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The Argentina try that will 'haunt' the Springboks

SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, ARGENTINA - SEPTEMBER 21: A general view of the game during The Rugby Championship match between Argentina and South Africa at Estadio Unico Madre de Ciudades on September 21, 2024 in Santiago del Estero, Argentina. (Photo by Gaspafotos/MB Media/Getty Images)

Jean De Villiers and fellow Rugby World Cup 2007 winner Schalk Burger have flagged Pablo Matera’s try in last weekend’s Rugby Championship defeat as the moment that encapsulated the Springboks’ current defensive frailties.

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South Africa gave up an early 17-0 lead to trail 26-22 at the break in Santiago del Estero before losing 29-28. Second-row enforcer Matera scored the second of Los Pumas’ four tries in a devastating 20-minute period for the home side.

It was scored when South Africa were down to 14 men with winger Kurt-Lee Arendse having half of his 10 minutes in the sin-bin still to run.

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Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus absolves replacement flyhalf Manie Libbok of the blame

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Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus absolves replacement flyhalf Manie Libbok of the blame

Dissecting the Springboks’ defensive performance in the latest episode of Boks Office, Burger and de Villiers feel that the Springboks could have dealt with the situation much better,

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The pair highlighted a two-paced defensive system as one of the key reasons why the world champions aren’t quite on top of their game when without the ball.

“I think is one that will haunt us, the one where we took (flanker) Ben-Jason Dixon out of the scrum, so we had a seven-man scrum and Ben-Jason Dickson went to scrum half and Cobus Reinach went to the wing,” Burger said.

“There was a soft tackle in the first phase then they hit it up and came with that (Tomas Albornoz) sweep again, shoulder balls and a second-man play.

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“Jesse (Kriel) sort of goes and pushes past (the ball), Handre (Pollard) then misses the ball out of the back and Cobus (Reinach) is in between the last two attackers, he hasn’t closed early enough.

“There are a lot of systems errors in that specific try, it doesn’t matter if we changed around the numbers.

“If we have it again I think we’ll target the scrum, be soft of first phase defence and then we are all in position. If they kick it through and they kick a 50:22 lineout, then so be it.”

Burger added: “Our defence isn’t quite what it was. And you can see there’s almost like two speeds to us now. it was quite easy for them to skin us with late sweeps and playing inside balls.

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“In the past we had one speed, that’s just flat out, go and get them, it doesn’t matter how far back the ball is or how narrow we are.

“We are still quite narrow at times. But now it seems we go up and somewhere there is a call where we sort of pause and use the touchline as a safety net, get to  wide ruck and go and get them.”

Match Summary

1
Penalty Goals
3
4
Tries
3
3
Conversions
2
0
Drop Goals
0
70
Carries
126
6
Line Breaks
9
19
Turnovers Lost
13
2
Turnovers Won
6

Reinach’s failed attempt to stop Mateo Carreras in the build-up to the Matero try was one of 63 tackles missed by the Springboks in their last two matches, contributing to a sub-80% success rate in both.

However, de Villiers insists “it is fixable” and that the players just need time to get used to the methods of defence coach Jerry Flannery, who joined the set-up from English club Harlequins post-RWC 2023.

“We saw against New Zealand, maybe going back to the Ireland game, how we were beaten in the outside channels, and there were times when we saw it again this weekend.

“And second to that, again going back to the Ireland game, we were exposed around the ruck pillar, the second pillar kind of area. So those are the two areas on the field where we got exposed on the weekend, drastically.

“Add to that the missed tackles, the individual missed tackles, and that leads to four tries being conceded in 20 minutes.

“I think it is fixable, certainly from an individual tackling point of view but also in terms of the system. You could see there were times when we weren’t quite as in sync as we are used to in terms of our line speed defensively.

“Whereas cast your minds back to the World Cup final, I can remember that one time when New Zealand were a man up and Pieter-Steph (du Toit) was caught out on the left wing and they had numbers and he made the decision to smash Jordie Barrett. Opportunity lost.

“It’ll be interesting to see where the Boks go from here and whether they revert back to that.”

Still, with only nine tries conceded – six of them in the first half  – across the first five rounds, and only one point needed to guarantee the Springboks a second Rugby Championship title, de Villiers sees no reason to panic.

“Jerry Flannery is there now, so it is a different voice and he is working towards something and it will take time to eventually get there. So you need to understand that, and that is part of the evolution of the team.

“But looking at the context of that 20 minutes, that is obviously not the standard we are used to from the Boks.”

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Watch the highly acclaimed five-part documentary Chasing the Sun 2, chronicling the journey of the Springboks as they strive to successfully defend the Rugby World Cup, free on RugbyPass TV (*unavailable in Africa)

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Comments

3 Comments
A
AS 89 days ago

If the weather is still icy, it's going to be interesting.

S
SteveD 89 days ago

Nope, what will 'haunt' the Boks is Arendse getting yet another yellow for poor tackling.


[Oh yes, and what is also particularly not 'haunting' me anymore is being 'ghosted' by the Irish tosser Terry24 as the coward is now 'Hidden' from view. Tosser can hand it out but can't take it! Bliss. ]

T
Terry24 89 days ago

The heat was extreme last saturday and this will have affected sustained line speed.

I think the ABs also got around the rush in match 1 on two occasions so SA must be adapting for that.

I that that would only require a tweak though.

Ireland scored their tries mainly in the first test in SA and that was due to fatigue with SA after 50 mins (Miscalculated playing the expansive game at altitude). Second match just one try and it was an excellent score not really a defensive frailty.

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J
JW 2 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.


First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.


They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.


Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.


Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.


That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup

207 Go to comments
J
JW 8 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I had a look at the wiki article again, it's all terribly old data (not that I'd see reason for much change in the case of SA).

Number Of Clubs:

1526

Registered+Unregistered Players:

651146

Number of Referees:

3460

Pre-teen Male Players:

320842

Pre-teen Female Player:

4522

Teen Male Player:

199213

Teen Female Player:

4906

Senior Male Player:

113174

Senior Female Player:

8489

Total Male Player:

633229

Total Female Player:

17917


So looking for something new as were more concerned with adults specifically, so I had a look at their EOY Financial Review.

The total number of clubs remains consistent, with a marginal increase of 1% from 1,161 to 1,167. 8.1.

A comparative analysis of verified data for 2022 and 2023 highlights a marginal decline of 1% in the number of female players, declining from 6,801 to 6,723. Additionally, the total number of players demonstrates an 8% decrease, dropping from 96,172 to 88,828.

So 80k+ adult males (down from 113k), but I'm not really sure when youth are involved with SAn clubs, or if that data is for some reason not being referenced/included. 300k male students however (200k in old wiki data).


https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/07/28/212ed9cf-cd61-4fa3-b9d4-9f0d5fb61116/P56-57-Participation-Map_v3.pdf has France at 250k registered but https://presse-europe1-fr.translate.goog/exclu-europe-1-le-top-10-des-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france-en-2022/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp has them back up at 300k registered.


The French number likely Students + Club, but everyone collects data different I reckon. In that WR pdf for instance a lot of the major nations have a heavily registered setup, were as a nation like England can penetrate into a lot more schools to run camps and include them in the reach of rugby. For instance the SARU release says only 29% of schools are reached by proper rugby programs, where as the 2million English number would be through a much much higer penetration I'd imagine. Which is thanks to schools having the ability to involve themselves in programs more than anything.


In any case, I don't think you need to be concerned with the numbers, whether they are 300 or 88k, there is obviously a big enough following for their pro scenes already to have enough quality players for a 10/12 team competition. They appear ibgger than France but I don't really by the lower English numbers going around.

207 Go to comments
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