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Sorry South Africa, Handre Pollard can't save you

(Photo by Steve Haag/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

The inevitable and predictable reaction to the Springboks’ narrow 13-8 loss to Ireland has led to chorus of South Africans swooning after their golden boy Handre Pollard.

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The goal-kicking ace who can save the Springboks because 11 points were left out on the table, never mind that Pollard doesn’t have the distance to nail them from 50 plus metres out like Faf de Klerk tried to twice.

And it’s not like he’s ever missed a goal either, a career kicker at around 75 per cent in Test rugby.

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Before his heroic kick against Wales to propel the Springboks into the 2019 Rugby World Cup final, Pollard was kicking at 63 per cent in that tournament.

On the opening night he clanged a sitter from dead in front into the right upright against the All Blacks and finished with two from three. Against Italy he was six from nine, remaining at 66 per cent.

In the final against England he sliced two more penalties and couldn’t find touch kicking to the corner on one occasion.

His turnovers that night kept England in the contest longer than they should have been, with six points coming from backfield errors made by the Springboks No 10.

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But facts don’t matter with Pollard.

Never before has the perception of a player been so detached from reality as it is with the player Montpellier shelled out millions of euro for.

It was Morne Steyn who saved the Boks from the tee during the British & Irish Lions series and his immediate retirement afterward caused issues.

On the very first overseas trip Down Under to Australia, Quade Cooper nailed eight from eight for the Wallabies while South Africa had kicking issues.

“Polly” himself missed three shots at goal, yes three, while Damian Willemse copped the ire of Victor Matfield for a late conversion that sailed wide and didn’t even look like going close. He didn’t lament the No 10’s failures.

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The golden boy can save the Springboks because his name is Handre Pollard. Well, sorry to say South Africa, he can’t, and he wouldn’t have got the win last night either.

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The two Springbok packs that were sent out to do a job on Ireland were feasted on at the breakdown, with Irish jacklers dining out all evening with continual ruck pressure.

The incessant jackalling took a toll and Ireland began to win turnovers forcing holding on penalties late in the second half.

Warrior performances from Caelan Doris and Tadhg Beirne, who both got through 80 minutes along with Josh van der Flier, led the counter-effort to the 7-1 injection.

Even the famed Bok scrum failed when it mattered most. Conor Murray smartly caught them pushing off before the ball was fed, a cardinal sin that cost three points.

Before that they were penalised on their own feed in front of the posts which Sexton converted calmly to take the lead back.

The uncomfortable matter for South Africa is that Ireland were able to match them in the physicality stakes.

For every punishing hit on an Irish player, there was a player in a white jersey getting folded.

It was the kind of game that the Springboks wanted to have, yet it was Ireland who came out on top despite a malfunctioning lineout that could not convert a throw early on.

The ‘what ifs’ for South Africa are low percentage hail mary-type penalty goals. The ‘what ifs’ for Ireland are multiple botched lineout opportunities around five out.

South Africa are looking for crumbs while Ireland had plans for the entire cake. That they didn’t get it was largely their own doing with miscommunication issues plaguing those throws.

Don’t tell us South Africa would’ve won had they made the kicks because had Ireland made their throws it could’ve been over by half-time.

The silver lining out of the game for the Springboks is that they now align with France for a quarter-final, a side that they’d probably prefer.

Parachute Pollard in for that one if you like, but if the two packs fail to get ascendency again it will be a similar result and the saviour will need saving.

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Comments

173 Comments
W
Warren 230 days ago

Well you’ve made a proper tit of yourself, haven’t you! 😂

C
Charles 343 days ago

Love to see how wrong the strong Ben Smith opinions can go 😂

D
Daniel 409 days ago

One of the great articles Ben. Well done

J
Johann 415 days ago

aged like milk 🥛🥛🥛

P
Patrick 416 days ago

Sorry for you Ben Smith

P
PaPaRumple 428 days ago

This guy knows nothing. How in god's green earth did he become a rugby journalist.

E
Etienne 429 days ago

Oh the irony…. Handle Pollard excecuted a penalty kick from the halfline. 😆

E
Etienne 430 days ago

Rassie Erasmus planned it well. Give Ireland the bragging rights game, Play France and then deal with NZ in the final.

E
Etienne 430 days ago

Sorry Ireland, Johnny Sexton couldn't save you.

D
Daniel 447 days ago

A bit of a puerile article, but the key points are valid. The Irish forwards were exceptional in that game. There wasn't much in it overall, though, both sides gave as good as they got physically. Etzebeth got picked up, Sexton and somebody else got bounced by De Allende and had stars flying around their heads like cartoon characters for a moment. You can cherry pick all night depending on the picture you want to paint. But at the end of the match, all that matters is the scoreboard.

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f
fl 35 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Would I'd be think"

Would I'd be think.


"Well that's one starting point for an error in your reasoning. Do you think that in regards to who should have a say in how it's setup in the future as well? Ie you would care what they think or what might be more fair for their teams (not saying your model doesn't allow them a chance)?"

Did you even read what you're replying to? I wasn't arguing for excluding south africa, I was pointing out that the idea of quantifying someone's fractional share of european rugby is entirely nonsensical. You're the one who was trying to do that.


"Yes, I was thinking about an automatic qualifier for a tier 2 side"

What proportion of european rugby are they though? Got to make sure those fractions match up! 😂


"Ultimately what I think would be better for t2 leagues would be a third comp underneath the top two tournemnts where they play a fair chunk of games, like double those two. So half a dozen euro teams along with the 2 SA and bottom bunch of premiership and top14, some Championship and div 2 sides thrown in."

I don't know if Championship sides want to be commuting to Georgia every other week.


"my thought was just to create a middle ground now which can sustain it until that time has come, were I thought yours is more likely to result in the constant change/manipulation it has been victim to"

a middle ground between the current system and a much worse system?

47 Go to comments
f
fl 50 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Huh? You mean last in their (4 team) pools/regions? My idea was 6/5/4, 6 the max, for guarenteed spots, with a 20 team comp max, so upto 5 WCs (which you'd make/or would be theoretically impossible to go to one league (they'd likely be solely for its participants, say 'Wales', rather than URC specifically. Preferrably). I gave 3 WC ideas for a 18 team comp, so the max URC could have (with a member union or club/team, winning all of the 6N, and Champions and Challenge Cup) would be 9."


That's a lot of words to say that I was right. If (e.g.) Glasgow won the URC and Edinburgh finished 16th, but Scotland won the six nations, Edinburgh would qualify for the Champions Cup under your system.


"And the reason say another URC (for example) member would get the spot over the other team that won the Challenge Cup, would be because they were arguable better if they finished higher in the League."

They would be arguably worse if they didn't win the Challenge Cup.


"It won't diminish desire to win the Challenge Cup, because that team may still be competing for that seed, and if theyre automatic qual anyway, it still might make them treat it more seriously"

This doesn't make sense. Giving more incentives to do well in the Challenge Cup will make people take it more seriously. My system does that and yours doesn't. Under my system, teams will "compete for the seed" by winning the Challenge Cup, under yours they won't. If a team is automatically qualified anyway why on earth would that make them treat it more seriously?


"I'm promoting the idea of a scheme that never needs to be changed again"

So am I. I'm suggesting that places could be allocated according to a UEFA style points sytem, or according to a system where each league gets 1/4 of the spots, and the remaining 1/4 go to the best performing teams from the previous season in european competition.


"Yours will promote outcry as soon as England (or any other participant) fluctates. Were as it's hard to argue about a the basis of an equal share."

Currently there is an equal share, and you are arguing against it. My system would give each side the opportunity to achieve an equal share, but with more places given to sides and leagues that perform well. This wouldn't promote outcry, it would promote teams to take european competition more seriously. Teams that lose out because they did poorly the previous year wouldn't have any grounds to complain, they would be incentivised to try harder this time around.


"This new system should not be based on the assumption of last years results/performances continuing."

That's not the assumption I'm making. I don't think the teams that perform better should be given places in the competition because they will be the best performing teams next year, but because sport should be based on merit, and teams should be rewarded for performing well.


"I'm specifically promoting my idea because I think it will do exactly what you want, increase european rugyb's importance."

how?


"I won't say I've done anything compressive"

Compressive.

47 Go to comments
J
JW 54 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Generally disagree with what? The possibility that they would get whitewashed, or the idea they shouldn't gain access until they're good enough?


I think the first is a fairly irrelevant view, decide on the second and then worry about the first. Personally I'd have had them in a third lvl comp with all the bottom dwellers of the leagues. I liked the idea of those league clubs resting their best players, and so being able to lift their standards in the league, though, so not against the idea that T2 sides go straight into Challenge Cup, but that will be a higher level with smaller comps and I think a bit too much for them (not having followed any of their games/performances mind you).

Because I don't think that having the possibility of a team finishing outside the quarter finals to qualify automatically will be a good idea. I'd rather have a team finishing 5th in their domestic league.

fl's idea, if I can speak for him to speed things up, was for it to be semifinalists first, Champions Cup (any that somehow didn't make a league semi), then Challenge's semi finalists (which would most certainly have been outside their league semi's you'd think), then perhaps the quarter finalists of each in the same manner. I don't think he was suggesting whoever next performed best in Europe but didn't make those knockouts (like those round of 16 losers), I doubt that would ever happen.


The problem I mainly saw with his idea (much the same as you see, that league finish is a better indicator) is that you could have one of the best candidates lose in the quarters to the eventual champions, and so miss out for someone who got an easier ride, and also finished lower in the league, perhaps in their own league, and who you beat everytime.

47 Go to comments
J
JW 1 hour ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Well I was mainly referring to my thinking about the split, which was essentially each /3 rounded up, but reliant on WCs to add buffer.


You may have been going for just a 16 team league ranking cup?


But yes, those were just ideas for how to select WCs, all very arbitrary but I think more interesting in ways than just going down a list (say like fl's) of who is next in line. Indeed in my reply to you I hinted at say the 'URC' WC spot actually being given to the Ireland pool and taken away from the Welsh pool.


It's easy to think that is excluding, and making it even harder on, a poor performing country, but this is all in context of a 18 or 20 team comp where URC (at least to those teams in the URC) got 6 places, which Wales has one side lingering around, and you'd expect should make. Imagine the spice in that 6N game with Italy, or any other of the URC members though! Everyone talks about SA joining the 6N, so not sure it will be a problem, but it would be a fairly minor one imo.


But that's a structure of the leagues were instead of thinking how to get in at the top, I started from the bottom and thought that it best those teams doing qualify for anything. Then I thought the two comps should be identical in structure. So that's were an even split comes in with creating numbers, and the 'UEFA' model you suggest using in some manner, I thought could be used for the WC's (5 in my 20 team comp) instead of those ideas of mine you pointed out.


I see Jones has waded in like his normal self when it comes to SH teams. One thing I really like about his idea is the name change to the two competitions, to Cup and Shield. Oh, and home and away matches.

47 Go to comments
f
fl 2 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Yes I was the one who suggested to use a UEFA style point. And I guessed, that based on the last 5 years we should start with 6 top14, 6 URC and 4 Prem."

Yes I am aware that you suggested it, but you then went on to say that we should initially start with a balance that clearly wasn't derived from that system. I'm not a mind reader, so how was I to work out that you'd arrived at that balance by dint of completely having failed to remember the history of the competition.


"Again, I was the one suggesting that, but you didn't like the outcome of that."

I have no issues with the outcome of that, I had an issue with a completely random allocation of teams that you plucked out of thin air.

Interestingly its you who now seem to be renouncing the UEFA style points system, because you don't like the outcome of reducing URC representation.


"4 teams for Top14, URC and Prem, 3 teams for other leagues and the last winner, what do you think?"

What about 4 each + 4 to the best performing teams in last years competition not to have otherwise qualified? Or what about a UEFA style system where places are allocated to leagues on the basis of their performance in previous years' competitions?

There's no point including Black Lion if they're just going to get whitewashed every year, which I think would be a possibility. At most I'd support 1 team from the Rugby Europe Super Cup, or the Russian Championship being included. Maybe the best placed non-Israeli team and the Russian winners could play off every year for the spot? But honestly I think its best if they stay limited to the Challenge Cup for now.

47 Go to comments
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