I can't express how irritated I am with our bomb squad performance against Ireland. Everyone was praising Rassie for his innovation and how powerful our bok pack is and the fact that we can field two world class packs.
We saw what a 7-1 split did to New Zealand, but to be really logical. The boks spend a lot of time in All Blacks half. They knocked the ball on over the goal line or got held up and squandered opportunities. What made it easier for the boks is the fact that Libbok is a fantastic touch finder. The Kiwis engaged why to early in the line out maul and got blown up.
As for the case against the last maul against Ireland. Ben O Keefe was rubbish and he did not call the early engagement and neither did he ping bundi Aki for coming from the side and collapsing the maul.
We hear it all the time that you have to play the reff and in this case the reff did not police the line out maul engagement. Very technical but New Zealand got caught. Different day, different coach and the Irish did not get pinged.
Don't forget the red card that reduce one of their forward weapons and all of a sudden the boks had fresh legs, had the ref on their side and could put a lot of pressure on the All Blacks.
Fast forward to the Ireland game. The Irish Line out was wonky and we were able to disrupt their line out. The scrums were 50/50.
Ban got 45 min, Rassie starts unloading the bench. We see our talisman, Etzebeth come off. Looked a yard off the pace and tired. Didn't have a big impact as the Irish were waiting for him.
As with the New Zealand game. We had proper forwards, as for the Irish game. We had 3 light weight open siders coming on. Off came
So the whole bench gets emptied and we get no ascendancy.
Meanwhile, on the Irish side
Andrew Porter, only comes off at 75 min. Facing "Fresh" props and still standing strong
The bomb squad is a gimmick.
Every player in the starting 15, should be able to play 80 min, but when you swap your bench at 45 min, and bring on players that have not had time to settle into the game, you lose all the momentum.
I also don't like the philosophy of Nienaber of emptying the tank.
I remember an interview with Richi Mccaw and most recently the fitness coach of the All Blacks. He pretty much said that Richi was the least fittest players in the team but he was really great at reading the game.
The boks tend to play hard rugby that sucks everything out the players, making collisions, having someone on their back to give them momentum and then our players scrumble to recover the ball. Not to mention the porous defence where players have to track back. So it is not just about fitness but how you play the game and make sure you are on the front foot.
We need players that can last a whole game, but the coaches need to rethink this thing of emptying the tank
