The Dud Toit file

49 AB props looking stressed as another scrum goes down,  NZ kick ahead and the Boks have the ball…a decent grubber by Dud Allende well handled by NZ. Dud Toit splattered at the ruck. ‘Great run by Pieter Steph du Toit’ says the commentator a phase later, but he made 2 metres and was brought down by the first tackler…nobody gets more hype.

56.30 Dud Toit penalized for falling over the ruck after contesting a few before.

61 Dud Toit takes a lineout ball and offloads well in a resulting phase

63 The score is now 23 to 15, the Boks are in the game and least at parity, probably better. What happened? Two minutes later Dud  Toit is overpowered at the ruck and the Boks have to hold …penalty. The ABs go through a lot of phases.  Papali’i beats Dud Toit and few passes later Barrett finds Jordan with a perfect kick, Mo’unga converts. Game over.

78 From the kickoff Caleb Clarke waltzes round Dud Toit as if he was a lock….the Boks get the ball back and Dud Allende tries to tractor, but is stripped by Jordie Barrett. Mo’unga runs into Dud Toit and after one more phase Kwagga picks up a ball outside the ruck, he beats 5 defenders to get the ball down.

So there I have extracted every instance where Dud Toit influenced play positively or negatively. It amounts to one lineout won….an average run…2 times overwhelmed at the ruck, the one leading to a penalty….another ruck penalty….two missed tackles one leading to a try….and one tackle prior to Kwagga’s try.

That is the physical contribution he made. He showed some energy, but actually did nothing positive and a lot negative. The week before he missed his lineout and several kick offs. Although he pulled off a couple of pick and go moves, his trademark skill.

The emperor has no clothes. He provides no extra grunt at the rucks….his center of gravity is always too high. And his lack of acceleration is a liability in mid range cover. The man is a mid sized lock, but he doesn’t have half the ball skills of Snyman.

If Vermeulen is injured our loosie trio of Kolisi, Dud and presumably Wiese has zero ground game.

To say Du Toit was not a step up from Mostert is ridiculous! 

The facts are the facts….Mostert wasn’t having a great game, but he never missed two tackles , not did he concede penalties nor was he whacked back at the rucks. 

Your eyes deceive you. Dud Toit did literally nothing of any use…,nothing…except taking one lineout and making one tackle just before Kwagga’s try.

All the rest of what you thought you saw, is what you wanted to see.

You should I looked at the whole game on record, replaying all the significant incidents several times

Take a look at your man Thomas as well… all he did was get penalized at the scrum.

The Bok scrum ranks last in the RC, and it ranked poorly last season too. We also see our lineout languishing as well. We don't seem to be able to attack opposition ball, and our maul is so-so. 

The biggest myth is that we were good enough to win this game. The second half, we had our hands on the ball more, but we looked absolutely useless with it. 

Mostert has a higher ceiling than Steph, but he was not very present in the game. Likewise Mbonambi, he had a howler and disappeared. 

@Moz: Steph was better than you reckon Moz, though it was hardly a top level performance. All of our forwards got cleared off the ball at ruck time, but Steph, Kwagga, RG, and Koch were the most successful at not only attacking opposition rucks, but cleaning our own. I gave them all a 6, and I think that's fair. No Bok was higher than a 6 on the day. most coasting on a 5. Our defensive system looks very, very poor right now. We really played a dangerous game with those rushes. A better All Black side would have severely hurt us. That said, they showed much better control in the second half when patiently working us through many phases. I think that'll have given them a lot of confidence moving forward. I can't think of any positives from the last two games. Last weekend, we didn't just look poorly coaches, but no individual really put up his hand and one of the best players in the world. Marx was grossly overrated, and took a long time to start showing up in general play. Thor looked like he had no energy, nothing in the tank. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Retallick was the best player on the field. 
2. NZ have better halfbacks, even if we had our best combination on the field. 
3. Their back three were much better skilled, aerially superb, stronger, and had a better tactical grasp on the game. 
4. Our defence is mediocre, and we don't seem to be able to stop attacks with individually secure tackles.
5. Our attack is more bland than it ever was under Erasputin.
6. Our micro light backs can stat pad in freely given space, but they have severely weakened the team.
7. Libbok is not test quality. In fact, he was so poor that I would literally choose present day Lambie over him. Something of any quality is better than nothing. 
8. Willemse was the only Bok who looked capable of challenging the line and making a breach. I never thought I would ever say this. He was a scapegoat for the clowns of the game. 
9. Willie was our 10 thoughout the game, and we never really seemed to get anything substantial going with him. No fault of his own. 

The Bok scrum is neutral at best. The stats are:

1. New Zealand 93%
2. Australia 91%
3. South Africa 87%

My stats come from the Rugby Championship stats database. Saddex, you need to get up off your butt and do some research.