Can the Springboks make history and win two in a row? You wouldn’t have thought so when they lost to Ireland in the pool stages, but you also wouldn’t have the All Blacks could do it after their opening-night loss to the hosts (and first pool loss ever).
Rassie’s gone with a ‘courageous’ 7-1 split on the bench again, so it could well come down to injuries – or, indeed, cards.
As for the other match, it seems like a foregone conclusion, but Argentina will be out for revenge, and can this England put together two good performances in a row? We’ll find out soon!
All in all, it’s been a fabulous World Cup apart from the idiotic draw. Merci à la France for an excellent tournament!
Onna telly this week
Showing matches that are televised in the UK and Ireland or on popular subscription services. Bold indicates free-to-view.
Friday 27th October
| Argentina v England | 20:00 | ITV1 / STV |
Saturday 28th October
| New Zealand v Wales (women) | 04:00 | S4C |
| Ospreys v Zebre | 13:00 | BBC1 Wales / iPlayer Viaplay Sports 1 |
| Connacht v Glasgow | 15:00 | TG4 / Viaplay Sports 1 |
| Stormers v Scarlets | 15:00 | S4C / iPlayer / Viaplay Sports 2 |
| Bath v Leicester | 15:05 | TNT Sports 1 |
| Leinster v Sharks | 16:55 | RTÉ2 / Viaplay Xtra |
| Edinburgh v Lions | 17:00 | Viaplay Sports 1 |
| New Zealand v South Africa | 20:00 | ITV1 / STV / S4C / RTÉ2 |
Sunday 29th October
| Treviso v Munster | 14:00 | Viaplay Xtra |
| Dragons v Cardiff | 14:30 | Viaplay Sports 1 |
| Newcastle v Northampton | 15:00 | TNT Sports 1 |
| Ulster v Bulls | 17:00 | BBC2 NI / iPlayer / TG4 / Viaplay Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
Congratulations deebee (and Ireland for beating the eventual Champions); commiserations to everyone else. Unfortunately the Guardians of the Spirit of Rugby couldn’t save the game from the mess it’s in.*
I didn’t watch the final, having correctly predicted what would happen and why. Apparently it was either “gripping” and “epic”, or “dire” and “stagnant”, depending on whether or not you grew up with the idea that holding the league leaders to a nil-all draw on a wet Wednesday in Stoke was the ultimate in sport.
I mostly agree with Flair, except that if they did stop the host broadcaster from endlessly replaying opposition mistakes and foul play, while somehow losing footage of the home team doing the same things, I’m all for it.
* being massive hypocrites obviously didn’t help their cause.
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Now that the dust has settled on the World Cup, a few thoughts from my side. I’m beyond delighted (obviously) that we won and retained the trophy. I haven’t watched the match again yet, but will try to find it tonight. Plenty of complaints about the rugby dished up at this World Cup, but frankly, you won’t find a single South African looking to the Russian judge for points for style – we just wanted the win. I suspect that had the All Blacks won 12-11 there would be few complaints from their supporters either. Ditto Ireland and France. Moreover, the Boks showed what they’re capable of in the win over France, before the weather closed in over the last two weeks and upped the risk factor considerably for running rugby. We also scored the 4th most tries in the tournament, not a bad return for having to play Scotland, Ireland, France, England and New Zealand over the course of seven matches!
A lot of justified complaints about reffing inconsistencies throughout the tournament, but frankly I’m not sure it was any different from any other time, except that you had 40-something matches in a few weeks so it condensed, and highlighted, the inconsistencies. I feel for the refs, because they’re whistling the game according to the ever-shifting directives they get from World Rugby as the mother body clumsily tries to negotiate the realities of the modern game. They’re also under intense pressure and scrutiny to get every call right – something that is difficult in most sports, but nigh impossible in a sport as complex as rugby, and very often in the eye of the beholder. The levels of whining reached new heights at this world cup too, albeit on most boards, it was the same whining about the same issues by the same people day in and day out. Much of it was contrived, plug and play stuff that wasn’t reflected on the field. The Graun BTL sank to new lows in this respect. You wonder why they watch rugby at all.
I also find the notion that the World Cup is supposed to be about growing the game and spreading its popularity to new nations a bit weird: patently, it’s not. It’s about winning the bloody trophy! Building the game is what should be done for four years in-between each World Cup so that you don’t get as many mismatches as you still get. If World Rugby and individual unions really jacked up the support, starting today, not in two years time when the next World Cup starts to come into focus, with proper support for the Pacific Island nations in particular, as well as ‘on the cusp’ nations like Portugal, Georgia, England, Uruguay and Chile, you would have more of a spectacle and fewer lopsided affairs. The likes of Scotland, Wales, Australia, Argentina and Italy have enough in terms of resources and top competition to push on, so not too worried about them, whilst Ireland and France look set to be firmly at the top table for some time to come.
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Thanks BK – wet Wednesday’s in Stoke are not to be scoffed at.
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So what now for the Boks, I hear literally nobody ask? Taking a quick look at the squad and the standby players, the side will look very different, very quickly. 13 of the 42 players are 32 or older, so I doubt any will be around for the next World Cup, and a few probably won’t be part of the squad to take on Ireland next June. Vermeulen and Fourie are both 37, Big Trev and Willie le Roux are both 34, whilst Vincent Koch, Cobus Reinach and Makazole Mapimpi are all 33 and probably not going to get many more call ups. There are 14 players aged 30 to 32, with only Kolbe and Faf in the backs, so you’re going to see a lot of changes in the pack.
The backs are looking more exciting though – a backline of Grant Williams (9), Manie Libbok (10), Canan Moodie (11), Andre Esterhuizen (12), Lukhanyo Am (13), Kurt-Lee Arendse (14) and Damian Willemse (15) would be brilliant to see in action, with none of them 30 yet, so hopefully good to go for another cycle.
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Well written Deebs! – and when those development funds finally arrive in England it will only take a couple of decades before they are level with the likes of Georgia.
Tournaments are for winning and SA’s sequences of matches was bound to result in an exhausted squad by the time they played the final. It was bound to be close and tense.
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It was an astonishing achievement to win, having come through THAT side of the draw.
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I read elsewhere that this is the first time the winner has had to beat all the other teams in the top six to win the pot, so full credit to SA for that
It felt like the tournament went on for a long time, I suppose it’s the necessary extension of time between games from previous competitions, but I kind of lost impetus after a while and not just because of Scotland’s entirely predictable early exit, for me the tournament peaked a week, perhaps two weeks before the end, although I would bite anyone’s hand off if they offered my team the chance of playing this last weekend
I’ve really not enjoyed the btl rancour across many platforms, in those terms tf this is all over now – online death threats because of a game of rugby?
On the other hand the joy exprssed in South African streets, even in areas that have supported the All Blacks against the Springboks, that was fun to see
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I think there may be the odd Irish poster wishing to point out that we didn’t beat all the other sides in the top six! Should be quite a series when Ireland tour here next year – definitely a bit of needle, I would think.
This also plays havoc with the normal order of things: the Boks have been World Champs for each of the last three Lions tours, adding a bit more heft to the series, but the Lions have Australia and New Zealand again before they get back to us. Dog forbid we go and win again in 8 years time.
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Ticht, the online threats are beyond ridiculous. Surely the posters can be tracked down and dealt with properly? Not acceptable, under any circumstances.
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“I think there may be the odd Irish poster wishing to point out that we didn’t beat all the other sides in the top six! ”
Yes, I worded that poorly, – “this is the first time the winner has had to play all the other teams in the top six to win the pot, so full credit to SA for that”
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“It was an astonishing achievement to win, having come through THAT side of the draw.”
Everyone would have been absolutely astonished if the winner hadn’t come from THAT side of the draw. One of them had to win it.
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CMW – it could easily have been the All Blacks!
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@Thaum – It could – and that would have been just as astonishing as it being the Boks i.e. not in the least bit astonishing.
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Aye, but fiercer contests = more injuries, more exhaustion.
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Which was the same for all their serious rivals. Sure they could have come unstuck against England, in part because the Boks’ preference for a dull arm wrestle gives the likes of current England (and Wales four years ago) a chance, but also the attrition from the hard games up to that point. But still I don’t imagine anyone expected them to lose prior to the game or would have expected England to beat the All Blacks had they pulled off the upset against SA. We could all see the draw beforehand and I don’t remember anyone picking a team outside the top four to win the thing so the notion that it’s a surprise that one of them did is a bit daft in my view. I just wish it hadn’t been the boring one of the top four, but they edged their games at least on the scoreboard which is what counts so fair enough!
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It is a bit harsh to describe the Boks as the boring one of the four, maybe accurate tho, and, to be fair, if England had sneaked past them by a point in the semi, I would have been just as happy to see England sneak past the ABs in the final in exactly the same way, boring or no.
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@SBT – I don’t think it’s at all harsh – they know it and they don’t care which is fair enough. Other people are allowed to be disappointed though – I think it’s a shame (not ‘wrong’ or ‘unfair’ or whatever) that we’ve ended up with a double World Cup winning team who really only want to defend and box kick. I know they have excellent backs which just makes it worse that they don’t choose to release them and we only get to see very brief glimpses of what they can do. They can win the next World Cup too if they want, but I will remember the NZ team that won the previous two as a much more exciting and indeed better side.
Obviously it’s up to the others to beat them and they do what they do well enough to win (though this time round they’ve had a fair bit of luck in my view). But do they offer what I’d like to see (and arguably what the game could do with) in a team that’s so successful? I’m afraid not.
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@Deebee – The whining about the refereeing inconsistencies comes from the very fact that all that matters in the world cup is the results. SA won by a point in the QF, the SF and final. In each of those games, their opponent should clearly have had a penalty in the very last minutes of the game that, if kicked (and yes, that’s a big if), almost certainly would have turned the result the other way. In France’s case, the penalty was actually awarded the wrong way, which is even worse! What a lot of the whiners (me included) particularly resent is that the TMO was meant to iron out the major errors but has been so inconsistent it makes things feel more unfair than when one person is in the middle calling it as they see it. Mistakes happen – that’s sport. But them happening repeatedly in favour of SA like that, after Rassie Erasmus’ disgraceful behaviour in between world cups, is really, really crap.
With all that being said, SA are a helluva team and I seriously envy their winning mentality and the fact that they can play two styles of rugby very well.
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I watched the match again last night and there are a few points worth considering, IMHO:
Rassie and Nienaber almost blew it completely by neglecting to bring in an additional hooker as cover. Marx out was a massive blow, meaning either that Bongi had to play the whole 80, or that we had flimsy retreads (with respect) instead of a world-class replacement hooker. It impacted on our scrum dominance in a couple of matches, which in turn meant having to go 7-1 in the Final to cover for the players out on their feet after a particularly tough route to the Final.
With Marx out early on, Bongi had a hellva workload and eventually broke down (with a little help from Shannon Frizzell), leaving us with a 37 year-old retreaded loose forward who last played hooker over a decade ago playing 78 minutes of the final. That not only impacted on our scrum dominance, but also the lineouts, where we lost five, I think, starving the Boks of possession and continuity – cornerstones of being able to attack more. Our mauls haven’t been great this year anyway, so not too much impact there. Without a dominant set piece, the Boks will revert to type – although the match against France shows otherwise.
The Boks could have scored at least two tries early in the second half, one when Kolisi looked to dummy when he had support runners on either side, and one when Arendse just failed to control the ball from a dab through. They also gave the ball more air than I think they’re credited with, but the Kiwi defence was superb: it should be remembered that the two sides had conceded 7 tries each in the tournament before the Final, so it was unlikely to be a free-scoring match even if the weather had played along.
If you look at the match stats, the ABs had 60% possession, but only 53% of territory, whilst the Boks made 7 offloads to the Kiwis 5 – despite their possession advantage and metres gained (459 to 360). The kicking stats are telling as well: The Boks had 38 kicks from hand to New Zealand’s 34, with the Kiwis having 22 lineouts to our 10. So, if my finger-counting is correct, the Boks hoofed it skywards or down the middle 16 times to New Zealand’s 24 – I’m not sure that suggests New Zealand were playing a great all-court game either! Other than Mark Tele’a, none of their backs really ripped it up (I htink Cody Taylor actually had the best step of the match, outside of Tele’a, who is quite frightening).
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@Dab – Having the TMO adjudicating on ruck penalties probably isn’t a route we want to go down.
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Dab, if I wanted to, I’m sure I could go through the footage and find penalties that should have been awarded to us, whether in the last minute or not (and plenty of people down here have done so, I just can’t be bothered to). In every match I watched (and I watched almost every one in the World Cup), there were contentious issues and debatable calls. For and against every team. It just seems to me that Rassie is such as bogeyman for people, that there is little other focus. I’m not sure if it’s been reported on in the NH, although I suspect not, given the fury still vented at him, but Rassie roped in Nigel Owens to help redress what he admitted was the wrong approach in the Lions series and to get the respect of the refs back. Rassie can be abrasive and isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s also held up his hand and been very frank about it. I’ve actually found it here in the Graun:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/oct/10/south-africa-have-got-it-wrong-with-referee-criticism-admits-rassie-erasmus
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Don’t like South American teams with sashes on their shirts…
Ah, c’mon BB – 1978 is a long time past….. (though anyone who’d seen the 1970 world cup should have remembered Teofilo Cubillas was a hell of a player…)
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Trisk – I have a Sag-like tendency to bear grudges….
(Never forgave Billy Bremner for missing the open goal in against Brazil in ’74, or Hansen and Miller for the mix-up against Russia in ’82, or Fergie for getting the tactics wrong against Uruguay in ’86. ’90 and ’98 were just general buggerings-up).
As you can see, I have a fair few to choose from!
And if we’re talking about rugby, Gavin Hastings’ miss against England in the ’91 semi-final can be added.
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Still, we’ll always have Archie…
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And David Narey against Brazil (although all that did was wake them up)
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A couple of things from the final that caught my eye. Firstly, there was one ruck in particular early on when four or five New Zealand forwards drove over a ruck , looked very old school and quite exciting. May have to rewatch to be sure, but I think it was Bok ball, and they defended the breakdown with a player or two, and the ABs arrived at speed and steamrollered them in old school fashion. Much better than the usual pushing and shoving and one or two guys doing it because a back is caught defending the ruck.
The second one was Frizzell on Mbonambi. Been watching a fair bit of NRL over the last couple of years, and that was a classic hip drop, which is penalised severely in league, and actually talked about with horror far more than a straight shoulder to the head. I would have called that more of a red than the Cane incident, altho unintentional, probably a red in league. Rules on Cane tackle say contact to head, no mitigation, but a bicep in the chops in a slightly mistimed tackle is not the same as a projectile no arms shoulder to the head. Indeed, for level of danger, Kolisi’s tackle was even worse has a head on head. To unbalance a a World cup final with a red like that is sad, and as I have said before, I suspect that far more damage is done to players with repeated pick and goes close to the line than the odd high tackle.
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@CMW – true. But I think this is the problem with the TMO – the boundaries on what it’s for and not for are so unclear and arbitrary. (The penalty England should have had was for foul play – high tackle – so definitely should have been TMO’d.)
@Deebee – Maybe Rassie has changed his tune, maybe he’s cynically doing whatever he needs to do to get by. The fact that Dean Richards has admitted that what he did was wrong doesn’t mean I ever want to see him prosper in the game. Same with Rassie for me. Regarding possible penalties here and there, maybe you’re right, but maybe you’re not. Getting lucky with the ref can and does happen – just look at NZ in the final in 2011!
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Part of the video reffing that had me baffled was things like knock-ons getting reversed just because there happened to be a break in play while someone was injured, a sub was made or whatever. I think there should be absolute clarity as to what can be changed and what can’t rather than this ad hoc nonsense. If it’s just supposed to be foul play and whether a try was legal then it should stick to that entirely.
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I don’t know what to make of the Frizzell card – terrible piece of foul play or total accident, either are believable. Deebee is certainly right to point out that Mbonambi getting taken out of the game so early was a big deal and something that SA did well to just about cope with.
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Congrats to SA and by extension to DeeBee – yeah, we can say we beat the eventual champs but it’s small consolation.
Criticism of Ireland is muted and it’s going to be hard to argue with “Coach of the Year”. I get picking the coach of RWC winners is simplistic but it’s hard to say that a GS trumps winning “old Bill”
Where did it go wrong… small (and not so small) things but they come together to sink you.
Lineout was under strain – even in warmups vs Samoa,
“Everyone” said that Porter’s scrummaging technique was illegal (or at least suspect) but his value in open play was too high and we got away with it – until we didn’t.
Playing an ageing Sexton worked until we didn’t trust the backup and he played last few mins at walking pace almost…
Ultimately, the advantage and cohesion from playing 66% Leinster was lost when other teams had time to work and train together. Had we beaten NZ, would we have beaten Argentina – absolutely. SA or France? (sorry, I’m excluding England) Doubtful – we don’t have that raw power to resist a pounding or – as we saw vs NZ – to bludgeon our way through.
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Trisk, in the last 18 months or so Ireland have completed a series win in New Zealand, which has been done about twice or three time in the entire history of the sport (I’m not going to look it up, but it’s not many teams that do it).
They won all the Autumn Internationals including wins over a not-shit Australia plus South Africa.
Then of course the Grand Slam. This continued their run as the number one team in the world that was reached in July ’22 and it was only relinquished after a four point defeat to the ABs in a corker of a match that neither really deserved to lose.
Ireland won 9 out of 10 competitive games this calendar year and South Africa won 8 out of 10.
I’d say Farrell and the Leinster system did pretty well
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CMW, I am pretty sure the Frizell hip drop was a total accident, but in the NRL that doesnt matter, its the same as saying that Cane hit (Kolisi ?) accidentally. He didnt mean to do it, but the sanction is the same ( in the NRL)
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I have no problem with Farrell getting coach of the year, given the fantastic run that Ireland have been on until the QF, which was one of the matches of the tournament too. Ditto for Ardie getting player of the year – he’s been a force of nature for NZ and has sometimes seemingly single-handedly kept them in matches. Also given that Etzebeth generally goes off after 50 or 60 minutes are very rarely plays the full 80, I’m inclined to give it to the bloke who goes toe to toe for the whole match.
On the Frizzell thing, I’m not going down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole – we’ll never know if he targeted Mbonambi or if it was just clumsy. Could have changed the result, glad it didn’t.
Dab, on the Rassie issue, he made a video which was whiny and releasing it in public (I’m assuming he did, despite denials) was wrong, but he didn’t make death threats against the ref or his family. He didn’t engage in Bloodgate – calculated and systemic cheating – like Dean Richards and his team. Rassie got banned, got bollocked by the entire rugby world (and still does), took it on the chin, did some introspection, admitted he was wrong and moved on. What more do you want from him? Yes, his video unleashed a lot of shitty comments and threats on the Internet, and maybe he should have considered that beforehand (almost certainly should have), but Cobus Reinach – and his family – got death threats simply for playing the match against France. What next? Cancel sport because a mindless minority of keyboard cowards can’t control their thoughts? I personally think you’re overegging it, but that’s just my opinion.
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@ticht
You’re very kind….
I guess we’re looking at it through a lens of successive QFs defeats which are increasingly rankling (trying to think of equivalents… NZ peaking between RWCs between 1987 and 2011… England losing 3 GS on the trot under Woodward)
I think we all knew it was another QF exit (to France or NZ) or a final…
I guess we wanted a final to crystallise our standing as a major player and on domestic front put rugby up there as Ireland’s leading international sport.
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England losing 3 GS on the trot under Woodward
and I’m the first to admit that the three games they lost were magnificent efforts by Wales, Scotland and Ireland – not a choke.
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Trisk, I can see there will be much “what might have been” in Irish minds, if Ireland had prevailed over New Zealand you’d have definitely beaten Argentina, then you’d be in the final facing a Springbok side you’d beaten twice in the last two meetings in 12 months, the most recent being only a few weeks perviously.
It’s ifs and bits of course, but surely rugby is the number one International sport in Ireland anyway? I know a win would have been a huge deal, but they say you have to go through a defeat to make it really matter when you win it – as Scotland fans we are really ready for some silverware now.
PSdT was immense in that final, what a game from him but Siya Kolis was my favourite player in the tournament, if only for his singing.
More seriously I think his leadership was a key factor in the South African win.
Special mention to the Ox for the semi final, he won that for South Africa.
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Kolisi had a strange old final – a good game generally from him, but his two biggest moments were butchering the best chance they had of a try and getting himself carded.
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“and I’m the first to admit that the three games they lost were magnificent efforts by Wales, Scotland and Ireland – not a choke.”
The Wembley game certainly did involve a magnificent effort from Wales (and Scott Gibbs and Neil Jenkins in particular). England did choke on something that day though. ‘Arrogance’ is used far too often with regard to England rugby teams, but it’s hard to know what else to call turning down 3 points when you’re only 6 ahead with a few minutes to play and a Grand Slam to win.
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That Wembley game crowned Scotland as the 5N champions – a title we still hold :-)
I remember really cheering the Scott Gibbs try.
The Scotland game mentioned was the one in the rain, iirc Andy Nicol looked liked he was succumbing to hypothermia in the post-match interview.
I was at the previous one in the 5N when it was Scotland v England for the GS and David Sole walked his team on on to the Murrayfield turf, the result was never really in doubt after that.
Tony Stanger scored his try just won to the left of where we were behind the posts – under the old clock for those that remember the ground in the old days.
That clock tower is now in front of the East Stand, it’s good that they kept it.
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The Welsh team are supposed to have been sent a load of whisky by the Scots to thank them. The Scotland and Wales games in France that year were two of the most entertaining games you could ever hope to see.
I never saw the Scotland-England game in the rain. Thought it was a foregone conclusion (and one I didn’t like the sound of) so went to the cinema instead. Saw Magnolia. Kind of overrated, but it did have Jason Robards in it and frogs falling out of the sky. And when we came back out of the cinema the game was over and the world was a better place
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https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1b355ebe910c09495ee427f7b0546ccce2332932/0_0_4000_2667/master/4000.jpg?width=1010&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=1e1cad39030bf77ea2212b90fc2f4cea
I see Greenpeace are going to get banned by Keir now.
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In other traumatic news, I seem unable to view BBC and ITV in US since about Oct 10th. Cant find a way to do it, usually quite adept at jumping thru hoops. Fortunately Peacock had good world cup coverage, Alex Corbisiero putting in a good shift, and Saffa, NZ and Aus commentators were fairly tolerable, probably more so than the ITV guys.
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Kolisi had a strange old final – a good game generally from him, but his two biggest moments were butchering the best chance they had of a try and getting himself carded.
Siya had a fairly quiet World Cup all round. He was rushed back from injury, but still played most matches, so should have been match fit by the final. His butchering of that try was horrible!
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England did choke on something that day though
@CMW
Yes – I guess “winning” teams take the 3 push the lead out to 9pts and then pick off the opposition as they throw it around – England I’m assuming were trying to put on an exhibition…
facing a Springbok side you’d beaten twice in the last two meetings in 12 months
with a big proviso that in both games, SA left sufficient of points to win behind them as they couldn’t play Pollard.
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Scotland as the 5N champions – a title we still hold
Bizarre stat isn’t it?
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Trisk, I like that stat in a pub quiz kind of way, actually that’s right up your street isn’t it?
A bit like Berwick Upon Tweed being at war with Russia for over a hundred years due to the wording in a treaty or some such.
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SBT, do you use a VPN? I have a free one but I can only select from a few countries on it, a paid one allows you to, for example, make t’internet think you are in the UK if you want it to.
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very much up my street – we’ve a table quiz soon at the club (trying to raise funds for an age grade tour of Toulouse – probably around Easter) ….
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Yes Ticht, watch rugby in Australia and France etc that way, also been watching 10 o’clock/newsnight for ten years +. Occasionally have to jiggle something to get it to work. For some reason all available options not working.
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I see Wayne Barnes has retired. Definitely one of the best refs in my opinion.
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