Springboks v Wallabies, Newlands, September 28 2013

[Richo]

Hooper's Card
The interesting technical aspect of the Hooper tackle was that he made contact while the player was in the air, and we all know that you can not tackle a player in the air.

Taking this to the logical conclusion, will we see jumping being used by the attacking runners as a tactic to avoid getting tackled, or to draw a penalty against the defender for tackling a player while in the air?

No. It's bloody dangerous.

 

[Rob42]

HJ, I'm sure I've seen a Test referee penalise a player for jumping into a tackle, vaguely referring to it being dangerous. I can't remember any other details.

For a horrible moment after Hooper's tackle, during the TMO review, I thought the ref may have given Kuridrani a YC also, as he was just as responsible for the way the Bok player landed - not that I think either did anything wrong. But when a player lands on his neck, someone's going to get a YC almost regardless of the circumstances.

Incidentally, I think TPN has sent a few players spinning in solo tackles - eg Shane Williams from a couple of years ago - but hasn't been penalised even though the player has gone through the horizontal. If Kuridrani hadn't been there and the Bok player had just gone flying over Hooper unmolested, it would have been the same situation.

 

[Grandmaster Flash]

Rocky Elsom got penalised for doing it a few years back, against Samoa or Fiji?

Edit: Against Fiji in 2010

 

[Ignoto]

I was genuinely surprised they picked Cooper as their best player. His defence in the second half was really strong but his non attempt at a tackle on Strauss was absolutely awful.

I thought exactly the same thing until Scott posted these stills on twitter today;

Looks like he committed himself to a tackle who offloaded it to Strauss. Poor form by Alexander and Horwill to re-align themselves by the looks of it.

 

[PaarlBok]

Reading through all the ref tantrums is actually sad. Look like not many watch the rugby and is more into reffing of test matches.

Lets be dead honest here the Wallabies struggled with just about everything in the first half, scrums, lineouts, breakdowns, Bok backline sopeed, defense. The Bokke won this one after 20 minutes.

and thats when the disappointing started for a Bok fan. We should have broke the Wallabies totally like the Pumas in the first one but for some stupid reason we started the kicking game and lost momemtum.

At the moment there is some space between the Bokke and the Wallabies and its mostly between the ears.

FdP make a massive diffirense as expected. His service and direction of play is spot on and desevely motm. For the Wallabies I thought Genea had a better test. Your egg head hooker lost the plot and brought a lot of niggle into the test.

 

[Braveheart81]

I thought exactly the same thing until Scott posted these stills on twitter today;

Looks like he committed himself to a tackle who offloaded it to Strauss. Poor form by Alexander and Horwill to re-align themselves by the looks of it.

That's just not the case. The pass came directly from the half back du Preez and cut out Beast and Louw.

The only man who could have possibly tackled Strauss is Cooper and he either went for an intercept or chose the wrong player.

Whether or not Alexander would have made the tackle on Louw should the ball have gone to him is irrelevant as far as Cooper was concerned. He has to commit to his own man.

I have to say that after that moment Cooper put in probably his best defensive effort in a test. He bent his back, aimed up and committed to his tackles. This is what he has to make a normal part of his game. He will be targeted as a weak defender for the foreseeable future and will have a lot of runners in his channel. Rugbystats lists him as making 14 tackles with only two misses (so 14/16 you'd think) which is great.

 

[I like to watch]

I'm with BH.
QC (Quade Cooper) shot up.look where QC (Quade Cooper) is,then look where the rest of the defensive line is.
When you shoot and you don't hit your man,you have fucked up deluxe.
Apart from that,and one other attempt when he was looking down before contact I thought he was very strong in "D".

 

[mudskipper]

jeez... what can I say, Ok I'll be straight to the point and not piss about as I've lost 2 hours of my life watching this already...
ACC looked slow on the wing and was ran down easily in the open, he is very slow now, why?.. Why was Hooper doing all the ball running where were the other forwards taking it up???
Folau was terrible at full back... he not an intenational full back he was lost look like he was waiting for a bus?
Saia throws were terrible as waste ball when the Wallabies had a chance...
Timani needs to learn the rules and stay on the bloody field...
Q Copper still has little but looked bettter when Genia was giving him the ball... genia didnt run thou, why?
Wallabies need to learn to ingore the BOks niggle BS and let the ref deal with it, oh and were was Horwill when all this Boks rubbish was going on, I didnt see him talking to the ref much at all...

 

[gel]

I'm with BH.
QC (Quade Cooper) shot up.look where QC (Quade Cooper) is,then look where the rest of the defensive line is.
When you shoot and you don't hit your man,you have fucked up deluxe.
Apart from that,and one other attempt when he was looking down before contact I thought he was very strong in "D".

I strongly disagree. Horwill and Ben Do Nothing are not coming across in cover and LILO and Kuridrani also fail to read what is happening here. The fact is there a three forwards on one no. 10 who s alone with no assistance. If QC (Quade Cooper) tackles the drive from the other two forwards and it is a try as well. The springboks have coordinated this move and the Australians display the ability to not play as a team - all contained in one 20 second piece of vision.

That try was being scored irrespective of who was isolated there due to the wallabies being an utterly shit team ATM. They really need to start to behave like a team before any single player is going to start to play well.

*edit* I know that Ben Alexander is not going to do anything here because his arms are by his sides and not flailing about and his mouth is shut and not whinging at the referee. These are the only things he does other than eating grass, so he is quite clearly not involved in this part of the game.

 

[whatty]

"Wallabies need to learn to ingore the BOks niggle BS and let the ref deal with it"

Yea the wallabies obviously had the intent to niggle due to been crap, that they may be able to test the patience of the far superior opponents.

 

[Braveheart81]

I strongly disagree. Horwill and Ben Do Nothing are not coming across in cover and LILO and Kuridrani also fail to read what is happening here. The fact is there a three forwards on one no. 10 who s alone with no assistance. If QC (Quade Cooper) tackles the drive from the other two forwards and it is a try as well. The springboks have coordinated this move and the Australians display the ability to not play as a team - all contained in one 20 second piece of vision.

That try was being scored irrespective of who was isolated there due to the wallabies being an utterly shit team ATM. They really need to start to behave like a team before any single player is going to start to play well.

I agree that even if Cooper had tackled Strauss he would have probably made it over the line from that distance. That's not the point though.

Excuse the quality, but the screen cap above is taken right as the ball is leaving Fourie du Preez hands.

Horwill and Alexander are marking Beast and Louw respectively.

Strauss is at the far left of the screen and Cooper is somewhere just out of screen (to the left of the referee).

I just don't see how in that situation Strauss was anyone's man except for Cooper.

If you look at the replays that pan out to a wider shot, the Springboks had a backline lined out as well. Leali'ifano and Kuridrani couldn't come in to defend closer to the ruck.

The only thing I can think that Cooper was trying to do was go for the intercept which is surely the lowest percentage play possible when you're defending on your goal line.

 

[Brisbok]

I agree that even if Cooper had tackled Strauss he would have probably made it over the line from that distance. That's not the point though.

Excuse the quality, but the screen cap above is taken right as the ball is leaving Fourie du Preez hands.

Horwill and Alexander are marking Beast and Louw respectively.

Strauss is at the far left of the screen and Cooper is somewhere just out of screen (to the left of the referee).

I just don't see how in that situation Strauss was anyone's man except for Cooper.

Who are Mowen, Moore and Hooper (?) covering in this image? Someone (Hooper) obviously is covering FdP should he decide to go alone, but surely everyone should be sliding over 1 or 2 places? It almost appears that Mowen is signalling that (or maybe that is reading too much into this one still image).

 

[Braveheart81]

Who are Mowen, Moore and Hooper (?) covering in this image? Someone (Hooper) obviously is covering FdP should he decide to go alone, but surely everyone should be sliding over 1 or 2 places? It almost appears that Mowen is signalling that (or maybe that is reading too much into this one still image).

No one in the immediate situation. They had rushed towards the previous ruck to defend around it.

 

[gel]

And yet the screenshots from just half a second later than yours show that Alexander and Horwill are no longer marking up the beast and louw. They do not come across in defensive formation. This is their problem to address in future.

Also the play is quite clearly not going wide, LILO (and even Kuridrani) should be able to see that. It is evidenced by the formation of the forward pods here - the three of them are setting up to drive over the line. It is the only play that they are setup for in any of that replay.

No one helps in defence here. The defensive structure on display in this play is laughable at best.

It is a very poor defensive effort by everyone from the ruck outwards.

I agree he went for a low percentage play with the intercept. But the tackle option was even lower I reckon. A try was going to be scored for certain if he went for the tackle - whereas there was a small chance of an intercept and a try saved.

*edit* @braveheart sorry forgot to quote your post.

 

[It is what it is]

"Wallabies need to learn to ingore the BOks niggle BS and let the ref deal with it"

Yea the wallabies obviously had the intent to niggle due to been crap, that they may be able to test the patience of the far superior opponents.

Whatty kneed too lurn betterer grama

 

[Ash]

Who are Mowen, Moore and Hooper (?) covering in this image? Someone (Hooper) obviously is covering FdP should he decide to go alone, but surely everyone should be sliding over 1 or 2 places? It almost appears that Mowen is signalling that (or maybe that is reading too much into this one still image).

Moore and Mowen were desperately sliding across, like the rest of the forwards.

The Boks smashed over the advantage line in the two preceding rucks, leaving the Wallabies defensive line broken. The ball was too quick for the forwards to pan out. If our forwards had done their job in the preceding ruck, then at least Horwill and Alexander could've had time to mark up correctly, will Moore filling in outside the pillar in this instance (between Hooper and Mowen).

Louw ran a great overs line and would've gotten around Alexander had he got the ball. Cooper misread due to Louw's line and took no-one by going for the intercept.

All in all, great play from the Boks. Cooper's misread made the try easy in the end, and yes, I think it was a mistake by Cooper, even if they would've scored anyway (which was pretty likely). Pretty much it's a mistake by Cooper as he took the wrong option, easy in hindsight I know.

However, that try was also set up by the demolition of our forward pack in the two preceding rucks, which just shouldn't happen. It wasn't the only time the Bok forwards did this to us. Off our restarts, we had them nicely on their 22 or just behind it, and they easily rumbled through us time and time again.

 

[Braveheart81]

@gel - here is a later screencap. Unfortunately this one is even blurrier.

Strauss already has the ball at this point in time and Cooper has run between him and Louw going for the intercept.

Beast is still being marked by Horwill and Alexander is still marking Louw.

Leali'ifano is now in shot and is marking Steyn. I disagree that it was such an impossibility that the ball could get to Steyn and co. that Leali'ifano should have been running infields towards the forwards in cover. Fourie du Preez could have easily cut out all three decoy runners and passed to Steyn as first receiver.

Any player in Cooper's situation has to make an attempt to tackle Strauss. There just isn't any other option.

I don't see how any other player can be blamed for that defensive error other than Cooper. Our players have to mark their own player and trust in the other defenders. If Louw had received the ball and Alexander hadn't made the tackle then that has nothing to do with Cooper. Strauss was Cooper's man and he had to stay on him.

 

[hughbert]

An error on Cooper's part but really, the defence needs to improve across the board and right now I would call it the biggest issue.

Even if our offence was cranking (it isn't at all), you can't give these teams 29 points a game and expect more than the occasional win. Consequently, this year we have exactly that, the occasional win.

I had previously thought that the field position game would allow us to keep the scoreboard respectable but this team is comfortable leaking tries from 70 metres out.

I don't even have an opinion any more. Perhaps selection priorities need to change (people that can defend) or maybe the defensive coaching at wallaby level needs to change, or maybe both. It's depressing that you can get a wallaby jersey and fuck up a defensive read as badly as the new kid did at the end. I mean, first test, sure, but shit half the squad was out there and he still rushed in, leaving his man.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

No. It's bloody dangerous.

Does that mean that there a case to penalise the Saffer for their dangerous play in leaving the ground in the first instance?

 

[gel]

@braveheart. The other angle screenshots tell a different tale, particularly since somehow Ben Alexander is supposedly marking louw and yet Cooper is the only one who even gets close to touching him.

I think it is perhaps irrelevant anyway given Ben Alexander and Horwill are nowhere near their guys by the time the ball is in the hands of Strauss. If QC (Quade Cooper) tackles Strauss, beast and louw will be driving Strauss over the top of Cooper and a try whilst Alexander, Horwill and LILO watch on in absolute apathy - the exact same way that our team plays all the time these days. I.e. Watch someone else and fail to get in position to provide any support whatsoever.

That try was being scored irrespective of whoever was defending in Quadea place because our guys were not covering shit.

I doubt we will see it the same way, unfortunately... Oh well :/