P Divvie stating the obvious said the Springboks have work to do on their scrum.
The Boks came off the first four-try bonus point win of this year’s Tri-Nations and is two points away from winning the Cup, all this with two games to go for the Boks. The Springboks scored two beautiful tries from first phase ball, a rarity in Rugby these days but faltered in the scrum, where the Wallaby front row forced them into error and conceding 15 penalties, a good number of these emanating from the set piece.
De Villiers had the following to say after the match: “We never had the platform to play off, but we still managed to play with the kind of ball we had.”
“Our defence was good, our kicking was outstanding, as it always is, and we passed the ball and scored four tries.”
He admitted there would be a review of his team’s scrum problems ahead of next weekend’s encounter with the Wallabies.
“We will definitely look [on video] at our scrums and see if we were hard done by or if we did anything bad, and then we try to improve on that one and set the platform there,” he said.
“I think we will be back [next week].”
People in the know in Australia has been hinting at the improving Wallaby front row for a while now, you hear words like ‘technically very good’ coupled with something like ‘lacking experience’ which over time can only improve. So, are we looking at a much improved Wallaby front row or are we suddenly seeing the weakness of a converted hooker at tighthead, as some pundits warned us about? I have also heard a lot about the impact a tighthead lock can have on the scrum, did everything go pear-shaped when Bekker came on? I will leave the technicalities to someone like Tighthead who already suggested we packing to high in the scrum. I assume the answer is a combination of all of the above, hopefully we have the knowhow in the Bok camp and it can be sorted out quickly.
P Divvie also did not let the opportunity slip to have a dig at his detractors and the ref:
“I said we could play total rugby and we did as the guys made brilliant decisions. When the space was there to run it we did,” De Villiers said.
“I was happy with the character they showed. There were a few calls that went against us, we were at sixes and sevens in the scrums and we didn’t know what would come next.”
“But we bounced above the situation and showed character to stand up as a team and to play with the scraps that we got.”
I hope the ‘quick fix’ for the front row is not seen as a friendly chat with the ref before the game! There are bigger problems than just that to work on.
Slaprug Janne,
Kry iemand om julle die bajada te leer en raak ontslae van die huidige voorspeler coach. As hy na 20 toetse nog nie so talentvolle 8 tal kon laat loop soos n goed geoliede masjien nie, kan ek nie insien hou hy dit ooit sal regkry nie.
The Bok pack going up, down and backwards is not a pretty sight at all.
If only Chuck Norris were around to fix it for us.
I’ve been wondering how much our resurgence in rugby is due to the fact that we have 2 solid, strong attacking and defensive centres and a flyhalf that can dictate a game and put over the penalties.
Personally I was never an AD fan.
3 @Manlybok I bet you he will find a spot on the weekend, then we can see…
The Wobblies actually made the ABs outings in RSA look not quite as diabolical as we clearly know they really were …
So his first port of call is to see if he was picked on THEN worry about trying to improve … No wonder he unloads the bench the way he does … Easing off the gas when making a getaway from a crime scence is a very dangerous game to play 😯
I seriously began to wonder if, horror of horrors, the Boks were going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory … I then imagined the renting of cloth & bloodletting that would inevitably follow … nasty 😯
Springboks scored two beautiful tries from first phase ball, a rarity in Rugby these days
Hats off to the coaching staff , against the lions JP and Habana scored trries off set pieces as well with Habana’s try almost identical to the one we scored against the Aussies.
I am not 100% sure but that try looks alot like the try Pieter Russouw scored against the ABs when we beat that in NZ.
Hats off to the coaches who faced alot of flak from all over the place , P Divvie was attacked like no other coach in Sa history (ok he kinda asked for it) and now that he is proving to be our one of our most astute coaches in recent history the same media is saying absolutely nothing. I find that amusing , I said on keo that I will no longer post until they admit that P Div and co is part of the reason for the Bokks success , aint holding my breath on that one , open secret’s and all.
@sparty –
Agreed, this a much happier and better outfit than the one we had in Australasia last year.
PdeV stuck to his guns, and he has put together a team who play for the coach and each other.
Perhaps not having Cheeky in the same hotel over there also has something to do with the enhanced spirit in the team….. 🙂
This team can become one of the greatest in Springbok history, and I hope we can keep it up til WC 2011.
Imagine winning that cup for the third time and thus keeping it permanently!
6@sparty –
the mood towards pdv is definately changing …. a lot of the journalists are actually starting (yes, only starting) to acknowledge pdv’s input in the current success of the boks.
i read a article by tank lanning (news24)this morning in which he actually congratulated pdv …. soooooooo, i think in his own way he (pdv) is starting to convince those who doubted his ability
btw
have you seen that one camera shot on saturday where pdv was shown … sitting back, quite relaxed …. 😀 jeez, was sitting in my own living room and i wasnt even THAT relaxed!!
6 @sparty His litimus test will come next year when he will be without a number of his current stars.
The Boks are currently at the very top of their game, the culmination of years of hard work and experience you don’t gain overnight. If you look at the general display when the second stringer come on, not to talk about when they start, I think there is a lot of hard work ahead.
Having said that, congratulations should go to the team and coaches and I will enjoy it for as long as it lasts.
@ashley – I will only start believing in Snorre when he picks more Lions for the bokke
6@sparty – Ok, Sparras, Snorrie is proving to be a better coach than I expected him to be, because we keep on winning and winning, despite the fact that he’s got a wonderful crop of players to work with.
I think his strenght lies in man-management, ie he keeps the players happy and confident as a group.
Tactically he has not yet mastered the Art of “SUBS”…. he repeats the same ERROR-PROVEN, mass-subbing nonsense match after match. For this Dick Muir and Gary Glitter must take part of the blame too.
Gary Gold better invest in another Assistent to help him with the forwards, specially the front row…. because our scrum is spoiling an otherwise almost perfect or complete package. We need someone who understands every nuance of front row play…. a true “scrum doctor”.
Other than that, well done Snorrie, Assistants….. and above all, well done Bokke!
hmmm
see there is concern around other injuries in the bok camp, with bakkies’ knee injury being the one causing the most problems. other injuries .. habana (groin, not serious) and of course daniesaurus (who should be fit to play this weekend)!
11@grootblousmile –
but
isnt most of our problems in the frontrow the result that they, as a unit, are quite inexperienced at test level?
if so, isnt that something that will improve with time?
@Koos – They said his test will come when the Lions tour , then we won and they said his test will come when the ABs come for back to back games , we know what happend then. Lastly they said his test will come when he faces Robbie Deans cos apparently Henry is not a good coach to test urself against.
I just wish some people will say that its not easy to beat the Lions , ABS, Aussies and to do so in a row is a pretty decent job from the coaching staff.
P Divvie have now so far beat the Abs at home which only Nick Mallet has done post Isolation and he stands a good chance to repeat that this year.
Beat the Lions which no modern day Coach has managed , granted he was up against Carel only.
Beat the ABS abd Wallabies back to back in the Trinations , was that ever achieved ? I think we did it under Mallet in 98 ? I do remember we pulling one out of the bag against the ABS in Durban where we came back very late , Skinstad and Bullet scored on time I think , That was noweher near as convincing or maybe a better word is emphatic as we did this year , I just dont feel at any stage of the game that we can lose it.
Beat the Pommies away with a record score – this in iteself make me believe the man deserves the key to Bloemfontein LOL
Beat the Aussies with a record score , and also make up some ground we lost due to that embarresiing 49-0 game.
Now the Boks must be supermen to achieve this without a decent coach and we saw what happend to this same supermen under White in the Trinations before , take nothing away from the players and Jake White though , they were awesome and won us a WC , I just feel P Divvie deserves some more recognition as well.
Oh and he also picked Brussouw which tells us that he knows what he is doing as a selector , many are saying that he was forced into that as brussouw was a natural successer to Schalk but what we fail to remember and what Jake White himself admitted afterwards was that the previous coaching regime would not have chosen Brussouw , they would have played Danie russouw or someone like that.
Divvie recognised the value of a fetcher and the balance it brings to the team dynamics.
@grootblousmile – I agree , out subs is bad but I do feel we got it right last weekend against the Aussies as the players he took off needs rest.
As for Gold and the forwards , I disagree , yes our scrums was penalised heavily but we do play with a hooker at Tighthead and we just cannot afford to lose our captain on my book so we should just work harder on it. When u look at how our general forward play was though , u would have seem how organised we hit the rucks and mauls to stop the Aussie momentum. For all their accendency in the Scrums we dominated the tackle point and mauls and Lineouts and ….etc etc.
Thats why I feel Gold is doing a good job , now just to work on the Scrumms,
15@sparty – Snorrie was somewhat reluctantly forced and bamboozled into picking Heinrich Brussow in the squad… remember he was not even part of the chosen larger squad… and we were all shouting blue murder about that.
Heinrich Brussouw eventually got one chance, as a replacement……….. and HE opened Snorrie’s eyes…
Schalla’s ban helped Brussouw’s cause as well of course…
Be that as it may, Brussouw is now there, he’s the incumbant Openside Flanker… he needs to continue there, no doubt !
I Would like to categorically state, that I know NOTHING about rugby!!!!! I did not get ONE game right in Superbru Currie Cup this weekend!!!!
From now on I am just going to talk kuk!!!!!
😆
18@Tripples –
same here …. not one single cc prediction correct!! 😀
but
i had the boks to win by 16. if it wasnt for a late flurry of points scored by the wallabies, i wouldve been in business!!
18@Tripples – But, you’re doing well in the Tri-Nations SuperBru…. hehehe
@ashley – I had boks down to win with 9 so was not far off……
BOKKE WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! ek voel hulle moet nou ‘n skoonskip maak, nie een game verloor nie, hulle kan hulle is nou so mentally sterk…….
O ja, ek moet eerder stilbly hehehehehe
19@ashley – I had the Bokke by 12 if I remember correctly…. if the last Ozzmob try was prevented, I was the Bees-Knees !!
@Tripples – kon nie WAG om jou hier te sien nie. Wonner hoekom 🙄
23@K9-MonsterLeeu –
hehehe
@grootblousmile – gelukkig ja….hehehehehe
@K9-MonsterLeeu – Ag ou leeutjie, ek moet se die Leeus het awesome gespeel….baie geluk julle. dis wonderlik en ek hoop dat hulle nou dit net so hou, solank hulle vir Tiger uit die span uit hou kan julle net van krag tot krag gaan….plus julle het al julle topspeleers terug wat beseer was, dis baei cool…….
@Tripples – baie baie dankie. Het ‘n persoonlike gelukwensing in my inbox verwag. Toe daar niks deurkom nie….toe kom soek ek jou maar hier 😆
O ja dan wil ek dit ook net stel …. baie geluk aan die wiepeenouweers en die copy cats met hulle games die naweek in die currie cup……van die Sharks en die Bulle (net gou besig om die tri-nations te wen)
😆 😆
@K9-MonsterLeeu – #27 ehet noggie my mail oopgemaak nie hehehehe, sal vir jou persoonlike noodskap ook stuur……. 😉
@Tripples – #28 en voor julle almal kraam….dit was net ‘n grappie hoor….
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