The Rugby Thread

[Zapater]

Really pleasing Rugby Championship campaign. It's rare to win it and almost doing a clean sweep makes it sweeter. New Zealand and Australia will be stronger next year, so retaining it will be far from a given. Argentina are really good and if they can get their traditional strengths firing consistently (set piece), they'll be borderline unplayable.

Great season so far. Especially when blooding young or inexperienced players. Louw, Sacha, Fassi, Nortje and Steenekamp look the real deal. Moerat and Dixon still have plenty to prove.

2024 results:

Wales: 41 - 13 W
Ireland: 27 - 20 W
Ireland: 24 - 25 L
Portugal: 64 - 21 W
Australia: 7 - 33 W
Australia: 12 - 30 W
New Zealand: 31 - 27 W
New Zealand: 18 - 12 W
Argentina: 29 - 28 L
Argentina: 48 - 7 W

You'd take that, only losing two games by one point each. One with the drop right at the end and the other missing a very kickable penalty. On another day, the other game against Ireland and both against the ABs could have gone the other way, so not too much to complain about.

Scotland, England and Wales to wrap it up, would back us to finish strong but you never know. Would've loved a 'decider' against Ireland at the Aviva after the Durban game, oh well.

[Angryred]

Fail to plan, plan to fail & that's what happened to South Africa whilst Argentina took advantage of the opportunities handed to them!

[Zapater]

Fair play to them but to be honest we dug our own grave with that selection. Libbok is a great player but can't kick to save his life. Was obvious he was going to miss that. Shouldn't play unless there's a dedicated kicker in the team. I was shocked when Pollard went off and didn't slide into 12 to accommodate him. I can't complain too much because we've been on the right end of the narrow victories a lot lately. Not convinced Moerat should be captain either. Rassie obviously has a plan but it's not convincing at this stage.

Also, not blaming the ref but the rules themself. Ridiculous for Arendse to get a yellow in that situation. Shouldn't even be a card, let alone the ref sending it to the bunker for them to look to upgrade it. Runners are ducking lower and lower and it's almost impossible for tacklers to get low enough. Same with the head contact, time to employ some common sense. We were 17-0 or something up at the time and it completely changed the game. Well done for them for making full use of the opportunity but don't understand that at all. It would actually have been better for Arendse to let him run past him and try to catch him on the scramble, which is completely counter-intuitive but I guess that's where we are with the rules as they are.

And before I get unjustifiably called biased again for the millionth time, I don't like these things even when they go in our favour. Too many yellows, and it's disrupting the spectacle. So much rides on these decisions in games which are so close.

[Angryred]

Aye, they are getting stronger & stronger which I welcome!! We can't have the south of the equator dominated by NZ, SA or Australia for much longer.

[Buzzo]

Wow.

Ma-hoo-sive win for the Pumas.

[Irishnev]

Sorry for the late reply, been swamped this week.

I thought he was good, although he wasn't put under a hell of a lot of pressure and will have much harder tests down the line. The backline coach, Stick said he's an emulation of Damian Willemse which I can kind of see although it took Willemse quite a while to find his feet at this level. It seems like Sacha is settling in right from the get go, he's got some arrogance/swagger about him. Thought he was really good at fullback in the second test against Ireland but probably cost us the game at the end because he didn't need to take the ball out which gave Ireland the lineout which they used to set up the drop. At the end of the day, just one of those things, I guess. The first kick on the weekend was a shocker, he must've slipped but he seems to be pretty solid from the tee too which is good as Willemse definitely isn't.

I think of other hyped young players from South Africa like Duhan van der Merwe and JJ Engelbrecht too. It took them a while too, well in JJ's case it never quite happened on the international scene. So we'll see but early signs are promising.

When I first heard of JJ, some people were saying he was going to be an all time great…. It just never happened for him

[Zapater]

Will be interesting to see how we get on this weekend with this lot. First 5:3 split for a while:

15 – Aphelele Fassi (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 5 caps, 10 points (2t)
14 – Cheslin Kolbe (Suntory Sungoliath) – 34 caps, 96 points (15t, 3c, 5p)
13 – Jesse Kriel (Canon Eagles) – 72 caps, 80 points (16t)
12 – Lukhanyo Am (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 36 caps, 35 pts (7t)
11 – Makazole Mapimpi (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 43 caps, 150 points (30t)
10 – Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (DHL Stormers) – 5 caps, 25 points (11c, 1p)
9 – Morne van den Berg (Emirates Lions) – 1 cap, O points

8 – Elrigh Louw (Vodacom Bulls) – 5 caps, 0 points
7 – Pieter-Steph du Toit (Toyota Verblitz) – 80 caps, 45 points (9t)
6 – Marco van Staden (Vodacom Bulls) – 21 caps, 0 pts
5 – Ruan Nortje (Vodacom Bulls) – 1 cap, 0 points
4 – Salmaan Moerat (captain, DHL Stormers) – 8 caps, 0 points
3 – Thomas du Toit (Bath) – 19 caps, 0 pts
2 – Johan Grobbelaar (Vodacom Bulls) – 1 cap, 0 points
1 – Jan-Hendrik Wessels (Vodacom Bulls) – 1 cap, 5 points (1t)

Replacements:

16 – Malcolm Marx (Kubota Spears) – 68 caps, 85 points (17t)
17 – Ox Nche (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 32 caps, 0 pts
18 – Vincent Koch (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 53 caps, 0 points
19 – Eben Etzebeth (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 123 caps, 30 points (6t)
20 – Kwagga Smith (Shizuoka Blue Revs) – 44 caps, 40 pts (8t)
21 – Grant Williams (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 12 caps, 10 points (2t)
22 – Manie Libbok (DHL Stormers) – 15 caps, 91 pts (1t, 28c, 10p)
23 – Handré Pollard (Leicester Tigers) – 72 caps, 732 points (7t, 98c, 162p, 5dg)

[Zapater]

I saw that innovative double pod line out drive switcheroo try. Wonder if we will see that copied or rules come in to stop it. There’s a such fine line in forward play between innovation/deception and what gives unfair advantage as the game advances the game - but at least the rules are constantly tweaked. The 50/22 is one of the best rule changes in years. I thought it was great impossible to defend against if executed.

Just from the highlights the Aussies looked absolutely ****.

I'm expecting this to happen.

SA are really good at something or find a way to do something differently. It gets banned a few months later. Think Rassie was giving Robertson something to think about with Kolbe feeding the scrum among other things. It's hilarious that he took the lineout with van Staden still on the pitch. Argentina executed a bit of a trick lineout too (far more conventional).

FWIW I'm not a huge fan of the 50/22.

[Buzzo]

I saw that innovative double pod line out drive switcheroo try. Wonder if we will see that copied or rules come in to stop it. There’s a such fine line in forward play between innovation/deception and what gives unfair advantage as the game advances the game - but at least the rules are constantly tweaked. The 50/22 is one of the best rule changes in years. I thought it was great impossible to defend against if executed.

Just from the highlights the Aussies looked absolutely ****.

[Zapater]

I only watched highlights, how did Mngomezulu play?

Sorry for the late reply, been swamped this week.

I thought he was good, although he wasn't put under a hell of a lot of pressure and will have much harder tests down the line. The backline coach, Stick said he's an emulation of Damian Willemse which I can kind of see although it took Willemse quite a while to find his feet at this level. It seems like Sacha is settling in right from the get go, he's got some arrogance/swagger about him. Thought he was really good at fullback in the second test against Ireland but probably cost us the game at the end because he didn't need to take the ball out which gave Ireland the lineout which they used to set up the drop. At the end of the day, just one of those things, I guess. The first kick on the weekend was a shocker, he must've slipped but he seems to be pretty solid from the tee too which is good as Willemse definitely isn't.

I think of other hyped young players from South Africa like Duhan van der Merwe and JJ Engelbrecht too. It took them a while too, well in JJ's case it never quite happened on the international scene. So we'll see but early signs are promising.

[Irishnev]

Worst Australian team I've ever seen. Their scrum was horrendous. They were so soft, it had the intensity of a game against Japan. Early days but on the basis of today we should win the RC quite handsomely. I know it won't be simple and we'll lose matches (possibly next week) but we should have too much this year. This competition has been almost impossible to win and the All Blacks will come back so need to make hay.

Great game by Argentina. Will be hard to play them away I think they should do well against Australia too but the stylistic match up will tell the story.

I only watched highlights, how did Mngomezulu play?

[Zapater]

Yeah amazing. They are an ever developing force!

South Africa crushing the Aussies is a bit of a worry in terms of the Lions tour next year. You want it to be competitive.

Worst Australian team I've ever seen. Their scrum was horrendous. They were so soft, it had the intensity of a game against Japan. Early days but on the basis of today we should win the RC quite handsomely. I know it won't be simple and we'll lose matches (possibly next week) but we should have too much this year. This competition has been almost impossible to win and the All Blacks will come back so need to make hay.

Great game by Argentina. Will be hard to play them away I think they should do well against Australia too but the stylistic match up will tell the story.

[Buzzo]

Yeah amazing. They are an ever developing force!

South Africa crushing the Aussies is a bit of a worry in terms of the Lions tour next year. You want it to be competitive.

[Irishnev]

Some win for Argentina

[Zapater]

Argentina here to play. Just over 10 to go