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Eden Park, Auckland (14/09/2013, 06:35 GMT)
Referee: Roman Poite
Assistants: Jerome Garces
Television match official: George Ayoub
New Zealand
TBD
South Africa
TBD
Having the annual champagne breakfast at my home to celebrate this match, my highlight of the rugby year.
And for the first time in a long time I feel the Bokke will be very competitive, really can't wait
How much better is the Rugby championship than the 3N!?! I mean a home and away against NZ and Aus is just soooo much better than the skewed 3N was and Argentina have been more competitive than I would have thought; a draw last year was a fantastic result for them and besides the drubbing at Loftus this year they have been in good(ish) form and will likely be targeting the Aus scalp. Yes, easier said than done for them but if they can repeat their previous two performances and dominate at the scrum as expected... I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled off the upset.
I expect 1 change... and that is at Scrumhalf. If I was the SA coaching team, I'd pick Jano and Piet Van Zyl. Aaron Smith has a tendency to give 2 steps before passing and both Jano and Piet will be much better suited than Ruan to get Aaron off his game.Back to this game... with no injuries you'd expect an unchanged team from SA and rightly so. Good that we are building some momentum but this will be a HUGE test even without McCaw. We enter as underdogs but this year we will arguably be NZ's biggest test since the RWC final. What I am hoping for is for the guys to keep up the intensity and improve the accuracy and hope the result takes care of itself. If we can at least muster a losing BP (not that the guys shouldn't go in to win!!) I expect us to beat Aus at home with a BP and then we just need to beat NZ at home for the ***le.
Sorry that I'm breaking your post into 2, but this first one doesn't make sense.
In the Tri Nations we played each team twice, one at home, and one away.
And Argentina lost at Soccer City. The only game at Loftus this year was against Samoa.
No - for several of the later years we played each teams three times (except the last Tri Nations due to the RWC). The result was often 4 games against Australia each year.
Weeeeeell it's been a bit...
It's braai time!Popcorn.gif ... this will be the match up of the tournament
office Jannie will be braai'ing all week in anticipation
It's braai time!
Any Springbok injuries?
Well NickNZ has answere the first and yeah, NZ playing Aus 4 times a year has to get old. How could I have forgotten the Arg game was at Soccer city LOL!!Sorry that I'm breaking your post into 2, but this first one doesn't make sense.
In the Tri Nations we played each team twice, one at home, and one away.
And Argentina lost at Soccer City. The only game at Loftus this year was against Samoa.
I expect 1 change... and that is at Scrumhalf. If I was the SA coaching team, I'd pick Jano and Piet Van Zyl. Aaron Smith has a tendency to give 2 steps before passing and both Jano and Piet will be much better suited than Ruan to get Aaron off his game.
Richie is out, but Sam Cane is no slouch. that said, the All Blacks will be without their captain, and this coud just tilt it into our favour.
Weeeeeell it's been a bit...
It's braai time!
Any Springbok injuries?
Zip, nada, Fokol!!
The Doc has given everyone a clean bill of health... Man those aussies are softies!!
Well no injuries from the weekend but its not like we aren't carrying injuries! But then everyone are aware of those and we've been handling it quite well even if we've been giving HM some stick (I know I have).
Every coach will get stick.
But you have to give it to HM. He loves the Bokke, that passion he shows in the coaching boks is something you don't see too often.
I thought it was immensely funny when you could see HM screaming his lungs out, then they cut to McKenzie, and clear as day you could see him say 'f*** me'. Bit of a stupid move sitting next to the crowd at a game where you get whooped. He must have copped some stick sitting out there by his lonesome.