Today's scapegoats...

Marx - I've now seen numerous comments about how bad Marx was and how out of form he is. Yes, he chucks the ball in, but remember that a successful lineout is comprised of the thrower as well as people who lift and there who catch the ball. The ABs had the read of our lineout. As Marfield says, body language is just as important as the call. The ABs reading out lineout was a far bigger problem today than Marx throw-in accuracy. Keep that in mind.

Williams - Seems everybody is claiming that Williams was shocking. He wasn't. The forwards were horrendous at ruck time and getting pushed back onto or over the ball. There is literally nothing that Williams could do about that.

Willaims biggest error was the knock on from the lineout off of PSDT. The major issues for me was the Boks completely failing to realise that they were being slid back over the ball and hardly adapting at all...nevermind trying to give the ABs some of their own back.

The actual blame belongs, as I have been saying for a while now, is the lack of synergy. It doesn't matter how often guys played together in previous seasons. They needed a lot of game time together before this game because it was a massive one. And Rassie didn't give them that. For me, nothing creates more errors than a lack of cohesion. Three games ago we started with Manie, AE, Moodie...two games later, in the biggest game of the year...it's all totally different.

It sucks that we lost, but the blame should fall directly on the bloody circus that our selections have become.

Roll on next week and a brand new team...yet again.

Marx is a strong and experienced Hooker, but throwing in at the line out is most probably his only weak point….

When he is having a off day in that department, it’s a train smash….

Wessels general play was just as good as Marx, but his throwing in was way better. He was finding our jumpers and we got quality ball.

Williams general play was not as good as usual and Reinach were just snappier with his distribution.

The fact that our best Frontrow did not start to lay a stable foundation and those two tries in the beginning with Willie flopping on the AB player instead of tackling him and the miss tackle from Marx on Will Jordan, Killed us.

Most of the players in the team today and the squad, has played enough games together for them to have synergy……

We should have executed our chances better and defence is still a major issue, since Nienhaber left.

Plum I agree with you on synergy. This was my biggest bug bear all season. Rassie want to have a squad of 75 players and just keep rotating them around. We only had one team in the URC final. I don't know where he is going to find those quality players. Yes, we have a lot of good players but these same players were also very poor under Coetzer.

I tend not to always listen to Eddie Jones but he made a fair comment, he thinks senior players always stay a year too long and that the coach should cut them

I don't care what people say about van staden but he was the real warrior today. Kolisi may have a bit more pace but he doesn't have Marco body on the line attitude and it speaks. So much for protecting our ball. Never saw Kolisi hit a ruck.

Then on Williams, I don't agree with you on that. He kept slipping, tried to play his normal game, but often the ball went behind the players, slipped a number of times. Did he pack the wrong boots? Then that knock on. When Reinach came on we all of a sudden looked more composed and on the front foot.

Dud has to go.

I don't know why the didn't start with AE and Moodie, those two made a fantastic partnership

How long have the Core of this squad been playing together?? Year’s already….

so in end effect, does it really matter who plays, they should be able to have synergy with each other?

With all due respect, there is always changes within the team. They should be able to click after all this time.

In my opinion the synergy story is just a extra excuse for bad execution, poor defence and not using there chances properly!

It is called ring rust. We saw it in Super rugby when the all blacks rested their players at the beginning of the season. The guys that came in later in the season struggled to find form as everyone else is ahead of them in terms of match conditioning. No amount of training will get you ready for match day.

PTSD, Etzebeth, Kolisi hardly played this season and were injured for most of it.

Our best team should have had 4 games under their belt before playing NZ but yet the Doctor decided to rotate. Our first test that we lost we had Manie at 10, Sasha as back up.

Then when the guys do start, they've had 4 matches out

I was shocked when I saw th team against teh A B's.

Wllie was a seria failyurw in the amtches he palyed in on URC and test level. He should never have been in teh team at all.

With all due respect the pace and abilities of the inh=jury prone Pollard has nade a total mess and is now the same elvel as the serial failure Morne Steyn always was.

Kolisi ha gone missing insofar as performance is concreed and he did fail on URC abd test elvel this year,