The Australian team currently have seven players out of their squad for various reasons. Quade Cooper, Digby Ioane, Wycliff Palu, James Horwill, Rob Horne, Ben Alexander and Tatafu Polota-Nau.
South Africa has a similar problem with Beast, Bismarck, Bakkies, Juan Smith, Heinrich Brussouw, Fourie du Preez, JP Pietersen and Frans Steyn not having been involved in most of our Tri Nation tests.
The conundrum for Australia and South Africa has not only been the fact that these players weren’t available, but also the fact that continuity in selection could not be made, both teams had to play players out of preferred positions and there in lies the biggest problem when facing the All Blacks.
In order to negate the All Blacks on attack, it is of utmost importance to have defensive organisation and communication, and when you have to play with different players from one week to the next, it is very difficult to maintain continuity.
So the All Blacks have been blessed this season and there is a total turn around from the situation of 2009 when the All Blacks were the team with the unavailable players. Australia has shown this past weekend that even the mighty All Blacks can be put under pressure and they do infringe as much as any other team when they are on the defensive and has to slow down the ruck. At one stage the penalty count was 7-1 in favour of the Australians, and they had 117 rucks vs the All Blacks 74 rucks.
The All Blacks also had to tackle a lot more than the Australians with 146 tackles to the Ozzies 91.
I can only come to one conclusion and that is teams need to wise up, study the referee and his interpretations of the laws, Richie McCaw is a master at manipulating referees and managing somehow not to get carded.
The signs are obvious, the All Blacks are great with ball in hand, but yet as fallable as any other team when on defense. They still need to tackle, slow down opposition ball and absorb pressure.
The biggest reason Australia didn’t win the test match on Saturday was because as talented as Matt Giteau is, Quade Cooper is better.
The All Blacks are playing good rugby, but are not invincible and if teams can make the connection between the grey matter and the on field antics of the referee and All Blacks, the percieved domination of the All Blacks will disappear like mist in the sunshine. It may just be possible that Graham Henry has shown his tricks a year too early.
The question now remains, who will be the first team to smarten up?
@ biltongbek:Biltong, jy weet mos die boere hou die bulle weg van die koeie gedurende n seker tyd van die jaar. Gdurende die tyd word die bulle spek vet en daai knater hang sommer baie laag.As dit dan tyd word, jaag die boer die bulle by die koeie…net n paar weke en hulle is brand maer…..en daai oukies hang nie meer so laag nie.
So, met ander woorde…word jy tans van die koeie af weggehou?
Wel miskien moet ons dan wag tot ons altwee groot is, dan neem ons SARU op horings.
Ek sal Heineke Meyer hoof coach maak.
Slaptjips is my back line coach.
Gert Smal as forward coach.
Os, Percy en Jake as my konsultante.
Tim Noakes as my resource konsultant.
61@ bos_otter:
Bwahahahahaha
Bos, mag nie se nie, my vrou is in die vertrek.
Eina, eina vrou……..
Ek speel net….
@ biltongbek: gie gie gie 🙂
op praat weer so bietjie later met julle siele…gaan gou kos koop en n trein vang huistoe….ek haat die London underground 🙁
tight head wrote:
This view depends whether you believe they crook or not. If they dont crook you are right, if they do crook we are robbed.
Puma wrote:
Even Jake could not get rid of his assistants, so rather hope for another inspiring addition to the staff.
I dont think the AB’s are that far ahead…the first game we played k*k, the second game we gave up. Its simple really, we had wrong guys in the wrong positions and the problem compounded….but I am going over ground previously covered…..wonder if Susie will come out of retirement? 😉
Ah now I have read the comments on the first page, I see most of the ou’s agree with me…and the CT’s didnt make a showing.
oh…and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Rugby Talk
@ Puma:
I’m not sure why you guys rave about Frans Steyn. To my mind he lacks pace, is an indecisive & selfish player. His good points are of course his long range kicking ability which makes him a threat. His defense is not bad also. I don’t think the Boks can afford to carry both Steyns on the team. Keep Frans at fullback (only) & that’s enough. I know people here defend Morne based upon his performance in S-14 but I’ve never seen him raise his game at test level, with the exception of his kicking for goal. It does raise an interesting question. If you need to keep one of the Steyns on the team for their kicking – which one? Morne for accuracy or Frans for distance?
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