Springboks vs Pumas I
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@OomPB said in Springboks vs Pumas I:
@stodders I dont agree. The Boks actually dominate that first period.
At that specific moment, the ABs were in the midst of a purple patch. They had scored a try, had butchered an opportunity when DMac kicked and had a 3 on 1 when Kolbe made his intervention. Passes were sticking and the Bok defence was under the pump.
I wasn’t talking about the half as a whole, more that if Kolbe hadn’t intercepted, it would have been 14-0 with ABs ascendant. As was shown the previous week, the Boks didn’t handle the scoreboard pressure that well.
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Huge difference between a Pollard/Dda/Kriel backline chasing down a score or a Wellington or Durbs backline.
I’m still not sold on Reinach/Manie/Willemse’s ability to embrace pressure (scoreboard or otherwise) but you don’t want to engage in a shootout with them. They can ball.
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@stodders to be honest, I’m not sure who the coaches see as 1-5.
I’m in the minority (at least in my SA rugby chats), but I’d have Faf, daylight, Williams, Reinach and then a long way back van den Berg.
Faf is far from a perfect scrummie. But he’s the best ruck rat on earth for my money. A defensive menace who gets better as pressure increases and crucially makes everyone around him better too.
It’s probably too soon to tell if Williams has that killer instinct but I reckon we know Reinach doesn’t. Which is fine, so long as the coaches keep Reinach bracketed with a mongrel to deal with clusterfucks like Ellis Park, Eden Park or the RWC semi…
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@Smuts said in Springboks vs Pumas I:
@stodders to be honest, I’m not sure who the coaches see as 1-5.
I’m in the minority (at least in my SA rugby chats), but I’d have Faf, daylight, Williams, Reinach and then a long way back van den Berg.
Faf is far from a perfect scrummie. But he’s the best ruck rat on earth for my money. A defensive menace who gets better as pressure increases and crucially makes everyone around him better too.
It’s probably too soon to tell if Williams has that killer instinct but I reckon we know Reinach doesn’t. Which is fine, so long as the coaches keep Reinach bracketed with a mongrel to deal with clusterfucks like Ellis Park, Eden Park or the RWC semi…
I hear you on Faf, but I’m not sure the coaches think he’s the 9 Tonyball needs.
I reckon he still has a chance of making the WC squad, if only to have on the bench with Pollard as the “reverse-choke squad”, tasked with coming on to wrestle back control of the game when Tonyball fails against a team that can catch and tackle near 90%, or the Boks run up against their 2027 Bryce Lawrence
