Wow! What a game!
I really didn't think we'd had it in us to compete against the AB's, let alone nearly beating them. It's just a pity that in the past few years, we seem to always play like this the very last game of the tournament. Why can't we play like this every game?
I thought Kitshoff, Marx, Etzebeth, PSDT and Serfontein were the boks standout performers.
First, let me start with the negative. Elton Jantjies again cost us the game. The third charge down of the tournament against him, and this time leading to a dubious try. Also, why did EJ play so deep?? our setup was a pod of forwards, and then they pass back to Elton way back behind the pod and then Elton distributes the ball from there, but all that did was made the All Blacks press forward, and get us behind the advantage line, and then our forwards had to do the hard yards again to get over the advantage line. Look how potent we can be when a fly half attacks the gain line, like Pollard did.
Now that first try, and maybe
@smartcooky could help here. At Halftime, Nick Mallett said that he got a call from Mark Lawrence (SA Rugby Referees boss) and Lawrence said that it shouldn't have been a try. based on the replays, Crotty touched the ball with his forearm (which made him take control of the ball) then lose possession, while diving forwards, and than falling on the ball with his stomach. Now according to Lawrence, Crotty lost possession of the ball and therefore there had to be a 5m scrum instead of a try.
Also, I thought Garces did rather well in the match, I thought the TMO and the advice given by Poite however, was not that good.
Now onto the game. It was clearly a strategy with PSDT to run at the All Blacks and as soon as he's tackled, to release the ball, pick it up and go again. And he gained massive yards doing that, and exploiting that the All Blacks make tackles, and then immediately release the player. I think this is something the NH teams should take note of ahead of the EOYT, as it's one area where we exploited the AB's defensive frailties.
Another area was the rucks, and here Malcolm Marx was massive, it seems like the AB's with their attacking pods have a few rucks where they swarm the breakdown area, and then they have one or two where they don't swarm it, to create an overlap, and that is where Marx pounced. He was hanging back and as soon as he saw players like Whitelock, Read and Coles join the backline, he went in to steal the ball. and it happened every time in our own 22.
I'm so proud of our boys, to get smashed by 57 points, to come back and nearly beat the same team in a matter of 3 weeks is a massive turnaround. And I hope that we can take confidence out of this ahead of the EOYT.
Oh, did I mention that Damian De Allende is a cnut?
