The Rugby Thread

[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

[Buzzo]

Wow.

Ma-hoo-sive win for the Pumas.

[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.

[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]

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

[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.

[Irishnev]

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.

Let me start with a question - do you think moving to the URC has been a good thing? I think you guys not bring in super rugby has been detrimental to NZ in particular

For me, ye guys are the best in the world and that’s been proven v recently! When we’ve our first 20 players fit and firing then we can give you a good game but your depth is ridiculous. You are now blooding some really exciting youngsters in the back line and that’s pretty terrifying. If you add that skill set behind the dominant set piece/pack then you’ll be unstoppable

That’s not to say your current back line isn’t also brilliant but there is some real talent behind them. One position is 12 - who is next after De Allende?

[Buzzo]

I think the South African teams being in the URC has massively improved the URC. I watched the Edin and Glasgow games over the weekend - Edin away at Stormers and the quality of the South African teams, the depth is incredible.

I also watched Bath v Leicester (a quiet weekend). I think the levels in the URC is now ahead of the Gallagher prem and the exposure all teams are having to more almost test level matches has improved them.

[Buzzo]

Needless to say the Italians are improving eh Nev?

[Buzzo]

**** about and find out.

[ame]https://twitter.com/andygoode10/status/1840455408005288077[/ame]

[Irishnev]

Needless to say the Italians are improving eh Nev?

Show me your medals Buzzo

[Buzzo]

Show me your medals Buzzo

I take reflected glory from Glasgow last season. Edinburgh are ****e. Got in great positions on both games and totally blew it.

[Zapater]

It's hard to say if it strengthened the team with so many players already experiencing foreign conditions in Europe and Japan. It definitely weakened Super Rugby. I sometimes watch SR games now and it is played like almost like rugby league. The speed of the game looks like it's in fast forward. Which is something of an asset of it's own but doesn't necessarily prepare players for the grinding toil of test rugby and lacks a little variety. As a traditionalist, I strongly opposed the move but clearly there's no real harm done.

I do think that NZ would have a scary player pool if they started selecting players from abroad. They should probably look into doing it sooner rather than later.

In terms of the backline performance and attacking in general (look at du Toit!), Tony Brown looks really good, hopefully they can keep a good balance. I only see it getting better over time. You can sometimes see ideas which haven't been executed yet. Will be scary if they click.

In terms of inside centre, de Allende isn't really easily replaceable as he doesn't have a typical skillset. Am and Esterhuizen are short term options but are only slightly younger. Am also looks much weaker there than 13 (something I have mentioned I thought would be a good idea a few years ago).

The obvious candidate for me is Damian Willemse who has played a lot there. Especially with other really good options at fullback. Jordan Hendrikse, who played at fly half against Wales is also a potentially good option.

[Irishnev]

It's hard to say if it strengthened the team with so many players already experiencing foreign conditions in Europe and Japan. It definitely weakened Super Rugby. I sometimes watch SR games now and it is played like almost like rugby league. The speed of the game looks like it's in fast forward. Which is something of an asset of it's own but doesn't necessarily prepare players for the grinding toil of test rugby and lacks a little variety. As a traditionalist, I strongly opposed the move but clearly there's no real harm done.

I do think that NZ would have a scary player pool if they started selecting players from abroad. They should probably look into doing it sooner rather than later.

In terms of the backline performance and attacking in general (look at du Toit!), Tony Brown looks really good, hopefully they can keep a good balance. I only see it getting better over time. You can sometimes see ideas which haven't been executed yet. Will be scary if they click.

In terms of inside centre, de Allende isn't really easily replaceable as he doesn't have a typical skillset. Am and Esterhuizen are short term options but are only slightly younger. Am also looks much weaker there than 13 (something I have mentioned I thought would be a good idea a few years ago).

The obvious candidate for me is Damian Willemse who has played a lot there. Especially with other really good options at fullback. Jordan Hendrikse, who played at fly half against Wales is also a potentially good option.

I was lucky to see De Allende play a lot when he was at Munster, he’s some player and will be hard to replace

[Buzzo]

Edinburgh shipped 48 points IN THE FIRST HALF yesterday. Something fundamentally wrong within the setup.