[June Tests 2018: 3rd Test] South Africa vs. England (23/06/2018)

[Gena_ZA]

Haha I love how as fans we go from, "The Bokke are the worst they have ever been and I hate my life." to after two games "All we do is win win win no matter what."

Here are my concerns:

• First game not at altitude
• Big changes in the back line including key players like Pollard and le Roux
• The players replacing Pollard and le Roux while talented are probably less suited to a wet weather game plan (and it looks like it's going to be wet.
• Bongi has magically become a set piece hooker in the last 2 tests, so we were lucky to maintain a good set piece, a change in hooker for someone who has barely played rugby in 3 years and a retired guy hardly inspires confidence.
• I'm going to the game which spells doom.

I think there are enough concerned there that victory is far from certain.

Part of the fun mate..
Can only comment on the last 2 games under the new Management an applicable to this tour and the direct opposition, so no point here to debate on

• Like we bank on altitude to be our saving grace, no we don't, the remark is only a statement of the obvious
• Agreed on the backline, much less experience, defense could go badly out of shape - fully share your concerns here, don't think it will cost us the game though
• At the same token AE is coming in and some powerful straight running with Galant and his excellent running lines could be deadly on this field
• To think I never liked Bongi but yes he is much improved, Chilli needs to have a bad game before I discard him and this so called retired guy is arguably better than both
• That is so unfortunate, you unlucky bugger, try and put on a happy face on the day

 

[Kabous]

Changes to Boks are not bad at all. Hope Jantjes has a good game under Rassie's input.

We need a big centre like Andre Esterhuizen in the mould of a Ma'a Nonu to bash things up in the middle. Andre is an exciting prospect who will grow into his position.

Gelant is very dynamic and maybe even more so than Le Roux.

Overall Rassie had chosen really well to balance all given factors.
Still a lot of grunt up-front and sting at the back.

On another matter the big difference for me between the Boks and Roses in the series sofar was home advantage and especially fitness levels. All Blacks taught us that lesson a few seasons ago.
Even Vermeulen admitted after the latest test he was knackered. Coming from the NH it might be telling.

 

[unrated]

Not feeling can confident to win this game!
Few reasons:
Mapimpi should have been given a go
Rob should have started or been on the bench instead of Jantjies
We should have shuffled the forwards a bit more, actually play PSdT at lock and bring in JldP. Why is Mostert still starting? He is going overseas now so he is not even a loyal local player that we should reward.

Seriously seriously now... Chiliboy... you got to be ducking kidding me! Start brits or Akker with the other on the Bench.

If England doesn't win this then Rassie is either a tactical mastermind or this England team is utterly ****.

At least glad that Esterhuizen and Kriel is starting, so we have that going for us. But it's the first time and it was really bound to come that I was not satisfied with his team selection.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Stop with the fake humble-ness!
This is the worst side England have put out so far, considering you won the first two you should be huge favourites going into this!

 

[SomeOke]

Stop with the fake humble-ness!
This is the worst side England have put out so far, considering you won the first two you should be huge favourites going into this!

I assure you it's paranoia not fake modesty - this cute new boy is being very sweet to us, bringing us flowers, treating us right but we still remember our ex who beat us black and blue every week.

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

Feel slightly better about EJ's shoe-horning of players after seeing that Fraser Brown's playing 7 for Scotland on Saturday.

 

[Scotty]

Sinkler still starting. Seriously needs to up his carrying rate, he barely carried last week. Its embarrassing thats hes thought of one of our best carriers and he carried like twice. Get him on as an impact.

5 chiefs on the bench, shame nowell and armand wasnt in the squad or could have been 7 . Jonny hill i rate and is a good player but would have iseikwe, i dont know what ej has against him, the rest im happy with.

Wilson shpuld be starting and robshaw out.

6 2 slpit im happy enough with as alot of pur backs can play multiple positions.

Hes sticking to the daly FB experiment but imo needs to take away brown and let daly have a go on his own with solomona. Cips faz slade.

I know jones has favourites but ffs what has loz, shields and iseikwe done to be totally out.

Williams and Lcd should start.
Isiekwe for jonny hill
Wilson should start, shields bench, robshaw put.
Solomona to start, give daly a chance to be the only fb on the pitch, brown to the bench.

They are all the things id change from this change. Not massivly unhappy but i think we havnt gone with the right options IMO

 

[Giraffatitan]

I know jones has favourites but ffs what has loz, shields and iseikwe done to be totally out.

Shields is 'ill' whatever that means, and Isiekwe broke his hand in training. Loz I agree should be in with a shout. I would've been tempted to start him at 12 over Farrell tbh

 

[ratsapprentice]

Shields is 'ill' whatever that means,

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest it means he's ill.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

The most cynical reading of the england selection is that Jones is setting Cipriani up to fail so that he can claim he was right about Ford being the best option.

Youngs' retention is a serious error - his failure to make timely effective decisions probably hurts us more than Fords issues.

Brown on the wing is the least of my worries but is still unbelievably negative when going into a dead rubber with Solomona on the bench.

Hughes deserves nothing but his selection over simmonds is justified because of how beaten up we'd get by the boks pack.

 

[Scotty]

Shields is 'ill' whatever that means, and Isiekwe broke his hand in training. Loz I agree should be in with a shout. I would've been tempted to start him at 12 over Farrell tbh

Just read about shields and gen didnt know about iseikwe, sorry EJ for my lack of faith lol

5 3 split means wilson starts, no robshaw, hill and simmonds(chiefs pack) on bench. Means spencer, loz and solomona(though as i said it should be solo start brown bench).

It annoys me about loz not being included,as every time he comes on off the bench he makes an impact in attack and he tackles hard.

 

[Fuzzy du Plessis]

Yeah Cipriani has been set up to fail by placing him in the, er, exact same backline that Eddie has been using all series. Everyone knows when you want a 10 to look **** you put them between your first choice 9 and 12.

This is by far the best way for Cipriani to show how a backline with him at 10 differs from one with Ford. If Eddie made other changes (presumably you want Robson at 9) then any improvement could be down to those changes instead. You should be absolutely thrilled.

 

[User1245]

South Africa

15 Warrick Gelant, 14 S'bu Nkosi, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Andre Esterhuizen, 11 Aphiwe Dyantyi, 10 Elton Jantjies, 9 Faf de Klerk, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Franco Mostert, 4 RG Snyman, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Chiliboy Ralepelle, 1 Tendai Mtawarira

Substitutes: 16 Schalk Brits, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Thomas du Toit, 19 Jean-Luc du Preez, 20 Sikhumbuzo Notshe, 21 Embrose Papier 22 Handre Pollard, 23 Willie le Roux


Pretty out there team for the Bokke, can 100% see us losing this. Chilliboy at 2 makes the least sense to me, why not just start Akker van der Merve if you want to rotate hookers (obvious answer is he wants to balance quotas).
Otherwise the backline is pretty exciting, it's just pretty much debutants from 11-15...

About half of my wishes were granted. Nkosi and Dyantyi get another match together, with Gelant starting. Esterhuizen in but Am out. Kriel has stepped up his game this season and he has experience so fair play. However I would have liked to see the Sharks centre pairing given a go.

I reckon Jantjies deserves a decent go under Rassie. Pollard is better on multiple fronts but we need a confident and ready to fire 10 waiting in the wings. He plays well for the Lions and has experience. We shouldn't cast him out just yet.
Rob du Preez got a raw deal in Washington with Rassie subbing him on for his debut while we were under pressure. I remember Naas saying that Frans Steyn would never be able to be an international 10 (when there was debate about his best position) because he was too tall and would get charged down often. I wonder if du Preez is experiencing the same issue. Rob is 1.92m and Frans is 1.91m.

I'm scratching my head over Malherbe's selection. He looks unfit after coming back from injury. I don't rate him.

Edit: And still no Mapimpi! WTF?!

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Yeah Cipriani has been set up to fail by placing him in the, er, exact same backline that Eddie has been using all series. Everyone knows when you want a 10 to look **** you put them between your first choice 9 and 12.

This is by far the best way for Cipriani to show how a backline with him at 10 differs from one with Ford. If Eddie made other changes (presumably you want Robson at 9) then any improvement could be down to those changes instead. You should be absolutely thrilled.

You've managed to entirely miss the point that the place where changes were needed for us to function effectively is in the pack. That's what I meant when I said set up to fail, because there are still key issues there.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Not feeling can confident to win this game!
Few reasons:
Mapimpi should have been given a go
Rob should have started or been on the bench instead of Jantjies
We should have shuffled the forwards a bit more, actually play PSdT at lock and bring in JldP. Why is Mostert still starting? He is going overseas now so he is not even a loyal local player that we should reward.

Seriously seriously now... Chiliboy... you got to be ducking kidding me! Start brits or Akker with the other on the Bench.

If England doesn't win this then Rassie is either a tactical mastermind or this England team is utterly ****.

At least glad that Esterhuizen and Kriel is starting, so we have that going for us. But it's the first time and it was really bound to come that I was not satisfied with his team selection.

Do you know why Mostert is going overseas? He started a foundation along with his brother to aid disabled people. Mostert's brother was in a serious car accident which left him in a wheelchair. One of the main reasons why Franco is going abroad is to help his brother and his foundation.

I think the only reason why Dyanthi and Nkosi are starting again is to see if their defence got better.

I can't wait to see what Esterhuizen does to this English backline, I'm hoping he gets a few good runs in.

It might be a dead rubber, but I don't think any of the guys in the SA camp would see it this way as this is their chance to prove to Rassie they are good enough for the RC coming up.

Also wise from Rassie to give some of them a rest, hoping they don't get injured ahead of the RC (here's hoping they don't get injured during the Super Rugby return).

 

[unrated]

Do you know why Mostert is going overseas? He started a foundation along with his brother to aid disabled people. Mostert's brother was in a serious car accident which left him in a wheelchair. One of the main reasons why Franco is going abroad is to help his brother and his foundation
.

No i didnt know that, all that i knew was that he was just another Lions players leaving for foreign shores. Never saw anything reported about this issue you are mentioning. O
If its the case then its very admirable and i would support his decision. Family comes before any rugby decisions.

I do still think howerver that Etzebeth, PSdT and de Jager should be our main locks going forward so why not blood another young flanker ?

 

[Which Tyler]

You've managed to entirely miss the point that the place where changes were needed for us to function effectively is in the pack. That's what I meant when I said set up to fail, because there are still key issues there.

Then A] You didn't make your point very well
And B] The situation is still the same as Ford dealt with

When I suggested that Ford would probably play better with a real 7 p, a real IC, and preferably a competent SH I was told that if he needs a team built around him to be effective then he isn't worth it (because, of course, Ford is the only FH in the world whomwould do better in that situation). Now Cips is given the samempack andnthe same backs as Ford, and he's being set up to fail and you can't possibly judge him accurately by this.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Ford is the golden boy and must never be criticised.


No one said cipriani was the only change that needed to be made, just that he's one that we wanted to see. Obviously every one wanted the pack strengthened, that was never in question.
Cipriani doesn't have the some pack, anyway. He's got neither Vunipola, so we're missing our two best heavy carriers right off the bat. He also has to deal with Robshaw, which we didn't last week.
3/8 of this pack is a significant step down from last week.

 

[TRF_heineken]

No i didnt know that, all that i knew was that he was just another Lions players leaving for foreign shores. Never saw anything reported about this issue you are mentioning. O
If its the case then its very admirable and i would support his decision. Family comes before any rugby decisions.

I do still think howerver that Etzebeth, PSdT and de Jager should be our main locks going forward so why not blood another young flanker ?

just having 3 locks is spreading it a bit thin. I think Rassie has the right idea of building a core group. Remember that we are building towards the RWC next year. So while there is a balancing act, Rassie can't just keep on blooding new faces, he also has to get the core group's cap numbers up.

I also have this suspicion that a certain flanker playing in Ireland will soon be called up...

 

[MikeTheNative]

Was there a reason given why Armand wasn't taken?