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'The standard was shocking' - Springbok Showdown fails to meet expectations as South African fans get reality check

Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

The Springbok Showdown was billed as South Africa’s answer to North vs South and a chance for new Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber to gauge the readiness of the nation’s players after more than six months without play.

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The ‘Green vs Gold’ fixture ended in a comprehensive 25-9 win to the Siya Kolisi-led Green side, but the spectacle itself left much to be desired. The game was marred by errors and was described as ‘difficult to watch’.

In just the second week of professional rugby for the country, South Africa’s players struggled for combinations and consistency in the new-look teams with a lack of a time to prepare. The uninspiring contest led fans to pour water over the Springboks’ Rugby Championship hopes, with some suggesting this showed why the team should not travel to Australia.

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One Springboks fans online claimed that the ‘future doesn’t look bright’, another suggested ‘the standard was shocking’ in a game that was ‘never going to be a classic’.

South African journalists offered some explanations to dampen the fans disappointment, with Brenden Nel comparing the clash to a Super Rugby pre-season game.

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With more rugby under their belt, he wrote, the players will be better in three weeks time. It seemed many fans were expecting a North vs South type fixture that was held after 10 weeks of Super Rugby Aotearoa which had created unrealistic expectations for players who’d only notched 80 minutes of rugby the week before.

Jon Cardinelli wrote the game was ‘very much a pre-season hitout’ where the players were untried and learning new combinations while Craig Ray wrote this is confirmation SARU needs to pull the pin on this year’s Rugby Championship.

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Speaking on the post-match broadcast, Springbok legend Schalk Burger said that ‘no one’ stood out from the contest, which he found difficult to digest as a viewer.

‘No one stood out, it was a hard watch throughout.’

‘Siya and his boys defended well and the difference between the teams was that his side took their chances while their rivals did not.’

The amount of kicking in the contest was widely criticised by fans but captain Siya Kolisi said that the side operated like it was a test match, leading to a 6-3 scoreline at halftime.

The players will get the chance to find better form when they return to their club sides next week for South Africa’s resumption of Super Rugby.

Super Rugby Unlocked commences next Friday, including the four current Super Rugby franchises, plus the Cheetahs, Griquas and Pumas to prepare for the proposed Rugby Championship, which Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus said a decision will be announced no later than October 10 on whether they will take part in.

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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