A Review of Most of Saturday’s Games
Wales v South Africa
A little note that won’t mean much to many of you I suspect but Cai Evans running in space with the ball looks a lot like his dad, Ieuan. At 24 he’s already got that widow’s peak.
First Half
This half was close, 12-9 to SA, until what I felt was another inexplicable decision by Andrew Brace to award a penalty try when Moodie had run past the ball already and then an almost immediate error from the Welsh defence that really showed their youth and lack of senior figures to settle them down.
Although the number of penalties that South Africa conceded will suggest, fairly, that Wales put pressure on them, they didn’t really penetrate ever, kicking all their points. Wales will, in my opinion rightly, feel a bit hard done to that the score has blown out quite this far but the Bokke were probably good for three tries.
Score at oranges 24-9.
Second Half
The first news was that Kolisi didn’t come back out for the second half. He was always going to play limited minutes, apparently that was 40.
Although Wales won a scrum penalty and actually after both front rows changed the scrums got better for Wales, it still remained advantage South Africa.
A great Welsh attack, complete with a genuine line break, was devastatingly overturned by a PSDT interception and a Kriel try under the posts.
Penalty to SA, 5m lineout and a try by the posts. It was very nicely done, precision and power.
A called Welsh play was superbly read by Moodie for another interception and try. I’m not sure, unless the player just calls the play as busted and doesn’t throw the pass, it’s really fair to blame him, Moodie really had no right to get there. It’s a little, no-look pass to a winger behind him, maybe 3m, but boom… in sweeps Moodie.
Very late Wales scored a try.
Final score 52-16.
Positives for Wales
I’m not blind. Wales were soundly beaten by a much better team. There are a lot of negatives too. But there are positives.
The lineout functioned well, I think Wales only lost one all game. Perhaps surprisingly against South Africa, Wales came out ahead in the tactical kicking game, regathering a lot of their own kicks and more than half of the Bokke’s as well. Dyer, in particular, was great. It’s worth noting that the Welsh defence stuffed up at least three try attempts with great bits of defence. It might be hard to remember in the overall scheme of things but that’s a positive.
Wales didn’t create many chances and had two stolen, but despite being 52-9 down still played and took their chance in the 73rd minute to score a try. There are lots of teams not physically fit enough, and without the resilience to do that.
However, the scrums were a disaster. Not a complete disaster but still a disaster. If you take off the poor decision for the PT and two interceptions, 31-16 is not a terrible score I guess, given the disparity in class. But eight tries.. ouch. Even five. (English fans, bear in mind that Wales and England are basically on a par with each other as we’ve seen over the last two games.)
Gatland names his 33 on Monday.
Biggest takeaways for SA?
Libbok needs to work on his goal kicking. A lot. Moodie is the real deal. Most of the selections might be relatively easy, but picking the wingers is going to be a real headache. France might not take them, most other sides wouldn’t say no…
Ireland v England
The commentary I had gave me Dylan Hartley and Simon Zebo. Two rather different personalities and takes on the game. Early on, Hartley praised England’s kicking game, Zebo pointed out that, unless they had an advantage, England shaped to kick every time on first phase.
First Half
While Zebo’s comment might not be 100% accurate it was basically true. As last week, when Wales caught the ball and ran it back productively, Ireland did the same, but moreso. Their back three have dozens of tests together and played comfortably, finding space in chase to exploit even more easily than the Welsh had.
Despite this, England opened the scoring with a penalty from just inside the Irish half. Ireland responded with a try almost instantly that looked far too easy, running players up the middle after a ruck out on the touch line. It wasn’t fancy offloading or anything, just terrible defensive effort.
After that, well England kept kicking the ball away, sometimes inaccurately. Ireland looked rusty, everywhere. While I said in my preview I thought they’d miss Sexton, and I think that’s true, it’s hard to blame Byrne for errors at scrum and lineout, and there were plenty of those too.
Ireland clicked late to score another try. When they clicked they looked really good, by far the classier side but also by far the rustier. This is the first hit out for their first team remember. This one, at least, had offload after offload to create the line break, then a nice cross kick for the try. The defence cracked but looked like it made them put some effort in.
At the break, 12-3.
Second Half
England started looking like they might have changed their tactics. Emotionally it felt like they played more phases than in the whole of the first half. This may not actually be borne out by the stats but it felt like it. Ireland were still misfiring a bit, but gradually getting better. England rapidly reverted to their kick on first phase plan.
Then Billy Vunipola decided to copy Farrell’s shoulder to head technique. The bunker review said “Red” and we’ll see what the judiciary say. While I like the idea of off-field reviews, the fact we only see one or two angles makes me more nervous. Not that I don’t trust the TMO, just that I like to see it.
Ireland went on to score a nice, multi-phase try, again with a little kick out wide.
Keith Earls got his 100th cap at home.
Crowley came on at about 60 minutes to cover Aki who went off for an HIA. At this point, England had already missed about 20 tackles. That’s too many. As soon as play restarted, Hansen scored from yet another little kick. They were very good at sucking this English defensive line in too narrow and exploiting the spaces out wide. Scotland and South Africa will be watching and taking notes. After Aki’s return, Byrne departed and Crowley moved in to 10 for the last few minutes.
Somehow England got a scrum penalty despite being down Vunipola, Care kicked and ran, and they powered over. As with last week, being down players and chasing the scoreboard forced them to abandon the plan and they looked much better. Any hopes of a comeback were snuffed out by the centurion scoring a nice try out wide, from an actual pass this time!
Ireland ran out 29-10 victors.
Final thoughts
Ireland were rusty, and it showed, but they’ll be better for this game. England still look really poor until it’s too late and they throw the plan out of the window.
For Ireland, Prendegast impressed me, he might not be a Doris yet but he was everywhere and did everything that was asked of him. Byrne had an ok game but, although all five tries were scored by different backs, the attacking system didn’t purr. How much of that was him and how much was rust? I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. After the first 20 he hardly put a foot wrong,
Vunipola has not had a red before, he could conceivably, have a two match ban. Six weeks halved to three, minus one for tackle school.
Normally in these back to back games I don’t watch the interviews with the coaches. But I watched Borthwick’s interview because of the longer gap. I realise he’s being interviewed and he’s not going to dump on his team but I’m not sure what game he watched. Apparently England were keeping it tight. No, Ireland were rusty. They weren’t really making mistakes under pressure, they were making stupid errors, passes to no one, stepping in front of the lineout jumper, kicks out on the full, that kind of thing. And it slowed down.
France v Fiji
First Half
In the preview I suggested the result would come down to whether the Fijians could gain parity at set piece to set their backs free. They couldn’t and the score line pretty much showed that, France 21-10 up at the break. However, Fiji scored a try from a lineout and then forcing the ball over from phase after after of pick and go. France scored a beautiful try with intricate passing and moving the ball from wing to wing, a second from a lineout then a single phase an Atonio crashing over. France also blew another try when Aldritt made a rare mistake and carried into contact instead of passing wide. Jaminet missed a kick!
But Fiji do have issues. Their lineout defence is awful, in attack it’s unreliable. Their scrums routinely get monstered too.
Second Half
The second half wasn’t quite a duplicate of the first, but again Fiji battered their way over, France scored a much nicer try and a long range effort.
France also got some defensive practice in, including multiple phases and then a brilliant read and interception by Bielle-Biarrey. He didn’t get to run far because he had to stop and juggle the ball but the pressure was released.
After cardgameddon last week there were none this week and, actually, relatively few penalties – only seven against France in total
When Lucu and Hastoy were subbed France lost structure and ran from just about anywhere. I’m guessing this was planned, everyone changed gear, but it was odd to see.
Final score 34-17
Concluding Thoughts
France are also announcing their squad on Monday. There ready wasn’t anyone here who doesn’t deserve a place, but I’m not sure there are enough spaces for them all. This might have been a mixed squad but everyone stood up.
Fiji were comfortably beaten, absolutely and have some things to work on. But against England, and probably Wales, who would also have lost to this French side, it could be much more interesting.
I may add a review of Italy v Romania tomorrow. I’ve seen the score and I may not.
