FIXTURESNo upcoming fixtures — check back soon.
FORUM / RUGBY /  Pakie's Bok Ratings and comments

Pakie's Bok Ratings and comments

Started by Pakie14 REPLIES1,180 VIEWS· 07 Sept 2025, 09:54
SHAREXFACEBOOKWHATSAPPTELEGRAMREDDITLINKEDIN
PA
PakieCaptain17,321 posts
07 Sept 2025, 09:54
#1
07 Sept 2025, 09:54#1

Tough to rate, some good performances spoiled by big errors. Pay more attention to the comments than the points.


Ox - 6

A few strong scrums, involved in the tight stuff and breakdowns.


Marx - 5

Lineout troubles that may not all be his fault - you could see with the free kick for delayed throw for example he pointed to his ear, indicating that he likely couldn't hear the calls. Missed the tackle on Jordan for his try. Good involvement otherwise.


Thomas - 7

Strong work at the breakdowns and tight stuff. Copped one scrum penalty.


Eben - 6

Very involved in the tight. Not effective on the carry in this game. Good wide tackle on Rieko late in the game. Failed along with Wessels to clean Ardie off Van Staden at the death for the match deciding moment.


Nortje - 6

Early missed tackle on Vaai. He hunted play well, seldom far from the action. Great lineout steal at 27:40. Unable to clear Vaai off the ball that resulted in a penalty for NZ. Busy and involved, but lacks physical presence. Plays more like a loosie.


Van Staden - 6

Drops Williams pass early on. Also hunted play well, often the first man to the breakdown, maybe unlucky in one or two instances not to win a turnover penalty. Missed a few tackles, carried strongly.


PSDT - 6

Tough to rate. Penalized for obstructive line early. Poor lineout offload missing Williams at 20:08. Failed to get to Jordan with his try. Concedes a penalty costing 3 points at the ruck. Drove Marx over the line for his try. Culpable in the Tupuea try with a failed tackle, with the fact that the Boks had to rush wide to counter the AB numbers as a softener. Gets up at 69:35 and instead of continuing to protect the ruck stands off and NZ counter rucks and turns the ball over. He was very involved though and often the player driving the carrier over the advantage line, but a few big errors count against him.


Kolisi - 6

Better than on first impression. Made some good tackles and good defensive reads, like the spot tackle getting the Boks a penalty 45:06. Some strong carries. Not very involved in the tight stuff, which is perhaps not his job.


Williams - 6

Cleaned up Nortje's miss on Vaai with a good tackle. Sharp collect from lineout and great clearance upfield 8:25. Poor pass 9:24 loses the Boks 30m. Box kick partially charged 10:05. Good snipe 21:20. Caught by Vaai behind the ruck at 27:49, but Vaai had moved on him before he had picked up the ball so should have been a Bok penalty. Dropped a PSDT lineout offload. Box kicks had good accuracy, but he did make some unforced errors.


Pollard - 5

One great kick take. One excellent 50/22. One wayward pass. For the rest neither here nor there with little influence. Missed more tackles than he made.


Moodie - 5

Big momentum stopping spot tackle on Beauden, a few other good tackles. Missed some as well. Rarely got drawn into play, more effort should be made to get the ball to him.


DDA - 5

Plenty of tackles around the tight fringes, but exposed on defense in open play as when easily beaten on the outside by Jordan at 4:53 and when overcommitting to the outside at 46:04 leaving a huge gap for Jordie to exploit, costing the Boks 20+m. Pointlessly kicks possession away with Moodie in space for a wide pass 19:06. One good dart from first receiver into a gap at 51:41. Tosses away advantage possession to nowhere a little later, again showing the lack of cohesion in the Bok setup. Displays no vision or creativity while making a few of his staple slow carries over the advantage line.


Kriel - 6

Dropped an early Pollard pass after apparent confusion between him and DDA (who was also reaching for the pass), costing the Boks 60m and setting up the position for the ABs first try. Caught offside at 5:21. However, he tracked very well on defense all over the park, at least one excellent spot tackle and often being the guy to make a trouble stopping tackle out of nowhere. Another obstructive run penalty against him and Sacha as they both ran an inside line in a very attacking position in the phase after DDA's carry at 51:41 adds another instance of the Boks left hand seemingly not knowing what the right hand is doing.


Kolbe - 5

Inexplicable error in judgement not tackling Narawa for his try, more so than Willie's blunder. Good spot tackle to stop NZ breakout from 22 late in the game. A few runs and a few good tackles, but another example of a decent performance hard to rate because of one costly error.


Willie - 5

Early error in judgement with Narawa's try. His wide pass to get Kolbe into space was, however, the only pass with some vision from any Bok back in the whole game. He wasn't as bad as first impressions would suggest, but added little.


Sacha - 5

Good take in the air, a good break, poor kick away of attacking possession with 3 men outside him. Mixed bag, little influence.


Kwagga - 5

Strong carry to set up Bok try after the monster scrum, yellow for professional foul in the red zone set the All Blacks up for what turned out to be the winning try.


Reinach - 6

Forward offload to DDA in attacking position, well taken try. Pretty standard, didn't do much else than Williams.


Lood - 5

Strong tracking of breakdowns, involved in the tight stuff, one great lineout steal, a monster tackle on Jordie. Poor pass to no one that tanked the Boks last chance.


Hooker - NR

No involvement outside of a brief defensive effort trying to call more defenders across in Tupuea's try before being stepped on the inside.


Wessels - NR

Weak cleaning along with Eben on Ardie at the death. Won a strong turnover on the hooter to give the Boks a last chance.


Wilco - NR

Big scrum giving the Boks a try. Got pinged for one of the number of obstructions that the ref gave both ways at the kickoffs and high kicks.


Here are my final thoughts. The Bok players are not doing badly in itself. There are weak moments and errors, but the major issues are:


1. Our players are blind to opportunity. As I mentioned above, Willie was the only player who threw a creative pass that put someone in space. DDA had that opportunity at 19:06 with Moodie in space wide, instead he kicks it through the line to where a cluster of defenders awaits the ball. We have no vision or creativity in midfield, just perpetual seeking of contact or senseless kicking.

2. There is no cohesion or flow. Kriel with Sacha too again ran an obstructive line in a perfect attacking position with no one seeming to know what is going on. Early on both he and DDA went for a Pollard pass resulting in a knock - they've had 39 games together, yet there's no apparent understanding between them. I don't even consider them a center combination right now - they don't combine at all.

3. We need to fix our lineouts. Too much attacking possession lost through steals, poor offloads or dropped balls, plus the free kick.

4. We kick away most of our possession to no advantage. Here is a rundown of our high kicking (I may have missed one or two but you'll get the gist of it). We lost 9/13 possessions on box/high kicks. Is this really an effective strategy?


Box/high kicks:

Grant - competitive/lost

Grant - competitive/lost

Grant - competitive/lost

Grant - competitive/penalty won for obstruction

Grant - competitive/scrum advantage

Grant - competitive/won

Pollard - competitive/lost

Pollard - competitive/lost

Pollard - not competitive/lost

Grant - not competitive/lost

Reinach - not competitive/lost

Reinach - competitive/won

Pollard - competitive/lost

XA
XaviPro1,924 posts
07 Sept 2025, 11:02
#2
07 Sept 2025, 11:02#2

Thanks Pakie, great effort and insight.


Good luck for the incoming tirade of abuse from some.

PL
PlumCaptain21,007 posts
07 Sept 2025, 12:15
#4
07 Sept 2025, 12:15#4

And there you have it.


The reason why Pakie is gold on this site.


Thanks, Pakie.


However, I'm not sure how DDA only got a 5. I mean, he's the best 12 in the galaxy.



KI
kingcornPro3,695 posts
07 Sept 2025, 12:31
#5
07 Sept 2025, 12:31#5

Thanks for this Pakie. The more I look it the more the fault lays at Rassie feet. For some reason his stalwart boks just can’t attack. This is due to years of one dimensional play, more like over a decade.


now he wants to evolve but can’t. This is Pollard, Dud, Kriel and Willie. These guys have played 50+ test together and two world cups but yet they keep playing so poorly.


You have to look at the bargies try, That was a piece of beauty, their shap, wrapping around, holding on just enough, but also staying in the game and not getting taken out.


yet, we can’t string together more than 3 passes, when we do, it ends up in obstruction.


Don’t forget that Rassie always use a heavy forward bench and now he wants game breakers in the backline to come off the bench.


where on earth is Roos?!!


ptsd is not match fit yet and showing a lot of rust and neither is some of the other players.


I say this again, we had a perfect Run.


The BaBa game. Starting 15, the young guns with the old heads on the bench. Italy the same. Then start with your best 15 with some youngsters on the bench etc.


we should never have lost Australia, but we did.


Then Rassie sits there smiling with his usual waffle. The guy is lost

MO
MozartCaptain49,914 posts
07 Sept 2025, 14:52
#6
07 Sept 2025, 14:52#6

A lot of work went into that analysis Pakie….excellent stuff filling in all the gaps in one’s immediate take on the game. Why one wonders can’t the press who are paid for the pablum they write do a similar job.

PA
PakieCaptain17,321 posts
07 Sept 2025, 16:17
#7
07 Sept 2025, 16:17#7

Thank you boys, glad you appreciate my ramblings. Wish I could do more detail but have to fit it in between all the other life shenanigans.

CL
clevermikeCoach57,555 posts
07 Sept 2025, 16:30
#8
07 Sept 2025, 16:30#8

Pakie is taling shit about the Jordan try - the nearest player to covr that gap was Pollard and he failed o do it = DE A llende had bugger all to do with that try,

XA
XaviPro1,924 posts
07 Sept 2025, 18:51
#9
07 Sept 2025, 18:51#9

Oom Mike, go back and re-READ the point on Duh dur durr Allende.

You have the comprehension skills of a card carrying cadre of the ANC and only a slightly better vocabulary.

After that maybe, do the right thing and apologise for your mistake.

SH
sharkbokCaptain20,097 posts
07 Sept 2025, 21:08
#10
07 Sept 2025, 21:08#10

Duhelande achieved very little against the All Blacks over the weekend.

When he and Pollard combine, it is 12-man rugby. No point having Tony Brown if it is going to be 12-man rugby.


PL
PlumCaptain21,007 posts
07 Sept 2025, 21:18
#11
07 Sept 2025, 21:18#11

The prospect of Sacha at 10 and Hooker at 12 is something that I seriously hope materialises.


Between them, there's serious rugby IQ and ability.


Thats not to slag off Pollard in any way, but just that we do need to look to the future and from the right perspective it could be a damn bright one. I honestly do think that Sacha might be the AB De Villiers of rugby and nothing I have seen tells me anything other than Hooker was born to be a Bok.

MO
MozartCaptain49,914 posts
07 Sept 2025, 21:51
#12
07 Sept 2025, 21:51#12

Right now I’d be tempted top play Pollard at 15 and Sacha at 10

MO
MozartCaptain49,914 posts
07 Sept 2025, 21:56
#13
07 Sept 2025, 21:56#13

Maybe a backline of :


Pollard

Kolbe

Hooker

Esterhozen

Edwil/Arendse

Sacha

Williams

MP
MpowerPro5,061 posts
07 Sept 2025, 22:42
#14
07 Sept 2025, 22:42#14

Nice one Pakie….The Uncle is truly a BS Spreading liar, with no backbone…..

MO
MozartCaptain49,914 posts
08 Sept 2025, 00:03
#15
08 Sept 2025, 00:03#15

Don’t hold your breath on that Oom apology Xavi.

— END OF THREAD —

More from Rugby