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The All Blacks served up the expected reality check for the Boks at Soccer City. A convincing 32-16 win after travelling twice across the globe in 2 weeks, and playing the Boks at altitude.
Last week`s victory was expectedly put in perspective, since it was against a weak Wallaby side that were disrupted by injuries and were otherwise pretty mediocre.
There are positives and negatives to be taken from the Boks performance during the Championship. Hopefully the coach will acknowledge the facts before we move on.
The positives were our scrums and lineouts. The tight 5 held their own against the best the Championship had to offer, and this is the foundation of any good team.
We started well in most tests, but tended to fade in the third and fourth quarters of the game, when bodies are tired and stamina, focus and concentration is needed. The All Blacks are masters at this.
The negatives were our inability to score tries with lots of possession, a suspect defence, bad goal kicking, ineffective and aimless positional kicking, a one-dimensional game plan, impatience at critical times, no game-breakers in the back-line, an argueably strange use of the bench.
The coach must realize that you cannot play players out of position, or play players into form at international level. Hougard is NOT a wing, and Morne Steyn and Zane Kirchner (just to mention a few) were not the form selections.
Meyer must surely realize that the game is fast changing, and `bull dozer` rugby won`t win games. The All Blacks outscored us 4 tries to 1 with 40% possession and 40% territory. What does that tell you?
It`s simple; the top sides clinically and patiently create the big chances and opportunistically grab the half-chances on offer. We do neither!
Now is Meyer`s chance to blood the new generation of young guns on the year-end tour, though my guess is that he will not. The pressure is on, and he is too conservative!
Last week`s victory was expectedly put in perspective, since it was against a weak Wallaby side that were disrupted by injuries and were otherwise pretty mediocre.
There are positives and negatives to be taken from the Boks performance during the Championship. Hopefully the coach will acknowledge the facts before we move on.
The positives were our scrums and lineouts. The tight 5 held their own against the best the Championship had to offer, and this is the foundation of any good team.
We started well in most tests, but tended to fade in the third and fourth quarters of the game, when bodies are tired and stamina, focus and concentration is needed. The All Blacks are masters at this.
The negatives were our inability to score tries with lots of possession, a suspect defence, bad goal kicking, ineffective and aimless positional kicking, a one-dimensional game plan, impatience at critical times, no game-breakers in the back-line, an argueably strange use of the bench.
The coach must realize that you cannot play players out of position, or play players into form at international level. Hougard is NOT a wing, and Morne Steyn and Zane Kirchner (just to mention a few) were not the form selections.
Meyer must surely realize that the game is fast changing, and `bull dozer` rugby won`t win games. The All Blacks outscored us 4 tries to 1 with 40% possession and 40% territory. What does that tell you?
It`s simple; the top sides clinically and patiently create the big chances and opportunistically grab the half-chances on offer. We do neither!
Now is Meyer`s chance to blood the new generation of young guns on the year-end tour, though my guess is that he will not. The pressure is on, and he is too conservative!
