Credit the source, Dave.
Kolbe's try demonstrates how the French sabotaged themselves. Dupont is pressured by Eben, rolls a poor pass to #1 who, instead of trying to secure it and set up again, tries to roll it on to the next guy to deal with it, in other words just passing the shit on to whoever instead of cleaning it up, but he just succeeds in rolling it into DDA's hands. This is the frantic hot potato stuff that France was guilty of all game.
I don't see how people can scoff at these tries though. Scoring two tries off high kicks means you've identified a weakness. Why wouldn't you exploit it? And Kolbe's try was set up as much through defensive pressure as through the French poor response to it.
Yes, very few Boks teams would have beaten the French in this quarter final.
Many Bok teams are dependent on forward domination, with no plan B.
Rassie has a plan A, plan B and plan C-Z.
3 tries out of 3 entries into the French 22. A 100% strike record.
The French forwards dominated the game, until the last quarter when the Bomb squad started taking control.
Great post Dave which should be mandatory reading from those struggling to understand matters.
Solid post from Sharkbok.
Yes England must not be underestimated. They are looking good.
Remember Ally's Rope a dope. Where he was on the ropes, taking punches from Fraser, only to strike.
That is how last night felt. The French just went with a full on forward assault. They were preparing for the bok heavies. But the boks play this game very well, so instead of trying to beat them up, what they did is to beat them in the scrums. Not so much in the forward exchanges. What we saw was a furious line speed and very quick and alert counter attacks.
They used the cross field bomb or arial bombs to perfect effect. De Allende, Arendse came from pressure in the catching zone. Then, blitz defence and they scooped up the ball to grubber it behind the defence. The only real attack came from our 22 when we got a scrum penalty and Kriel broke out and we surged up the field. We got a penalty, decide to make an attack. This time creating fantastic forward pods, with Etzebeth being the final wrecking ball.
Subs were done perfectly and Bongi played for 75 min.
2 more games please
Sorry Pakie - Gavin Rich
What aspect of the Bok game has evolved? No sophistication or innovation on attack. We traded defensive solidity as a team for speed, it's been quite patchy. Lots of direct and blunt running, static phases. Kicking galore. That's the big weapon. Our set pieces are not as strong as they used to be. The team is still held together by the efforts of some more talented players. This is the lowest IQ Bok side in my lifetime. Not the most physical, not particularly skilled. The coaching leaves quite a lot to be desired. It's the pseudo fan's arrogance to miss all of the above, until something goes wrong. So fickle. Even more dishonest.
No Ex-Doos, no...
The Boks are ranked number 1 in the world. Any rugby team in the world knows the Springboks are one of the best, if not the best. (At least in recent years with the All Blacks more beatable than before)
The All Blacks used to be the only team that could win a game with 30% of territory/possession.
l'Grande Merdxe
Sure talking a load of shit as per normal. Name me a coacxh from 2000 to 2018 that believe a team should play 15 man rugby. The coaches all believed that backline attacking playm was not a consideration - backlines only real suag e was to defend and in essense the Boks tried to win matches
I remember a comment of John Smit after the 2007 WC final. He saidx oif that English try was allowed the Springboks themselves wouyld have to work out a way they can score a try themselves. A classic- in other words there was no strategy in dealing with attacking in that match leading to the scoring of tries. What Erasmus added to the team was to think abouit attacking options and to carry out those options effectively - in other words the 10-man rugby played by the Springboks was totally dependent on superiority up front and 10 man rugby. If that approach was applied last night the Springb oks would have lost by 20 points.
He is by some distance the best Springbok coach since 1992. If the Springboks won in the final it would only be due to the team spirit and development of thinking playuers neglected in the past.
I also remember a remark De Villiers made abput rugby. He mentioned a visit by John Gainsford - a center from the 1950's - who viosited his father and found Jean and his brother kicking rugb y balls in front otf the House. Gainsford said to the two bouys 'Kicking is only a part of rugbym not the most important part. - ball ahndling and use is more im portant. Before the 1980's the Springboks played 15 man rugby. Between 1992 to 2018 they played 10 man rugby - that is a fact that ws changed by Erasmus.
Thinking players and experts realized it and appreciate the change Erasmus brought to the fire as a coach. ..
Hey Doos the Bok game has evolved enough to take them to the number 1 spot
Why not take us frame by frame as to why they are not number 1
Entertain us Doos
Utter rot the Boks are playing exactly the same rugby as in 2007….except for Habana we have Kolbe. We kick far more now than we have ever done.
Rubbish Moz we kick far less than the other sides - we kicked more against France than we have for some time
28,003 posts
Boks have changed perceptions and confounded expectations
So much for the French fairytale, so much for northern hemisphere domination of the semifinal stages of the World Cup. Instead, the final fortnight of the competition is the Rugby Championship, just with England in place of Australia.
Goodbye too to the old perceptions of the Springboks. If there are people who still see them as grinders, a team that relies above all on physicality, then they are either blind or just lack the ability to see change when it happens. The Bok team and the Bok coaches are exactly what those people who stick rigidly to those perceptions are not - they are adaptable.
They did it during a tumultuous and spell-binding semifinal against France last night at Stade de France, with northern hemisphere critics quite predictably blaming New Zealand referee Ben O’Keefe - towards the end he made a few odd calls against the Boks - and failing to spot and the tactical accuracy and fluidity of the 29-28 victors.?France was immense in the first half. There were warning lights flickering all over South Africa when the favourites got the capacity stadium roaring with the kind of forward drive you normally expect from the Boks. With the first French try coming all too easily, there was a danger the Boks wouldn’t just lose, but lose convincingly.
But Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber had a plan and the non-appearance of the usual superiority in the physicality stakes, with the boot seeming to be on the other foot for once, didn’t matter. Their hunch that the French might struggle with the ball kicked onto them was proved correct. It led to the first Bok try and the second to Damian de Allende. The Bok selection, with Cobus Reinach and Manie Libbok starting, was geared towards devastating transition and making the most of the scraps that came their way in a first half played at a furious tempo and which France dominated in terms of possession and territory.
The three tries the Boks scored may have looked soft to French eyes and to neutrals and they were against the run of play. But they came about because the South Africans were geared for the counterattack, when they had the ball they moved it through the hands quickly and made quick decisions that had the French floundering. It was those first half tries that kept the Boks in the game, with just three points separating the teams at the break when it could have been 15.
SUPERBLY TIMED SUBSTITUTIONS
The Bok substitutions were superbly timed. It did look like an odd decision to substitute Libbok with Pollard so early in the second half, and ditto Faf de Klerk with Reinach, and Pollard did make a mess of his defensive role. The Bok scrambling was up to the challenge, so Pollard got away with it though and then kicked a magnificent long range clutch penalty that ultimately made all the difference to the result. So probably did the experience and steadiness that the winners had through those substitutions in the second half.
The big boosts though were the changes at loose forward and, later in the piece, in the front row. Ox Nche and Vincent Koch brought scrum dominance with them when they came on and were clearly better than the French replacements. Deon Fourie, initially on as a flank and not a hooker, was joined by Kwagga Smith in bringing energy at the breakdown and much like that was an area where the Boks lost their big Pool game against Ireland, this time it was where they turned the tide in their favour.
FRANCE LOOKED LIKE THEY RAN OUT OF PUFF
The way the Boks played the game it appeared that the coaches were expecting France to tire, and they did. Although the French did have one final fling at it off the last move of the game, it always looked like it was the Boks who had the superior fitness and were systematically taking control of a game that for much of the first hour they looked likely to lose.
A key period for the Boks was the third quarter, where although they played the first 10 minutes of that period without the yellow carded Eben Etzebeth, they somehow managed to concede just three points. It wasn’t the Boks’ best night defensively, at least not in the first half, for if you want to call the Bok tries soft, then at least two of the French tries were soft too.
The Boks did appear to grind the French down in that second half, but this wasn’t a game that was won on testosterone, but on innovation and tactical acumen. An example was Etzebeth’s try, the only one in the second half and the one that effectively won the game. Many would have thought the Boks were daft when they opted to set up an old-fashioned tap penalty when they had an attacking penalty.
They didn’t execute it conventionally though, with some of the Bok forwards setting off as decoy runners which brought the space RG Snyman needed to thunder the ball forward and spark the momentum that led to his lock partner forcing his way over. Etzebeth epitomised the Bok spirit - he just refused to let the French players in his way impede his resolve to get the ball over the line.
GOOD THAT EBEN’S CARD NEVER HAD THE ULTIMATE SAY
Etzebeth was immense and can’t be blamed for the yellow card either. Yes, maybe it was the correct call from the match officials according to the letter of the law, but there was nothing intentional or malicious about it and was effectively yet another of those cards that came about by accident. Thank goodness for the Boks, and for rugby’s standing as a sport, something that was certainly advanced by the two semifinals that featured top four teams, that the card didn’t impact on the result.
Etzebeth though wasn’t alone, and Cheslin Kolbe, Jesse Kriel, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Frans Malherbe all put in huge performances, though it is almost unfair to mention them by name as the entire 23 did their jobs. And that was effectively what saw the Boks home - their commitment, organisation, and adherence to the plan.
It is a very different plan, the whole Bok approach to the tournament itself and in microcosm form during a match itself is so fluid and changeable seemingly on the hoof, to what got them over the line in Japan four years ago.
This was a game in some ways like the one that really announced this group as contenders five years ago, the one in Wellington against the All Blacks when they scored six tries while having so little possession. Then, as now, it was a superbly worked plan. In most of the stats that should matter the Boks came second, but they found a way to win against a team playing at home in front of a loud and fiercely partisan crowd.
That’s what makes champion teams, and the Boks are a champion team and are still reigning champions. England might be more difficult semifinal opponents than many expect but the smart money should be on them getting through to the final and carrying their status into the last game of the tournament. Regardless of what happens from here, they’ve made a great fist of their title defence. And the two teams favoured by northern critics are out of the tournament.