Springbok Assessment

The fist half was very poor. Keo laments the backline's impotence, yet they still managed to create despite the slow ball fro their forwards. It was frustrating having to watch Hougaard dig for the ball. The breakdown battle was eerily reminscent of 2008, and if Brussow is not brought into the squad soon, I predict a rude awakening for the Boks in the TNs.

Kirchner was elusive and authorative, Alberts dispelled my concerns with a dominant showing, the Morné/Frans combo looks very promising, Strauss and Coenie were huge (Coenie surprising me most).

Changes for next week; Dikbek Bismarck was hugely exposed. He made one fortuitous turnover, but blew a great burst by Alberts with yet more poor ball retention in contact. His defence is very suspect as well.

15.Kirchner
14.JP
13.Jean
12.Frans
11.Habana
10.Morné
09.Hougaard
08.Spies
07.Alberts
06.Coetzee
05.Kruger
04.Eben
03.Jannie
02.Strauss
01.Coenie
 

Shall I repeat the performance assessments here - have done proven info elsewhere.   Only one comment - Der Aristokrat - what game did you watch. The players who under-perform you praise - the players who perform well you run down.  Get alife.

What nonsense our two most indecisive players were the Wooly Boolie and Hougaard....both were subbed early.

The big changes was Strauss from Bismarck and Coenie. Pienaar benefited from the forwards rumbling forward, something to consider.

JP played terrible and so did Bismark.

To be honest the lack of counter rucking made it so Hougaard had a bad game, not his fault.

The doff WP idiots won't see it that way. First of all Bismarck cannot do any wrong, because we all supposedly hate Smit, and Bissie is supposed to outgun him, so he cannot fail.

Secondly, Jean is a WP man, so you can never fault him. Everything he does is twice as spectacular as that from anyone else.

Lambie is die baas. We've now heard, in the space of a week, that he is a beast in the tackle, the next Larkham, and one of the best leaders in South Africa. Of course, the evil Bull Morné is holding this demi-God back. Then onto Hougaard, another evil Bull, of course we must now switch with Pienaar who is not a Bull therefore not evil and kak.

Fransie must be rated lower than Jean, because Jean is a WP man, and "the best 12 on the planet". So whatever Jean gets, he must get less. He also dared to play abroad, such a fallacy given that South Africa invented coaching and therefore nobody can teach us anything! Hark!

Welcome to the inner meanderings of a typical Bok fan.
 

Lambie shouldn't be at flyhalf, he should be at fullback, sorry but Kirchner doesn't make himself a force to reckoned with, he's too simple, Lambie puts himself out there and makes himself a problem. Morne is the best Flyhalf for test rugby at the moment, mind I hope we get a better one.

Jean actually did good at 13 and we should keep him and F Steyn at 12 - 13. I'm glad Meyer recognised that Jean shouldn't stop F Steyn from playing.

I did see Lambue get white-line fever and try to score tries twice, when he was outnumberred, instead of passing to someone else in a better position. I also saw him in a ruck and a maul and at scrumhalf.....................

Not the greatest spectacle but any win is a great result for the Bokkie.....The first half was simply both sides squaring things off against each other, that was going to happen, particuarly that England is probably the only nation that plays a similiar forward game to SA.

Second half was a lot better and showed that combinations came together better. That English backline was never going to challenge our proven and experienced backs.

Our focus is too lift our intensity to another level as we proved that in the second half.  Not a hell of a lot to ride home about other than we beat an average English side with a slightly above average performance, no matter what spin we try put on it.

We just need to lift that intensity as I said earlier and put the sword to the English - bring back Brussow, thats a "no brainer"...I so hope Du Preez comes back soon as we will need his guile against the AB's and Wallabies as it appears Genia is coming back to his best and the new AB half is dynamite????

Nonetheless, are we asking too much from our boys? Afterall their normal preperation time and the fact they are playing in between the Super Series must be a blunder of all planning.......get use to it I suppose as this appears to be the format going forward. Damn thats what happens when you love your rugby so much - we find ourselves a little seething when we win

 @ der

Man u can talk nonsense sometimes.

Do u just type for the sake of typing?

Biz did very little wrong. Why I ask... Would u want to in include Strauss??? Ya he is playing well, but with so many newbies, why would you drop one of our most consistent performers just like that?

do u swap wives so regularly as well? 

1 fight and u kick her out?? Come on man.... 

Bismarck is not a consistent performer, at least not a good one. I've proven that emphatically.

@ der . Just letting u know, there is 15 men in rugby team, 7 subs. The springboks played england, It was a good game,Jean played blady well,except 1 missed tackle.Bismark wasent as  good as usual, but was better than average.Kirchner surprised me and did well first half, nothing special. Anyway the score was 22 -17. Pitty u dident watch it!

Bismarck was poor. Bismarck is always poor. You haven't read any of the posts where I have gone to extreme levels of detail to highlight his shortcomings. Just recently I reviewed his non-existant presence in the entire 2008 TNs to go with what I have done the rest of his career. I have also exposed his Super rugby flopper this year - he has in fact never had a strong Super rugby campaign.

And no, Jean missed more than one solitary tackle. I'm busy reviewing the game now and at 5:08 Manu attacks the outside shoulder of Jean and hands him off. Jean attacked his feet from behind to bring him down, but it was indeed a missed tackle (to go with the other one I reference in the second half!).

Agreed on Kirchner. At present Alberts has been huge, every tackle has been massive and knocking Englishmen back like toddlers.


 

If you put the Poms at a 4, which is probably about right if 6.5 is a passing grade.......the Boks can't be worth more than 5 today. And there has to be daylight between the Boks and ABs, putting the men from NZ at a 7 at least. Any TN opponent in recent memory would have slaughtered the Boks given our inept protection of the ball, missed tackles up the middle and poor goal kicking.

New Zealand and Australia play a very different game to England. England and Argentina the only two nations who can tackle us head-on and provide a challenge. Today New Zealand would probably have lost by a whisker. But I do agree that our protect at the ruck fringes was poor. Hougaard had extreme difficulty in touching the ball without having swarms of Englishmen all over him. By the last 20 minutes of the first half he had the Boks create a trailer at rucks to give him more depth and time to kick such was his lack of confidence in the forwards to do their job. Our defence up the middle was actually more solid upon review than it seemed live. Perhaps nerves got the better of us, but England were quite toothless for most of the game, even when dominating the breakdown.

you assume too much Aristokrat that NZ would have lost by a whisker -- TOO MANY  variables involved - different team, different tactics/gameplan/player selection.

otherwise other things you said made sense!

I'm more than familiar enough with New Zealand to know what to expect.

again, new Coaching Team, new structure, new players!

I do agree with you though, my, didn't Adrian and Coenie play well!!

Der Aristokrat.

I think you have an interesting take on the game, its somewhat different to most others. a few insights and i think a few shortsighted moments. but you really do disect the game. wow. very impressed !

I saw Heyneke smiling for the first time in the game when Coenie almost singlehandedly destroyed the Pom scrum.