Australia 30 South Africa 13.
The Tri Nations took a massive leap forward in the entertainment stakes with the arrival of the young Australian side to the competition.
Without the all enveloping blanket of offside oppression from the All Blacks we were treated to an exciting game of attack and counter attack with the young Aussies coming out on top, running the Boks off their feet.
It was great to see players back themselves in 50:50 plays and with fast ball and open play the Aussie backs shone with Giteau, Cooper and O’Connor looking particularly impressive. However, impressive as the Australians were, the South African’s can count themselves unlucky, yet again, to be on the wrong side of a few refereeing decisions. Both sin bins, Fourie after 2 mins and Botha after 46, were thoroughly deserved but by the same token Australia were fortunate not to lose the hugely impressive and influential Pocock to the bin for his repeated infringements. (As an aside I’m sure I detected a gleeful tone in the voices of the two New Zealand assistant referees as they instructed the hapless Clancy on each Bokke infringement.)
Having said that, the Australians were deserved winners and they did leave a few tries on the pitch as they butchered a couple of chances and they will need to be more clinical next week when the face the cynical All Blacks but I’m already hanging my hat on this young Aussie side for the World Cup so I’m sure they will do OK.
Ulster Alert.
It wasn’t a great game for either of Ulster’s Boks – neither had a disaster, but again neither were hugely impressive.
BJ was solid enough in the scrum and loose but it was a disappointing yellow card which took the shine of his game. Pienaar featured well at the start of the game but seemed to lose confidence when he went for a quick tap close to the line for a scrum infringement when another scrum was the call and he slid a few kicks wide when the Boks were starting to get back in the game.
I do expect to see them both in the starting line up on 21st August as they look for revenge over the All Blacks in Johannesburg, I just wonder if either will find their way over to Belfast for a flying visit in the intervening four weeks?
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2 Responses to “Golden Aussies Shine”
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yes Ed a good entertaining match with plenty of open rugby. The Bokkes must tighten up their tackling as they allowed the Aussies to run through them several times cos of missed tackles. I thought Genia was very influential for the Aussies constantly sniping round the base of the rucks and scrums. Again some dubious decisions re when the ball was out or not out from the officials, added to the number of soft penalties given away.
As you have mentioned George Clampett failed to be consistant with the yellow cards as he binned BJ for killing the ball but failed to deal with Pocock for coming in at the side in the first half and again for playing ball on floor in 2nd half both offences within a few meters of the line.
As far as the sin binnings to Fourie and Cooper – probably both deserved on the ‘attempted’ spear tackles but i’ve seen worse go unpunished. Both have now been handed bans Fourie for 4 weeks and Cooper for 2 weeks – not much consistency there ( although Fourie was banned last yean also for similar offence). I wonder if Burger has got away with his ‘contact’ on the face area of one of the Aussie forwards ??
Looking forward to next weeks encounter with the AB’s should be an entertaining match. I wonder how much the Aussies will miss Cooper at 10 ?
On Sat afternoon there was another very good match with the Blue Bulls taking on the FS Cheetahs in the Currie cup. It went to the wire with the Cheetahs scoring an 82 min try to level the score at 23 all with the conversion from the touchline to come…….. and won it 23 – 25 great game.
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Yes it was an entertaining game but this was due to the fact that the referee allowed many offences by both sides to go unpunished . eg the Australiian backline were frequentally off side esp in the first 10 -15 their defence being an outside centre rush defence with outside centre marginally offside .
This defensive defect was in the end penalised once play got into the Australian half.
SA have the best lineout in the Tri-nations but this counted for little in the game because infringements were not penalised and Australia refused to kick for touch unless the ball was loose in the Australian half.
The fact that both tackle infringements were missed by the referee and brought to his attention by the linesmen actually gives some weight to SA complaints and given that SA greatest asset is their lineout a game free of penalties minimises this advantage.
But in truth SA don’t deserve to win their backline at the moment is one dimensional and guileless . Last years success was based on the high box kick with Habana jumping on/ into
the receivers forcing the knock-on by the receiver and capitalising on their opponents mistakes..
Habana seems to have lost a little pace this year and is not the force he once was.
Next weeks match will be interesting because the ABs have the best pack and lack of possession may cause problems for Australia
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