‘That performance won’t win a World Cup’
28 Aug 2010
John Smit conceded that the Springboks’ performances was well below-par despite a seemingly comprehensive victory.
The 44-31 scoreline suggests a comfortable win and polished performance, but that is a flawed perception. Certainly the Springboks showed good character to rebound after trailing early, but Smit was forthright in his assessment of the showing, refusing to hail the victory, their first in five matches, as a turning point.
‘Games get complicated when you have starts like that,’ Smit said of the Springboks’ diabolical performance out of the gate which saw them fall behind 14-0, then 21-7. ‘We were lucky that we were that poor for the first part of the game and not the last two minutes. So we had time to recover, but we wouldn’t have scripted it that way.
‘Thankfully we had a couple of guys who had seen that movie before. A more inexperienced side would have panicked. But that’s not a good performance and certainly not rugby that will win us a World Cup.’
Head coach Peter de Villiers was similarly measured in his assessment.
‘You will never play the perfect game. Last week we were a lot more intense, but this week we were more composed. In Soweto the guys were afraid to make mistakes and that showed in our play. Today that wasn’t the case and I think we benefited from that,’ he said.
At Soccer City De Villiers was conservative in the use of his bench, but tonight his faith in the wood riders was rewarded, Chiliboy Ralepelle, in particular, excelling. The matches were similarly close, but De Villiers explained his decision to introduce replacements this week, compared to his reluctance to last week, saying: ‘We were in complete control here with or without the ball. When you have that sort of control it’s easier to make the substitutions.’
De Villiers also defended the form of Bryan Habana, whose fundamental error in the first half cost the Springboks seven points, intimating that the wing, along with Smit and Victor Matfield, are fatigued. This is despite conditioning coach Neels Liebel telling the media that the squad were in optimum condition just a fortnight ago.
‘These guys [Smit, Matfield, Habana] don’t know how it feels to feel good any more,’ he said. ‘They’ve exceeded the maximum game time they should have played.’ He was non-committal when asked if they would be rested for the final Test.
Smit said that significant defensive improvements were needed for the Test in Bloemfontein next week, explaining that the loose form tonight’s match took was unlikely to be replicated.
De Villiers added: ‘This defeat doesn’t make Australia a bad team. We did well to put pressure on their key players, but they are dangerous when they get space and we’ll have to be aware of that again next week. They’ve got some good dancers in the team, guys who can dance without hearing music. We’ll have to be a lot tighter defensively if we want to shut them out again.’
57 Comments
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30 Aug 2010, 00:33 am
OK 5-30 my time. Time for a dop. See you through the window. play nice.
30 Aug 2010, 00:37 am
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-47: Yes, Sale Sharks also use it
Old news
The Springboks’ training session in Brisbane on Monday was cancelled – and all because of advanced technology.
Peter de Villiers revealed on Monday that he is not only a coach who prefers the man-management approach, but he also puts great store in science and technology aiding him in his steering of the Springbok ship.
“The guys’ bodies are quite sore and I decided it would be sensible to keep them off the field today. We have this GPS system tracking the players and, after looking at all the results, we made the decision last night already that the workloads on their bodies were too much,” De Villiers said.
30 Aug 2010, 00:45 am
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-49:
cmon, St Johns ?! you must be very proud. And a decent b-ball team to follow too huh.
Cool.
Freshers Week (its ‘Orientation Week’ in Aotearoa and lasted more like 2-3 weeks……..some might say ‘years’) are the best times of your life, no ?! My friends stepson was was caught drinking underage by the campus police at Penn State in his Freshers Week last semester and apparently its ’3 strikes youre out’ – his Dad, a retired NYC-detective, was none impressed.
Greatest times of yer life !
30 Aug 2010, 00:46 am
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-50:
I get a migraine just thinking about TV on the Radio. Funeral beats.
30 Aug 2010, 01:16 am
Interesting this one, from a neutral scribe.
And how they laughed as they mocked the helter-skelter non-structured rugby that the ABs brought to the table in 2009; and how the wheel has now turned…..
Don’t be fooled by adrenalin thrill
By Peter Bills
South Africa and Australia came close to producing a new version of rugby this morning in Pretoria.
It was essentially rugby sevens played with 15 men a side – an interesting hybrid model which, alas, I don’t think has a future.
Neither, for that matter, does either of these teams if they continue to play the game in such a dumb fashion.
Yes, it was entertaining enough if you just want the vicarious pleasure of watching players dive over the whitewash. But for any serious observers of the game it was close to a joke at times. “Surreal” was how one leading world rugby official called it, and he was right on the money.
Not to put too fine a point on it, it was a kind of rugby diarrhoea.
Tries spewed out at regular intervals, with no-one on the field apparently able to control the flow.
There were nine tries scored and only some desperate, scrambling defence by both teams prevented that number being doubled.
Back in New Zealand, there must have been expressions of bemusement mixed with humour on the faces of the All Blacks players and coaches.
For this was a game that told us exactly why New Zealand are already home and hosed as 2010 Tri-Nations Champions, not to mention Bledisloe Cup holders yet again.
All the structure, authority and composure the All Blacks have brought to the international game this year, even while playing an open, attacking game, was missing in Pretoria. We had the farcical situation of Australia leading 14-0 after just four minutes, 21-7 after 11 minutes and then 28-17.
Yet all the while, Robbie Deans’ side never had control of the game. At times, it exactly mirrored Sevens – one side scored, the restart went to the opposition and they scored. Six tries were scored in the first half alone yet of that tally, four were down to gross defensive errors and a fifth came from a forward pass.
That summed up the game, really. Unforced errors lay all over the field, like corpses on the Somme. Technically, it was pretty lamentable and merely served to confirm New Zealand’s overwhelming technical superiority in their rugby this year.
South Africa won in the end chiefly because of their traditional line-out excellence at critical moments in the crucial final quarter.
Leading 34-31 with the game finely balanced, the Springboks seized two vital Wallaby line-out throws which stole away potentially vital attacking platforms deep in the Boks 22, from the attacking Australians. Victor Matfield, on his 100th Test cap appearance, reminded us of his timeless ability and those around him deserved
praise, too.
Even worse for Deans’ side, they then butchered two simple tries which were there for the taking had their players simply made the ball do the work by taking out opponents with passes. Instead, mindless shifting of the pill across field which allowed the defensive line to drift ruined at least two scores.
Another was saved when impressive half-back Francois Hougaard got across to smash Adam Ashley-Cooper in the tackle, forcing him to spill the ball rather than walk it in over the line.
Australia couldn’t come back after that glut of missed scoring opportunities. But their decision making was awry in the final quarter too, when they turned down kickable penalties for punts into the corner. Their faith in hooker Saia Faingaa’s line-out throws was misplaced.
There was none of the precision or clinical execution we had become accustomed to seeing from the All Blacks this season. Literally, they are in a class of their own on this evidence.
Bryan Habana dropped a simple re-start kick and then missed James O’Connor on the outside for one try; Kurtley Beale made the ‘Boks defensive line look about as mobile as the Maginot Line with a few sidesteps to open them up, leading to O’Connor’s first try and, at the other end, the defence parted like the Red Sea to allow the impressive Juan Smith to steam through an enormous hole to score for the Boks.
It was helter-skelter stuff, harum-scarum rugby with desperation written all over two ordinary teams. No-one ever really got a grip on the game with some proper structured rugby in the style of the New Zealanders.
So yes, for the uninitiated it was undoubtedly aesthetically pleasing and a real adrenalin thrill.
But don’t believe that all South Africans were fooled.
The vast swathes of empty seats in Pretoria, heartland of the South African game, told you plenty about what knowledgeable South Africans think of the present state of their side.
30 Aug 2010, 12:36 pm
Black pantie- To correct one of your stats re performing with resources, the Boks have won 50% of their RWC’s while NZ have won just over 16%…Having said that our Admin are trying there best to drop our pass rate!!
30 Aug 2010, 20:49 pm
@Olivergm(Olivergm)-56:
and exactly which of ‘my stats’ are you correcting ?
None of them, by the looks.
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