Consistency precedes control
30 Aug 2010
JON CARDINELLI admits there were some positive signs in Saturday’s win but is worried by the ongoing absence of consistency.
At Loftus Versfeld, the Springboks recorded their first win of the Tri-Nations, beat the Wallabies by a 13-point margin and scored five tries to double their tally in this year’s tournament. But those aren’t the only stats that matter.
The Boks may have ended a four-game losing streak, but are still failing in their long-term quest for consistency. This is preventing them from controlling a Test, as recent evidence will confirm.
In their one victory, they’ve mixed incredible resolve with first-class ineptitude. Most will remember last Saturday’s game as the fixture where they rallied from 21-7 down to win 44-31; an unbelievable turn around. But break the game down into two halves, and the inconsistency is clear. In the department of defence alone, they conceded four tries in the first half, and zero in the second.
They’ve been consistently inconsistent over the last five games, having won just two of the 10 halves of rugby. The fluctuation of each scoreline also tells a story. In Auckland, they were done 20-3 in the first half and 12-9 in the second. Wellington was a bit closer with the Boks trailing 13-7 in the first half and 18-10 in the second. Brisbane was similar to Auckland, with the Boks behind 17-3 at half-time, and the final 40 also ended with the Wallabies 13-10 ahead.
The honours have been shared since the Boks returned to South Africa. They led the All Blacks 16-14 at Soccer City before throwing it away in the second half, the visitors scoring 12 of their 15 second-half points in the last three minutes. Pretoria witnessed a switch in fortunes with the Boks trailing 28-24 at the break, then turning it on to thump the Wallabies 20-3 in the second half; their best half of rugby in the competition.
Those last 40 minutes showed the accuracy and intensity that were absent for the majority of the first 40. It was the accuracy and intensity that was lacking for most of the three-match Australasian tour.
The Tri-Nations is lost, but the Boks can build on the second-half showing at Loftus. The defence was better although it must be said the Aussies’ poor handling helped keep the visitors tryless. The Bok attack also showed some neat touches and the backline combination of Francois Hougaard, Morne Steyn, Jean de Villiers and Jaque Fourie looked dangerous.
The Boks will take another ugly win in Bloemfontein to finish the competition with two wins and the Mandela Plate. Ugly is not good enough, though, if you consider the Boks won’t face a top-three team until next year’s Tri-Nations. They need to make the most of this final opportunity. They need to take control.
A consistent performance will allow them to control proceedings. It would mark a reprieve and indicate there’s some direction and purpose to the Boks, and that after a disaster of a Tri-Nations, there’s still time to set things right before the 2011 World Cup.
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635 Comments
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30 Aug 2010, 23:31 pm
ok people. gotta go.
most of you are insane
have a good evening.
30 Aug 2010, 23:31 pm
@rangerman(rangerman)-543: it’s quite possible ranger, at this point one can’t discount anything. I know a cop a friend of mine’s car to Mount police station when they stopped him and saw that he was over the limit and still had 2 bottles of johnnie walker on the backseat… But they were quite close to the police station.
I really have no idea about gauteng metro police cops, they are quite arrogant and trigger happy with the chisa mpama!
They busted my brother in jozi for cracking an amstel inside a moving vehicle even though he was in the passenger seat and the driver was sober…
30 Aug 2010, 23:39 pm
Seems Bees will get more hits for Keo than John Smit
30 Aug 2010, 23:39 pm
@ET(ET)-547: nope not looking for trouble at all. Just won’t be cowered by spuriou, baseless accusations from a duplicitious, race obsessed HG who was reading kak between imaginary lines created by his own preconcieved ideas of who i am and what i’m supposedly prone to do.
30 Aug 2010, 23:41 pm
I thought traffic cops in SA carry fire arms, is that still the case?
30 Aug 2010, 23:43 pm
The Upperty Principled English got plenty to be proud about, I have absolutely no doubts nor deliberations about that. Plenty of stoic bloody bulldog mindedness that stood for principles where others shied away.
Though we talking about circumstance here, who is guilty and who is innocent in a state of abject atrocity? Bees’s mama believes one thing and the victims kinfolk quite the other. Now a state of war can be declared over principles bent in favor of ideology and conviction where one mans rights are another mans wrongs.
Not much right or wrong in a world of duality where the vague halo’s of innocence are dimmed out by the purgatory of self righteousness.
Bok’s should stay well clear of the confusion because confusion it is, it has only to be considered within the realms of the state of confusion it hails from which is a set of circumstances born and bred in antipathy and intolerance.
30 Aug 2010, 23:47 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-554:
Absolutely true. He assumes too much and then proceeds to cover his A R S E with an ” if it is ” bit of moronic garbage.
30 Aug 2010, 23:47 pm
@skopskiet(yliad)-556: Killing is wrong in any newspaper
None of that one mans view versus another view, same as none of that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter
Killing in self defence is an all together different topic
30 Aug 2010, 23:48 pm
Bit like jake whites mama then?
30 Aug 2010, 23:57 pm
Yip Jakey Fakey’s mama believes her son to be a saint, even though I know little differently, or so I believe.
Nobody’s perfect in purgatory, and by Jove its purgatory we living and breathing in as we find ourselves thrashing and writhing like fishes on land gasping for water.
If anyone were remotely near to perfection they simply wouldn’t be here, fraught within the confines of our despicably dubious dichotomous natures, as plain and simple as that, not so?
30 Aug 2010, 23:57 pm
What you appear to be suggesting is to aspire to a life of material detatchmnent, which is impossible. you yourself have strong personal feelings over racism, jake and hifalutunism. We live in the real world and in societies where certain norms and morals everyone tries to live by. Some morals change over time and culture but all of them condemn murder, including all the religions and spiritual traditions.
30 Aug 2010, 23:58 pm
@JL1(JL1)-558: Now who is to determine if its in self defense or out of rage and hatred, which version of events you gonna believe?
31 Aug 2010, 00:09 am
well the so called ‘real world’ needs to try and retain its judicial principles of right and wrong, as often blurred these rights and wrongs might become, depending who’s sitting in the throne at the time.
But ultimately the ‘real’ right, is often not the obvious one, as we are all led by the nose pertaining to our preconditioned conditioning.
So best anyone can do is try be as true to themselves as they possibly can be, but as imperfection is in an imperfect world of dubious dichotomous duality inspired circumstance, we have no free will of which to really speak ultimately.
Be born and bred with righteousness and goody2shoes tendencies surrounding your impressionable mind and by most accounts you may imbibe those attributes. On the other hand be born and bred with quite the opposite and a monster might become the offspring. Who decides, the initiator or the victim, who is the culprit and who is the unfortunate recipient of the circumstance?
Easy to sit in judgment from a vantage point of incomplete parameters of virtue, all that society can hold dear to is its principles of honor and morality, nothing wrong in that, though it is often devoid of all the salient facts.
31 Aug 2010, 00:09 am
So if this world is imperfect and therefore everything it is inherently flawed, dies this excuse all behaviour? Are you saying it is not for man to judge even if someone believes in the preciousness of life where there is no afterlife or any universal force that judges?
31 Aug 2010, 00:14 am
@skopskiet(yliad)-562: I do need to ro believe any version, no one made me judge, and hence I will not make judgement, I would speculate, but that would be from gathering my facts from a journo who tried as he or she may, will still try and put their view or angle across, therefore no judgment from me
31 Aug 2010, 00:23 am
Life is of course precious, and that goes for all living beings, not only man. So for us to proclaim our morality based on our principles of prejudicial incomplete awareness of who we are or where man fits into the grander scheme of things is really only a part of the whole charade.
Once we have aspired to an understanding that perhaps goes beyond judgment of conditional rights and wrongs and eyes for eyes or teeth for teeth type retributions, then perhaps we are verging upon the values which man should have always held to be his mainstay of humane morality.
Then perhaps at such a state of true compassion can man proclaim himself to be a paragon of real moral virtue, but where is such a man, I might say he exists and others will dispute or refute the fact.
31 Aug 2010, 00:34 am
No I’m sorry, that reasoning is not consistent. I agree the world is imperfect as are we all, and you are largely correct over the massive influence of conditioning, but I don’t subscribe to your general feeling of apathy at our helpless or lack of free will.
The universe may be cruel or even indifferent, but humanity can craft it’s own laws to at least try make an inherently imperfect world slightly more perfect or fair.
What happens beyond this world we have no control over whether we believe or not, but there is at least some control over the present one where things like racism and murder and such like we pronounce judgement on.
I’m out now for proper, will read tomoorow, but I will never support this nonsense as just being relative.
31 Aug 2010, 00:59 am
where all this so called free will gotten man so far, staring extinction in the face through his free actions creating unstable natural or political or economical or ecological circumstances beyond his manageable control.
Such is the freedom by which man wills his own destiny, he has absolutely none, else he would not have become subject to the wills and dictates of others like Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Idi Amin, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and closer to home, Mugabe, Verwoerd, Vorster, etc. etc. etc.
Not a case of apathy, its a case of act where your actions can bear fruit, act within the realms where your action begets results.
That is act upon oneself, all other activity is relative to outer stimulus and conditioning, the only avenue of real advantage is to act in a manner which benefits ones own evolution beyond the dictates of circumstantial conditioning, and that is another subject not easily discussed of here.
31 Aug 2010, 01:55 am
Yawn…………….
31 Aug 2010, 04:00 am
Sometimes I wonder if it will be worthwhile to understand what skop is actually trying to say…but when I get the urge I just take a Disprin and lie down for a while and the urge usually goes away!
What I really struggle with is how a person with so many preconceived ideas about other people can get on the podium and start preaching about “going beyond’ and “true compassion”?
31 Aug 2010, 04:18 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-570:
I managed the first two sentences of post 568 and then gave it a miss….
Ramble on as the boys from Zep used to say!
31 Aug 2010, 05:20 am
@whatever(whatever)-571:
As a self confessed teetotaler we will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he does not drink, but hell, he surely smoke some heavy stuff…
31 Aug 2010, 08:32 am
@Transformation(Transformation)-554: What happened was that you, ET & Nama thought you could be sly and insinuating about an alleged crime and were called, caught out and shown up for what you are – no better than those you despise…
31 Aug 2010, 08:35 am
@ET(ET)-522: why don’t you show the whole context of my question to you – a manipulative bitter racist can be black, white or any hue in between – you were shown up for what you are…
31 Aug 2010, 08:38 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-573: @Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-574:
Yawn…..
Come on mate….not another day of this….please?
31 Aug 2010, 08:39 am
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-534: “For your information HG has posted something very racists and was caught out with it not so long ago.” – whats that? Calling devious little Kiwis – hobbits, orcs, south sea islanders?
shame, your poor, precious, sensitive, antipodean soul…
twat!
31 Aug 2010, 08:40 am
@grant10(grant10)-575: Just wrapping up. Will be quiet unless there is a silly response…
31 Aug 2010, 08:43 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-577: much appreciated…..
31 Aug 2010, 09:01 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-573: insinuate what exactly? Shut up, you’re an exposed liar and charlatan!
31 Aug 2010, 09:04 am
oh fark…..seems the skirmish becoming a battle…
I am headed for a trench…..hopefully a bloody deep one!
31 Aug 2010, 09:07 am
why worry about nama1? isn’t he a young boy? as far as i can remember nama1 told everyone that he was a virgin ..lol, f knows why
31 Aug 2010, 09:08 am
@Transformation(Transformation)-579: the only exposed fibber is you with your halfarsed explanation of what you wrote… I have never seen so much back pedalling about trying to twist the translation of words you wrote yourself…
Why not just say to agile what you mean – instead of writing figuratively in the “vernacular” as you put it…
Some understand you perfectly – you gambled, you were called and you lost that poker hand buddy…
31 Aug 2010, 09:08 am
@I_support_BEES(suffer_guy)-581: Nama has more integrity and character in his small toe than you will ever muster in your whole bloody existence….plonker!
Outta here
31 Aug 2010, 09:09 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-582: oh fark
Wheres my staakdak….
31 Aug 2010, 09:12 am
staaldak
31 Aug 2010, 09:12 am
grant10, a insult from you will never upset me.. we all know you as being a ou malkop omie .. to prove my point = you have drinks with rosseneri – the female version of robert mugabe
31 Aug 2010, 09:14 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-582: umsunu wakho, translate that arsehole!
31 Aug 2010, 09:19 am
@Transformation(Transformation)-587: Point proven – you write insults in the “vernacular”… caught out again…
Why do you like sharing the same views as ET? Thought you were better than that – but I suppose its easy just to be an unquestioning follower…
31 Aug 2010, 09:19 am
@I_support_BEES(suffer_guy)-586: and Rossoneri has more brains, integrity and character than you will ever have in 10 lifetimes….
31 Aug 2010, 09:20 am
thank heavens i have a busy day
now really outta here
31 Aug 2010, 09:20 am
whatever you say grant … mr weskoppies 2010
31 Aug 2010, 09:27 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-588: arsehole…i’m done with you, carry on lying to save face…all those that know isiXhosa know exactly what i wrote, no matter what you say you remain a lying fraud and that’s what i will deal with evert time from now on!
You’re a lying, conniving fraud only interested in sowing division amongst bloggers! Hahaha you didn’t succeed mnqundu because agile knows the truth about what i said. Hahaha
31 Aug 2010, 09:31 am
@I_support_BEES(suffer_guy)-581: Hello Pietman. Welcome back.
31 Aug 2010, 09:32 am
if i was the NZ coach, i’d be sh!tting myself. If you need a cheating ref, a forward pass, a p!ss poor TMO to beat the boks without FDP, Bakkies, Brussouw, a off form : Matfield, J Smit, habana, spies … eish … Boks to beat NZ by 14+ in the RWC final
31 Aug 2010, 09:32 am
@Transformation(Transformation)-592: “sowing division amongst bloggers”, lol… You give me much credit – Machavellian HG, hehehehe
I just called it for what it was – if it wasn’t then why the upset, strife, raw nerves and then further insults in the “vernacular”?
Who told agile the truth? You? Lol…
Go follow your hero ET…
31 Aug 2010, 09:34 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-588: HG. You got caught out trying to make out something that was not true. Let it go for fark sakes. You’re making it worse for yourself.
I’ve always known you as a robust blogger, but you could have said you misunderstood instead of persisting with twisting what someone said to suit your rant. Damn.
31 Aug 2010, 09:40 am
arme pietman kry ook die skuld vir als
31 Aug 2010, 09:42 am
@I_support_BEES(suffer_guy)-597: As it should be. Pietman
31 Aug 2010, 09:47 am
i’m not pietman …
31 Aug 2010, 10:02 am
@I_support_BEES(suffer_guy)-599: Well after all the nic stealing of earlier in the year, and the blatant targeting of certain bloggers, together with Pietman’s dramatic exit, I get that you have to hide who you initially were here on Keo. It’s okay Pietman. We can handle it, if you missed a real blog instead of the back patting. Get out of the closet already. We know it’s you.
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