Where is the opposition going to come from…

Yesterday’s game became one of the greatest Bok wins in memory, mostly because of the card. Absent the card we would have won, possibly by more, but it wouldn’t have the same aura. The card created the sense of a challenging contest and made the victory so much sweeter

So I ask myself, how does this happen without some sort of handicap. What will happen for example in the NZ tour next year. Most likely a routine white wash, unless we lose focus as we did against Oz this year.

Could Oz be an opponent? Briefly it seemed possible, but they are just too dependent on a few players. And yesterday they lost to Italy!

Ireland has been Lucky’s most successful opponent, but their generationally great team is aging and there are weaknesses at flyhalf and in the front row. we could get tripped up in a few weeks, but it seems unlikely. These are teams moving in opposite directions.

France and Bargie are very similar teams, talented but emotional. When Esterhozen scored yesterday, the whole bubble just burst…France were done.They are dangerous on the day, but not serious challengers for the top spot.

England has great rugby resources and seems to be getting their act together. We’ll know more when they play the ABs next Saturday. But Genge is still being talked about as a scrumming machine in the English press….have they really confronted their vulnerabilities.

It’s telling that these teams are now excited about the opportunity to challenge the Boks, but I can’t see any that are vaguely ready for anything but the odd upset. We now have pretty much a backline drawn from those who couldn’t play for the Boks 40 years ago. That talent pool has matured. And the bed rock of the scrum is still the gene pool that produces some of the biggest people on the planet. It’s a fearsome combination.

So proud rugby countries like NZ may be facing a bit of an identity crisis and have to dig deeper for talent. Certainly they should abandon the rules about foreign play.

But right now with the talent already playing and the incredible pipeline, it looks like the era of Bok dominance will continue for a while. In sports nothing lasts forever, hopefully a worthy challenger will emerge to push our buttons, but hey, maybe we should just play with a permanent red card….a plus 5 handicap as in golf.

England seems about the only team that's on the up. France have the guns, but appear rudderless when the heat comes on. At least against the Boks it's like they want quick strikes instead of using patience to grind out opportunity. The Bok game being their first test in 8 months surely didn't help matters, but it was a spectacular capitulation to 14 men.

The Ireland/Boks and England/NZ games will indeed be instructive.

There is this comment I saw about France, some of which is certainly true. But I don’t think it changes the overall picture.

‘This performance also carried the weight of context. France were without several of their most influential players; François Cros, Yoram Moefana, Charles Ollivon, Uini Atonio, Peato Mauvaka, Cyril Baille and Antoine Dupont, world-class individuals and all absent through injury or lack of game time. These are world-class individuals who shape tempo, control collisions, and provide leadership across the spine of the team and their absence required a recalibration of roles and responsibilities, and perhaps removed both a lot of test match nous and a hell of a lot of X Factor.

In addition to enforced absences, France’s selection choices introduced further confusion. The decision to omit Grégory Alldritt, a player whose form and influence at number eight remains among the most consistent in world rugby, was a quite remarkable call. His ability to link phases, dominate collisions, and provide continuity at the base of the scrum would have added further control to France’s second-half effort and it’s fair to say that France’s selections, and the failure of their impact replacements, helped pave the way for this historic Springbok win.’

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Not something that will bother the groupies like HasBeen, but the French implosion was in the cards when Galthié made his Alldritt decision….probably as far back as when they chickened out and sent a ‘B’ team to NZ. They would have been much more battle hardened if they had tested themselves against the ABs.

I am not sure about Enjland at all - - there are a number of clbs ner to closi going down, South African F eedting system starts on sch ool level - in the soc-called rugy schools about $3 billion poer year ia apwnr on rugby programs at schools - most of the young er netaion player wen through that system. Their first stop is normally contractin g by the major franchises and go through the Varsity cup system. That is also h e setup involvig a wider scope of Coloured abd Black players coming through.

It is that feeding system hat adds to the groh of teams on Springboks level that they have reached/ Unless ot hr countries start developin g similar system they will not be competible.

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The margins are small...things change quickly...we need to stay humble and keep doing what we're doing...

Not something that will bother the groupies like HasBeen, but the French implosion was in the cards when Galthié made his Alldritt decision….probably as far back as when they chickened out and sent a ‘B’ team to NZ. They would have been much more battle hardened if they had tested themselves against the ABs.

I agree,

The French are not turning up and playing second grade teams on tour is not helping them at all.

The French Top 14 might be strong but it is made up of foreigners earning good coin.

The French deserved everything they got in the world cup quarter final and even more so yesterday.

I am so pleased that the Boks won.

I think leaving Alldritt out was a ridiculous decision. He's one of France’s most consistent players.

It was a strange call but their 8 had a very good game

He did but I think they missed his leadership as well as all round play.

Couple of things that counted against France and show that you can try copy Luckies game plan but if you don't have the players with the minerals then it is just another FOMO team.

1. Team spirit, French players run back to the their clubs the moment they feel the pressure or told the play a supporting role. That is what their flyhallf did last year. More love for their club than country.
2. Oirish, I think everyone knows how they play these days. You can see that have their shapes and then tries to get the defence to be drawn in and they always leave a man wide and very reliant on the lob pass which has served them well. That is why Erusmas has struggled, he defenders play from out side in and push up and then drift wide. They are prone to teams that can hold on to the ball and pass between players. Irish has a phenomenal handling game and they have improved so much in that part. Their forwards are decent and not to be underestimated. Van Der Vlier is 10 times better than Kolisi.
3. England. Mainly fed by Northampton resurgence, some of their other clubs are hitting good form and they always have great talent. But the looked very laboured against Fiji and they weren't convincing against Australia.
4. New Zealand, they actually have some fire power up front and getting close to SA, it was their bench that beat Scotland. They were in for a shout but couldn't keep up with the pace. New Zealands bench came through against Ireland too and I think they are starting to figure out that they had the keys from way back when when they could put any team on the field back between 2011 until 2017 when they completely destroyed the Boks. I still think that squad was the best squad ever, the Boks are getting close now.

Special mention for Wales, Argentina handed their asses on a plate.

A year is a long time in rugby, but I think we are in a good place and I feel more comfortable than where we were not too long ago.

We might be peaking too early...most probably are...

Unlucky mozzietard is miffed that I have made the right calls about Rassie, Du Toit and Allende and the Boks. Conversely he has been consistently wrong and has loads of EGG on visog. He is unlucky as given the law of averages he should get some things right! Hahahahaha.

If standing up for the Boks against the lies and smears of nutjobs posting here makes me a groupie in the eyes of the Mamparas Union so be it. In any case who in the world gives a hoot what these lunatics think. That said blowing up their drivel can be fun.

The frogs have an abysmal record against us. The Frogs tend to always win at Stade Francais and their two losses in recent years have both been against the Boks. So they were playing against the Boks at their fortress and got we that red.

They can't last 80 minutes against us. The physicality eventually grinds them down. Their heavies carry too much NZ type lard.

Unlucky Mozzietard, to deminish our win, points out that the French have players out.

So did we. Ox the best lose head in the world, Wessels a tremendous guy to have on the bench. Hanekom and Louw, both injured and the non selection of Roos.

That the Frogs didn't have a great build up is their own fault. Our guys by this time of year should be exhausted but don't appear to be. Of course the Unlucky Mozzietard won't acknowledge just how well Rassie has rotated his players.

Rassie has been managing the renewal of the Bok squad very well. The RWC rankings to decide pools will soon be decided. 2026 will reveal who still is going to get the chop among our older players.

I'm not sure we're peaking at all, Draad.

Despite all the everything, and a late score that exaggerated the scoreline, France played most of the rugby on Saturday. Look at what happened in the first half when we had 15 on the field.

If the odd couple of passes stuck, they'd have scored more points and the game would have been totally different.

Peaking, for this team, with the amount of talent present, would look like comfortably beating anybody by 20 points.

Right now, we have the craziest 10 ever, and he got zero service on Saturday. The backline did nothing but defend for most of the game.

When you have Sacha, Willemse, Kolbe and Arendse and you fail to bring them into the game for three quarters of it, I don't call that peaking.

There is plenty of room for improvement.

The one eyed Plumster forgets that we missed scoring opportunities.

Of course it's very safe to say the Boks can improve. Of course we can improve all sides can improve.

What Plumster and a few other fail to take into account is that rugby is an 80 minute game. It took the Boks about 50 odd minutes to grind the Frogs down before we ckund shred them . Not so easy do do when a man down.

It must be a miserable life when the glass is always half empty which for members if tbe Mamparas Union is almost always the case.

Nah, you're wrong.

It took all of 64 minutes to score our first try.......I wouldn't call that peaking too early but if you insist it is then it's a funny way to peak.

We are increasingly becoming a second half side. Playing within ourselves and only starting to accelerate in the last 30 min...like a long distance runner sprinting the final stretch when we started like a house on fire the first match vs Aussie and than totally imploded towards the end of the match...if we can learn to play like that for 80 minutes, it will be something to behold.

Slow poison, sap the energy of their team, take their legs away from them and cook in the last 20.

If we had an extra 10 minutes the Boks woulda put another 2 tries on em. By the 70th minute you could see the frogs were just about holding on.

Slow poison, sap the energy of their team, take their legs away from them and cook in the last 20.

It was a funny dynamic that, because the Boks to me looked so flat at the start. PSDT especially looked out of it early on, I even asked in the live thread if he is okay after a Frog ran through his tackle. There was a weird energy to the game but yeah, much like against the All Blacks we absolutely cooked in the last 15 minutes.

PSDT is getting on now, no denying it and He's slower up off the floor after a tackle or ruck. It'll be a sad day when he hangs em up after everything He's done in and for the jumper.

I think the Boks were genuinely shocked by the intensity of the French especially at the breakdown and counter ruck. Once they settled into the match it was business as usual and if they can absorb the pressure early on and keep the score relatively down/close then they have the team to grind out the win. Our 2 losses so far have come from blowing our load early against Aussie and then the calamity from Le Roux against AB's.

Bokke, the best rope a dope team.

PSDT was also clearly the captain on Saturday :-)

The level of [performance of Du Toit on Saturday was still higher than any other loosie in the world. In vie of the absence of De Jager he was forced to fill a gap in the team and played a tighter race than normal.

Saturday's game tested him too as captain in the second half. He was tasked with inding a way to captain a 14 team match to win the match and that he cannot playing his normal game as a loosie. He stopped the madness to kick at goal from penalties and strengthened t he forward pack using Esterhuizen as forwd when the Springboks did the throw-in at ine-outs and feeding of scriums. When the opposite was done by the French he ensured that Estehuizen for defense was at center,

I am with you that it would be a bad day for the Springboks to lose him as a player - but to my mind it looks like Marx and him with De Allende as a maybe will be the only of the older players still playing in 2027 and Du Toit may end up as captain of the RWC squad in 2027.

So far Etzebeth was substandard this year - so was Pollard - Kriel is on the way out and Esterhuizen will play at loosie and nothing else.

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Time for a mozcroscope on Dud Toit…he did nothing of consequence and still got an 8 from Planet Rugby….same as Wiese who moved mountains.

As for Dr Lucky…..how many Frogs would you select for the Bok team vs the Boks who played. Only Ramos and Jelonch for Kolisi (yes I know he is a blindsider). So when 13 of the 15 players are better, shouldn’t you win I ask with tears in my eyes. The moment I saw this French team I knew they were toast….but as Plum points out, they still totally outplayed us in the first half.

Why do we have to hide from the truth …as opposed to learn from it.

Ah it has nothing to do with Rassie then

Oh boy