1 tony woodcock
2 adriaan strauss
3 jannie du plesiss
4 eban ezebeth
5 james horwill
6 steven luatua
7 micheal hooper
8 duane vermeulen
9 aaron smith
10 aaron cruden
11 bryan habana
12 JDV
13 jj englebrechet
14 ben smith
15 willie le roux
some position were just easy with players being standouts with no equal this round, icluding ezebteh, cruden, aaron smith, ben smith, willie le roux, luatua, hooper.
then there were some positions where it was very close and if others pick anothe rplayer who was clos, it wouldnt bother me at all
this was especially true with the props where beast could have been picked ahead of woody and franks ahead of jannie , very close there and the new laws playing on their mind might have been a factor.
JDV/leilafano at 12 was another position, so was jj/conrad/AAC, with ultimatley jjs error free game giving him the nod ahead of AAC and looking the more threatning ahead of conrad.
i know some might say level of opponent is a factor, but IMO its not, a team of the week is who preformed better that week and thats what i based my team on.
interested to hear ur thoughts or who made ur team, :o)
To be fair I think my team would be the same but I agree the JDV/Leilafano is up for debate.
One must put the games into perspective when selecting the sides. Taking all into account and Sasuke's team, I might change a few around simply based on level of opposition. Not that Argies were bad because you can only play as well as your opposition lets you play so some credit must go to the Boks but the Argies just really were not up to it.
1 tony woodcock
2 adriaan strauss
3 jannie du plesiss
4 eban ezebeth
5 james horwill
6 steven luatua
7 micheal hooper x Richie McCaw
8 duane vermeulen
9 aaron smith x Fourie Du Preez (Even Genia was better than Smith)
10 aaron cruden
11 bryan habana x Julian Savea
12 JDV (If we look at the games in perspective, I think we might have to go for Nonu.)
13 jj englebrechet x Adam Ashley-Cooper
14 ben smith
15 willie le roux x it will have to be Willie but simply because no 15 was outstanding this week
Jean was great, Serfontein had like 3 runs for 3 clean line breaks, Willie had the freedom of the park. Habana played shit considering the opposition on the day. A guy like Ben Smith or Digby Ioane who looks for work in the centres would have had many more tries on the day. Habana was not his usual self and it looked like he was prepared for a tought test that when it opened up so quickly, he was not prepared and panicked. He tried to force himself into the game and onto the score sheet instead of being his usually self and just being in a try scoring position and letting it happen!
We could select the whole SA team and be justified in it after this weekend. I also think Juandre played pretty well. My point is that Nonu's performance for the AB's on the night was much more instrumental in his sides performance than Jean's. We could have beaten the Argies with Serfontein, Howard, Heimar Williams or little Vusi the 13 year old soccer player from Soweto at 12.
It is easy to look good when your opposition are just plain and simply not interested in tackling. I hope for SA's sake we get tested this weekend. Its nice to have a great confidence builder..That has been had now.. Now we need a "test match!" We can not go into an AB's game with a false sense of just how good we really are because one thing we can be sure of is that the AB's will be interested and they wont give an inch.
We will take plenty inches with our massive forwards and hurt the wee blacks but they wont "want" to make it easy for us as the Argies did;-)
IMO genias one run was the only thing he did good in the game, but smiths delivery of the ball, unmatched, its never easy scoring 6 tries against a top 3 team, and 4 of those were on the back of smith getting the ball out as quick as humanly possible to the backs to do there stuff, he really put the wallys on the backfoot.
habana and savea was another i thought long and hard over, but it felt to me that habana was trying harder, while savea who was awsome, went missing a little bit for the first 30 mins.
nonu was great on attack, but the wallabies did the break the inbe cos oh him a number of times, IMO nom one would have stopped those plays, but thats no excuse and its why i gave the nod to JDV who IMO was in the running wirh leilafano, but cruden ensured that leilafano takes 2nd place with that unforgiveable charge down,
@mozter,
i wouldnt blame it on jj, but no team in the world is free from compalcency and the Boks are no differnet, and who can blame them when ur leading 73-6 with a minute to go. im sure 99% of the Boks body and mind was already in the changing room drinking beer.
@boklogic,
i like McCaw over hooper, but hooper was prob the only person worth his salt. IMO he had a better game then McCaw, but McCaw was still the man, easily the second best openside on the weekend.
if it wasnt for cooper, i reckon another 20 points and definately the wallys missing out on 7 was on the cards.
Spot on Sas, JJ was the best 13, he might have only scored one try but it was that second break of his that almost ended in a try that showed his attacking class. He never missed a single tackle and that try had nothing to do with him.
Beast was better than Woodcock, Whitelock better than Horwill and Savea was better than Habana
Whitelock the best 5 in the world currently? Can he go down a legend bigger than Matfield and co??
Why don't you rather stick to ordering coffee?
Rugby is clearly not a strong point of yours, needle dick!!!!
