As some of you have no doubt noticed, I'm a South African. As such I'm delighted that we are world champions again.
Does it seem to you though that the Boks were robbed of a decent level of competition? I firmly believe that they were one of the strongest teams at the competition, but when did they have to prove it?
We were in a fairly challenging group, with the previous title holders no less, the Tongans and the Samoans are big bastards, very physical, and the Tongan game was pretty close, although when South Africa really started to stretch themselves they fell apart. This repeated itself throughout the competition. Fiji put down two very fast tries in what was probably the most interesting game the Boks had to play, but then they simply stepped up a gear and grabbed another handful of points. The final score not reflecting how close the game was but certainly reflecting the teams capabilities.
In theory we would have been playing France or Scotland next, but they were both put in place by an Argentina team that had played out of their skins. Against South Africa though they didn't look like the same side, they were briefly in contention but couldn't go the distance. they upped their game to grab third place but why didn't they play like that against the Boks?
The final should have been against the All Blacks, no one knows that more than them, but they flobbered out in the quarters to France, who themselves lost to team Johnny (sorry, England).
So the final was against England who, although many people said they had improved vastly since their last mauling, really never changed their game, they simply had the kicking machine with them now. They generally kept the ball tied up in the forwards and passed it to Johnny, unless they were dominating the other team in the rucks and mauls like they did against Australia. Les Bleus and the Boks weren't as easy to manhandle and, apart from the brilliant but lucky try early on in the game against France, just defended and waited for the other team to make mistakes. The Springboks have barely made any mistakes in their own half the entire tournament however. Sadly South Africa seemed happy to play them at the same game, luckily England made more mistakes and the peerless boot of Percy the Peacock saw us home.
England never seemed particularly urgent about stepping up the game even though they were losing for (I think) the entire length of the match. South Africa didn't need to step up a gear or even try very hard. They only made two substitutions, one of which was an injury. when was the last time you saw Os Du Randt play the full 80 minutes for gods sake?
All in all the World Cup was very good, with some nice rugby played, just nearly none of it played by the opponents of the eventual champions.
Hopefully the rest fo the world will get their crap together and make us work to defend the title in New Zealand in 2011!
And lets invite the Pumas to join us in the Tri Nations already!
Does it seem to you though that the Boks were robbed of a decent level of competition? I firmly believe that they were one of the strongest teams at the competition, but when did they have to prove it?
We were in a fairly challenging group, with the previous title holders no less, the Tongans and the Samoans are big bastards, very physical, and the Tongan game was pretty close, although when South Africa really started to stretch themselves they fell apart. This repeated itself throughout the competition. Fiji put down two very fast tries in what was probably the most interesting game the Boks had to play, but then they simply stepped up a gear and grabbed another handful of points. The final score not reflecting how close the game was but certainly reflecting the teams capabilities.
In theory we would have been playing France or Scotland next, but they were both put in place by an Argentina team that had played out of their skins. Against South Africa though they didn't look like the same side, they were briefly in contention but couldn't go the distance. they upped their game to grab third place but why didn't they play like that against the Boks?
The final should have been against the All Blacks, no one knows that more than them, but they flobbered out in the quarters to France, who themselves lost to team Johnny (sorry, England).
So the final was against England who, although many people said they had improved vastly since their last mauling, really never changed their game, they simply had the kicking machine with them now. They generally kept the ball tied up in the forwards and passed it to Johnny, unless they were dominating the other team in the rucks and mauls like they did against Australia. Les Bleus and the Boks weren't as easy to manhandle and, apart from the brilliant but lucky try early on in the game against France, just defended and waited for the other team to make mistakes. The Springboks have barely made any mistakes in their own half the entire tournament however. Sadly South Africa seemed happy to play them at the same game, luckily England made more mistakes and the peerless boot of Percy the Peacock saw us home.
England never seemed particularly urgent about stepping up the game even though they were losing for (I think) the entire length of the match. South Africa didn't need to step up a gear or even try very hard. They only made two substitutions, one of which was an injury. when was the last time you saw Os Du Randt play the full 80 minutes for gods sake?
All in all the World Cup was very good, with some nice rugby played, just nearly none of it played by the opponents of the eventual champions.
Hopefully the rest fo the world will get their crap together and make us work to defend the title in New Zealand in 2011!
And lets invite the Pumas to join us in the Tri Nations already!
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