Boks put clumsy Wallabies to the sword

[jono]

The rampant Springboks put the Wallabies to the sword to bolster their position at the head of the Tri Nations table with an emphatic 29-17 triumph in Cape Town on Saturday.

The high-flying Boks capitalised on a mistake-riddled and ill-disciplined performance from the Australians to follow up their back-to-back defeats of the All Blacks with another clinical victory.

Superboot Morne Steyn was again instrumental, contributing 24 of South Africa's points from seven penalties and a drop goal.

The defeat extended Australia's sorry-losing streak to five Tests at Newlands since the Wallabies' last-up win at the famous venue 17 years ago.

And the Wallabies only had themselves to blame, once again failing to kick on from a promising start after fullback Adam Ashley-Cooper scored after just 98 seconds.

When five-eighth Matt Giteau drilled the sideline conversion, the jubilant Australians led 7-0 and had every reason to believe they could finally end their Newlands drought.

But, just as they had in Auckland three weeks ago in their 22-16 loss to the All Blacks, the Wallabies were unable to produce the kind of composed performance coach Robbie Deans is looking for.

It was effectively all over at halftime with the Boks leading 23-10 and with Australia down to 13 players following the sin-binning of Giteau and flanker Richard Brown.

The Wallabies looked sharp early.

From a lineout work win 25 metres out from the South African line, the Wallabies spread the ball the full width of the field to Ashley-Cooper, who fended off Springboks winger JP Pietersen and crashed over fullback Francois Steyn to touch down in the corner.

But the rest of the half belonged to the Springboks.

The Wallabies completely lost their way in a clumsy five minute-period to gift the home side a 9-7 lead through three Steyn penalties.

Centre Berrick Barnes slotted a left-footed drop goal in the 15th minute to briefly steady the Wallabies and put them back in front 10-9.

Another Steyn penalty, followed by a drop goal put the world champions ahead 15-10 after 25 minutes.

It was 20-10 soon after when Wallabies winger Lachie Turner was unable to clean up an unlikely grubber kick from prop John Smit and Boks lock Victor Matfield seized to score an unconverted try.

Worse was to come for Australia, though, with skipper Stirling Mortlock forced off with a knee injury on the half hour and Giteau and Brown sent for stints in the bin, leaving the rattled Wallabies with just 13 players on the field.

Giteau was sent to cool his heels for felling Boks halfback Four du Preez in an off-the-ball aerial challenge that went horribly wrong and Brown marched for a blatant ruck infringement.

Steyn's fifth penalty goal gave South Africa their 23-10 halftime advantage and a sixth straight after the break nudged the world champions more than two converted tries ahead of Australia.

Australia got one back in the 66th minute when Giteau lunged over, but it was not enough for the Wallabies to leave South Africa empty-handed.

Fittingly for the Boks, Steyn had the last say with his seventh penalty 30 seconds from fulltime.


http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-n...j.html?page=-1

[pieter blackie]

I suppose there will be a "Ban penalty and drop goals" proposal from Aus and NZ rugby in the weeks to come

OR are they going to blame it all on the referee and have him removed from the refereeing panel

[TOCC]

whilst i questioned a couple of his decisions last night, at the end of the day i thought most of the refs decisions were justified

[tic]

A gracious South African winner - what a surprise

Well played Boks.

[zimeric]

I suppose there will be a "Ban penalty and drop goals" proposal from Aus and NZ rugby in the weeks to come

OR are they going to blame it all on the referee and have him removed from the refereeing panel

Although i personally dont believe drop goals should be allowed to dictate a game the way they do now, at the end of the day its a way to score points easily and both teams have the opportunity to do so.. case in Point: Barnes drop goal in the first half.

At the end of the day the Aussies played the more attractive rugby (bar the handling errors) and the boks really didnt challenge the Wallabies line much at all... is that the kind of winning rugby you want to see Pieter, is the result more important than the entertainment value?

I'd rather pay to see a team get a few tries than 50000 penalties and drop goals....

The other issue of the ref.. well i think he just got overwhelmed but the sheer number of issues going on on and off the ball that the commentators were having a field day every time there was a marginal call (marto needs to read the rule book as he hasnt got a clue), I do however think the ref missed a whole heap of stuff, particularly the scrum feeds and forward passes by both teams (it was a below par display thats for sure!)

Two positive things to come out of the game.. : Oconnor stepped up and had a really good game as did Smith (has-been?? hardly!!)
and
GO THE WALLABIES SCRUM... the Beast and Smit got taken down a peg or two last night!!!

[Timbo]

For once (at least in parts) I found myself agreeing with kearns' commentary - well actually only his comments on the effect of the box-kick and bomb on "attractive" rugby. (OK - my definition of attractive rugby). I am one of those who love running rugby (in a perfect world, set up by some quality mauling) and tries.

But the Bokkers played to the rules and were very effective at it.

I prefer to watch the game Zim describes - but no-one can criticise a team for playing to win!

[Swee_82]

The Boks have set themselves up as excellent exponents of post-ELV rugby. Not that this is the only reason they won last night- there was alot of balls turned over at the breakdown, and alot of poor discipline on the Wallabies part.

Doesn't make it particularly interesting to watch, though.


As Jargs pointed out last night... we've a whole season of S14 of this to look forward to now.

[robyn <3]

What upset me was George Smith's binning in the last fewminute. I got so angry about that. As the replacement captain, he's lead his team for the last 50 odd minutes. He'd been a rather positive influence on the game, and that brain snap does nothing for his hopeful captaincy. When he did that, I think the wallabies accepted they were out, when their captain gets sent to the bin for a silly thing like that. And George should know that that's not the move for a future Wallabies captain.

Brown's brain snap also frustrated me a great deal. The scrum was fantastic, but that's about all. Drew nad Turner were quite good under high ball, and Drew made a tackle that drove someone backwards! I had to check what jersey number before I believed it.

I don't mean to take anything away from the Boks, but we did kinda give it to them

Some changes need to be made for the Perth test. Desperately

[zimeric]

1) we need more discipline at the breakdown.
2) we need a speedster out wide- DIGBY where are you!!!!
3) we need Crossy at 13 (that might just happen next week from what im hearing)
4) we need less brain explosions
5) we need the ref to get out the bl.oody way!

[welshrugbyfan]

The ref was good, post ELV's or not you can't go off your feet at the breakdown you never could it's just refereed more strictly nowadays.

Scrum feeds have to be correct they always did. Let's not get like a rugby league scrum where they'd be feeding it under the number 8's feet.

In boxing terms the Boks won on points, they could have knocked the wallabies out late in the first half but couldn't. You guys put in a Rocky like perfomance, hung on and showed the champ. "Yo Adrian we did it".

What shat me was the aussie commentary, was that 3 blokes at the pub or professional sports commentators.

There was a thread on here about the NZ commentary, well that was the most one eyed and biased commentary I've had to endure for years. Bring back Gordon Bray, trouble was 7 didn't show it until 1am. So I watched it again, it was refreshing to hear a professional at his job.

[beige]

I didn't think that the ELVs ever did what I hoped they would do so I don't really mind seeing it back like it is now - aside from the result (and the comprehensiveness of it) I thought it was a pretty good game.

I also watched the game again on 7 when I got home and the commentary was a lot more pleasant.

[shasta]

is that the kind of winning rugby you want to see Pieter, is the result more important than the entertainment value?

I'd rather pay to see a team get a few tries than 50000 penalties and drop goals....

OK, the Boks blitzkrieged the Wallabies for most of the first half the Wallabies took 60 minutes and most of the bench to recover some composure. The far better team won on the day. They can only play to the rules and the referee and did so superbly.

Dan Crowley and Tim Horan were pathetic, they way they harped on about how things are better with the ELV free kick sanctions. I agree 100% and can understand they might have been talking for the benefit of casual viewers who were confused. But get over it, they are gone.

I watched the game at work with 2 AFL trajics who have become regular watchers and occasional match attenders since the arrival of The Force. They had both put money on the Wallabies. After finally getting an idea of what the game is all about, last night had them dismayed with all the penalties and totally confused. I explained the laws situation and the comments were along the lines of "Well if that's what I can expect I won't be going to the Test match."

Thing is nobody in other tier 1 Rugby countries gives a stuff about growing the fan base here. Their game is doing fine so. End of story.

[tragic]

I don't know what was worse - the Wallaby brain implosions or the commentary.
Ref'ing was OK, but the forward passes let go were pretty shoddy. It's a telling thing on the Boks that they have so much confidence in themselves, being out-scrummaged did not have the psychological impact it might have had on a lesser team. We need to get some of that.

[welshrugbyfan]

Sorry but I'm glad the ELV's are gone, only taking it back into the 22 was a good thing to come out of it.

Free Kick usually meant another scrum, reset, scrum, reset etc....

Nothing in this game has changed, this is how it used to be before the ELV's has everyone forgotton already. I don't think we'd ever convert someone from another sport to solely watch rugby, you need to be brought up watching the sport to fully understand it.

MCG gets good crowds but 3/4 of them are just there for the atmosphere, to cheer on Aussies no matter what and don't really care that they don't really know what's going on in the middle.

Either the wallaies will bounce back, without Mortlock and Gits maybe or they'll crumble. My guess is they'll go ok.

---------- Post added at 11:10 ---------- Previous post was at 11:09 ----------

I don't know what was worse - the Wallaby brain implosions or the commentary.
Ref'ing was OK, but the forward passes let go were pretty shoddy. It's a telling thing on the Boks that they have so much confidence in themselves, being out-scrummaged did not have the psychological impact it might have had on a lesser team. We need to get some of that.

Two welsh touch judges what did you expect?

[shasta]

Nothing in this game has changed, this is how it used to be before the ELV'sI don't think we'd ever convert someone from another sport to solely watch rugby, you need to be brought up watching the sport to fully understand it.

MCG gets good crowds but 3/4 of them are just there for the atmosphere,

Who cares why they come, as long as they come. You might be looking at things from your Welsh perspective, remembering what it was like back there. If there is no point trying to get new fans, why bother putting effort into USA and more so Asia, where more than a third of the world's population reside? But in any event I did say it's game over for the foreseeable future so we should get over it.