I'll try to make this concise, because it's not even really important anyways:
- S.A. are beatable: South Africa and New Zealand have won all their matches (prob. in Ireland too tomorrow) and are clearly the 2 best teams in the world. Successful tour. But while NZ are virtually invincible, South Africa aren't. Far from it. Many mistakes, backs aren't technically proficient (even Habana just kick-and-chases really) if not for good speed race. Their line-outs were awful today, and they missed out a bunch of good opportunities the Blacks would've murdered us with. I thought France would come out more physical tonight, but I suppose in a contact, battle-oriented sport like Rugby, there's no substitute for sheer weight.
- I'd like to see that JDV-to-Fourie try. I thought it was one, maybe I'm wrong.
- Slimani with the forearm to the defender's throat. Loses us the penalty we so direly needed. Plus, dangerous, silly move.
- the try Huget pressed down before the Bok wasn't a try.
- Huget with a magnificent break, splits open South Africa, great kick and chase, horrible bounce. Too bad, SA was beaten, that was a try...but SA had some good ones not go their way, so sure, wtvr.
- Good defense, but SA were very good in the rucks. All in all, if not for that freak accident at 1', SA would've have scored no try at all for 80 minutes. Not bad.
- the first yellow: it wasn't a yellow card, it was Thomas Domingo picking up Habana, and Habana forcing his head down with momentum.
- Pascal Papé biitchslapped JDV and then got a response from Louw. Acted like someone had punched his head in. Crappy play, but did it for France and in reply to Habana's obvious perfidy. Fair enough.
- We looked a lot better playing at 14 VS 15, maybe we should do it more often.
Conclusion:
All in all you're just another bri......oh wait, no sorry. Let me start again.
All in all even though we played a much better match against NZ, they scare me on a different level. I'd much rather still get SA. They're very strong, they pushed us way back on that maul we made
, they even pushed us back on many occasions in the scrum for e.g., but if you get past that, you can beat them. It's just one dimension: force.
They played well, looked dominant in the 1st half, but then we easily could have won this match and we didn't even play a very good one...
What this means for France is we still have our strengths that have been consistent: scrum, defense, penetrating backs (Fofana, Doussain, Huget, Guitoune....all constantly penetrated with good body technique, the whole way), a great FB in Dulin, a strong half-back pair (Parra was 'mmmmm.....' though).
I think we'll have a good 6N. All I wanted to know out of this match was: can we rival the Springboks ? And say all you want - it's clear we can. If we'd got beat down badly, in a number of sectors of the game, and a huge point difference like 25, then we'd be in trouble. But again, we didn't play up to potential and still kept right there threatening to get that try and win by 1. Too bad, but eh...
Anyone understand why the SA try was disallowed?
The Domingo yellow was absolutely absurd, as was the penalty against Slimani for "leading" with his forearm.
...Seriously, since when are you not allowed to push against a tackler using your forearm?
well it's still a dangerous forearm to the throat. Choose anything else but that to push off.
Another victory for the Boks...
Another loss for France...
