Watch when he arrows Serfontein, has sat down. He's assuming the tackle position as he has bought the dummy and is going for Brown, he then realises and changes direction and heads off after Farrell. He would probably have tackled Brown and we'd have been working under our posts.
He can't kick from the ball being on the ground as his three step kicking action would have put him under pressure, so he waits to pull the chasers onto him so he can then set off. I still really disagree about Farrell kicking on the run at full pelt that is a f*cker of a kick to pull off, and you can clearly see a wall of green heading down - to do an effective kick would have been to slow down and he would have been tackled.
Go to 00:57 seconds and look at Watson and the distance he is from Farrell - ideally Farrell would thrown a long pass to him there, and he would clear the lines. But Watson is facing the wrong way as he hasn't made it back, and it's soaking wet so it's a never on pass. The only point he can make that pass is at 1:00 - 1:02 and on a wet day i can understand he doesn't fancy it.
So that leaves one option carry until contact, or hope Watson runs a cut back to hold the defence like Brown does and then take the kick, at 1:04 Farrell dummies the switch trying to get Watson to come but he doesn't move from his line and waits till it's too late.
As the man coming forward it will have been his call to take the ball - as it will have been Browns to not take the ball.
Like i said it's easy to blame Farrell, but there is a load of things that go wrong there and he is helped not one little bit by his team mates.
1. Farrell had 12.2 meters to make the original kick, which is absolutely no pressure. An international fly-half under their goalposts gets that off the field in the first instance.
2. Farrell would have had more than 12.2 meters had he not taken so long to have gotten back and picked up the ball. He's either under pressure, in which case he shouldn't have taken so long to pick up the ball, or he was under no pressure in which case he should have been able to have gotten it off the field. You cannot have it both ways.
3. When Farrell does go past the two South African players, he has plenty of space with which to make a kick. He can do this in two ways:
- Slow down slightly to take the kick. Which is fine, because he's already gone past the two defenders and the other two are far away in front.
- Kick at full pace. Probably wouldn't get the same accuracy on it. Not the best outcome, but significantly better than the inside ball.
Either way, getting it off the field is priority number one, distance is secondary. Throwing the ball to the last man to take into contact is a
guaranteed conceded penalty, turnover, or, best case scenario, a scrappy ruck and heavy pressure on the 9 (resulting in, best case scenario, a crap box kick, or worse case scenario, a player dropping back in the pocket to make the kick from deep). Any kick into touch would suffice. Literally, if he slices it and it goes into touch 5m in front of where he takes the kick, it would be a positive outcome compared to making that pass to Watson.
4. Talking about Watson's faults in this is ridiculous. Watson was reacting to Farrell's **** ups. Was an attacking situation on? 2 vs 4, so no it wasn't. Therefore as a winger, his duty was to be in position to chase the kick (that never came).
Matt Banaham is actually ok, he just had a forward pack that gave him crap ball.......
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