Much was said about the performance of the so-called “Springbok” team this weekend. A lot of criticism going the way of the referee, for his handling of the match. This, mainly because of the large amount of penalties, which caused the match to be somewhat of a stop-start affair. The fact that there were so many penalties, was definitely not the because of the referee, but more due to the incompetence of the players to make use of the advantage situation. Advantage was allowed, but the players just could not make use of those opportunities. Let's just say it was a poor display of rugby.

There was a bit of criticism aimed at the coach in general, with comments about what the team was up to during their training camp in Bloemfontein. No-where any person or even someone from the press, questioned the selection of the team that played or the way in which they were coached. The complete lack of constructive skills actually reveals that the level of coaching was probably a step back from the Super 14, where two of the teams actually played some constructive rugby. For the past two years, South African rugby relied on scoring from broken play and mistakes made by the opposition by their “rush defence”, and nothing more. The back-line is the worst that it ever was and it would probably not improve in the near future.



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