You are spot on,Lee.Especially about catching and passing.After the Bled I watched the Currie Cup match between bulls and Lions and was amazed at the standard of play,and in particular the quick and accurate passing.This was 2 teams playing with hardly any players I recognised from S15,but it looked like they were playing a different game than what I watched earlier.Some folks might know that I spend a bit of time in the Schoolboys forum and have to do a bit of moderating.
Some of the schools rugby threads used to deteriorate because people talked about scholarships or other nefarious recruitment practices of some schools. People got emotional about the subject because the "playing field" was no longer level for the schools not participating in the arms race - and yarda, yarda.
I hit upon a good idea. We created a scholarships thread for discussion on such matters, but the topic was banned from other schools rugby threads. We just zapped the posts if the topic crept in. Things improved.
Now we are caught up in discussing refereeing decisions in test rugby match threads as though they were the most important considerations in our performance in the two Bledisloe matches to date.
We are getting to be so earnest about a non-core subject that maybe we should be forced to use the Refereeing Decisions thread so that significant rugby matters can be discussed free of excuses or deflections.
We are getting as bad as the Kiwis, who are still blaming a referee for being dudded in their 2007 RWC quarter-final: something which they had no control over. They should be blaming something they could have had control over: having a drop kick strategy in their playbook.
They didn't – just ask Richie McCaw.
Mind you: they are still moaning about a decision in a test lost in Cardiff in 1905; so it's in their DNA.
But we Aussies should not be harping on about referees when there are more significant things to address.
Our players are not hard enough for long enough - we lack brutes, and when the bench comes on they are even softer.
They aren't quick enough either - I'm not talking about their feet, but between the ears: they are slow responders to signals of danger and even to opportunity. In a Darwinian rugby world our race would be prone to extinction.
And our tools are inferior to the other tribes who are in competition with us for survival. Comparing the passing and catching skills of our backline in Bledisloe One and that of the South Africans a few hours later, was like looking at chalk and cheese.
The bloody South Africans - it was like watching cows playing the piano better than we could.
I could go on and on talking about about how much our players are unsuited to the cruel realities of big test match rugby for survival, and how it has been confirmed in our last three test matches, but the main thing is that we have to improve the breed by improving our structures and processing our players though them.
These are things we have control over.
Whingeing about referees is like pissing in the wind.
There's a song in that somewhere.
.
I know it's difficult to compare that game with test match rugby for intensity,but the skills should still be there.