You wait bloody ages for an ATL, and then two turn up at once….
No prizes for guessing which is the work of Craigsman, and which of Deebee7.
The Glorious Series Continues
Pre/Ramble
So it’s a bit weird that, with a Lionz series in south Africa being poised with one game each, rugby fans seems quite deflated about the last match in this series. No fans, empty stadiums, accusations of biting, of slowing down the game, of racism, of influencing the referee have all played a part. But really it’s the fact that the rugby hasn’t set the world alight that’s the problem (Springbok tries aside) in this Craigsman’s opinion. Both sides seem to be playing low risk stuff seeing who breaks first. Kick, kick, kick. The Kiwis would lap this up. Form-wise, apart from the last half of the second game (and a bit in the first half of the first game) the Lions forwards have been able to get the dominance needed to win but they have been blunt in attack. Here’s hoping that rugby* wins and we get a game on Saturday. Let’s have a look at the teams innit.
LionzTM
So this makes me wonder what the feck Gats is playing at with his selection for the third test. I am but a simple accountant, unused to the complexities of rugby coaching, but I’m trying to work out some of the choices made at 9 and 10 and 21 and 22. Starting with a live wire scrum half and a … solid fly half and then ending with a … solid scrum half and a live wire fly half seems to be negating the strengths of each player. Either start with the live wire options and when the Springbok defence proves too miserly to score tries against or a nice healthy lead has been built, end with the … wise old heads who like to kick and do the game management stuff. Or, do the opposite to chase the game. What do I know? Everything else in the team seems reasonable. Courtney Lawes has done well to ignore the instructions from Dan Biggar and the rest of the pack looks solid. I would probably have Tadhg MK II in the finishers but hey ho. The back 3 look like they could negate a dastardly kicking game and we have two lumps in the centre to negate the Boks and the “amazing” Elliot Daly to come in against the tired legs at the end. So, I’m sanguine there.
Springboks
The Springboks look rubbish and will get hammered whatever happens look like a settled unit right now with the only changes have come from injury and OH MY GOD IT’S MORNE FECKING STEYNE!!!!!!!!!! Maybe it’s just more trolling from Rassie and we’ll see a last minute ‘injury’ and a proper player like Wynand Olivier will replace him. Just ignorant speculation on my part. Other than that, I can’t see anything to pick at. It’s a formidable side and Lionz supporters everywhere will have breathed a sigh of relief that Duane Vermeulen hasn’t yet come back from injury. I think they will rinse and repeat what worked in the second game. And why not? I hope that their fantastic wingers see some more ball in this game though. If only for them to be bundled into touch at the last second.
Prediction
Whoever gets the forward grunt and manages the ref will win. I really hope it doesn’t come down to the ref or some bs unseen citing or time wasting or whatever. Hopefully the ref will keep the game flowing and we’ll have a classic* on our hands. So who do I think will win?
Erm… hopefully Gats will put me in my place and Finn will catch a perfect box kick to sling an amazing pass to Sam Simmonds for his record breaking hat trick and the Lions win by a point or more.
Or… the Springboks grind the plucky tourists into the dirt and they will win by 18 points. Morne Steyne kicking the final penalty from the Springboks 22.
Or… the test never bloody ends.
Ok, ok Lions 24** – 21 Springboks. There, come at me you bastards.
Final ‘thoughts’
The real question on everyone’s lips is ‘what will this mean for England’? I’ll be btl to give my thoughts on this shortly.
* Which means the Lions win. Anything else is one for the purists.
** Have I mentioned that Siya Kolisi has a special place in my heart? I’ll have another poster to put on my bedroom wall after this series so all is not lost if the Lionz lose.
My Way, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb Squad
Gats and Rassie loom into view through the smoke-filled karaoke bar, each picking up a mike and ignoring the other, before launching into their tuneless non mea culpa est:
And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain
My friends, we’ll kick it clear, we’ll force the pace of which we’re certain
We’ve kicked a ball out full, we’ve launched the oval skyway
But more, much more than this, we did it our way
Attacks, we’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention
We kicked what we had to kick, and soar it through without invention
I planned each scrumming force, each sideways step and passes astray
But more, much more than this, the blame is his way
The lights dim, the mikes clatter emptily to the floor, clunking soullessly as they slink to the exits, grim, with regret etched on their faces. But enough of my whisky and chocolate addled dreams last night.
The third Test. The series is alive, if not exactly kicking, if you ask many followers. The changes have been wrung, the die is cast and now we’re 80 minutes (or up to 120 depending on how things pan out) from anointing the victors with bragging rights for the next 12 years. Enough has been written about the quality (or absence thereof) of the first two Tests and the series in general, much of it accurate, much of it bilge, so let’s focus on the match to come, shall we?
Six changes in the Lions camp and 3 (one positional) in the Boks. The Lions have been roaring all week about speeding up the game, gaining tempo, running the Boks ragged and raiding the trophy cabinet in the process. In come Price at 9 to speed up delivery from the base – but to Biggar at 10 who hasn’t set the world light in ether teste thus far. Outside him, Bundee Aki, a poor man’s Damian de Allende, comes in to allow Henshaw to move to 13 in an attempt to create more space in midfield, whilst at the back, the Welsh duo of Williams for Hogg and Adams for Watson on the right wing aims to get more incisiveness in attack. On the bench, Connor Murray and Finn Russell are paired, a conservative slower 9 with a heads-up 10, seems strange, to say the least and suggests that Gatland remains conservative and not trusting of an all-out assault on the Bok defence.
Up front the Welsh duo of Jones and Owens are slotted into a front row that struggled last week, despite the Lions leading at oranges, the second and back row is unchanged, slightly surprising given the backseat they took and enormous energy expended seven days ago. AWJ, warrior that he is, must be feeling the effects, whilst Lawes was fairly anonymous last week.
The bench looks strong, but not overly stellar and there must be some concerns in the Lions camp that six new players who’ve spend much of the last month carrying tackle bags will be disruptive – if it is early one, the Lions will be playing catch up.
The Boks have two enforced injury changes, with talismanic 9 Faf de Klerk and indispensable blindside PS du Toit both out. These are huge blows, however much Bok fans will try to sugar-coat things. De Klerk is without peer at the box kicking game and all-round nuisance value, whilst du Toit is an 80 minute machine across the park. It’s resulted in considerable rejigging in the Bok side, with Lood de Jager back in the second row to partner Eben Etzebeth and Franco Mostert moving to blindside in du Toit’s place. Big moves. De Jager back is great news, adding considerably to the scrumming department and lineout, as well as carrying in heavy traffic, but is more limited out wide. Mostert has played flank, but with limited success. That said, du Toit only played 20 minutes last week, half of them knackered, and the Boks coped just fine without him. The rest of the pack is as is for the starters, and that’s good news.
The bench forwards are the same front row, which is formidable and duffed their opponents last week, whilst Mostert will slot back into the second row later on, with Kwagga – far better on the flank replacing du Toit than playing at 8 as in the first Test – and Marco van Staden coming on later to pinch ball, slow things down and add some vim to the forwards.
The backs have Cobus Reinach at 9, a different player to Faf, without the pinpoint kick accuracy, but absolutely electric around the fringes and in open play. If he brings his ‘A’ game (assuming he’s given licence) he presents an entirely different headache for the Lions – and possibly his own side. The rest of the backs are the same as the first two Tests and pick themselves. Perhaps Reinach can offer some space for Kolbe and Mapimpi to snipe down the blindside every now and then? However, an inaccurate display by Reinach could set the tone for the Lions to dictate the pace and shape of the match. It’s a critical piece of the jigsaw.
Key areas to watch, then, are:
- Whether the Lions can maintain parity up front for the full 80 (or near enough) to dictate what happens behind the scrum;
- Will six new players be too disruptive to the Lions, despite much of it revolving around national combinations – some of the guys are pretty rusty;
- How Gats introduces his bench – do Murray and Russell join the fray together, and if so, what’s the point?
- Will the Boks be able put down a marker from the get-go and dominate the Lions up front to dictate the pace (and crucially the scoreboard) to negate the threats out wide;
- Will Faf’s absence prove too disruptive to a Bok plan that has been well honed for a couple of years now and will allow the Lions to move the ball wide to their very good back three;
- Will the Boks surprise and give it a bit of width themselves earlier in the piece; they’re certainly more than capable of scoring tries whilst maintaining a mean defence;
- Will the refereeing quartet come out unscathed? In many respects, I think the last point is maybe the most important.
Prediction? I’ve gone Boks by 2 on Superbru, which portends, unfortunately, a Lions win based on the last two matches…
South Africa
15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Franco Mostert, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Steven Kitshoff
Substitutes: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Marco van Staden, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Herschel Jantjies, 22 Morne Steyn, 23 Damian Willemse
British & Irish Lions
15 Liam Williams (Wales), 14 Josh Adams (Wales), 13 Robbie Henshaw (Ireland), 12 Bundee Aki (Ireland), 11 Duhan van der Merwe (Scotland), 10 Dan Biggar (Wales), 9 Ali Price (Scotland), 8 Jack Conan (Ireland), 7 Tom Curry (England), 6 Courtney Lawes (England), 5 Alun Wyn Jones (captain, Wales), 4 Maro Itoje (England), 3 Tadhg Furlong (Ireland), 2 Ken Owens (Wales), 1 Wyn Jones (Wales) Substitutes: 16. Luke Cowan-Dickie (England), 17 Mako Vunipola (Saracens, England), 18 Kyle Sinckler (England), 19 Adam Beard (Wales), 20 Sam Simmonds (England), 21 Conor Murray (Ireland), 22 Finn Russell (Scotland), 23 Elliot Daly (England)
Ovally Balls 
Cowan-Dickie goes to Tiggers!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/58521157
That’s Tom, not Luke….
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In Iks-pleasing news, the Drags are considering changing their name. However, the article includes this little gem, “proper, proper drains up thinking”. What the fuck is “drains up thinking”? Is that another of those horrendous management speak type things which means bugger all to anyone in the real world?
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Very entertaining tennis final.
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And no, I’ve never heard of ‘drains up thinking’ before either. Sounds effluent.
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Probably something to do with the Rodney Parade pitch.
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Hmm. Took the dogs for a walk a couple of minutes before half time and missed the Kiwis scoring 12 points. 22-0 at the 🍊
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ended 39 – 0.
Aus / SA currently 3 -3
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Nice try by Aussies.
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Kolisi yellow for ‘tip’ tackle: try to Aus: 13 – 6
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faf lucky with a high tackle.
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Interesting half time on Oz9. Money Bill is a crap pundit, and the changing room camera shows most of the Wallabies sitting around in a circle chilling, but Quade, Nic White and a couple of others are poring over a large screen with one of the coaches pointing stuff out, Nice to see stuff like that.
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Seems like the Aus coaching team forgot the ‘arms’ part of the manual.
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Probably lost them the game, Refit. Good effort tho. Aussies go ahead with 7 minutes left. Come on Quade.
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Oooh, Quade gets a chance to win it. Long kick tho.
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Aussie commentator- “Quade Cooper IS the Man ” Redemption, apparently. Well played Aussies, thoroughly deserved, thought they were a touch hard done by on a few reffing decisions, didn’t matter in the end.
8 kicks from 8 for Cooper, last one after a fantastic Aussie scrum to win a ball against the head.
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Love in from Money Bill and Quade during after match interview , quite sweet. Forgot quite how Kiwi Quade is.
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Great story for Quade. Aussie played well and Kerevi was top drawer.
Now I feel the need to watch Billions or whatever it’s called.
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Maybe Quade will get his passport now?
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That was crap by the Boks, didn’t deserve to win. Aussies did deserve the win. Stuck at it, made some great breaks and half breaks through the middle, largely kept the Bok pack honest and even finished stronger. Pollard had a terrible match, off the tee and pretty much everywhere else. Boks just never seemed to get going. Fuck. Hate it when my gut feel is right on days like this.
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@Deebee – someone on Twitter made the point that Luke Pearce kept the game moving and that may have disrupted the SA tactics, if they were planning on playing similarly to when they played the Lions.
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@Refit – That looks like a line of thought that will cheer Deebee up no end.
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Refit, Australia slowed the game down plenty. They also got away with murder with defenders blocking our runners on the box kicks, none of which were penalised. He reset three scrums where we drubbed them, but not the last one when they got the penalty. I don’t think it had anything to do with the speed of the game, more that the Boks were shit in execution. None of our backs had a good game. The forwards were okay, but nothing more. Don’t think we’ll be that bad next weekend.
That said, I thought Kolisi was very lucky with just a yellow, we simply didn’t have enough support for the ball carrier- suicide against Hooper and Co and leaving 10 points on the field from relatively easy kicks was the ultimate difference between winning and losing.
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Basically irritated that we played so badly. But Australia have a habit of doing this to us, so maybe no great surprise.
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“ball carrier- suicide”
A poor tactic even when executed well.
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The Monty Python of rugby tactics.
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Apparently of blog tactics too.
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Top 14 budgets.
https://dicodusport.fr/blog/top-14-budgets-clubs-saison-2021-2022/2/#quatorze
The Scottish Rugby Union’s budget would place them around 4th on that list.
That is the total budget for all the international players and running both Edinburgh and Glasgow plus their academies, the U20s, U18s, 7s and the women’s team and their U20s and 7s, plus all the coaches and backroom staff for each.
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Pffft! On those budgets you can still import prime South African beef.
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nah!-just go to the weekly market in Sale and get cheap old cuts, duty free
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So basically the Lions made SA look better than what they are?
I guess we’ll know more when the ABs face the Saffers but my feeling is that Australia weren’t very good either and still prevailed.
As for Argentina, they defended well and with great heart and yet this “second string” ABs dispatched them easily.
As a foot note, if Pollard can’t kick his penalties, he’s useless. As he’s shown many times for Montpellier last season.
Moi disappointed by this week-end SH games? You bet.
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Flair, Pollard really was poor on Sunday. He was excellent at the World Cup and against the Lions, but I do think he’d prefer a bit more freedom than he’s given. I think we may well see Johan Goosen in the frame come the November Tests as well.
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“Pffft! On those budgets you can still import prime South African beef.”
Deebs, Jordan Venter’s signing made me wince because of his age, but we’ve never had a Vermeulen, a Faff, a Snyman, a Pienaar and even with Venter I’m told he was well behind a queue of others in SA, as I’m told for everyone who comes to Scotland.
I recall reading that there was a huge number of players contracted to the SA unions, all of them, that’s not really sustainable and I suppose the player’s choice is to make a career overseas for small clubs like Edinburgh and Glasgow and perhaps even make international honours, or vie for a Currie Cup place and risk getting cut – it’s mostly ex-Cheetahs we have at Embra.
I can see both sides of this argument, the depth at Currie Cup level would be much stronger if the level of players that we sign stayed, they seemingly would only trouble the Super Rugby sides in the event of injuries, but then the cost of keeping them going plus all the new school and U20s guys is always going to increase year on year, it’s not like players are falling off the end of the conveyer belt into retirement at the same rate as they are coming out of the tremendous schools system you guys have.
In their boots, if I was realistic enough to see I was never going to be a Springbok and be a first team player for the four big squads, then I’d think seriously about forging a reasonably well-paid career overseas and that’s before you factor in external factors such as selection policy and the exchange rate
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flair, Pollard played 281 minutes last season for Montpellier across 6 games as he was injured for almost all of the season. That’s about 1/10th of the season so your criticism of him is ridiculous.
He’s a good player – attacks the line, defends well,
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Incidentally, I’m told Venter played quite well in his first outing for Embra on Saturday against Newcastle.
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I didn’t watch the games over the weekend, but I always think Australia have a chance, more than a chance, against any side in the world, they are very inconsistent and have been below par, their par, for a long while now.
Also, even the All Blacks have dips, Scotland were a last gasp tackle on Hogg away from drawing level and having the kick to win it and Scotland would have been worth their first ever win against New Zealand, I think they were double world champions at the time and it was a good ABs side.
My point being I think that SA will come back stronger.
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This is simultaneously the best and worst try of the week
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He even does a skip/goose step, OT
Great stuff
and like you say, terrible stuff at the same time, the defence coach for the opposition is probably staring at the world through the bottom of a whisky bottle.
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Best one to watch is the stand-off (number 6). He has zero interest in tackling that prop – he even runs alongside him and watches.
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ticht, Covid has made the situation more unclear to me from so far away but they’ve cut right back on player recruitment from school because where there used to be an Under 19 and Under 21 Currie Cup there’s now an Under 20 tournament. A few years back there was a tournament called the Vodacom Cup and the Super Rugby teams would run squads in that, the Under 19 and Under 21s so they needed a lot of contracted players. The Sharks managed to get away with fewer contracted players for a long time but were still signing up 12 or 15 a year and using club players/schools players to fill in the gaps.
A couple of years ago there was a big run of players out of school to France in particular but quite a few have returned to SA – I imagine partly because of Covid but also it’s a challenge at 18 going to a country where you don’t speak the language etc and going from hero to hundreds and playing in front of thousands and on national TV to turning out for the espoirs in Pau.
One thing Jake White’s done at the Bulls this year is to assign each player to a club side. They might not play any games but it gives more of a sense of place and identity to the players in the squad. There aren’t so many players who make it to the big from outside the smooth line from school – national age-group team – Super Rugby – Springbok pattern – Makhazole Mapimpi, definitely, and Faf de Klerk, sort of, are two – but I always felt this was a neglected part of rugby, especially in Bulls and Lions country.
In Ireland they do this well. So I was getting emails and notifications from my lad’s club because one of their players was selected for the B+I Lions over the summer. I doubt the player’s played more than a handful of club games in the last few years he’s still our boy.
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On Sunday’s game. Australia played well. They had a kicking game. Kerevi was a handful and Quade kicked immaculately.
South Africa looked a bit complacent but could have won the game. Too many players had poor games – Lukhanyo Am was way below his usual standards for instance.
Pearce was kind of good. He talked through his thinking clearly. He gave a bizarre penalty against Aussie when he called the ball out of a ruck and then penalised the Wallaby defenders for tackling Faf de Klerk because the scrum half hadn’t picked the ball up.
All these tournaments are a bit strange at the moment. This was the first match Stephen Kitshoff, among others, had played in front of a crowd since the World Cup final.
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“even with Venter I’m told he was well behind a queue of others in SA, as I’m told for everyone who comes to Scotland.”
Venter was a schoolkid when Edinburgh signed him so I think it’s safe to say he would have been hard pushed to be playing even Currie Cup rugby this year.
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Junior clubs get annoyed when a “senior” club claims a player and forget to mention they recruited them post-school or college….
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Tom, I always got the impression when I lived there that there was strong rugby link between France and South Africa – I’ve just seen an article that states 300 South African-born players were taking part in the French leagues at all levels ten years ago.
Today there are 30 SA players in the T14 compared to 44 in the English Prem, but these guys in both leagues are top tier merchandise.
Incidentally, there were a lot of Aussies playing League when I was there, we’d sometimes bump into teams in a bar after we’d played the local union side if the à treize side had been at home too.
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“Venter was a schoolkid when Edinburgh signed him so I think it’s safe to say he would have been hard pushed to be playing even Currie Cup rugby this year.”
That only serves to emphasise my point that it’s not Springboks or guys anywhere near the Super sides who come to Scotland.
Having said that, there was a centre who had won a Springbok cap, he played for Edinburgh around six or seven years ago but his name escapes me though I can see his face in my memory, he had a bit of the Art Garfunkle hair about him.
It was very unlikely that he’d have got games for many other sides in our league.
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Andries Strauss, ticht.
Dark, dark days them were.
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Schoeman might have won a few caps, Josh Strauss had had a decent run as a starter at the Lions. WP Nel?
I always go the impression that Cornell Du Preez would have been too small for the South African sides’ tastes though he did play Super Rugby with the Kings
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That’s the chappie Chimpie,
Sorry for bringing that up.
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trisk, this is Jack Conan. He was a GAA player until he 16 or 17 and played rugby at school. Not sure if he was in another club. Dan Leavy got away from them. He played minis but ended up at UCD.
Anyway, the club is basically a Cult of Ollie Campbell so these new players don’t matter so much.
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Jeez we had a load of imports of dubious quality clogging up the squad in those days. Diabolical.
I’m starting off the season with some sunny optimism which will no doubt come crashing down shortly. I hope Mikey B can keep a solid pack foundation & add some decent attacking structure. Well, any kind of attack or guile of any kind would be nice.
I’m dismissing any significance of pre-season this year.
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Would like to get the cup thingy back from those rotters out west too.
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