From an Irish point of view I was encouraged by the match today. South Africa were very very physical and defended aggressively. They tried to overpower New Zealand at the breakdown. Their scrum creaked very badly though which was suprising. They relied heavily on the boot of Montgomery who kicked well throughout as well as the power of James. Their backs had no creativity at all though and they looked quite pedestrian at times.
New Zealand’s attacking play during the last quarter was awesome. Their ball handling skills were incredible. Up until then however they struggled at the break down and when they tried to open the game up they were a bit clueless. I have never seen Carter play as badly as he did today. Everyone is going to have an off day at place kicking but it was kicking out of hand which was really poor. Time and again the pressure he was put under caused him to kick the ball away sloppily. He persisted with this tactic far too long and was punished. NZ’s two tactics seemed to be to try and open the game up and allow for loose running and put kicks at the SA back three. SA dealt with this though in being more than competitive at the breakdown and their kicking game was dealt with very well by Montgomery. On today’s evidence I think we can beat either team. The standard of the game today wasn’t anything to be in awe of at all imo.
I thought you might have said who won the game though piper.
Now I’ll have to go off to the RTE site when our aim is to have tfk as a one-stop sporting site.
Extremely disappointing.
Post edited by: Bandage, at: 2007/06/23 18:51
After the problems associated with heavy traffic after my Setanta exclusive the last thing I want to do is to attract more visitors to the site.
Like you Piper I was relatively encouraged for Ireland from what I saw on Saturday.
South Africa have a cracking pack and their lineout in particular was excellent but their backline was like the old Irish backline with Elwood, Danaher, Cunningham etc. and you just knew in your heart that it wasn’t getting beyond Danaher. Butch James never impresses me and Steyn was shocking when he came on. Their defence was top drawer for most of the game, until they got loose in the last 5 minutes, and that was easily the best area of their game. I’m still not overly impressed with them.
New Zealand had one or two weaknesses that you wouldn’t normally see. Anton Oliver was always a poor hooker for that level of team and he was poor again on Saturday. The whole lineout malfunctioned (with second pick second-rows) and they resorted to taking quick lineouts off nearly every ball in the second half.
Beyond that the second centre seemed average - no better than that - and I think Muliaina is a little below par for that backline. As Piper said Carter had a shocker. Didn’t do much right at all. When they brought on McDonald at full back and McAllister in the centre they changed the game.
In the pack McCaw got the plaudits from the media predictably but Collins and in particular So’oialo were magnificent.