Wales v South Africa

[dullonien]

Stephen Jones showed some of his good and bad attributes today. Overall he was excellent defensively as always and he kicked well at goal aswell. His kicking from hand was also much improved, and his cross kick for North's second try was excellent. However he still struggled a little to get the back-line moving, and didn't threaten atall with ball in hand. He's still easily Wales' no 1 fly half though, he's just having a few weeks where he's not quite at his best. Compare that with his beggining of season form for the Scarlets that was some of the best he's ever produced imo, so he's still got it. Maybe Wales would function a little better with a more creative outside half, it's tough to say. But untill either Hook get's gametime in the position (certainly will at hi next club), or Tovey is brought into the fold, we won't see that really.

Edit: so a further three players out for the rest of the AI's. Shane, Gethin Jenkins and Lydiate all out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/9187152.stm

Turnbull must come in for Lydiate, and imo he should start against Fiji, but that probably won't happen. Gatland probably won't bother replacing Gethin Jenkins or Shane Williams in the squad. Iestyn Thomas or Ryan Bevington if Gatland decides another prop in the Welsh squad is cruicial. Can't really think of any wingers available to replace Shane, probably Tom James if anyone.

 

[TRF C A Iversen]

No lets get this straight ....

One: You said Wales had easy penalties, I object to that, massively and I think its quite ignorant statement. Wales and South Africa were both allowed to get away with the most amazing things. The game was spoilt by Walsh, two South African tries were not tries, no matter how you argue it.

Two: Craig only thing thats been done is merging posts to stop the entire middle of this thread becoming just a one man post session. I told him this in a PM, it was one post after the other so merged them. Hardly a crime ...

Fair enough there Cymro, just wanted to ask, as it looked initially it seemed a little heated over not too much, but I didn't want to just assume that so thought I'd ask was all.

 

[SelimNiai]

The thing we learn from this game is this; Tom Shanklin is poor when he wears a scrum cap. Without it he was good but with it he made poor decisions and was not as effective. We also know that a Wales with Hook at 12 is approx 465% better than a Wales with Hook at 15.

Good perfromance from the lads today, put tons of effort and were dominant in many areas, should have won really but South Africa can be praised by the way they fought back in the second half. And as for Walsh, all I will say is that he showed why he was dropped from International reffing.

 

[TRF_Cymro]

Stephen Jones showed some of his good and bad attributes today. Overall he was excellent defensively as always and he kicked well at goal aswell. His kicking from hand was also much improved, and his cross kick for North's second try was excellent. However he still struggled a little to get the back-line moving, and didn't threaten atall with ball in hand. He's still easily Wales' no 1 fly half though, he's just having a few weeks where he's not quite at his best. Compare that with his beggining of season form for the Scarlets that was some of the best he's ever produced imo, so he's still got it. Maybe Wales would function a little better with a more creative outside half, it's tough to say. But untill either Hook get's gametime in the position (certainly will at hi next club), or Tovey is brought into the fold, we won't see that really.

Edit: so a further three players out for the rest of the AI's. Shane, Gethin Jenkins and Lydiate all out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/9187152.stm

Turnbull must come in for Lydiate, and imo he should start against Fiji, but that probably won't happen. Gatland probably won't bother replacing Gethin Jenkins or Shane Williams in the squad. Iestyn Thomas or Ryan Bevington if Gatland decides another prop in the Welsh squad is cruicial. Can't really think of any wingers available to replace Shane, probably Tom James if anyone.

Got to bring in Iestyn Thomas, I have no faith in Yapp whatsoever. Turnbull should be called up ... and someone else I suppose.

 

[dullonien]

I have no idea why Wales or the Blues are persisting with Yapp really. He looked a decent prospect back in '05, but hasn't progressed his game atall in the five years since then, if anything he's gone backwards. Looshead prop is an area of reletive strength for us, so why bother with him. If we were going to pick a prop who can't scrummage, may as well go the whole hog and pick Gustafson who's aswesome in open field! But in the real world I wan't the props to be able to scrummage first and foremost, so Iestyn Thomas or Bevington please.

If Gatland doesn't now call up Turnbull I'll start thinking something's happened there. The only thing I can think of is Turnbull dropping out from the Welsh summer tour to be there when his first child was born. Hope not though, as that would be rediculous!

 

[TRF_Cymro]

Just going back to Shanklin ... the reason he could well of been so poor second half, was he concussed? I reckon so.

 

[SelimNiai]

Just going back to Shanklin ... the reason he could well of been so poor second half, was he concussed? I reckon so.

Possibly, but then shouldn't someone have noticed that. I think, certainly when he should have passed to Byrne when he made that break, was that the Scrum Cap would have blocked his ears.

 

[TRF_Cymro]

Possibly, but then shouldn't someone have noticed that. I think, certainly when he should have passed to Byrne when he made that break, was that the Scrum Cap would have blocked his ears.

Possibly but I don't think he was fully aware come second half. Still reckon he was not 100% and they should have sent Bishop on instead. Occurred around the same time as Shane Williams injury so the medical staff could well have just patched him up and sent him back out without really noticing.

 

[dullonien]

Quite possible, but we could all see his performance dipped in the second half, so wheather he was concussed or not, he should have been replaced, even if it was just the last 5 mins! To be honest I was expecting Bishop to come on at some stage anyway, even if Shanks was still playign reletively well, so found it odd that he didn't come on atall apart from when Shanks was in the blood bin.

 

[SelimNiai]

Same with there new winger, Habana is going to smoke the big mongrel.

North wins. Bryan Who?

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

North played an amazing game and that has nothing to do with the absense of Habana (was he even on the field?)

 

[Boggle]

hahahaha I love all the "Ref was ****, we should have won" comments.

Now you know how we felt last week boys.

Woulda coulda shoulda, Wales were gifted a 7 pointer right at the start of the game with some -clear as daylight- obstruction, but hey, that's steve Walsh for you, the man is a bloody idiot, but the touch judges were equally poor, missing almost every knock on or forward pass in the entire game (both sides mind you).

Wales were definitely a better team than Ireland were last week and I believe we were a poorer version of ourselves from the week before.
We better get our act together because England looks like they're going to rip us a new one.

 

[User1245]

Gotta say well done to Wales. They played a hell of a game. I was expecting us to steam roll the Welsh as a hit back for last week. I haven't been so nervous for the last 10 mins since, well, last week! Honestly my nerves were shot after the game.

That North guy seems the business BTW, big lad with a mature head on his shoulders, albeit that's the only game I've seen him in. From a Bok perspective Habana made his debut just that bit easier. He NEEDS to get dropped. For the team and for himself. All competitive people thrive on proving themselves, the fact that he has that 11 jersey on a gold platter is actually hurting his performances IMO. Drop him, drop him like a sack of potatoes and he will bounce back. He also needs to watch a 2 hour reel of himself shooting up on defence creating an overlap & missing his man on a kickoff or up-and-under chase, and when ever that lapse in common sense happens an ugly 5 year old ginger kid kicks him in the f***ing shin! He also blew a certain try when we had an overlap and Aplon was outside him. DROP HIM!!!

Ahem, alright where was I... The Welsh lineout was also looking good and their physicality in the collision points was noteworthy. At times the Welsh were right on top of the Boks, momentum and physicality wise. I also think we got lucky in the scrums, the Welsh scrum was looks strong and stable in the beginning, putting us under huge pressure HOWEVER they faded quick. It's almost better to save your energy and make sure you nail any scrum after the 60 min mark. Vital to closing out a game, like any set piece after the 60 min mark.

Which bring me to Chiliboy... Look I've come to tolerate him recently. When given genuine game time at provincial level he actually does well. Not go enough for the Boks but hey we know he's gonna be there either way so it's good to see him perform. However with Strauss in the touring squad WTF is doing on the bench. He came on a missed his jumpers completely! Putting us under huge pressure. From a Welsh perspective it looked as if they were challenging well in the line out in the last quarter, I'd say it was more Chiliboy just being crap again.

Which brings me to my next observation... We only really started playing in the second half. Seriously whenever we pushed we had the on the Welsh tryline defending. The big difference was that we DIDN'T KICK THE F***ING BALL AWAY. FFS PdV wake up! That same up-and-under from the base of a ruck crap is what led to our poor showing in the Tri-Nations. It's as clear as day. Dominant teams these days are the ones that are holding onto the ball. The Sharks did it in the CC final, and they blew WP away. The new ruck interpretations favour the team with the ball. Fact. Get it?
Again the Welsh played a hell of a game but as soon as we kept the ball and gave quick ball our big carriers instead of those silly up-and-unders we were like a freight train at times. They couldn't handle it. So for me that was the defining part of the Boks winning, instead of the Welsh being unlucky.

 

[dullonien]

Gotta say well done to Wales. They played a hell of a game. I was expecting us to steam roll the Welsh as a hit back for last week. I haven't been so nervous for the last 10 mins since, well, last week! Honestly my nerves were shot after the game.

That North guy seems the business BTW, big lad with a mature head on his shoulders, albeit that's the only game I've seen him in. From a Bok perspective Habana made his debut just that bit easier. He NEEDS to get dropped. For the team and for himself. All competitive people thrive on proving themselves, the fact that he has that 11 jersey on a gold platter is actually hurting his performances IMO. Drop him, drop him like a sack of potatoes and he will bounce back. He also needs to watch a 2 hour reel of himself shooting up on defence creating an overlap & missing his man on a kickoff or up-and-under chase, and when ever that lapse in common sense happens an ugly 5 year old ginger kid kicks him in the f***ing shin! He also blew a certain try when we had an overlap and Aplon was outside him. DROP HIM!!!

Ahem, alright where was I... The Welsh lineout was also looking good and their physicality in the collision points was noteworthy. At times the Welsh were right on top of the Boks, momentum and physicality wise. I also think we got lucky in the scrums, the Welsh scrum was looks strong and stable in the beginning, putting us under huge pressure HOWEVER they faded quick. It's almost better to save your energy and make sure you nail any scrum after the 60 min mark. Vital to closing out a game, like any set piece after the 60 min mark.

Which bring me to Chiliboy... Look I've come to tolerate him recently. When given genuine game time at provincial level he actually does well. Not go enough for the Boks but hey we know he's gonna be there either way so it's good to see him perform. However with Strauss in the touring squad WTF is doing on the bench. He came on a missed his jumpers completely! Putting us under huge pressure. From a Welsh perspective it looked as if they were challenging well in the line out in the last quarter, I'd say it was more Chiliboy just being crap again.

Which brings me to my next observation... We only really started playing in the second half. Seriously whenever we pushed we had the on the Welsh tryline defending. The big difference was that we DIDN'T KICK THE F***ING BALL AWAY. FFS PdV wake up! That same up-and-under from the base of a ruck crap is what led to our poor showing in the Tri-Nations. It's as clear as day. Dominant teams these days are the ones that are holding onto the ball. The Sharks did it in the CC final, and they blew WP away. The new ruck interpretations favour the team with the ball. Fact. Get it?
Again the Welsh played a hell of a game but as soon as we kept the ball and gave quick ball our big carriers instead of those silly up-and-unders we were like a freight train at times. They couldn't handle it. So for me that was the defining part of the Boks winning, instead of the Welsh being unlucky.

Agree with all of that, the ref was **** for both teams, unfortunately two of his poor decisions happened to accur in the build-up to two SA tries. The first Welsh try is an area of the game that's ill defined and can always go both ways really. Many refs would have called crossing as Shanklin made contact with JdV in front of North, however I didn't see anything wrong with the move. All Shanklin did was fix JdV with his run, there was nothing stopping him from drifting out and tackling North if he had read the move. All in all, it was a well excecuted move which disguised Norths run well.

Too many forward passes were missed, I counted at least three thrown by Steyn out into centre field, although a similar amount was missed from Welsh hands aswell. IRB should seriously reconsider allowing Walsh to referee top flight rugby, not because Wales lost but because he was soo poor for both teams with the touch judges having to call many things he missed conpletely. At least he allowed th game to flow I suppose and we ended up with a great specticle!

 

[User1245]

Too many forward passes were missed, I counted at least three thrown by Steyn out into centre field, although a similar amount was missed from Welsh hands aswell. IRB should seriously reconsider allowing Walsh to referee top flight rugby, not because Wales lost but because he was soo poor for both teams with the touch judges having to call many things he missed conpletely. At least he allowed th game to flow I suppose and we ended up with a great specticle!

Yeah it was a sub-standard showing by Steve Walsh. Didn't influence the game too much but was frustrating nonetheless. At least he was consistently crap.
I also thought his positioning was crap, he often turned and ran down the defense line to check for offside while a ruck was forming, which of course the players took advantage of. He also can't ref a rolling maul to save his life. We were guilty of truck-and-trailer a few times (I even think the commentators called it out) and the Welsh forwards were infringing (coming from the side) just as much.

A BIG one for me was when he didn't send the Welsh replacement hooker off the field for blood bin in the last 5 mins or so. He looked straight at him and even stopped him from taking a quick tap, all while blood covered the whole side of his face.

 

[dullonien]

Well unfortunately I think it could have affected the result, because the game was so close and the fact that one important bad decision lead to South Africa's first try. How can you get pinged for pulling down a maul when only one player falls over who was basically disconnected from the maul? It was either not a penalty atall, or a penalty to Wales for obstruction. As you said SA were guilty all night for truck and trailor in the maul, at one point near the close touchline I counted around 5 players in a line in front of the ball carier! I don't really care that the ref missed the fact that Shanklin was tackled in the air in the lead up to SA's second try, however the fact Habana got away with turning the ball over whilst lying flat on his back was rediculous, especially considering Powell got pinged in the first half for apparently handling on the floor even though he ripped the ball out of the SA players hand before the tackle was comleted.

I'm not trying to directly blame the ref for Wales loosing, as a large part of it was also SA upping their game at the start of the second half and some poor Welsh defence aswell. The problem is, when ref's have such poor games, even if it was for both teams, when a game finishes this close, it's always quite tough to take for the loosers. Refereer are always going to make mistakes, they're only human, but there's a limit, one which Walsh crossed on Sat, and the fact that both sets of supporters agree on it shows just how poor he was.

 

[SavageLez]

Just going to point out that Walsh has destroyed this game.

Alberts try came from a penalty that should never have been because Bradley Davies did not pull a maul down ... joke!

Matfield try, Habana tackled the man in the air, he also stripped the ball on the floor

I agree with you Walsh has has some terrible decisions. At least they have evened the match out coz 2 Welsh tries should not have been awarded either. Norths first try was clearly an obstruction on JDV (not allowed to make impact with tackler) and North was way ahead of the kicker when he scroed his second try. At the end of the day Wales will be kicking themselves for not putting this one away, they were at home and SA have 13 Springboks absent on tour due to injuries. When Schalk Burger, Heinrich Brussouw, Fourie Du Preez, Jaques Fourie, JP Pieterson, BJ Botha, Danie Russouw and the likes of John Smit return from injury the SA starting team and bench will be a hell of a lot stronger and Wales are going to find it a lot tougher to beat SA in the group stages of the World Cup.

 

[SelimNiai]

I agree with you Walsh has has some terrible decisions. At least they have evened the match out coz 2 Welsh tries should not have been awarded either. Norths first try was clearly an obstruction on JDV (not allowed to make impact with tackler) and North was way ahead of the kicker when he scroed his second try. At the end of the day Wales will be kicking themselves for not putting this one away, they were at home and SA have 13 Springboks absent on tour due to injuries. When Schalk Burger, Heinrich Brussouw, Fourie Du Preez, Jaques Fourie, JP Pieterson, BJ Botha, Danie Russouw and the likes of John Smit return from injury, Wales are going to find it a lot tougher to beat SA in the group stages of the World Cup.

JdV made no attempt to go for North, not that he'd have caught him anyway so thats not crossing. Don't think he was offside for his second one either.

 

[SavageLez]

Man, why are Spies and Habana in the starting 15???

And another try. Man o man what a bad start

What a bunch of tossers. Spies is playing horrible, Habana won't do anything worth mentioning today, I just know it. That when Kankowski and Mvovo aren't even on the bench

Frans Steyn would have scored that penalty with 20 metres to spare

Spies was man of the match, that is why he was chosen. He has had a dip in form but he is still a machine!

 

[TRF_Cymro]

I agree with you Walsh has has some terrible decisions. At least they have evened the match out coz 2 Welsh tries should not have been awarded either. Norths first try was clearly an obstruction on JDV (not allowed to make impact with tackler) and North was way ahead of the kicker when he scroed his second try. At the end of the day Wales will be kicking themselves for not putting this one away, they were at home and SA have 13 Springboks absent on tour due to injuries. When Schalk Burger, Heinrich Brussouw, Fourie Du Preez, Jaques Fourie, JP Pieterson, BJ Botha, Danie Russouw and the likes of John Smit return from injury the SA starting team and bench will be a hell of a lot stronger and Wales are going to find it a lot tougher to beat SA in the group stages of the World Cup.

Yep Norths first try was obstruction but your wrong with Norths second try, he was behind the kicker im afraid.

Regarding injuries Wales lost two key players before kick off, as well as missing others so I think we did well enough.