The last round of SuperBru’s Rugby Championship 2012 could prove to be the most tricky one of the lot.
The Boks seem to have finally found the right balance in player positions and played an exciting fast tempo brand of rugby versus Australia a week ago. The loose-forward combination is right, Ruan Pienaar although nothing to write home about, seems to at least be appreciating the benefit of quickball, finally the Boks have a flyhalf who doesn’t stand in the pocket all game long, Jean de Villiers is where he belongs at inside centre. The Boks have newfound confidence and look like they are peaking. With the All Blacks having clinched the title for 2012, normally one would assume that their motivation levels would drop for this encounter. There is however a small prize of a new unbeaten test run down the line if they can negotiate their way past this difficult Springbok hurdle. Chasing that record could prove to be incentive enough for Steve Hansen’s team.
After all their hard work and pleasing results prior to last weekend, the Pumas really let themselves down on home soil by losing 54-15 to the All Blacks. It’s difficult to figure out how they will regroup after that game and what tactical adjustments they’ll make to be more competitive this weekend. Their opponents Australia have never been a great touring team, even when they were at their best. Now they are pretty close to being at their worst. A defeat in Rosario would surely put beyond any doubt the end of Robbie Deans’ fairly poor tenure as Aussie head coach. Although it’s Nathan Sharpe’s final test match this might not be a good enough incentive for the injury depleted Wallabies to go out and perform.
Difficult to predict outcomes could result in a change at the top of the SBR SB leaderboard.
| POS | NAME | POINTS |
| 1 | Orch | 13.50 |
| 2 | Rover | 13.00 |
| 3 | Beet | 12.00 |
| 4 | Gungets Tuft | 12.00 |
| 5 | BunnyChow | 10.50 |
| 6 | Pedantic | 9.00 |
| 7 | Cynz | 8.00 |
| 8 | ArchieN | 6.50 |
| 9 | HORSEFLY | 5.50 |
| 10 | Mal | 0.00 |
To be honest, Europe is the right place for Steyn to play. He is poor against SH sides that run at you and counter attack. The kick and chase game will suit the conditions. We wont get much difference from Jaantjies.
@All Black: There is so little local rugby left between now and the EOYT, one has to wonder where or when Morne Steyn finds the opportunity to redeem himself. But then again the choices at 10 appear to be limited in terms of what the CC has to offer: Catrakilis, Viljoen, Ebersohn, Brummer, James, Fouche. Lambie and Grant are possibly the only real contenders to displace Steyn.
I guess we now need another 10 for EOYT. Goosen out till next year. Jaantjies and Steyn will go.
Greenblooded: Sometimes you make you make your bad boy prefect to keep him good. :grin:
Gungets: I like his hair color though.
@All Black: The last fly-half we had with the sort of timing that we need was Butch James. He had other issues but his ability to put players into space was brilliant. I actually cannot think of a SA player right now with the ability to do that.
Must confess to not being a huge Kitshoff fan. The big boys will fold him in 1/2, he has some way to go still. id=hockey player – so what do I know :sad:
@All Black: I have the same worry about Scalla and Bissy as captain – namely their knack for attracting cards. No good to the team when your fearless leader is in the naughty corner for 10 mins or worse.
@beet: and Gungets.
Captain will be Bismark when he is back. Willie Le Roux is a great option for Currie Cup but pace against Dagg etc I think he will be found wanting. We need to counter the pace and skill of the AB backline if we want to be the best. Kirchner will not break any game and Hougaard is like a fish out of water. Back 3 of JP, Ruhle and Habana is special. Serfontein could be a great in next years side. Bit unsettled at the moment. I punished myself by watching the 2nd half of the test 3 times. We have no-one who can score a try like Conrad Smith or Nonu or Dagg. They just ceate so much space with time and ease.
@beet: I like Reinach a lot – I think he has been one of the main reasons for some good Sharks performances. Gets the ball away smartly, nice and stocky and hard to tackle around the fringes and got lot’s of gas off the mark.
Leadership is a huge issue, am I the only one who thinks that Burger might not be the man, for no other reason that he is normally buried deep under a heap of bodies. I also wonder how long he is going to last withe him being a big-hit player.
Big hooker – the okes from KES are going to have a field day with that .. on your Marx …
And Chilli is back …
@Gungets Tuft: Personally I won’t want to see JdV in any other possie except 12. But I agree that it is time to start considering talking of him in a Bok past tense. The big question becomes one of leadership. Who do the Boks appoint in his place, not that Jean’s captaincy is anything special. Perhaps the return of Schalk Burger will solve this issue. Otherwise we don’t seem to have obvious leadership in the settled Bok players at the moment.
A good centre prospect is Jan Serfontein. Still very young and inexperienced but the size, strength and most importantly quality are already visible in his game. I prefer him at 12 but possibly a role at 13 is not out of the question either come 2013. IMHO Rhule is looking like a good prospect not just becasue of his attacking skills but because of his hands and defensive work as well. We have several good youngsters in SA who shine with frontfoot ball in hand but are sadly also really challenged to hold onto a pass and are close to being out of their depth when having to turn around or back-peddle to deal with a tactical kick on defence. Sbura and Mvovo are 2 that come to mind. So I would prefer Rhule as a wing at this stage.
@All Black: A player I’m really enjoying watching is fullback Willie le Roux of the Griquas. I certainly wouldn’t mind trading him for Riaan Viljoen for the Sharks’2013 SR campaign. But agree that Lambie is not in Goosen’s class but Goosen is proving to be quite injury prone unfortunately.
Interesting choice of yours of Reinach at 9 for Boks. I was really disappointed to see McLoed in ahead of him on Sat. Scrumhalf in SA is a concern for me. I’m not really seeing many 9s in junior rugby that excite me. I’m also a little worried about hooker. I think we are seeing too many smallish 4th l/fwd type hookers (<1.79m) coming through the system and as a Bulls scout pointed out to me, lots of them seem to struggle with lineout accuracy. I'd feel a lot more comfy if we had some big hookers coming thru as well.
@All Black: Habana at 15 is not the worst idea in the world. He is good in the air, loves the broken play that would result when he runs from the back. Can he learn the positional play though, and does he have the last ditch defence?
De Villiers is starting to show signs of age, how about Ruhle in there?
@beet: Problem is that Goosen is better than him at 10. He wont get much game time unless he plays 15. Compare Lambie to Dagg and you suddenly see the gulf in pace. We dont have any body with that game breaking ability. The other option to inject pace is Habana at 15. He is a ball player and could be devastating. My thoughts are that we have brilliant, pacy wings in JP, Mvovo, Ruhle, Basson etc so move the older, tested veteran into a position that requires less one on one pace but will allow for game breaking play. The more I think about it the more I like Habana at 15. Now you will have a back 3 with pace.
@All Black: The Ghanian express – I think Rhule has added a zero to the end of his next contract during this CC season. It doesn’t hurt having Andy Capastagno as an agent
, at least it sounded that way by the commentary.
I honestly prefer Lambie at 10 to 15. I just think he doesn’t have the explosiveness, long boot or aerial skills in traffic to ever be anything above a useful 15. However at 10 he commands the gainline and makes high std run-kick-pass decisions that sents him apart from many other in that position.
Habana has played center and would add pace and game breaking ability. His defense would need to be far more controlled but he is good enough for that.
@Gungets Tuft: To be honest I dont care what province gets him as long as the Boks find him. He has the pace and feet that we were missing against the AB’s. We just do not have the game breakers that they have. My Bok backline for EOYT with a controversial element:
15. Lambie
14. Ruhle
13. Habana
12. JDV (Swansong)
11. JP
10. Goosen
9. Reinach
Bench
20. Hougaard
21. Mvovo
22. Taute
@All Black: Sharks need to buy Rhule. He is so suited to the Sharks style, Cheetahs as well I suppose but we should have him.
@beet: Yep agreed. The rolling mauls were well dealt with by the AB’s but on two occasions should have been penalized for collapsing. Rolland is a good ref who is not good at breakdowns or scrums/mauls. His ability to keep a game going however overides this. Should have been a yellow for the tip tackle. I hate the law but if it is there it has to be blown. Mc Caw drives me insane. His little touch of the ball in the ruck was crucial when we were on attack. Right in front of Rolland. Jaantjies is also in the Morne Steyn mould. Great kicks but was never going to attack the gain line. Carter got tackled many times trying to have a go and he is the best 10 in world rugby. Goosen getting injured was a huge blow. Would have had Lambie at 10. Cilliers should have been on the bench. Coenie is TH and nothing else. Love Kitshoff. Any comments on this Raymond Rhule from OFS. Damn I like him.
@All Black: Thanks. To be honest I also believed the Argies would defeat Aus but backing Aus seemed like a chance worth taking. I watched the highlights of the game and Arg just lacked disciple at the rucks and made far to many unforced errors. Pity coz they had great crowd support and Aus are weaker than ever.
I also agree re the Boks. There wasn’t much in most facets of the game. We probably should have aborted the rolling maul approach which the ABs seemed to have covered and tried to vary our attacking play a lot more. Nailing a few more kicks would have also helped but essentially weakness on defence further away from the breakdown cost us dearly. In the first half the ABs kicked a lot of ball away and their kicking game generally wasn’t good. The much talked about ability to change the game plan/approach did not escape Steve Hansen.
The international future doesn’t look too bright for Coenie Oosthuizen at TH either. At best the penalty magnet is a LH. But with Kitshoff on the rise, a starting LH berth down the line might not be a guarantee. Perhaps the coach has to monitor the progress of Marcel vdM more closely as a possible bench cover for both TH and LH at the moment.
Well done Beet. Come from behind victory. Argies let me down in what must have been their best chance for the next 10 years of beating anyone in the competition. Ha ha.
With regard to the Boks. Great 1st half and then our midfield fell apart. Defense is far easier if you communicate, keep your lines and defend your channel. Too many players shooting up when it is too late. There is also patience on defense. Trust the cross cover or you will panic ala Habana and Hougaard. Other than that there was not that much between the sides. Some close calls by ref that could have helped in the 2nd half (McCaw off his feet AGAIN). No complaints though.
@GreenBlooded: I agree, but I thought the midfield defence lacked. We just slipped too many tackles. Don’t get me wrong, I like Habana – when he is on song he is brilliant. I think he has had a really good series, hellovu high workrate but he let himself down (with de Villiers and Taute) yesterday not making sure of the 1st time tackles. Was amazed at Elton’s composure. He has never been a favourite of mine but he was solid when he came on yesterday. Must wonder why Hougaard is there. We would not pick him as either wing or #9 on merit, so why?. Still, JP looked in reasonable shape yesterday, so we have an out. By the end of the year Cobus Reinach might have played himself into the #9 berth with Pienaar .. no room for Hougaard.
All this opinion from a hockey player ….
@Gungets Tuft: I don’t think the Boks were all that bad yesterday. Sure some errors were made but the improvement since Steyn got the boot and we started running the ball is there to see. The All Blacks are simply awesome – unbelievable how they create space from nothing and their execution is second to none.
I think we were good yesterday – it’s just that they were so much better.
@beet: Someone has to tell Habana that an intercept is not a legitimate play in Union. He keeps bloody going for it when they are 1 on 1. He misses his man and it is almost an automatic try at this level. You real rugby okes correct me if I am wrong here but surely the only time you ever try and manufacture an interect is if you (as a defending team) have the overlap, or the attacking team are 2 or ore on one and it is the only defensive move you can make.
I just think Habana missing his man there was a turning point.
And when is Meter going to give Lambie a decent run. We are going to lose him to SA rugby if he carries on like this. Take the man out of Currie Cup for 8 weeks for about 60 minutes of rugby, ruining the mans career. This is the kind of thing that Ruan Pienaar faced and it ended up with him going overseas.
@beet: Sheesh. Ausie did well with the injury load. Argies 10 minutes from victory. Beet has only one pick to make to win it – Aussies. I knew I have made my pick for the Aussie game too early the moment I made it. Tactics were silly. Once I had seen the result of the SA match I should also have gone Aussies. Eeeisch. Well done Beet .. nice score in injury time :-)
@GreenBlooded: Agreed.
It was a lousy day for the Boks: predictable, poor D wider out, place-kicking woes continue. Boks have kicked 9/26 (35%)from the tee in last 3 tests. Fortunately all the Currie Cup results went the Sharks’ way incl. the BP which means we just need a win next week to secure home advantage in the playoffs.
@beet: Don’t gloat. It doesn’t become you. :grin:
@GreenBlooded: Ja, with their injuries I cannot see them taking the Pumas at home. The Aussies might not even see the ball.
Boks vs All Blacks is a difficult one … but I am not going to say anything cosYcos I see Beet, Archie and Redantic haven’t picked yet. Suffice to say that some of the picks are going to have game changing consequences. Good.
By the way, I am Rover.
Interestingly, all of us so far have predicted a Puma win over the sheep shaggers tomorrow!! Let’s hope so – that would make my weekend!