Struggling for a silver lining
7 Sep 2010
JON CARDINELLI writes that although the Boks scored 13 tries in this year’s Tri-Nations that attacking success needs to be viewed in perspective.
Defence has been identified as the biggest pitfall in a botched campaign. The Boks finished their worst ever Tri-Nations with the most porous record in the tournament’s history. They leaked 22 tries and conceded the four-try bonus in four of their six matches.
Some have pointed to the attacking displays in Pretoria and Bloemfontein as one reason to feel encouraged. They argue that those fixtures, where the Boks scored eight tries in total, were outstanding examples of how rugby should be played.
They ignore the fact that the Wallabies came to South Africa with a largely inexperienced group, and that over the course of two matches were as diabolical on defence as their hosts.
The stats confirm the fact. The Boks missed 29 tackles and the Wallabies 33. The Boks were allowed to make 19 linebreaks while the Wallabies cut the opposition on 18 occasions.
If people enjoy that kind of rugby, they should push for a new law that limits defence. Both Tests were dramatic, but won’t go down as two of the classics. The players have expressed their regret for multiple errors, and while the Boks have to improve their defence, they also need to sharpen their attack.
Put those two freakish Tests aside, and the Boks’ attacking record reads five tries in four matches. When South Africa came up against a solid defensive line in this year’s Tri-Nations, they struggled.
The Wallabies will finish second in this year’s Tri-Nations, but it will be a distant second to the trend-setting All Blacks. Graham Henry’s side has been the best attacking unit, and have also set the standard on defence. They’ve conceded just seven tries in five games, and are yet to allow the opposition a four-try bonus point.
The All Blacks’ superior and belligerent approach to the breakdown blunted the Bok attack in New Zealand, and even though South Africa brought more intensity to the fixture at Soccer City, they still weren’t as accurate as their Kiwi counterparts. An overall lack of intensity and accuracy has stifled the Bok attack in 2010.
Selections also contributed to an underwhelming attacking performance. Picking Jean de Villiers on the wing in New Zealand limited the midfield’s attacking options, while sticking with an out-of-form Bryan Habana did the team no favours. Gio Aplon showed some spark, and should have featured in all three home Tests.
While there’s no replacing the all-round brilliance of Fourie du Preez, Francois Hougaard proved himself as a useful alternative. The Boks looked better with De Villiers and Fourie together in midfield, but Morne Steyn isn’t the answer at No 10. He kicked flawlessly at goal on the home leg, but the Boks need a flyhalf who can attack with purpose.
The defection of Ruan Pienaar to Ireland is unfortunate, as is Butch James’s serious shoulder injury (James was supposed to start in Bloemfontein). These are two players who can lend the Boks some purpose from the pivot position. If Morne Steyn continues at 10, the Boks will perpetually fail to threaten an organised defence.
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163 Comments
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8 Sep 2010, 01:10 am
Straelis Boks scored 13 tries in 4 games in 2003, tries scored are irrelevent when the defence is so weak, the defence has gone to pot in the last 2 years, the truth is it was **** last year as well
One good thing i would take from the games is the character they showed to comes back especially from 25 points down, that takes some going, but the way they have gifted so many tries is worrying, lets be honest how hard did the opposition have to try to get any of those 22 tries?
Im pretty sure in Mallets first 2 years they barely conceded that amount
8 Sep 2010, 01:11 am
yeah whatever just like you second rate chicken runners who got no balls, PdV will smack you poncified prats from here to eternity
sometimes I actually hope you get your wish, get your second rate Judas Jake and Judas Jones to come do a coup de etat conniver take over and see exactly where it gets you and where we land up
Jake and Jones get this team its tickets I’m telling you straight out, klaar gelag. I actually hope this schmoozer Hoskins chickens out and bales out the back door and sidles up to his old arch enemy and does a backhand little dark alley deal with the impostor.
Then you schmucks will get your just deserts.
If SA rugby want to compete with dignity at WC 2011 then they must go for it with De Villiers
If they wanna chicken out and compromise and take second best safety first options which is how they always wanna do it over here, then pick that two timing second grade underhanded toffee apple sweet talk garbage songster and do another merry little waltz down the aisle hand in hand with his better half in toe.
8 Sep 2010, 01:15 am
@whatever(whatever)-100:
“its simply because I don’t see race”
This must be one of the funniest posting ever on keo…I think we should change the “dragon” first post to the above sentence to give it its rightlfull place in history…?
8 Sep 2010, 01:19 am
Its always these second grade double standard two timing chicken runners like whatever or sjambok or you name them ex saffatjies that are up this schmucks A-hole like bees in a hive, birds of a f’ng feather this lot, one colonialist double take back stabber just as good as the next
Chicken cowards run for cover, duck and dive till the cows come home, behind each others backs, JW got EJ covering for him cos he knows he got zero cred where it actually counts, now the shady two timer wanna come make hay under someone else’s sunshine when he got saved by the balls by Hoskins once, he wanna come do it again. Come call up his old debt with Saru and pretend he’s the great messiah one more time.
The dudes f’ng despicable and these dumb second rate chicken running ex saffatjies up his naught like bees to honey, no wonder they reckon he’s made from Swiss cheese, he’s just like them.
8 Sep 2010, 01:21 am
1. New Zealand 94.29
2. Australia 86.04
3. South Africa 85.22
When De Villiers took over in January 2008 the Boks were ranked No 1, with 90.81 points.
Exactly how much dignity is there in dropping down the rankings? The worst you can do is nothing and leaving PDivvy in charge is doing NOTHING!!!
8 Sep 2010, 01:23 am
Jy moet die dokter gaan sien oor jou slaaploosheid, pille kan jou net so ver bring!
8 Sep 2010, 01:27 am
you see race Koos, which race you see chummy chum chum?
you see or smell the blood of an Inglish mon?
Yeah you wouldn’t know it till you walk in another mans shoes would you, its cos you feeble take cowardly European natives reckon you so sh’t hot superior the world is your oyster
It ain’t Mr. thats right, less you haven’t worked it out yet, your race ain’t superior to none other, get that through that thick Caucasian bone head and then you might realize that race is in fact a misnomer, a non event, a figment of your dumb deluded self righteous infatuation with your kith and kin to the tune where white ain’t right its left. And neither is black, or brown or yellow or pink or blue bottled jelly wobble insignificant pygmy canary colored Eskimo’s in Iceland.
Dumb schmuck idiots.
8 Sep 2010, 01:35 am
Whites Boks were ranked 4th on IRB world rankings on 8th Sept. 2007 when WC 2007 started
We emerged at No.1 6 weeks later Oct 20th as a result of defeating the following nations
Samoa 12th, England 7th, Tonga 14th, USA 16th, Fiji 13th, Argentina 6th, England 7th.
Meanwhile just a few months prior to the fiction rated world rating competition, we had once again lost to NZ and Aus successively over the previous 2 years to the tune of 7 defeats and 3 wins which is why we found ourselves ranked 4th going into that lucky packet day dream fairy tale WC shindig.
You still don’t get it at all, your eyes are simply widely shut. Forever, to eternity.
Poor fools.
8 Sep 2010, 01:51 am
World ratings are based on week-in,week-out, year-in-year-out consistency.
Knock-out tournaments are based on just having the lucky breaks on one or two days.
8 Sep 2010, 01:52 am
slaap tyd
trap sag in die woestyn, die miere luister en **** jou trappe lank voor jy nader kom.
alles van die beste… aan almal.
8 Sep 2010, 01:53 am
**** is glad nie n vloek woord, of dog het ek so gedink tevore.
8 Sep 2010, 01:56 am
Assumption is the mother of all f-ups skop, so on that basis I will ignore all the **** you assume about me.
But please do me a favour and explain why a person who see no race (his words), will use a public forum to talk about it in almost every single post (of numerous posts that is) to talk about it?
Who said anyhting about JW? My post refer to the fact that the Boks were #1 when PDivvie took over and has now dropped to #3. If you accept that then I am glad you will never build anything for me…3rd rated and all!
8 Sep 2010, 02:01 am
die site reken dit is so ek sal weer probeer try
ho@r as in h’or, as in luister, is glad nie n vloek woord, miskien moet iemand die webmeester die verskil leer tussen n meisie van die nag en die wat ons doen as ons luister na die musiek van die sfere, ons h0-er nie, ons h0-or.
8 Sep 2010, 02:10 am
Boks weren’t 1 for long, they lost to Baa Baas under Jake and Eddy then dropped to their familiar spot 2nd or 3rd either behind NZ or NZ and Aus in 08, same as they did when they went from 5th under Streauli to 1 in 04-05, then down again to 4th under Jake and the WC 07 resurrected their status back to 1 again temporarily as per usual.
P Div also went from 1 to 2 down to 3 back up to 1 again in 09 and down to 3 again now, maybe to go back up again if we strike another lucky packet WC draw just like last time, or even better we might earn it authentically this time by beating proper higher ranked opponents than we did before when they were all ranked below 6th and all and all.
As far as race is concerned like I said already its actually a misnomer, a figment of everyone’s imagination, only their imagination is so rife they reckon one particular color skin for some stupefied rhyme or reason denotes more intelligence or class or brain capacity or superiority in one dumb form or another compared to some other color skin.
Yeah its stupid I know so, but do anyone else think how stupid it actually is, I seriously do wonder?
8 Sep 2010, 02:14 am
nag alweer, die keer is dit rerig so, moet bietjie oe toeknyp anderstens is ek vaag in n paar ure se tyd.
8 Sep 2010, 02:25 am
But that is where you miss the boat and ASSUME (yes, we back at that!) that people classify races along colour lines alone.
Race classification is done based on various factors such as culture, language, social practice OR heritable characteristics.
See, only one reference to what may lead to classification according to skin colour.
At the end of the day we all belong to the species “**** sapiens sapiens but if you imply that means we all the same race, then you live in a dream world. We are not the same and using the criteria above we are divided into different races.
Being divided into different races is natural and not wrong. Where it does go pear shaped and where racism rears its ugly head is when certain races believe themselves to be superior to others.
You telling me every person who classify himself or herself as a specific race automatically qualify that person as racist, how can that be?
8 Sep 2010, 02:29 am
Aarg!!! **** = H0m0…kan die mense by keo nie h0or nie?
8 Sep 2010, 03:02 am
@BlueBlood(BlueBlood)-55:
Your name says it all.
Lets hope you dont believe in your post cos it shows you know nothing about rugby.
8 Sep 2010, 03:04 am
@RedLion is born again(RL)-63:
There isnt a copy around.
You can find the NZRU report but GH did not blame Barnes. I have posted it all ready,google it yourself if you are so interested
8 Sep 2010, 03:08 am
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-119:
Hehe Harrycane, how many errors did he point out though? Was it 33 or 53?
8 Sep 2010, 03:13 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-120:
Dont know,you tell the me and show me
8 Sep 2010, 03:43 am
Ok, only 17 errors then.
AB coaches call foul on Barnes
PlanetRugby, Thursday 15th November 2007
All Black coach Graham Henry and his assistants Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith have laid the blame for the side’s World Cup quarter-final defeat at the door of English referee Wayne Barnes.
According to the New Zealand Herald, Henry and his assistants produced video evidence of Barnes’s blunders in a performance review held behind closed doors at the New Zealand Rugby Union headquarters.
This is the first time that the coaching trio have publicly aired their discontent with Barnes’ refereeing in the All Black’s 18-20 loss to France. They previously maintained a diplomatic silence on the issue.
The coaches pointed out that Barnes and his assistants had ‘missed’ 17 errors made by the French team in the second half of the game.
France were not penalised once in the second half.
Henry and his assistants also pointed out that the yellow card awarded to inside centre Luke McAlister had cost them a try, as had a missed call on a clear forward pass.
It was also revealed that Barnes’s refereeing had been the main part of the coaches’ defence in their drive to hold on to their jobs.
The failure of the All Blacks to attempt a potentially match-winning drop goal in the dying minutes of the game was explained away by the coaches. The side opted to play for a penalty which failed to materialise.
The NZRU review committee will now present to the entire board on Friday all of its findings, which are likely to decide the fate of Henry and his assistants.
This is not the first time that Barnes’s refereeing has been questioned by New Zealanders.
8 Sep 2010, 03:45 am
But I get it, it was behind closed doors so it does not count.
8 Sep 2010, 04:05 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-123: certainly wasnt a “declaration of war” via media, or the hint of cullusion and conspiracy when mentioning “better they won because seats need being filled for a tournament the following year” via media..
8 Sep 2010, 04:06 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-123:
Ja well no fine
klink vir my dat n whinge is n whinge is n whinge!!
8 Sep 2010, 04:12 am
“If SA rugby want to compete with dignity at WC 2011 then they must go for it with De Villiers” – skopdoos
Another pearl of wisdom…….dignity…….????? Geez with Hellium there is vokall chance of that…
8 Sep 2010, 04:12 am
@poppa69(poppa69)-124:
And where did I say it was the same? I was only replying to Hurri who said it never happened at all.
8 Sep 2010, 04:13 am
@whatever(whatever)-126:
Los die man, hy het my lekker laat lag vanoggend!
8 Sep 2010, 04:18 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-128:
Yeah, I see that……. he has been on true skopdoos form
8 Sep 2010, 04:25 am
@RedLion is born again(RL)-63:
Wow, talk about off topic….
Or is this a concealed jibe at how PDV blames Bok loses on, McCaw, travel, ‘lack of tutu’s', weather, astrological alignment or the Ref’s for picking up on the foul play and binning a Bok?
At least Henry learnt from past mistakes, PDV still hasn’t learnt to keep his mouth shut on camera yet.
It’s damned embarrassing that the media are more interested in what bizarre headline PDV will provide rather than rugby information.
If PDV holds his job, Henry and Deans will be quietly smiling their way to the RWC.
8 Sep 2010, 04:45 am
Guess who said all this…
“Goodness man! Get yourself a spokesperson!”
“Even I don’t always understand what he says.”
“The entire organisation’s name is being dragged through the mud. It’s unacceptable.”
“We don’t like losing and are hard and unforgiving when it comes to rugby.”
One of the reasons for the team’s poor performances is that they play “too much rugby”.
“It’s not good for the body. We should not be tempted by money to the point that we are not prepared to rest our bodies.
8 Sep 2010, 04:55 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-131:
eeeerrrrr ?
8 Sep 2010, 05:02 am
@whatever(whatever)-132:
Take a wild guess…unless you know, then don’t spoil the fun!
8 Sep 2010, 05:38 am
115. skopskiet(yliad) ****
8 Sep 2010, 05:43 am
124. poppa69(poppa69) **** too
8 Sep 2010, 05:47 am
Pdiddy Devilliers???
8 Sep 2010, 05:52 am
@KevinRack(KevinRack)-135:
1 from 6
has them apples kevin?
8 Sep 2010, 05:54 am
“has them apples…” say what?
8 Sep 2010, 05:55 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-138: hows them apples, typo
8 Sep 2010, 05:57 am
@poppa69(poppa69)-139:
huh?
8 Sep 2010, 05:59 am
“1 from 6″………sounds like a WC record to me?
8 Sep 2010, 05:59 am
sorry, forgot the faarken smiley
8 Sep 2010, 06:00 am
@whatever(whatever)-141: take a closer look, thats the World Chumpions record in their last 6 games… really making a mockery of that title huh?
8 Sep 2010, 06:01 am
@poppa69(poppa69)-143:
Same can be said about WC titles you faarken smart arse Twat!
8 Sep 2010, 06:01 am
@poppa69(poppa69)-139:
It pays to take a little extra time when you want to wind someone up, making a mistake like that takes all the wind out of it and makes you look silly. Horua did the same yesterday…
8 Sep 2010, 06:02 am
1 from 6 yup, that would be right……….
8 Sep 2010, 06:03 am
@poppa69(poppa69)-143: forgot my faarken smilie
8 Sep 2010, 06:14 am
Poppa, while you here, maybe you can help me out. I have been contemplating it a lot lately but for the life of me can’t decide which is worse is it…
a) A whining Kiwi or;
b) A gloating Kiwi?
What do you think?
8 Sep 2010, 06:21 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-148: undoubtedly a conspiracy believing Saffa… they whinge more then the collective of NZ..
but im sorry you cant recognise that fact..
8 Sep 2010, 06:27 am
@poppa69(poppa69)-149:
I think you are going to extreme lenghts not to answer my question, all you had to say is that you don’t know. Instead you prefer to go down the generalisation route yet again. Pity that…
PS. Feel free to show me a single post where I gave the slightest hint of believing in any conspiracy. But don’t worry, there is no rush as you have time until the AB actaully win a World Cup….
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