OZ versus wee abs offical thread

 hahaahahaha couldnt resist one last read... Cloudy - low expectations were actually exceeded and Im confident the Aussies are a team on the build lots to like about Folau / Toomua / Kirandrani / QC.... I thought the Tongan connection from the Tahs looked good in 2nd half forward pack - but Timani needs to throw his serious weight around a bit more - hed be devastating.... All in all - good game - few shocking decisions but in due fairness probably AIGs would have still got there.... later....

 "As usual though the Ab's defense was supieor and the Abs were more proficient."

Well said.

 No excuses needed Beans....AB's won didn't they?....may I remind you that's all they needed to do.

Hasta La Vista...sweet Bean.

Beeno

Ultimately the scoreboard tells the final story and that was what I reflected above.

First of all my analysis was correct.   I am not saying the AB's are not beatable - they are, but you have to have the necessary combination to do that and the analysis are a follows:-

*   Your tight five needs to have the edge on the AB's - not entirely impossible and that has been proven during the series.   An important role is to ensure that line out play is secure and that you do not lose line-outs and secure some of theirs.  But for the line-outs the Springbok did that and also the Pumas in the first half of the tests specifically.   The Wallabies were weakfish and not good enough.

*   Their loosies need to be restraint and you need to ensure that the opposition has the right loosie combination is played against them.   You need a multi-faceted loosie combination and here the Aussies was competitive - the Pumas did reasonably well for the first half of their games - and the Springboks to a very limited extent, they never really were  competitive.

*   The backline situation is a bit of a quandary.   The AB's looks good in attack - but to an extent their defences are not solid enough.   Defence is not the good points of either Cruden or Barrett, whilst Nonu's are mostly limited to illegal tackles.   I think even Ben Smith's defence is questionable - he definitely is not a 13 and needs to be played on the wing or at full back.

I think you should stop moaning about the referee.   I think on the whole Joubert had a reasonable game and there really was only one incident where I think he was wrong.  That was when the Wallabies used the rolling maul near the AB line - Joubert shouted "use it" when the maul stopped - but then the maul started going forward again, which to my mind represented "use it" and whilst the Wallabies still had possession and the ball in play - he awarded a scrum to the AB's.   Frankly think he was wrong in that case - but the situation to blame the referee for unfavourable results is not on - unless it was a case where the referee was blatantly incompetent, as was the case with Poite and Bryce Lawrence.