The Springboks vs British & Irish Lions 2nd Test Thread

[Cartman]

Does anyone else think Duane is a red herring?
Jake reckons he is not ready to play?

At least we'll have him back as waterboy then

[Sards]

Does anyone else think Duane is a red herring?
Jake reckons he is not ready to play?

At least we'll have him back as waterboy then

Imagine being the opposition and suddenly they announce that Duane has joined the bok camp. Oh vok. A whole new strategy.

[handyman]

Was it the correct decision to appoint a Kiwi to coach the BIL's? Was there no one else?

[OomStruisbaai]

[_Os_]

[Biffer]

Ooyah



Although it looks to me like a frame or two has been cut out of that?

[JM2K6]

The Kolbe head clash with Curry was made even more strange by everyone ignoring that the next tackler also did the same thing to Curry...

[Sandstorm]

The Kolbe head clash with Curry was made even more strange by everyone ignoring that the next tackler also did the same thing to Curry...

Yeah, I also want to hit Curry in the head. Might be the dumb haircut.

[_Os_]

Yeah great, SA are amazing, brilliant, awesome, Nienaber is a genius. Is that all you want to hear?

I mean, it sounds good.

Both sides kicked the living shit out of the ball, both sides had horrendous disipline, both sides served up turgid anti-rugby, both sides showed absolutely no ambition. The Saffers showed a little more in the second half. It has fuck-all to do with which team won and while I'm sure you love the fact that SA won, the fact is that both sides were appalling to watch.

It's not like the Lions defence is incredible or anything so christ knows what SA's excuse has been for their approach either

You're a good guy JM, and the reason I like you and just can't fight with you for long, is you're very tribal (like us terrible uncouth South Africans as tc27 said). I repsect that. The Boks haven't been as dirty as the Lions, but we carry on, maybe the Boks can turn that around in the next one.

You want to know why the Boks aren't as good as you would like them to be? See the risk here, is I get accused of making excuses. But this has been what the SA based players have played since Super Rugby died in March 2020.

Since the RWC the Boks played one test and many of the players played the SA A match. People say it was their fault for not going to the RC last year. But the players had only just started the season before lockdown and had only just started playing again before the RC, Aus and NZ had played a whole domestic season, so the decision was made that it would be an injury risk for the players if the Boks played because they hadn't built up enough game time for the intensity of test rugby. It's been claimed that this was about avoiding defeats, but the Boks always lose RC matches, I just take the stated reason at face value. The Pumas went, and good for them. But that was all last year anyway, it would've helped now but not that much, it was some more matches but not a whole season.

The big problem is that domestic rugby has been stop start, and the quality and amount of games with only SA sides playing cannot match those of Super Rugby with top sides from Aus/NZ/Arg also playing. Pro16 didn't happen because of Covid, so that too ended up being another domestic SA tournament for us. To put this into perspective in 2009 when the Lions toured SA the Bulls destroyed the Chiefs in the Super Rugby final. When the 2021 Lions toured SA the Bulls were the first SA side to play outside SA in a year and lost to Benetton Treviso in a final. I'm not really buying that Covid has been the same for everyone.

If the Boks had a full schedule of matches since the RWC, I expect they would've expanded their game by now either willfully, or because they were found out and adapted. I joke that Rassie and Nienaber are rugby geniuses as you point out, but there is some truth to it also, this isn't Straeuli and co. But that hasn't happened, so it's still the same team that was put together in a rush in one year from mid-2018 over 19 matches for the RWC in 2019.

There's only two reasons the tour is even happening. The players really want it to happen, as it's a career highlight. And SARU need the money (I can't recall how the money is split, but I think there's a SANZAR revenue split on Lions TV money, but I could be totally wrong).

[JM2K6]

I'm sure there's good reasons for it. I think it's an indictment of Gatland's Lions that they've struggled so much against what was essentially a scratch team. But given that I'm criticising the quality, approach, discipline, and entertainment value of both sides, those reasons are not so much counter arguments as they are reasons helping explain why it was so bad.

I'm not being tribal here. The Tests have been some of the shittiest, most negative, most eye bleedingly unwatchable Lions tests since before the game went pro. And I was deeply critical of the one dimensional approach in the first Test, and at half time in this one.

It's a sport and I'm a spectator. I don't need to be supporting one of these sides to call out how bad the games have been.

[Sandstorm]

Rassie’s Boks play ugly. RWC19 was hideous, apart from the final. Lions don’t have the muscle to match our style is play, so you have to play something else. Kiwis can do it, but don’t need to.

Smith/Russell at 10 and run it is your only hope. Ditto Argies and Aussies in the RC.

[_Os_]

Would you mind linking us to this rant?
It's it on YouTube or Twitter?

Go read the papers from 2 weeks back

Can you quote even one line of his "rant" please?
Just one will do.

It's Gatland's strange rebuttal to World Rugby that "we've praised the officials". But he's publicly goading them all the time. I catch up on his comments this morning, and there's one from yesterday after he made the comment he only praises the refs! He's been doing this for years.

Gatland on World Rugby mentioning that he criticised match officials:
August 3rd 2021
“We haven’t been commenting on the refereeing”.
"They've said both sides have been making comments and being critical of the officials. I'd like someone to show me where we have done that. We've looked through everything and we can't see any instances where we've been critical of the officials. In fact, I think we've praised the officials."


Previously in Gatland’s comments on match officials he only ever praised:
July 15th 2021
“I can’t understand where the comments were that there was no contact to the head,” said Gatland today.
“Someone was watching a different picture to me. I thought it looked reckless to me. No arms and he’s hit the arm first and then the shoulder, but there’s definitely head-on-head contact.
“We’ve got a meeting with the referees tomorrow just to get a bit of clarity on that. What we want is clarity so that we get complete consistency.
“The citing commissary looks at those things. It’ll be interesting to see what the referees come back with and what other people who have looked at it come back with in terms of the recommendations were for that incident.”
https://www.the42.ie/gatland-de-klerk-5496174-Jul2021/

Currently in Gatland’s comments on match officials he only ever praised:
4th August 2021
“We felt like [at] every scrum there was an injury, slowing the game down. There was something like 14 minutes of TMO. It was really, really stop-start.
“That made it frustrating for us. We want to keep the tempo of the game up, to get a flow.
“South Africa at the moment don’t want to do that. [Captain] Alun Wyn Jones was talking to the referee on a number of occasions about keeping it going,”
He added: “We had stud changes, we had TMO decisions, we had the referee stopping the game for cramp. So that will be one of the things that I will talk to the referees about this week. We can’t have 60-odd minute halves.”
https://rugby365.com/tournaments/britis ... s-decider/

Bonus material from the archives when the current Vice-Chairman of World Rugby, agrees that Kaplan “only refereed one side” (Kaplan having refereed the most tests around that time, and still being third today behind Owens and Barnes):
9th March 2005
Robinson was “livid” immediately after England’s 19-13 RBS 6 Nations defeat to Ireland in Dublin and later claimed that Kaplan had “only refereed one side“.
Laporte, whose side will look to end Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes in Dublin this Saturday, backed Robinson.
“I entirely agree with Andy Robinson. You can safely say that the referees are not good and that day Kaplan was not good. That does happen,” said Laporte.
“I believe Robinson was right when he said the try by Cueto was valid. He was not dishonest, he just had a bad match. And I say this despite the fact he is one of the referees we prefer to have refereeing our matches.”
Laporte felt England were penalised for their attacking intent.
“As regards the rucks, the Irish came in on the side at least 10 times, but it was the English who were punished for not releasing the ball. In effect it was the more creative team who were punished,” he added.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/rug ... 92845.html

[Slick]

Fucking hell, that's a lot of effort for such a weak post.

There is possibly one comment from Gatland that could be seen as a direct criticism of the ref, then some stuff from a different coach 16 years ago.

All to make some kind of justification for a coach a few days ago spending over an hour making 27 seperate criticisms and personal attacks on a ref.

Tremendous stuff!

[_Os_]

Fucking hell, that's a lot of effort for such a weak post.

There is possibly one comment from Gatland that could be seen as a direct criticism of the ref, then some stuff from a different coach 16 years ago.

All to make some kind of justification for a coach a few days ago spending over an hour making 27 seperate criticisms and personal attacks on a ref.

Tremendous stuff!

It didn't take me long at all. It's called Google, Slick.

Gatland "I praise the match officials", is in fact constantly goading them. As anyone can see. Just like the Vice-Chairman of World Rugby did in his time. Just like Clive Woodard did his time (with video at a press conference).

What justification? I'm fine with Rassie's video. Gatland asked where he made comments about match officials he has praised, a poster asked for the same, I have provided examples.

[Paddington Bear]

Fucking hell, that's a lot of effort for such a weak post.

There is possibly one comment from Gatland that could be seen as a direct criticism of the ref, then some stuff from a different coach 16 years ago.

All to make some kind of justification for a coach a few days ago spending over an hour making 27 seperate criticisms and personal attacks on a ref.

Tremendous stuff!

It didn't take me long at all. It's called Google, Slick.

Gatland "I praise the match officials", is in fact constantly goading them. As anyone can see. Just like the Vice-Chairman of World Rugby did in his time. Just like Clive Woodard did his time (with video at a press conference).

What justification? I'm fine with Rassie's video. Gatland asked where he made comments about match officials he has praised, a poster asked for the same, I have provided examples.

Out of interest, if Eddie Jones produced an hour monologue about the ref before an England SA game or the ABs do the same and SA go on to lose, would you be so fine with that?

[sorCrer]

Fucking hell, that's a lot of effort for such a weak post.

There is possibly one comment from Gatland that could be seen as a direct criticism of the ref, then some stuff from a different coach 16 years ago.

All to make some kind of justification for a coach a few days ago spending over an hour making 27 seperate criticisms and personal attacks on a ref.

Tremendous stuff!

Personal attacks?

[inactionman]

Go read the papers from 2 weeks back

Can you quote even one line of his "rant" please?
Just one will do.

It's Gatland's strange rebuttal to World Rugby that "we've praised the officials". But he's publicly goading them all the time. I catch up on his comments this morning, and there's one from yesterday after he made the comment he only praises the refs! He's been doing this for years.

Gatland on World Rugby mentioning that he criticised match officials:
August 3rd 2021
“We haven’t been commenting on the refereeing”.
"They've said both sides have been making comments and being critical of the officials. I'd like someone to show me where we have done that. We've looked through everything and we can't see any instances where we've been critical of the officials. In fact, I think we've praised the officials."


Previously in Gatland’s comments on match officials he only ever praised:
July 15th 2021
“I can’t understand where the comments were that there was no contact to the head,” said Gatland today.
“Someone was watching a different picture to me. I thought it looked reckless to me. No arms and he’s hit the arm first and then the shoulder, but there’s definitely head-on-head contact.
“We’ve got a meeting with the referees tomorrow just to get a bit of clarity on that. What we want is clarity so that we get complete consistency.
“The citing commissary looks at those things. It’ll be interesting to see what the referees come back with and what other people who have looked at it come back with in terms of the recommendations were for that incident.”
https://www.the42.ie/gatland-de-klerk-5496174-Jul2021/

Currently in Gatland’s comments on match officials he only ever praised:
4th August 2021
“We felt like [at] every scrum there was an injury, slowing the game down. There was something like 14 minutes of TMO. It was really, really stop-start.
“That made it frustrating for us. We want to keep the tempo of the game up, to get a flow.
“South Africa at the moment don’t want to do that. [Captain] Alun Wyn Jones was talking to the referee on a number of occasions about keeping it going,”
He added: “We had stud changes, we had TMO decisions, we had the referee stopping the game for cramp. So that will be one of the things that I will talk to the referees about this week. We can’t have 60-odd minute halves.”
https://rugby365.com/tournaments/britis ... s-decider/

Bonus material from the archives when the current Vice-Chairman of World Rugby, agrees that Kaplan “only refereed one side” (Kaplan having refereed the most tests around that time, and still being third today behind Owens and Barnes):
9th March 2005
Robinson was “livid” immediately after England’s 19-13 RBS 6 Nations defeat to Ireland in Dublin and later claimed that Kaplan had “only refereed one side“.
Laporte, whose side will look to end Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes in Dublin this Saturday, backed Robinson.
“I entirely agree with Andy Robinson. You can safely say that the referees are not good and that day Kaplan was not good. That does happen,” said Laporte.
“I believe Robinson was right when he said the try by Cueto was valid. He was not dishonest, he just had a bad match. And I say this despite the fact he is one of the referees we prefer to have refereeing our matches.”
Laporte felt England were penalised for their attacking intent.
“As regards the rucks, the Irish came in on the side at least 10 times, but it was the English who were punished for not releasing the ball. In effect it was the more creative team who were punished,” he added.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/rug ... 92845.html

I read most of those as critical of Saffa gamesmanship. Fatties taking a breather at each scrum and dodgy tackles.

[handyman]

When will the moaning stop?

[inactionman]

When will the moaning stop?

More chance of ending religion.

[_Os_]

Out of interest, if Eddie Jones produced an hour monologue about the ref before an England SA game or the ABs do the same and SA go on to lose, would you be so fine with that?

That's a cunning way of phrasing it Mr.Bear, and also does your own side of the argument a disservice. Because the objection was before any win or loss, it was disconnected from the result. So your question is the same as asking me if I'm okay with losing, not just the principle of it. I would've wanted SA Rugby to fire back in kind but that's just me, I know other South Africans would've said "lets do the talking on the field and say nothing".

So principle of it, is what I'm discussing. It's shit that match officials get attacked, but this seems to be part of professionalism, do it well and it yields on field advantage. On the other hand match officials aren't amateurs rocking up at a local park to ref a weekend match, they're paid professionals travelling the globe, there's something not quite right that they should be above everything. There's merit in both arguments. If what Eddie Moans and Gatland do is okay to you, then like me you're okay with the principle, but you just don't want it to take an obvious unfiltered form on new media, you instead want it edited and polite on old media.

As for Eddie Jones, when he was still coaching Australia he was known as "Eddie Moans" by SA media/South Africans. He was moaning about the refs even back then. The problem for us was, we couldn't get an alternative narrative out in away games (old media was still dominant then). Foreign media would tend to cherry pick and distort things, this often happened to Jake White one of our coaches who had decent English ability (if he spoke for 30 minutes they would just take some soundbite and misrepresent it), but we can't always have "our English" as coaches and captains and most times will not, and then we're made mincemeat of even more in the lead up if the opposition coach engages in this stuff. It's all about influencing the ref and if your English isn't great and you have limited media access, then you're struggling in that battle. The English rugby media has especially strange views about SA rugby and South Africans generally, they bring in all sorts of stereotypes that are just irrelevant nonsense and use those stereotypes to explain results even when they don't apply (eg the Boks weren't the dirty side in the 2nd test, you wouldn't know that reading English rugby media though).

If you want it to end, then the principle has to be no comment on match officials at all. But that will only work if the internal processes work as well as they can which we have no insight into, but we do have some view of the citing process which appears dysfunctional (obvious red card incidents go unpunished). The other issue if there's to be no comment on refs at all, is how refs conduct themselves, rugby is much more complicated than soccer so it doesn't map entirely but I wonder if rugby has missed something in dismissing soccer referring. The top refs in soccer are hard arsed, and give minimal feedback during the game, to me this seems more impartial than having a running dialogue. French/Italian/Argie/Samoan/Fijian/Tongan/Japanese and most South Africans too, are disadvantaged by the running dialogue because most of the refs are Anglos and they don't have the same cultural connection as an Anglo player does (for example, Owens was a very good ref, but he liked making jokes/banter which I know would go over the heads of most South Africans, so he's being nice but it becomes another barrier for us). This is what Rassie was getting at when he said Kolisi was being ignored (morons like Stephen Jones jumped in saying Rassie accused Berry of racism which he did not do, any South African knows that's a serious accusation), what he was getting at was Kolisi being disadvantage in this informal banter which shouldn't be part of how a ref works and that this informal banter is how captains influence the ref. A lot of South Africans (especially those who have experience outside SA) and not just black South Africans, know exactly how Kolisi felt, I know how Kolisi felt. It was bizarre to me when Kolisi himself said he often felt ignored by refs and there were attacks against him in the English rugby press, no previous RWC winning captain would be treated this way.

If the principle remains that in some form it's okay to criticise the ref, and the ref themselves engage in an ongoing dialogue during play. Then we're just going to have an ongoing mess, and as long as our side do what they can to win that mess then I'm happy. The internet/media is heading towards greater and not less access, the Rassie video will be an antique soon enough.

[JM2K6]

To be fair to the arsehole Jones, a lot of Saffer comments on Twitter took Rassie's comment to be an accusation of racism too

[Lemoentjie]

It doesn't have to be conscious racism from Nic Berry. He has refereed most of his games in Australia and New Zealand - how often does he have to deal with a black captain who doesn't speak English as his first language? It's natural that he would feel more comfortable interacting with Alun Wyn Jones, it's a lot closer to what he's used to. Classic in-group bias, it's natural to all humans.

I do think it's great how Wayne Barnes and Luke Pearce speak in French to French team. Maybe one day we will hear Ben O'Keeffe speaking in the Taal or Zulu

[Slick]

Out of interest, if Eddie Jones produced an hour monologue about the ref before an England SA game or the ABs do the same and SA go on to lose, would you be so fine with that?

That's a cunning way of phrasing it Mr.Bear, and also does your own side of the argument a disservice. Because the objection was before any win or loss, it was disconnected from the result. So your question is the same as asking me if I'm okay with losing, not just the principle of it. I would've wanted SA Rugby to fire back in kind but that's just me, I know other South Africans would've said "lets do the talking on the field and say nothing".

So principle of it, is what I'm discussing. It's shit that match officials get attacked, but this seems to be part of professionalism, do it well and it yields on field advantage. On the other hand match officials aren't amateurs rocking up at a local park to ref a weekend match, they're paid professionals travelling the globe, there's something not quite right that they should be above everything. There's merit in both arguments. If what Eddie Moans and Gatland do is okay to you, then like me you're okay with the principle, but you just don't want it to take an obvious unfiltered form on new media, you instead want it edited and polite on old media.

As for Eddie Jones, when he was still coaching Australia he was known as "Eddie Moans" by SA media/South Africans. He was moaning about the refs even back then. The problem for us was, we couldn't get an alternative narrative out in away games (old media was still dominant then). Foreign media would tend to cherry pick and distort things, this often happened to Jake White one of our coaches who had decent English ability (if he spoke for 30 minutes they would just take some soundbite and misrepresent it), but we can't always have "our English" as coaches and captains and most times will not, and then we're made mincemeat of even more in the lead up if the opposition coach engages in this stuff. It's all about influencing the ref and if your English isn't great and you have limited media access, then you're struggling in that battle. The English rugby media has especially strange views about SA rugby and South Africans generally, they bring in all sorts of stereotypes that are just irrelevant nonsense and use those stereotypes to explain results even when they don't apply (eg the Boks weren't the dirty side in the 2nd test, you wouldn't know that reading English rugby media though).

If you want it to end, then the principle has to be no comment on match officials at all. But that will only work if the internal processes work as well as they can which we have no insight into, but we do have some view of the citing process which appears dysfunctional (obvious red card incidents go unpunished). The other issue if there's to be no comment on refs at all, is how refs conduct themselves, rugby is much more complicated than soccer so it doesn't map entirely but I wonder if rugby has missed something in dismissing soccer referring. The top refs in soccer are hard arsed, and give minimal feedback during the game, to me this seems more impartial than having a running dialogue. French/Italian/Argie/Samoan/Fijian/Tongan/Japanese and most South Africans too, are disadvantaged by the running dialogue because most of the refs are Anglos and they don't have the same cultural connection as an Anglo player does (for example, Owens was a very good ref, but he liked making jokes/banter which I know would go over the heads of most South Africans, so he's being nice but it becomes another barrier for us). This is what Rassie was getting at when he said Kolisi was being ignored (morons like Stephen Jones jumped in saying Rassie accused Berry of racism which he did not do, any South African knows that's a serious accusation), what he was getting at was Kolisi being disadvantage in this informal banter which shouldn't be part of how a ref works and that this informal banter is how captains influence the ref. A lot of South Africans (especially those who have experience outside SA) and not just black South Africans, know exactly how Kolisi felt, I know how Kolisi felt. It was bizarre to me when Kolisi himself said he often felt ignored by refs and there were attacks against him in the English rugby press, no previous RWC winning captain would be treated this way.

If the principle remains that in some form it's okay to criticise the ref, and the ref themselves engage in an ongoing dialogue during play. Then we're just going to have an ongoing mess, and as long as our side do what they can to win that mess then I'm happy. The internet/media is heading towards greater and not less access, the Rassie video will be an antique soon enough.

Nah.

[Chilli]

To be fair to the arsehole Jones, a lot of Saffer comments on Twitter took Rassie's comment to be an accusation of racism too

Really?
I never saw any.

[Cartman]

Well Flannery thinks Rassie is a certified genius and Nienaber is the best coach ever
So there

[Uncle fester]

Go read the papers from 2 weeks back

Can you quote even one line of his "rant" please?
Just one will do.

It's Gatland's strange rebuttal to World Rugby that "we've praised the officials". But he's publicly goading them all the time. I catch up on his comments this morning, and there's one from yesterday after he made the comment he only praises the refs! He's been doing this for years.

Gatland on World Rugby mentioning that he criticised match officials:
August 3rd 2021
“We haven’t been commenting on the refereeing”.
"They've said both sides have been making comments and being critical of the officials. I'd like someone to show me where we have done that. We've looked through everything and we can't see any instances where we've been critical of the officials. In fact, I think we've praised the officials."


Previously in Gatland’s comments on match officials he only ever praised:
July 15th 2021
“I can’t understand where the comments were that there was no contact to the head,” said Gatland today.
“Someone was watching a different picture to me. I thought it looked reckless to me. No arms and he’s hit the arm first and then the shoulder, but there’s definitely head-on-head contact.
“We’ve got a meeting with the referees tomorrow just to get a bit of clarity on that. What we want is clarity so that we get complete consistency.
“The citing commissary looks at those things. It’ll be interesting to see what the referees come back with and what other people who have looked at it come back with in terms of the recommendations were for that incident.”
https://www.the42.ie/gatland-de-klerk-5496174-Jul2021/

Currently in Gatland’s comments on match officials he only ever praised:
4th August 2021
“We felt like [at] every scrum there was an injury, slowing the game down. There was something like 14 minutes of TMO. It was really, really stop-start.
“That made it frustrating for us. We want to keep the tempo of the game up, to get a flow.
“South Africa at the moment don’t want to do that. [Captain] Alun Wyn Jones was talking to the referee on a number of occasions about keeping it going,”
He added: “We had stud changes, we had TMO decisions, we had the referee stopping the game for cramp. So that will be one of the things that I will talk to the referees about this week. We can’t have 60-odd minute halves.”
https://rugby365.com/tournaments/britis ... s-decider/

Bonus material from the archives when the current Vice-Chairman of World Rugby, agrees that Kaplan “only refereed one side” (Kaplan having refereed the most tests around that time, and still being third today behind Owens and Barnes):
9th March 2005
Robinson was “livid” immediately after England’s 19-13 RBS 6 Nations defeat to Ireland in Dublin and later claimed that Kaplan had “only refereed one side“.
Laporte, whose side will look to end Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes in Dublin this Saturday, backed Robinson.
“I entirely agree with Andy Robinson. You can safely say that the referees are not good and that day Kaplan was not good. That does happen,” said Laporte.
“I believe Robinson was right when he said the try by Cueto was valid. He was not dishonest, he just had a bad match. And I say this despite the fact he is one of the referees we prefer to have refereeing our matches.”
Laporte felt England were penalised for their attacking intent.
“As regards the rucks, the Irish came in on the side at least 10 times, but it was the English who were punished for not releasing the ball. In effect it was the more creative team who were punished,” he added.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/rug ... 92845.html

Good legwork proving there was no rant.

[Sandstorm]

Brave of you Euros to take on The Filofax.
Brave, but ultimately a fruitless and thankless endeavour.