The AB's flaccid defence against England.

Sure we did much better in the set pieces against the Poms. One rarely sees the scrum of a top nation implode as badly as England did when Coles was called upon. And rather than winning the lineout battle, England struggled to stay  even against the Boks.

But the thing that dominated the whole game was England's inability to move the ball. Against the Boks their players could hardly take a step before being hit.  The outside channels were sealed off by a fast moving defensive line....often Am was between the passer and his receiver.

If that coincides with your recollection, go back and look at the AB game. Ford often ran unopposed for 5 or more strides. Loosies punched 3 metre holes and tellingly the outside channel was wide open. Time and again Watson was in an overlap position.

This was incompetent defence by NZ....something one rarely says about any aspect of NZ rugby. But it was more like Super Rugby defence....dawdling, not physical and certainly not intimidating. It made the Poms look much better than they are.

I can't say I've read anything compelling about the poorest NZ WC performance since France in 99. But I would say the defensive coach has a lot to  answer for.

Good observation. The All Black blueprint has long been to defend passively and drift. The rush is how you dictate terms, if you have the energy, accuracy and motivation. The Wallaby win of 2018 was another fine of example of the Boks comprehensively shutting down another much-vaunted attacking side. In many respects, the English made the same errors: Playing low percentage passes too deep without earning the right to go wide. I suppose not to the same extent as the Wallabies, but it was there. At times they lacked patience. For me, the game was won in the first ten minutes. Had England come out to win territory and field position, they may very well have won. We weren't built to come back from a deficit, making our early lead all the more important. After that, they were more and more desperate and nobody had an answer for the Bok physicality. Winning the battle at the breakdown takes pressure off the defensive line. Even an extra second getting the ball out makes a considerable difference - look no further than the British Lions halting the All Blacks.  

I still think the English are a powerful side. I don't think the All Blacks necessarily made them look better than they are, but they were certainly a much better match-up. The Boks had the tools to shackle their strike power. When low percentage plays are made deep in one's half, without dominance in the collisions, you have problems. Tactics beat the romantic philosophy of total rugby. A very hard and bitter pill for someone of Eddie Jone's stature to swallow. In the end, the Aussie in Jones overcame his finer sensibilities. 

There has been numerous questions asked about four games in the whole WC series and to state some of the comments is clear.   The above comments are less so because it has only one area f concern and does not cover the full area,   

Let me be more explicit and deals with some of the concerns.

The Springboks  

The Springboks had some real problems in the two matches they performed poorly in,    In both the  AB  and the Wales tests  there were serious problems that caused the loss against the AB's  and the unconvincing performance against Wales,  

In the case of the Springboks -  AB games the defense was a total disaster with players like Vermeulen and Mostert contributing near to zero in  the defensive  effort and in the case of  Mostert missing a routine tackle before the scoring of one of the AB tries.   The total tackle count of Vermeulen in that test was 1 tackle made and 2 missed,

The second issue was the fact that both AB tries were preceded by ball handling errors by the Springboks.   

In the case of the Wales game the problems did not relate to defense at all - neither did it relate to any game plan scenario - even though there were evidence of a more kicking orientated game. The problems of the Springboks related virtually entirely to ball handling errors not resulting in desired scoring of tries.   Unlike in the AB test where handling errors ultimately resulted in AB tries - in the Wales test it did not happen.  

In the Wales test the Springboks were always in the lead - with Wales forced into a catch-up situation.   In the end they could not catch up with the Springboks.

In the case of the two tests there were in fact three scenarios involved:-

*    poor defense  by individual players - the missed tackle ratio of 6 of the Springbok team members were above 28% and that is a sure recipe for disaster - in the Wales test that situation was drastically reduced,

*    in the AB test the problem relates also to ball skills deficiency in particular which were exploited  by the AB's - while in the case of the Wales test handling errors did not benefit the Welsh to the same extent; and

*    in the Wales test a problem of inaccurate kicking was one of the reasons why the Welsh were not under enough pressure to force them into making errors in recovering of kicked balls.  

The one aspect that benefitted the AB's in the test against the Springboks was that the referee did not interpret scrumming problems of the AB's  correctly and that allowed the AB's to get away with their  scrumming problems against the Springboks leaving them in a situation where they were not in the same protected position against the English team.

The AB - English test

In this test the AB's had the problem with the defense issue outlined above - but two of the main reasons why the AB's lost were -

*   the English dominated in scrumming and on the deck; and

*   the domination of England in the line-outs.

The latter problem relates to two issues and the NZ supporters on site will say I am wrong about the latter one,   Retallick is an outstanding line-out specialist and a very good ball skills player,  However, he was seriously injured in the RC series and struggled t get back from injury - with the result that even in the first WC test he did not play at all and in the second test he was on the bench.   The fact is that in the whole series the performance of Retallick was not on the level we have become accustomed too in the past and the English exploited that deficiency.   The line-out situation against the English was complicated  by the fact that the performances by Whitelock and Barrett in line-outs were not up to standard and the player who  was normally an alternative for the AB's in line-outs (Read) were in the relevant test sub-standard,  

The fact is the dominance in line-outs in the semi was shown up as a paper tiger in the  line-outs  against the Springboks.

The English Team situation

On this site there was some comments made about the one issue where Jones himself said he made a mistake and that relates to the issue of playing Ford at flyhalf and not start with Farrell at flyhalf and play Slade at center.   If one ha s to be honest that  combination was used in the last 30 minutes  of the test during which there was a decline in the scrumming of the Springboks compared to the first half.

The question has been raised whether Farrell in that 30 minutes performed better than Ford did and whether Slade would have been more  effective than the starting 13 was,   There are serious indications that it was not the case - the two tries scored by the Springboks were both  scored in the last 15 minutes in the game and especially the Kolbe try was scored as a result of serious mistakes by both Farrell and Slade.  

Th other problem Jones claimed was a mistake was starting with Mako Vunipola ahead of Marler in the final.  I was not by that statement of Jones.   On this site the lauding of Vunipola went on uninterrupted for 15 months and the constant refrain was Vunipola was the one who would dominate Malherbe and destroy the SA scrum.   I pointed out in the past that it did not happen in the June 2018 tests between the English and the Springboks  - but nobody really listened to what I wrote at the time.   However, from being according to some of our members the rock that would sink the SA forwards - Vunipola ended up being one of the weak links in the scrumming of the English.

The other aspect where our own  pundits were totally wrong was about the England locks.  Dave kept on repeating the truth - the normal opposition kept attacking him for stating that the English locks were not world beaters,   Fact is they were very average against the Springboks even after the weakest lock competitor in the SA team replaced De Jager rather early  in the match.   If that did not happen the English line out would have looked worse than it in fact ddi in the final.  

Summary 

The English is a strong team with some notable deficiencies.   the main ones are -

*    the Tight 5 are average at best and not competitive enough in scrumming and in line-outs;

*    the inside backline players in both the flyhalf and centers are not the world beaters they are made out to be. 

The real strengths of the English team is their loosie combination and their outside backs - the latter of which in the final was not allowed to perform on their normal level of competence. 

Sure - the defense of the Springboks cut the English backline into submission - but one wonders how that happened taking into account the flood of criticism on site of Du Toit and De Allende  by both Mozart and AO.    

  .        

Ceradyne

Not deductive at all - just plain logic based on fact.  If you have no real rugby comments to make - please be wise and shut up.   

No - put weird and inappropriate non-rugby related things on site or STFU.  

I'm still waiting for Damme Dreck's first rugby post. I don't find his solitary contribution acceptable, that being...

1. The Boks played an attacking game because the forwards got little ball
2. The Boks played attack because they "ran from all angles"
3. Beat the Welsh (2015) by running into the outside rush (best in the world at that time after it shackled the best attacking team in the world for huge losses of ground)

Fortunately the strong negative reaction to the Wales boreathon forced Eraser to be more expansive....and by chance he found the real Bok formula.

Coach of the Year....Nienaber.

BS by AO - the biggest idiot ever on rugby - I never wrote anything like this idiot dream up and he is too stupid t o even know what twaddle he wrote on site above.   The idiot dreams up lies and then claim it is the truth.   When will he ever write a real rugby contribution based on what really happened in games?  Very little chance of that ever.  .

Another piece of BS Mozart punted previously repeated.   There was no evidence at all about Erasmus changing the game plan because of the reasons he stated,   

He discussed a  story about  how the whole problem with the AB's relates only to backline defense wider out, while ignoring the other problems that contributed to the loss,   There were some clearly identifiable problems that was detrimental to the team efforts in the WC semi against England, even clear in the game against the Springboks - even though they won in that game.    Too advanced for Mozart to understand - especially since what actually happened  punched  holes in his contributions prior to the final.       .           

 Nobody likes to see a starting player injured and substituted early on unless that player is De Jager. He is brilliant when it doesn't count but has less BMT than the SA cricket side. There was relief in the group of South Africans I was sitting with when he was substituted. 

You are welcome to your idea - but is it really factual?  

A perfect summation of the Lomp situation BBF.

No

The failure of Mostert went back to the SR and when eh failed again against the ABs he was tickets insofar as Erasmus is concerned.   Mostert tried his utmost to correct his atrocious defense in the AB game in the final - but he was always a much weaker tackler and ball carrier than de Jager was,

I will give you a typical example and that is a fact as well.   In the Aussie RC test De Jager forced his way over the tryline and scored a try - Mozart pretended  that it never happened.   In the Japanese test before the WC Mostert tried to force his way over the tryline in the same way and he was carried backwards by the Japanese defenders.   

The Mostert defense was secure - but not as strong as the De Jager attacks routinely is.    That is factual.

Insofar as line-out jumping is concerned De Jager is also a physical more stronger jumper than Mostert is and in fact Mostert was cut out from line-out jumping  in the RC test against Argentina after failing in the RC test against the AB's.   He was rarely used in the line-outs in the final after he replaced De Jager - since he has failed in that department of the game before, 

Mostert is the thinking man's rugby player.....fools buy Lomp by the pound.

There we go again:

A new one on this topic - but then Du Toit is regarded as a thinking player and he is always discredited by you.   So who knows where prejudice rule and sense take a back seat??????????