[RWC2019][The Final] England vs. South Africa (02/11/2019)

[croadymeister]

Losing in big finals always brings the worst in terms of Self reflection as a nation. The fact is that it is bloody hard to win at sport at the highest level; so many things have to come together, not just mentality. Compare SA's record in other sports compared to Rugby and I am sure it doesn't look too great either.

The 2003 team was full of special players that came about at the same time, but it still took 6 years to build and win the ultimate prize after going through several hard breaking defeats in 6Ns over the years and getting a major shellacking down under in 1997.

The 2019 team is still full of young players who can be there in 4 years time. They just need to remember this hurt and channel it to get better and for Jones or whoever is managing in 4 years time to build on that and add even better players. Out with Dan Cole, Youngs and in with better quality replacements. France 2023 here we come. Yesterday's final was just the start of this journey for many who played Saturday's final.

England in football - well the pool of countries and players is a hell of a lot bigger than rugby. Yeah 1966 and all that and now the Premiership is akin to the Top 14 in France, which has no interest in serving the National team. But Until England can produce enough technical players who can keep and use the ball well enough, who are rested enough before a major tournament to be at their peak then England's success at international football will continue to be that of nearly men.

But not all bad news England/GB/NI have had a lot of sporting success this decade: Olympics 2012/2016 were pretty unparalleled in terms of number of gold medals won. It's not been all bad. Murray at Wimbledon in 2013 and 2016.

I will agree that there has been a definite improvement in our Olympic performances since Sydney in 2000 and you are bang on when you said that the England football team have to produce more technical players who can both keep and use the ball effectively. I think the likes of Foden & Maddison are positive steps in the right direction but we definitely lack that deep lying playmaker who can control the tempo in the middle.

There is no doubt the likes of Curry & Underhill will be around for a long time but like you say we do need to find quality replacements for the likes of Youngs & Cole in the next four years otherwise we will keep on coming up short when we face the likes of South Africa again.

 

[croadymeister]

At the moment we aren't quite good enough and that was shown by how badly our set piece got battered.
This is a really young side and it will only improve - being realistic about where we are is how we'll improve. If we look at the game and think "Nah, we're better than South Africa we just choked" then we're not going to address our issues.

Yeah there is no doubt this team do lack a bit of consistency, like someone earlier said you would not think we could go from chucking that lead away against Scotland in the six nations to beating up NZ in a world cup semi final.

 

[User1245]

NO! I don't see it this way at all. I see very little between the three top teams in world rugby (Wales are one rung down). Plus, I don't view England as having choked in the final. Out of England, AB's and Sth Africa, any could beat the other on their day. In this tourney each had a win and a loss against the other two. In each case the losing team got it wrong in the build up and arrived mentally motivated at 99%. The winning team were at 100% on each occasion and won comfortably.

As I'm sure South Africans will be quick to point out; they got it 100% right on the day that mattered. Good luck to them. They played a great game on the day. However if Sth Africa were to play either of the other two teams next Saturday, I think they'd lose.

Turn it up mate. Owen Farrell's silver medal is still warm and you're already at it.
This Boks team is better than this English side and would beat them again next week and the week after.

 

[Kapa O Pango]

Pieter-Steph du Toit my man crush won player of the year.

Congrats.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

All in all this is arguably the greatest year in Springbok history. On par with 2009. We won literally everything there has been to win this year. From absolute rock bottom to top of the world in 18 months. Ranked 1, World Champions, Rugby Championship champions, best player, best team, best coach. Utterly astonishing really.

Just couldn't be prouder. I hope this is the beginning, and not the end. The Lions tour cannot come soon enough, and with the North/South gap being pretty much closed, it could be one for the ages. Damn it's good to be a Springbok fan in 2019.

All very true but we need to take into account how fine the margins are. Always felt in control vs Wales but a lucky break/bounce for Wales could've seen us out of the tournament and having rewatched the final there was so many chances for England to come back in the final despite getting 2nd place on any sort of platform but for a few well read scrapping tackles from us and a few overcooked passes from England killing off any chances out wide.

Had England won the final you can bet your bottom Rand (or Pound?) the kudos would've gone to England, Jones and Itoje ITO WR awards.

In the RC we drew with NZ and have Aus to thank for the ***le not coming down to bonus points and winning margins.

A lot to look forward to for sure especially as this squad will hopefully remain largely unchanged but it'll take a monumental effort to retain the top spot.

 

[TRF_heineken]

As I'm sure South Africans will be quick to point out; they got it 100% right on the day that mattered. Good luck to them. They played a great game on the day. However if Sth Africa were to play either of the other two teams next Saturday, I think they'd lose.

Probably, but that would be because we're still hungover.

We were man for man better on the day.

 

[JohnKA]

Anyone know what nation is touring SA for the 2020 incoming tour ? I can't seem to find the fixtures.

 

[Nudger]

If Jones was canny he should of started Marler and shore up that England scrum maybe given England more parity, did he underrate the boks power up front?

We all did

 

[Nudger]

Really want to see Dombrandt given a run at 8. He seems to have a good rugby brain and could do the bashing game of Billy but likely with other aspects too.

He was ordinary against saints Friday night

 

[Nudger]

Quite.

Maybe Gandalf?

 

[TRF_heineken]

Anyone know what nation is touring SA for the 2020 incoming tour ? I can't seem to find the fixtures.

There's no team that made any agreements with us yet to tour. The home nations have already selected the teams they wanted to face, and none of them seems to be interested in coming to SA. Which IMHO is just stupid a year prior to the B&I Lions coming to our shores.

By the looks of it we will be hosting tier 2 nations. Unless a team like Scotland for example are going to tour to more than 1 SH country.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Why is Stuart Barnes an insufferable know it all. He's writing in the Times his usual "I told you so...." about Youngs (like we didn't know it already) and that SA would win the World Cup; this from an ex player who never himself played in a World Cup final and Rob Andrew was preferred to. Does he realise how irritating he is?

 

[mdaclarke]

https://www.sarugbymag.co.za/scary-thought-boks-best-is-yet-to-come/

Interesting article. I think the Boks may be better in 2023 than 2019

 

[mdaclarke]

There's no team that made any agreements with us yet to tour. The home nations have already selected the teams they wanted to face, and none of them seems to be interested in coming to SA. Which IMHO is just stupid a year prior to the B&I Lions coming to our shores.

By the looks of it we will be hosting tier 2 nations. Unless a team like Scotland for example are going to tour to more than 1 SH country.

I would have thought that teams would want to play the world champions

 

[TRF_heineken]

https://www.sarugbymag.co.za/scary-thought-boks-best-is-yet-to-come/

Interesting article. I think the Boks may be better in 2023 than 2019

Yup.

So far only Flouw has announced his retirement. While Beast said he will make an announcement in the coming week. Duane Vermeulen has hinted that he still wants to play, and my guess is that he wants to try and play the B&I Lions.

But yeah, we were blessed with a lot of good young players who can now build on creating a dynasty.

 

[McTallshort]

So roll on the Lions! this will be the third tour in a row we will be playing the Boks as World Champions.

Really fancy going to this but not sure how safe/unsafe SA is at the minute. I have family friends out there who don't speak to highly of it but would love to go.

 

[donmcdazzle]

https://www.sarugbymag.co.za/scary-thought-boks-best-is-yet-to-come/

Interesting article. I think the Boks may be better in 2023 than 2019

Potentially yep - World Cups are lightening in a bottle though right. Injuries, form, rule changes, emergence of new players etc all have a huge part to play. As always, I have no doubt the boks will be one of the big chances.

 

[Bull]

Yup.

So far only Flouw has announced his retirement. While Beast said he will make an announcement in the coming week. Duane Vermeulen has hinted that he still wants to play, and my guess is that he wants to try and play the B&I Lions.

But yeah, we were blessed with a lot of good young players who can now build on creating a dynasty.

Hope that before Duane retires the Boks can find an adequate replacement for him. Though we're blessed with many loose forwards, we don't have many of the abrasive go forwards types like Duane.

 

[Jer1cho]

Hope that before Duane retires the Boks can find an adequate replacement for him. Though we're blessed with many loose forwards, we don't have many of the abrasive go forwards types like Duane.

I reckon Hatchiva Dayimani is the next big thing for us at 8. Duane was very much a replacement for Danie Rossouw, just better at the breakdown. Don't think we will find a battering ram quite the same again though. Also despite the haters I was a big fan of Spies. He had his moments, but when he was on, boy oh boy was he on.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Why is Stuart Barnes an insufferable know it all. He's writing in the Times his usual "I told you so...." about Youngs (like we didn't know it already) and that SA would win the World Cup; this from an ex player who never himself played in a World Cup final and Rob Andrew was preferred to. Does he realise how irritating he is?

He also said that Itoje should captain the Lions based on his semi final performance. In my book he's not even a shoe in for the team and has no senior level captaincy experience.