Newlands – Lost Bokketunities

I haven’t had a chance to re-watch the footage yet, but here are some initial thoughts from Newlands last night.

The performance of our young bench players was very encouraging. JOC was exceptional from the outset, TPN played brilliantly and together with Ben Alexander and Benn Robinson formed a scrum so dominant the sprinboks were in fact scared of it, opting for a lineout to secure their on their ball. Only some well chosen words from Smit in Allain’s ear together with the biggest bore in from a LHP I’ve ever seen gave the Boks a temporary reprieve here. Genia and Pockock also impressed.

This next generation of Wallabies will form the nucleus of our 2011 RWC side, and it’s great to see them getting heaps of game time and showing so much potential.

For the Springboks this game was a massive lost opportunity. Some of the things that would normally help a team pick up the 4 try bonus point:

• Opposition captain going off early in the first half
• Three yellow cards to the opposition (two concurrently)
• Fine weather
• Favourable refereeing
• Dominant lineout

Had they taken more lineout options from their 8 kickable penalties, their dominant lineout would most certainly have secured field position and led to tries. They now head into the 3 match away leg requiring away successes to hold their position at the top of the log, and with 0 bonus points picked up from their home leg, tri-nations history is not on their side.