so much from the All Blacks, especially after the series win over Ireland.

This is a totally different scenario now. We got a couple of absolutely superb moments when Israel Dagg and Aaron Smith scored against the Springboks last night with displays of sheer brilliance.

The rest of the game was a good old-fashioned tussle and, I for one, enjoyed it for what it was.

I keep on saying that test rugby is won up front and it's the backs who add the scoreline. We saw that in the massive forward tussle last week against the Pumas and we saw it again against the Springboks.

We shouldn't really have expected anything less - South Africa are our traditional foes, after all, and this sort of grind has been going on for years.

What's been pleasing for me is the way the All Blacks have gone about doing the basics right. We dominated the Springboks in the lineouts, the goalkicking and the field kicking. These aren't areas where we might always expect to better the South Africans.

But while the polish comes now and then, the basics have been the foundations for 14 test wins in a row.

We should take as much satisfaction from that as we do from seeing 50m tries.

You could add defence into the All Blacks achievements last night. They were very strong in this key area as well.

As an aside, it's hard to remember a player making a worse impact off the bench than replacement Springboks prop Dean Greyling last night.

He came on and immediately cost three points with a penalty. He missed a glaring tackle in Smith's try and he got sin-binned for an ugly hit on Richie McCaw. He even gave away the last penalty of the match.

So that's the first phase of this tournament completed with an unblemished record for the All Blacks.

They now take a brief break before hitting the road to wrap up the championship in Argentina and South Africa. They will be tough assignments but if the All Blacks can continue to carry out the basics there's no reason why they can't keep this winning streak going.

 1st England were crap because they were rebuilding.

The Argentina were poor in South Africa but not as bad as they should have been by losing to a 4 try bonus point..??? It was expectedfor boks to get this. :later this has proved a falicy. as the other teams have not got close to 4 tries against Argentina, and they have since done better against both the All Blacks and Australians. 

The game against Australie could have been won, but most observersors say the boks did not play to potential.

Argentina could have beaten AUS today.- 16th Sep.

Then the boks could have beaten the Allblacks with a poor game plan and many players not first choice and some of these still performing bad. 

From the stats it is a miracle the boks played so bad, and still couyld have won

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If the boks are playing so bad, with many players that are not first choices(bulls),. imagine what the home games are going to be like with the best xv

The misfiring players this year, or those who are just not delivering

Sharks
Bismarck du Plessis
Tendai Mtawarira
Jannie du Plessis
Willem Alberts
Pat Lambie
Marcell Coetzee
Ryan Kankowski

Bulls
Deon Greyling
Jacques Potgieter
Wynand Olivier
Morne Steyn (kicking) 

The Sharks have not been good this year, and certainly many supposed big names have not been doing themselves many favours with very poor showings for the Boks. If you really want to point the blame on a single provincial side, then it has to be the Sharks. I myself do not look at it that way, more on an individual or combination basis, just for clarification. 

I will be nice in response and just add the following to what was said above.   The remarks about Bismarck Du Plessis is utter rubbish and based on nothing at all.   Bismarck is according to experts all over the world the best hooker in the world and seriously missed yesterday.

The aboslute rubbishing of Lambie is also not based on fact - he remains a player with ball sense and skills and is kept out by a player with very little ball sense and skills.   Will remain in the mix though.   

The comments on the other Sharks players may in some respects be justified - all performed very average this year - but we do not have musch better to replace them.   The weakest Sharks player - Mvovo - is not emntioned at all in the list as provided.

As for the Bulls players - I do think that Kirchner with his serious flaws in defence and positional play - coupled to his poor attacking play as a result of his inability to pass the ball under such circumstances - should be on the list and very high up in fact.   Greyling is a joke and he should never again be selected in any Springbok squad.   Am somewhat surprised by the inclusion of Morne Steyn on the list provided.   Must agree with comments on his kicking game (both strategically and at goal) - but his passing game was also abysmal.     Higher up on the list than Potgieter - who was very average as a stand-in loosie, but did not disgarce th Boks - and even Olivier (also average in the tests he played.

I would say the really poor players of the two sides are:-

Sharks  -    1    Mvovo

                   2   The others were all average performers - but really the best avaailable

Bulls      -    1   Greyling

                   2   Morne Steyn

                   3   Kirchner

                   4   The others were average performers

The inclusion of Lambie and Bismarck Du Plessis is an insult to inteeligent rugby experts and really reprehensible and not based on any facts - but personal misconceptions.