to hand Argentina their first victory against SA - the Springboks won. The Stade Francais Reject made a number of poor decisions - for instance at minute 56 there were 5 players on his outside and only three defenders - but the Reject made an aimless kick and the Springboks lost territory. And then there was that charge down kick five meters out of the tryline. Luckily De Allende had the wits to ensutrre that the ball is not caught by an Argentine player - otherwise a loss was on the cards. The sooner Steyn is out of contention, the better it would be for S A Rugby.
Pollard made a few errors - but none that cost the Springboks serious problems. It may largely be the result of the extremely poor weather conditions the game was played under. Show promise - but needs to develop further and will develop further.
De Jager was by some distance the best lock on the field of play. Did Bakkies in fact play? He was totally invisible on the field of play
De Allende was the only player who managed to break the line of the Argentinians and he had a good first game. He virtually never got the ball - but when he got it - he did a heck of a lot with it.
I think Coetzee was very good and I definitely prefer the loosie combination without Alberts.
I frankly was not impressed with Pienaar today - his so-called box kicks was anything but box kicks and served merely to hand possession over to the Argentinians. They were way to far to be effectively followed up.
The scrumming was a disaster from scrum no 1 and although it stabilized later in the game - it is clear that we needed two strong locks in the scrum to help stabilizing it.
Good performances :-
Willie le Roux
Damian de Allende
Duane Vermeulen
Franscois Louw
Marcell Coetzee
Lodewyk de Jager
Average Performances :-
Bryan Habana
Jean de Villiers
Handre Pollard
Eben Etzebeth
Bismarck du Plessis
Disappointing Performances
Cornal Hendricks
Ruan Pienaar
Bakkies Botha
Jannie du Plessis
Tendai Mtawarire
Morne Steyn.
All I can say is we need a heck of a lot more from the Springbok team than what we saw today. The team should be changed by making a few changes. Time for Pienaar, Morne Steyn and Bakkies Botha to be send back to their clubs. I have serious reservations about Mozart's National Treasure as well.
