1. Yes, there were some dodgy selections which were shown up. These were not necessarily youngsters(in fact mostly the contrary), quota-related, or even really bad selections, and the coaching staff have obviously had some specific questions about individuals that they needed to have, and I believe have been, answered. In their quest I suspect they always knew they might be exposed in the process, but the answers they needed lie at the heart of their way forward in developing this team personnel and playing style wise, and had to be answered.

2. Not enough credit is being given to the wiley Leicester coaching staff. They picked two monster props who are veterans and ‘hardebaarde/ou manne’ and two hookers of the same calibre. Losing Ben Kay just before the match, they pulled Ayerza the prop and replaced him with Stankovitz, an even better scrummager, because they were then forced to pick two smaller inexperienced locks. Cudos to them. I don’t believe the Bok test pack would have done any better.

3. Everybody is blaming our loosies for not providing us with an 8 man scrum, but the truth is Leicesters’ loosies didn’t scrum either. Go and look at the match again. Their loosies’ body position looked good and low while ours look high and bad, because we were going backward at a rate of knots. It was a question of their tight five monstering ours. And our props opted for illegal tactics to bail out of the scrums by collapsing, so no amount of further pressure from behind by the loosies would have made a difference. in fact during one scrum that split, Danie Rossouw went hurtling out of the scrum past Gurthro, and could have been injured. Truth being, in the Southern hemisphere 8man scrums are a luxury due the speed of the game, and you need especially your fetcher to hang loose to buy that extra split second. Hence the term loose forwards. So if 8man scrums were required, it should have been identified by the coaches and practiced in properly, as it is a departure from our style of play. Enough said.

4. One problem though, mentioning the scrum splitting, it showed one of the unsung values/ assets of Pierre Spies’ upper body power to keep the locks together behind the scrum when the frontrow struggles. This is one area where we missed him, and our no 8 defended on an ad hoc basis out wide and on the chase, but he was conspicuously abscent at the breakdown and tightloose in a team being severely stretched in those areas. But with ball in hand, to his credit, he was great, although it would have been nice if he could have made the cover tackle on Amorosino. At this level it is not good enough just to get there- you have to nail the tackle as well. And in the final moments, it would also have been nice if he had stuck to the structure instead of hurling the ball out wide in a high risk move, wheras the plan was clearly to slow it down until the defence was sucked in. But he was brilliant with ball in hand.

5. The Tigers’ style of play at the breakdown is a coached set style of play ensuring numbers and going forward over the ball to counter any possibility of fetching at the tackleball. Often, in the Southern hemisphere, they do not support their own weight in the rucks, and don’t even try. Instead, they go to seal off the ball. So, in my view, not even Heinrich Brussow would have been able to make a single steal on Friday.

6. As regards the captaincy, we should have started the game with the captain we ended it with. The moment he took over, the guys came together and he was clearly the glue that made them stick together in the last 10 minutes. Again I believe the coaches should have been on top of that one as well. Clearly, and hindsight is an exact science, the guys rallied behind him and for the first time played as a team. I predict a huge step up against Saracens.

7. I also got the feeling that the more experienced guys (the ussual test reserves), to a man, did not show any leadership in the team to help to pull the youngsters together and settle in.

8. Finally, they had an on-form 10 while ours made too many basic errors and kicked badly tactically. If I were the coach, given Earl’s game, I would have switched 10 and 15 early on. On that point, I believe Earl put one over on all his detractors in this game. Now I’m waiting for the consistency.

I totally agree. I think the problem Os has is that he’s a realist and speaks his mind when necessary. A vice in our beloved country.

I don’t support the Lions at all but I’m glad that Maku and Murray will go to a team where they have a good chance of starting, and subsequently excelling.

Maku has loads of potential and Murray was before his injury one of the few physically imposing centres in this country who actually went for the gap. His partnership with La Grange should be interesting.

Agree that Lions tend to buy all their POC players, but not sure if you can call them a graveyard just yet. Although Rose’s fall from consistent WP grace did start at the Lions…

Rugby philosophy differs between individual to individual so for a particular combination to work it would need complete buy in from all involved and not one opinion contradicting the next. This is why it possibly would not work for Os to be aligned with bok’s under Pdv unless they can both read from the same hymn sheet.

As jy nog in die omgewing is wil ek net cheers se.

Lekker dag.

Even if you don’t know it you have a fantastic sense of humour.

Who am I? A student.

And who are you to measure success in such a shallow manner?

I don’t usually respond to anything, but Os is one of the most respected and greatest players in the game that we love. Talking about him like that says nothing about him, who is a decorated player and a successful man-manager and coach, but a lot about you.

His views are his own, as he is an intelligent individual.

One’s opinion is exactly that, and if some people here are to be believed there are a million ways to succeed and they would make better coaches than anyone out there. Laughable.

#193,

Indeed.

1. If we are going to play mid week games on the eoyt and we are not going to play a full strength sides why don’t the dirt trackers play under the guise of the emeging Boks ??

This way if we do lose it is not the Bok brand that is tarnished as it was on Friday night, and clubs like Leicester don’t walk around with “hard ons” for a week because they beat the world Champions.

If however, before a tour we decide that we want to win all games on tour and that we will field a side that can be considered a test side or as close to a test side as possible and we then lose ,then fair game and the “hard ons” are deserved.

But if experimentation is the name of the game then it should be under the guise of emerging Boks.

2. Why after the hooter has gone is play allowed to continue till an infringement or a mistake occurs ?? Surely the game is played over 80 min plus injury time ???/IMO once the hooter has sounded that is it, game over, ref should blow time immediately !!