SA vs Wales (June 2022 series)

[Welsh Exile]

I want to see Anscombe given a start. He might have that extra bit of creativity with both ball in hand and playmaking ability that might help kick start Wales' attack.

Anscombe didn't come on did he? I wonder if Pivac pulled him to one side during the week and said you're there in case Dan gets injured.

Biggar has the cushyiest place in the squad. Literally not being challenged for his position at all which is not only not good for us but it's not good for him either.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

From a neutral perspective The Welsh pack is inadequate to consistently get fast ball. None of its regions made the URC playoffs and their u20s are no great shakes. I don't know why people are mad they didnt win in the world champ's back yard, even if the Boks are coached by an unproven quantity.

You could have any coach on the planet and Wales would be doing well to not lose the series 3-0 with comprehensive defeats in each match. But yeah, let's pin it on the only coach from the past 10 years to get silverware with a Welsh region AND win 6N.

 

[Welsh Exile]

From a neutral perspective The Welsh pack is inadequate to consistently get fast ball. None of its regions made the URC playoffs and their u20s are no great shakes. I don't know why people are mad they didnt win in the world champ's back yard, even if the Boks are coached by an unproven quantity.

You could have any coach on the planet and Wales would be doing well to not lose the series 3-0 with comprehensive defeats in each match. But yeah, let's pin it on the only coach from the past 10 years to get silverware with a Welsh region AND win 6N.

I'm not particularly annoyed at the result really. I'd happily go back to when he first took over when we were not getting any results but we saw patches of what he was looking to do. Some decent stuff. The regions have been **** for years and we've had some decent sucess at international level. He oversaw our first home defeat to Italy and we look like all we know how to do is get in a scrap when we were promised so much more.

He's not getting the most out of this squad and I genuinely think a Robertson or peak Gatland/Edwards would be getting a result out there. At the very least they wouldn't go into it with a negative mindset like he has.

 

[Eleutherarch]

Gatland adapted his approach pretty quickly to work with what he had and what they could do realistically. It was grindy but more than serviceable. I think Pivac is going to have to grimace and follow suit.

If you want to play a free-flowing, offloading team, that **** needs to be baked into the DNA of the youngest players in secondary school. Bruce is right about everything hinging on the speed of the ruck. Offloads cease to be threatening if it's taken thirty minutes to extract the ball and linespeed can be compared aptly to continental drift.

We've got the opposite problem in terms of often squandering quick ball. I think that that can be more maddening.

Anyway, I'm adopting Wales as my second team officially. Maybe my Welsh mother will consider the possibility that she might be able to love me to some degree someday. GWLAD!

 

[Jimbo]

Tbf regardless it was a very spirited Welsh performance, to almost win against the champions in their own back yard is very good, I don't mean this offensively so hopefully Welsh fans don't take it as such but what really impresses me is how they consistently play better than the sum of their parts, not to say they don't have quality but generally lacking quality throughout and very little depth, also heavily struggling at regional level and yet put them in the Welsh setup and it's always defiant and spirited and very rarely leads to an embarrassing scoreline contrary to a lot of preconceptions, it pains me to say it as an Englishman but it's almost the polar opposite to England.

Obviously losing to that Italian side (which are pretty talented) wasn't ideal but probably due to not giving them the respect they deserved.

 

[Johnny Storm]

It is. I see that now as we won in spite of Pivac not because of anything he did. The players cracked on and built momentum from the opening day when 14 man ireland almost beat us at home.

He got the job off the back of one good season with the Scarlets. Don't get me wrong, he was probably the right man for the job at the time but it's clear as day he's not working out now. I wouldn't be surprised if at least half the squad are just going through the motions with him and have tuned out and that's being kind.

I wouldn't even be so keen to get rid of him if Robertson wasn't potentially available as there aren't an abundance of elite coaches available and Pivac isn't a terrible coach by any means and it's not all his fault obviously but we've reached the end of the road with him imo. Thanks for 2020 though.

Relax

So long as the Boks box-kick the ball to Wales you will always have a chance. Springboks are by far the worst tier 1 side in the world at the moment. Saturday's performance was the worst first half of Springbok rugby I have seen since 1992 and I have watched pretty much every single SA test in the last 30 years.

Just stay calm gather the ball from Faf and go forwards.

Boks are ridiculous now.

Since when has any ball sport been won by gifting away possession?

 

[Welsh Exile]

Francis ruled out of the series. Hope he fully recovers obviously, wasn't nice to see. I guess this Wainwright kid will be on the bench.

 

[saulan]

Initial stories are making their ways onto twitter of quite a large rotation for the Boks this week. Also had Roos in the press conference today…

 

[Eleutherarch]

Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas, but I will believe the rotation when I see it on the field. As much as I like Roos (and would be happy to see him), Wiese was in no way responsible for the abysmal performance on Saturday.

I'd like to see Kolisi dropped (or benched at the very least). Start Willemse at 10 and see where it goes. Start someone else at 9 outside of De Klerk and Jantjies. 11, 14, 15? Smorgasbord of choice.

 

[mdaclarke]

Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas, but I will believe the rotation when I see it on the field. As much as I like Roos (and would be happy to see him), Wiese was in no way responsible for the abysmal performance on Saturday.

I'd like to see Kolisi dropped (or benched at the very least). Start Willemse at 10 and see where it goes. Start someone else at 9 outside of De Klerk and Jantjies. 11, 14, 15? Smorgasbord of choice.

I can't see them putting Roos up for the press conference and then not including him in the matchday 23

 

[saulan]

Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas

Hello Thomas, you may call me the Oracle.

14 changes to the Springboks in the starting xv. Only Etzebeth stays. Stars on debuts:
1 Du Toit
2 Dweba
3 Nyakane
4 Etzebeth
5 Orie
6 Coetzee
7 PSDT
8 Roos *
9 Hendrikse
10 Pollard
11 Fassi
12 Esterhuizen
13 Kriel
14 Arendse *
15 Gelant

16 Marx
17 Mchunu *
18 Koch
19 Nortje *
20 Fourie *
21 Elstadt
22 Williams *
23 Willemse

 

[Welsh Exile]

14 changes. **** me. That is very interesting. That's even going to completely bite him in the arse or you'll spank us by 20 plus points. For sure we won't make that many changes. I'll be amazed if there's more than 2.

 

[Jer1cho]

That loose trio is monstrous.

 

[WaterboySA]

Will never happen. Will never drop his captain.

PS:..........No....way....thought you were joking.......killer team. Must be Rassie taking control.....

 

[Eleutherarch]

Hello Thomas, you may call me the Oracle.

I will never not call you the Oracle from this moment onwards, Oracle.

Wow. Little lost for words. No way did Nienaber arrive at this team on his own but happy all the same. It's going to be odd (and a challenge I may add) to watch this test, trying to concentrate hard on almost every position for once to see how each player is going. I wouldn't mind that much if they lost - this was so necessary.

I'm gonna have to watch this several times. Pivac is going to have his work cut out for him - no one expected this (with the exception of the Oracle, but that goes without saying).

 

[Eleutherarch]

That loose trio is monstrous.

Right?! The work rate is going to be immense.

 

[saulan]

This just smells a lot like the double squads we had in the Rugby Championship in 2019 where a second squad was in NZ training while another squad was playing and beating Australia at Ellis Park (think that was the game with the Herschel Jantjies made his debut and got that snipe try). I don't think this was a result from last weeks result, I'm sure this was the plan from before this series started. I'm excited. A lot of strong players in there, and really looking forward to Fourie finally getting his debut.

Edit: Another key fact for this team. Pollard captains the Boks for the first time. I think our last backline captain was Jean De Villiers.

 

[Welsh Exile]

I mean, is this not borderline disrespectful? You can bet if Gatland was in charge he'd be going into the players saying how they don't respect you, they think they can steam roller you with brand new combinations, rusty players back from injury, debutants and 14 changes. Bit of a risk but hey, you're playing a team that lost to Italy at home so you'll probably be fine and no need to worry. We'll definitely be more battle hardened after having that gruelling 80 mins in our legs but you can always flip that the other way. Time will tell.

 

[WaterboySA]

Nothing borderline about it. Either the Boks lose, or they win by a proper margin. It's a straight up yours by Rassie me thinks. Hope it does not backfire.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Nothing borderline about it. Either the Boks lose, or they win by a proper margin. It's a straight up yours by Rassie me thinks. Hope it does not backfire.

Yeah, im actually a bit more optimistic about winning. Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting my house on it and I wasn't exactly super optimistic before but 100% this is a big risk that I'm glad you've taken as I think it gives us a slightly improved chance of winning. Having said that we'll probably lose by 15 plus points.