So, Jellybear and Le Beep...

...vs Sacha and Kolbe/Arendse.

Le Beep was disappointing today - I can't remember him once truly testing the defense and having a go. He was almost passive in some of his carries.

Jellybear was a menace again, lost the ball in contact a few times which happens to the best. But...and this is not to be arrogant about our players...but, I recall at least 2 instances where he broke away and got stopped short of the line where I imagine Sacha would have scored on both occasions. Jellybear has pace, smarts and even a decent step - but Sacha has all that, and grunt. He has that competitor's level of physicality that Jellybear lacks.

These two French stars are magnificent when they're on, which is most of the time, but I'm still not trading any of our boys for them.

Agreed, Paks.

Whether it's fighting through a tackle to get into the space or a strong handoff after he has already passed a few, Sacha has grunt that these other flair boys mostly lack. And then of course he has better offloads than literally any of them.

I very much doubt I would trade Hooker or Quan for any of them either.

I was making the same mental comparisons coming to the same conclusions Pakie. That said how France can have played Ntmack ahead of Jailbert is a mystery.

I recall some drama with Jellybear a few years ago where he withdrew himself when he wasn't selected as a starter, which seemed to have caused some friction between him and the coach for a while. Hard to find anything much online. There's this line from a Reuters article, the 24/25 season.

"Jalibert asked to be sent back to his Bordeaux club when he found out he was second in the pecking order at flyhalf during last November's autumn series but Galthie did not hold it against the 26-year-old."

So maybe he just wasn't on a level at the time that the coach wanted, if there was bad blood they're probably not going to admit it in public. Whatever the case may be, he's definitely the #1 now.

That game at Ellis Park against the ABs in 2024. The final twenty minutes and how Sacha played it was when I decided he was my guy.

He folded DMac and Barrett up up and put them in his pocket. Two massive names and he was totally unphased by them.

To think, he had but a handful of test caps under his belt at that point.

Can't wait for Tests this year!!!!!