June International Test: South Africa vs. Ireland [1st Test] (11/06/2016)

[austingtir]

So long as the political machinations in your country prevent your rugby coaches from putting the best, merit-based selected team on the park, you are going to struggle.

Madiba will be turning over in his grave right now. He and others like Buthelezi fought hard for the ideals that would lead to merit based selection of South Africa's teams. The current crop of political arseholes have taken South African sport back 20 years... only the colours have changed.

Its time South Africa was suspended from the IOC, FIFA and WR until they sort out the racism in their sporting selection policies!

Yep but surely theres going to come a time for the players and fans of SA rugby to stand up.... Why are there no protests or anything happening here? Thats the only way they are going to get world wide attention on this.

- - - Updated - - -

Just saw the lambie knock out and was in disbelief the guy got red carded for that. Crazy stuff.

 

[The Jones Boy]

Incredible result for Ireland with only 14 men. Even hampered by the quota system the Boks still bring a dangerous team to the table, Le Roux looked fantastic.
However, I didn't recognise the South African team.
Not the players and not the way they played.
It was like watching an amateur side.
Is this how SA rugby is going to go through a quota system to develop into an equal opportunities rugby nation?
Hard times for South Africa.

Ireland can only play what is in front of them and with 14 men they were brilliant, hats off to them, the kick up result of the weekend.
Master Schmidt is looking to be something of a rugby genius.
He went into the boneyard expecting a hiding and came out with a result that very very few would have expected.
Stand tall Ireland, a phenomenal result in both todays and the historical context.
The rugby world salutes you.

 

[smartcooky]

On the issue of the CJ Stander red card....


For mine, due the way that referees are currently told to deal with this, I agree that the referee had little choice but to give a red card to Stander

However, I am less than happy with the process. IMO, this is yet another example of outcome-driven decision making, and I don't like it (I have previously expressed my disdain for this type of decision both here and on other forums and in other discussions).

Think back for a moment to the Dan Biggar/Finn Russell incident in the Scotland v Wales 6N match in 2015. For those who haven't seen it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whN_jd2gh44

I find something deliciously ironic, inconsistent (and just plain wrong) about the fact that when the jumper is jumping to catch the ball (Dan Biggar), and he collides with the player whose feet are on the ground (Finn Russell) the player in the air is protected, but if the player jumps to block the ball (CJ Stander) and collides with the player whose feet are on the ground (Patrick Lambie), its the player on the ground who is protected.

If this decision had been consistent with Joel Jutge's ludicrous memo last year, and with the Finn Russell yellow card, citing and subsequent suspension, then Patrick Lambie ought to have been red carded for endangering the player in the air (and I'm not suggesting for one moment that he ought to have been, I am just making a point about the stupidity of the way the Laws are currently being enforced in this regard). I can easily imagine a situation where Lambie's kick was a little flatter, Stander charged the ball and by a fluke of luck he gets hands to it, and it sticks, and then he clatters into Lambie knocking him out. Stander has challenged for the ball in their air so the Law affords him protection. Is that still a red card for Stander? If so, why would it not be a red card for Biggar?

IMO, if the jumping charger collides with the kicker recklessly, then whether that is a penalty, a yellow card or a red card, it should always be that regardless of consequences. The fact that the kicker was injured ought to be completely irrelevant.

I think the only way this can be completely resolved is to change the legality of jumping to catch a ball or block a kick

1. make jumping to charge down a kick illegal.
2. make it so that only the non-kicking team is allowed to jump to catch the ball, and
3. make it so that a mark can only be taken if the ball is caught with the both the catcher's feet on the ground.

 

[Ospervat]

Yep but surely theres going to come a time for the players and fans of SA rugby to stand up.... Why are there no protests or anything happening here? Thats the only way they are going to get world wide attention on this.

Interference through quotas & targets, Unrealistic time frames, Mismanaged funding, ignorant beaurocracy etc …… It's a mess & the only loser is rugby.

I spent 35 years in SA and have seen and experienced "transformation" first hand.

I would prefer not to get too political here. The last thing I want is to be labelled with the R word but unfortunately there are power obsessed individuals in Govt (Mugabesque) and other areas who would at the very least seriously damage the broad culture of rugby in SA in the long term rather than compromise or backdown from their own biased agendas.

It is this culture which has been largely responsible for many of the social ills in SA today and SA rugby is not exempt from this.

And therein lies the problem. These power obsessed individuals and organisations have been known to cut off their noses to spite their faces in the past. Their position is that nobody can dictate to them how to run their affairs. It's an often used argument to paint domestic and international influencers including players and fans as the old enemy.

Bottom line:- the best interests of rugby are not the primary concern of those in power and no amount of pressure will change that.
They are hell bent on achieving their objectives irrespective of the cost to SA Rugby and the international community.

 

[SomeOke]

To be honest I don't feel like quota's much of a factor, feels like a bit of an excuse. Mvovo was probably our best player, and Kolisi also played fairly well (probably our best loosie).

Sometimes we just have to take responsibility for poor decision making, poor tactics and an error prone performance. Most importantly our players looked disinterested, it looked like they felt they would walk a win and that attitude only got worse after the red card.
Hopefully this loss is a wake up call.

 

[Ospervat]

Agreed - quotas is merely one factor and while in and of itself it may only be a small part, the bigger picture reflects a broader cultural shift where mediocrity is the new excellence and this has permeated into every level of SA Rugby including a gradual erosion of talent, skills, discipline and intellect at every organisational tier in SA rugby over the past 8 years. Politics, bias and self-serving agendas are the root of the problem.

 

[Duck a l'Orange]

Now I'm quite ignorant of the situation in South Africa, but the approach of the government to bringing diversity to rugby is so shortsighted.

The government itself needs to be funding development schemes and grassroots clubs in areas where this hasn't happened before. Is rugby on the curriculum in schools everywhere? Or only some? Get everyone to play rugby, have the structure in place to develop new players across the country, then wait fifteen years.

That way you tap a whole new pool of talent, rather than cramp the use of the existing one. Shoehorning people of different ethnicities into the team is not the same as lasting change. That's like painting over the cracks.

The only thing the quota system is doing lastingly and effectively, is reducing the quality of rugby from one of the best teams in the world- they'll end up with no-one playing rugby at all.

Which they might like, as that would be 100% racially diverse and unbiased...

 

[Groundhog]

Now I'm quite ignorant of the situation in South Africa, but the approach of the government to bringing diversity to rugby is so shortsighted.

The government itself needs to be funding development schemes and grassroots clubs in areas where this hasn't happened before. Is rugby on the curriculum in schools everywhere? Or only some? Get everyone to play rugby, have the structure in place to develop new players across the country, then wait fifteen years.

That way you tap a whole new pool of talent, rather than cramp the use of the existing one. Shoehorning people of different ethnicities into the team is not the same as lasting change. That's like painting over the cracks.

The only thing the quota system is doing lastingly and effectively, is reducing the quality of rugby from one of the best teams in the world- they'll end up with no-one playing rugby at all.

Which they might like, as that would be 100% racially diverse and unbiased...

I mean yeah sense would dictate that you would invest in grassroots of a sport to ensure greater diversity, but sense seems to be quite far from a priority for the 'decision makers' in SA. Rugby (and I'm pretty ignorant here) seems to be quite symbolic of all that the ANC hates in SA, and so their attempts to force positive discrimination quotas into the game are a far cheaper and petty way of forcing their political views onto the sport. It's populist, it's political, and the best interests of the sport mean very very little to them. There is literally no legitimate argument for putting anything but your best 15 onto the field whether they be black, white or purple like Barney. A greater proportion of that best 15 would be black if kids were encouraged to play the game from a young age, but so is life. That's not to take away from guys like Kholisi who are excellent players, and among the best on show yesterday, but long term it can only lead to the stagnation of South African rugby.
That's just my two cents as a total outsider, and I'm sure the South African lads have a far more informed opinion on the topic

 

[kusta]

Terrible performance from the Boks. The ref was absolutely shocking. Apart from Faf de Klerk no one looked mentally up for the game! We were very lethargic on defence and seemed like no game plan and everyone could just go do their own thing. Willie Le Roux was terrible, running sideways on numerous occasions which thwarted the attack. De Jager was also very bad losing ball in contact and getting yellow carded, Malherbe another bad performer. Actually I could name quite a few but this was just a bad performance. But Credit to the Irish they were immense!!! Really fronted up physically and huge defensive effort.

On the positive side which are few, We already see the intent to move the ball around and not to mention the shift in selections(rewarding form) which is more than what can be said we saw in the last 4 years!! I felt we did not kick enough, a few times were tried to play from deep when we needed to get out of our half. Would love to see Combrinck and Jaco Kriel have a crack next week. And I would have liked to see Elton at 10 with Lambie at 15 and unfortunately due the injury we didn't see that as I read AC was willing to try that out later in the game! But really I think things can definitely get better and all you people crying Quotas and the end of Springbok rugby are ignorant and one-eyed probable conservatives who don't like change. Transformation is gonna happen whether you like it or not and its either you jump on the bandwagon or get left behind. I dont like the way they are implementing the system but its been too long and not much has been done about it. It needs to start at grassroot level and build up but the problem is we see a lot of black schoolboy players and you can see that in the U20 too but the problem is most of these players do not get contracts with the major unions. Thats the problem too, Unions are "privatised" and do their own things and sign whoever they want. For transformation we would need to get all the Unions onboard and like say a year you need to sign a certain number of blacks (but would they get opportunities thats another topic).

The difference between the 2 sides or even between the NH vs SH performances. NH teams just come off a six Nations so they've been together for a while whereas SH teams just come off SupeRugby and its their first time getting together as a team and first game. Not to mention they only had like 2 weeks to prepare. Do I think the SH teams will lift their performances next week? Definitely and will only get better from here. EOYT might be a different story. But really the gap between the 2 spheres is definitely closing!

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

I find something deliciously ironic, inconsistent (and just plain wrong) about the fact that when the jumper is jumping to catch the ball (Dan Biggar), and he collides with the player whose feet are on the ground (Finn Russell) the player in the air is protected, but if the player jumps to block the ball (CJ Stander) and collides with the player whose feet are on the ground (Patrick Lambie), its the player on the ground who is protected.

If this decision had been consistent with Joel Jutge's ludicrous memo last year, and with the Finn Russell yellow card, citing and subsequent suspension, then Patrick Lambie ought to have been red carded for endangering the player in the air (and I'm not suggesting for one moment that he ought to have been, I am just making a point about the stupidity of the way the Laws are currently being enforced in this regard). I can easily imagine a situation where Lambie's kick was a little flatter, Stander charged the ball and by a fluke of luck he gets hands to it, and it sticks, and then he clatters into Lambie knocking him out. Stander has challenged for the ball in their air so the Law affords him protection. Is that still a red card for Stander? If so, why would it not be a red card for Biggar?

This!

I am really curious what would happen if we have the exact same situation till the point of contact, but for whatever reason, Lambie takes the hit without taking much damage and Stander flips on the air and lands with his neck.

 

[unrated]

The government itself needs to be funding development schemes and grassroots clubs in areas where this hasn't happened before. Is rugby on the curriculum in schools everywhere? Or only some? Get everyone to play rugby, have the structure in place to develop new players across the country, then wait fifteen years.

That way you tap a whole new pool of talent, rather than cramp the use of the existing one. Shoehorning people of different ethnicities into the team is not the same as lasting change. That's like painting over the cracks.

That is our case against the government. Why not invest in grasroots and develop enough black players. Eventualy if the production line gets strong there will be better competition for places than there are now. The problem is that the government want the transformation to start immediately by 2019 they want the team to be atleast 50% black African. What is happening in South Africa now is that the predominantly black schools dont play rugby and the money mostly goes to football. The predominantly white schools consisting of the English and Afrikaans pupils mainly care about rugby. In a lot of "white" schools football is not even played. The black springboks coming through is guys who went to these rugby schools. So there are some good black players but not enough to be able to meet the transformation requirements that they are setting. As some of you have said if they invest to introduce rugby to these black schools then there would be quality black and white players to choose from and our playing resources will double. If you want to be good at a sport and represent your country one day you have to play it from a very young age. You will never be as good if you only start playing rugby in high school and as most black primary schools dont have rugby the kids there are anyway more interested in football.

As for the game against the Irish. We cant use quotas as an excuse. We lost because they were better on the day. Lets say the black players included in the match because of quotas were so bad that they were equivalent to one good player put together then we still had 13 players on the field who was genuinely good enough to be on this stage and with the Irish down to 14 men and even 13 at one stage i cant see why those players that was there on merit could not win it for us. That was poor. The coach has to take the blame if was outfoxed tactically and he let everyone down.

 

[j'nuh]

On the issue of the CJ Stander red card....


For mine, due the way that referees are currently told to deal with this, I agree that the referee had little choice but to give a red card to Stander

However, I am less than happy with the process. IMO, this is yet another example of outcome-driven decision making, and I don't like it (I have previously expressed my disdain for this type of decision both here and on other forums and in other discussions).

Think back for a moment to the Dan Biggar/Finn Russell incident in the Scotland v Wales 6N match in 2015. For those who haven't seen it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whN_jd2gh44

I find something deliciously ironic, inconsistent (and just plain wrong) about the fact that when the jumper is jumping to catch the ball (Dan Biggar), and he collides with the player whose feet are on the ground (Finn Russell) the player in the air is protected, but if the player jumps to block the ball (CJ Stander) and collides with the player whose feet are on the ground (Patrick Lambie), its the player on the ground who is protected.

If this decision had been consistent with Joel Jutge's ludicrous memo last year, and with the Finn Russell yellow card, citing and subsequent suspension, then Patrick Lambie ought to have been red carded for endangering the player in the air (and I'm not suggesting for one moment that he ought to have been, I am just making a point about the stupidity of the way the Laws are currently being enforced in this regard). I can easily imagine a situation where Lambie's kick was a little flatter, Stander charged the ball and by a fluke of luck he gets hands to it, and it sticks, and then he clatters into Lambie knocking him out. Stander has challenged for the ball in their air so the Law affords him protection. Is that still a red card for Stander? If so, why would it not be a red card for Biggar?

IMO, if the jumping charger collides with the kicker recklessly, then whether that is a penalty, a yellow card or a red card, it should always be that regardless of consequences. The fact that the kicker was injured ought to be completely irrelevant.

I think the only way this can be completely resolved is to change the legality of jumping to catch a ball or block a kick

1. make jumping to charge down a kick illegal.
2. make it so that only the non-kicking team is allowed to jump to catch the ball, and
3. make it so that a mark can only be taken if the ball is caught with the both the catcher's feet on the ground.

But Russell (the person on the ground) is endangering Biggar, and Stander (the person in the air) is endangering Lambie. That's the difference.

 

[Peat]

http://en.espn.co.uk/scrum/rugby/match/281081.html

ESPN stats for the match. Doesn't really cover the intensity of it, oddly enough. Look at the tackle stats of the Irish midfield though - the South Africans tried it on there but virtually no change.

 

[munstermuffin]

Have watched CJ incident 100 times and while I respect people saying it was correct call I 100% disagree. My views are
1. He was in the air before kick
2. He got touch on ball with both hands
3. He didn't raise knees in a dangerous way but it was his hip that did damage due to turning in a natural way.

My bigger fear is now, and I understand it's a sensitive issue, how soft are we going to go. The game is slowly becoming too technical. Like refs are abandoning logical views to follow a script thats trying to be 1 size fits all.

 

[g6mcg]

But Russell (the person on the ground) is endangering Biggar, and Stander (the person in the air) is endangering Lambie. That's the difference.

And if Biggar had (unintentionally) kneed Russell in the head...?

 

[Tony Manx]

Have watched CJ incident 100 times and while I respect people saying it was correct call I 100% disagree. My views are
1. He was in the air before kick
2. He got touch on ball with both hands
3. He didn't raise knees in a dangerous way but it was his hip that did damage due to turning in a natural way.

My bigger fear is now, and I understand it's a sensitive issue, how soft are we going to go. The game is slowly becoming too technical. Like refs are abandoning logical views to follow a script thats trying to be 1 size fits all.

+100!

 

[munstermuffin]

And if Biggar had (unintentionally) kneed Russell in the head...?

This is exactly the issue. A sanction can't be decided by the outcome.
CJ and Pat Lambie are close mates off field. I'd ask if Pat got up yesterday and played on would it still be red?
Now don't get me wrong Lambie was injured and thankfully he is ok but my point is does the outcome depend on targeted player. For example isn't that meaning its kind of a gamble if CJ incident happened on a Lambie, a De Jager and a Beast (I know they wouldn't kick) that he'd have remained on field.

 

[smartcooky]

But Russell (the person on the ground) is endangering Biggar, and Stander (the person in the air) is endangering Lambie. That's the difference.

Now you see, this is where I entirely disagree.

Biggar placed himself in danger by jumping, and IMO he did so with reckless disregard for anyone who might have been in the way or in the landing zone. This may not be what the Law says, but in this particular case, I really don't give a fat rats arse what the Law says because I disagree with it. What I am talking about is what is fair and equitable. For mine, fair and equitable mean that the same conditions should apply to both players on the ground and both players in the air. Jumping with no consideration for where you are going to land is either reckless or it isn't. I'm not going to let you have it both ways and shift the goalposts, because that is on no way fair or equitable.

Both players, Biggar and Stander, jumped to contest for the ball.
If Biggar was not reckless, then Stander was not reckless.
If Stander was reckless, then so was Biggar

 

[WaterboySA]

Congrats to Ireland, and that's all....hurts too much.

PS: Willie le Roux sucks.

Double PS: I feel for CJ. Great lad.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

I think the general feeling in SA goes something like:

- hard luck, CJ and get well soon, Pat
- great commiment from Ireland
- poor from us and it could've been accepted if it looked like we were putting in the effort the Irish lads were. But our boys, half of them looked disinterested.
- also, we were expecting a change of pace or approach in the 2nd half but it looks like Coetzee didn't attend the match

Me personally:

- On the whole I feel we can't blame quotas for the loss but at the same time we can't afford to not to have our best possible XV out there.
- I accept the loss. Its one of those we've had in the past where we tried the ball in hand approach and did most of the running but couldn't convert. Much like vs Aus in 2011 as the best example. But we want to evolve our game so we are going to have to keep at it and maybe look at selections; we need the likes of Combrinck, Kriel and Whiteley in here. Take out Le Roux, Louw and Vermeulen. Also drop Mbonambi and Paige etc; the guys on the bench that can't add impact.
- A little thing here or there and we could've won. I am talking about a pass going to hand, JPP managing to finish off i the corner, we were unlucky on many occasions where Ireland got off for free with us on their line, many times cynically so.
- 22 turnovers is to many. But we only have ourselves to blame for not adapting to the Irish game. I am a little bit miffed that De Allende got pinged for a high tackle on our line that was touch and g yet the Irish seemed to have license; especially De Jager's two turn overs where the term choke tackle was literal but nothing from the ref. Not that I want to blame the ref. I feel Ireland have as much maybe even more to complain about and its pointless the 'what if' exercise.