England v South Africa

[veux]

Tindall is a ******* waste of space in the England shirt. I don't think our current backline is at all up to scratch, we'll get knocked straight out of the World Cup with it atm. Barritt and Waldouck need to be our centers come the 6 nations, Cueto, while playing well isn't really worth it - it should be Manu Tulagi in his place. Would rather see Hodgson over Flood atm, he's playing better and can set a backline alight.

 

[Duckdee]

I think it was an off day, more than a bad one. The squad is looking good, Hape and Fourie seem worthy of their places, but Shaw and possibly Tindall need replacing.

 

[Blackie252]

Tindall is a ******* waste of space in the England shirt. I don't think our current backline is at all up to scratch, we'll get knocked straight out of the World Cup with it atm. Barritt and Waldouck need to be our centers come the 6 nations, Cueto, while playing well isn't really worth it - it should be Manu Tulagi in his place. Would rather see Hodgson over Flood atm, he's playing better and can set a backline alight.

I still rate Tindall, he put in some big hits and made some promising ground! Lack of cohesion from the whole team is why we lost! Also I just think flood had a bad game, lost his confidence kicked too many ball away. Plus Ashton should have been taken off, he was too wary after that big hit.
All lessons that should be built upon for the world cup!

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

Seeing Barritt play for England would be cool. He played for the Sharks when I first started following them.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Tindall is alright, but tires at around 50mins, and you can't really afford to have that happen, as if the bench spot for his replacement will either be the replacement flyhalf or the replacement wing/FB
I do think he has to go soon, but he's done alright at times
Hopefully Hodgson did enough to keep Wilkinson out of the 21/10 jersey, but I doubt it, as the media would have a heart attack if he wasn't selected come 6N time

I'd be interested in seeing a Waldouck/Hape, or a Hape/Allen midfield partnership. I think Hape's really grown in the past few tests, and is very dangerous in attacks, gets stuck in at the ruck, and is decent in defence

Completely disagree on Cueto, on the best form in years, and well worth his jersey atm. Don't see how you can say to replace him with Manu Tuilagi.
Tuilagi has potentialbut is very unpolished (he's only about 19 as well, so give it a few years, maybe call him up post world cup). If anyone call for Ojo, or Simpson-Daniel to have it

 

[gingergenius]

****, displays like this make me so ******* cross.

First off, well played SA... they produced exactly the kind of gutsy performance that they needed after last week, solid in defence, physical and playing the territory game brilliantly. DuPlessis had an absolute stormer.

Onto England. Where were the brains in that performance? It reminded me a lot of the France game in the 6N - a lot of attacking promise with few results, very poor execution and general inexperience. Just that we're supposed to have developed since then. It was back to the old England rather than the new one we glimpsed vs. Australia.

We were very unlucky to lose Croft and Flood early on, but that's no excuse. We've now seen enough of Fourie to say that we hardly saw him at all. Haskell's not world class but I'd far rather have him coming off the bench, especially at that point in the game. As for the rest of the forwards, that was Hartley's best game in an England shirt, and Lawes was good too. Everyone else was fine, just not happy with Clancy's reffing of the scrums.

Backs - Our strength in depth at 10 was cruelly exposed today. Hodgson did nothing wrong, but we needed a 10 to come on and take the game by the scruff of the neck and Hodgson didn't. The number of times we were pinned back with kicks from Steyn... and there was nothing like that coming from Hodgson.

Collectively the team needed discipline which we didn't have. And the leadership out there was poor too - no one came up with an idea to combat the blitz defence, and we had no momentum from the scoreboard ticking over.

Back to the drawing board for Johnson, there's certainly potential in this team but they've just lost at home to a Springbok side missing a ream of classy players, which is not good enough. Hopefully the experience of this will galvanise us for the start of the 6N...

 

[Shaggy]

... and the Springboks take the TRF trophy!

 

[Duckdee]

... and the Springboks take the TRF trophy!

Erm, don't NZ have it?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Erm, don't NZ have it?

Nope,
Australia took it from them in Hong Kong, England from Australia in Twickenham, not Boks from England in Twickenham

 

[Duckdee]

Nope,
Australia took it from them in Hong Kong, England from Australia in Twickenham, not Boks from England in Twickenham

Ah yes, my mistake. We played NZ before Aus.

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

Is the TRF Trophy only given to countries? Because if we lose next week to the Barbarians, it would mean they get it

 

[Teh Mite]

Ah well, normal service has been resumed.

 

[Bossco]

Morne still looks like crap imo. Great kicker, but looks really uncomfortable when they are trying to play the running game, you can see that his first instinct is always to kick but he has to hold himself back, still did a few of the typical SA pointless bombs. They need to also give up on these stupid dropkicks.

Worst display from England in a long long time, they start to look flustered when they don't gain the advantage line and panic a bit, 20 steps backward from Australia.

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

For the future I hope Lambie can get better at his kicking and he will be a serious contester for the fly-half position. That lad is all about the running game. There are some really talented players with running skills on the verge of an international breakthrough who include Willem Alberts (who has proven himself by now), Keegan Daniel, Hougaard, Charl McLeod, Patrick Lambie, Elton Jantjies, Duane Vermeulen and Juan de Jongh (who really has proven himself in the Green and Gold already)

We need those dynamic people to replace the static players like Burger, Stegmann, Kirchner, Conrad Jantjes, Jacobs and Fourie.

 

[SavageLez]

Matfield is not a suited captain. Juan Smith should get a say in what to do because Matfield's decision-making has cost us enough now

Listen, Victor Matfield as captain, has a better record than John Smit or Juan Smith. Go look at his Bulls Captaincy record. He has won a World Cup (helped John Smit), won 3 out of a possible 4 S14's. I don't know how many Currie Cups. He was the first SA captain in I don't know how many years to beat NZ in NZ. John Smit asked Victor to help with the capataincy in our first Welsh game (mid year) when JS passed the ball to a Wales player to go score. Another amazing fact is that Victor has also won 3 out of 4 games on this tour as captain. This he did with no less than 15 Springbok injuries, he captained a group of young inexperienced players and was successful. John Smit on the contrary has almost lost every test as captain since last years British Lions 3rd test, UK end of year tour 2009 and Tri Nations 2010. He even had a ka.. season for the Sharks in the S14. In fact the Sharks showed that they can win silverware (Currie Cup) without John Smit.

What has Juan Smith done to deserve the captaincy?
John Smit should have retired after the British Lions and Victor should have been awarded the Springbok captaincy then already.

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

Listen, Victor Matfield as captain, has a better record than John Smit or Juan Smith. Go look at his Bulls Captaincy record. He has won a World Cup (helped John Smit), won 3 out of a possible 4 S14's. I don't know how many Currie Cups. He was the first SA captain in I don't know how many years to beat NZ in NZ. John Smit asked Victor to help with the capataincy in our first Welsh game (mid year) when JS passed the ball to a Wales player to go score. Another amazing fact is that Victor has also won 3 out of 4 games on this tour as captain. This he did with no less than 15 Springbok injuries, he captained a group of young inexperienced players and was successful. John Smit on the contrary has almost lost every test as captain since last years British Lions 3rd test, UK end of year tour 2009 and Tri Nations 2010. He even had a ka.. season for the Sharks in the S14. In fact the Sharks showed that they can win silverware (Currie Cup) without John Smit.

What has Juan Smith done to deserve the captaincy?
John Smit should have retired after the British Lions and Victor should have been awarded the Springbok captaincy then already.

I guess you are a massive Matfield fan. Matfield is an amazing lock, is truly outstanding with the line-outs but his decision making is awful sometimes. Praising Matfield for all the Bulls-trophies is ridiculous. If you have a team with Habana, de Preez, Spies, Steenkamp, Botha and a bunch of other world class players it's not that surprising you are winning trophies. Apart from that it's ridiculous to give Matfield leadership credit for winning the World Cup as a so called helper of Smit but at the same time give him sole credit for the trophies the Blue Bulls won under his captaincy.

What is the use in making Matfield captain for only 1 year? I'm just saying that experience based on the number of tests alone shouldn't be the reason to make someone captain. And this is not a debate about John Smit.

The Sharks won the Currie Cup because of their way of playing. Stefan Terblanche was captain. Does that mean he should be in the Springbok squad as a captain since he beat Matfield's Bulls in the semi final?

 

[SavageLez]

All I am saying is that John Smit has been a good captain and think that Victor is even better as his record speaks for itself. Victor has not only done well with the Bulls, look how well Victor has done to win 3 out of 4 matches on tour with a very weakened Springbok team. He has done better than any other captain in SA!

Give credit where credit is due!

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

We beat Ireland because of a missed conversion, we beat Wales where we were very, very, very lucky with the referee's decisions and we lost to Scotland. Today was the first good match this tour. Being a good player doesn't make you a good captain. My opinion is that his decision making is awful. When you are trashing the English defence going through the phases that easily, you kick for the corner, not for goal! You know you can win the line-out and you have to score the try. Kicking for goal in a situation like that is a sign of weakness.

 

[mohamed_ali12]

Time for Tindall and Shaw to be booted out for good i reckon. Shaw looked so far off the pace it was verging on a joke, which is sad to he honest, given his heroics against the same side in 2009. Attwood is the future at lock.

In terms of centres, Dewi Morris seems to be feeling the love for the youngest Tuilangi brother, played England age-groups and put in a fine performance vs. Quins last friday. There doesn't really seem to be another outside centre out there except Banahan.

 

[coonor]

This was a complete different test to Englands previous games and they Weren't up to the challenge. England need to learn how to play without possession and live off scraps, taking their opportunity when it arrives. England were second best in the set piece and they couldn't set up a good platform. South Africa were more physical than England and their tactics worked well as they kept the ball with the forwards and didn't allow England to get a good flowing game started. Positives for England were that Lawes is playing well and plays like he has over 30 caps. Cueto is carrying on his momentum and Foden had a good game. England need to learn how to adjust their game when they are unable to play the wide flowing game that they like. Today England's tactical kicking was poor and they looked disorganised when key players left the field. Simply England were not powerful or smart enough today.