Destroying the flawed assumptions with the Springboks' loss to Ireland
Cue the conspiracy theories popping up left, right and centre that we didn’t see the ‘true’ Springboks against Ireland and they were holding back.
There are questions over the decisions to kick for goal over kicking for the corner when they had 15 forwards in the line up to maul.
There are also suggestions that the Springboks “left” 11 points out on the field.
Both are fallacy with flawed logic that becomes clear when you take into account the game situation and how events unfolded.
The Springboks are notorious for taking the three points when available particularly in a tight contest where points are at a premium.
There was nothing suspicious about the intent to take points, which the match situation demanded they do so.
Faf de Klerk’s first long-range attempt came with the Boks down 7-3 early in the second half.
Jasper Wiese managed to pin an Irish ball carrier and win a holding on penalty for the Springboks just inside their own half. In that six minutes to start the second half they had no possession and were forced to manage an exit situation.
The traffic lights came on from the coaches box to signal a shot at goal. The chance to make it a one point game at 7-6 after a period of play where Ireland had most of the running was irresistible.
They ended up in possibly a better situation than kicking for the corner as the ball hit the post and was recovered by Eben Etzebeth about eight metres out.
Ireland defend for multiple phases before Etzebeth rides the chairlift and is lifted up by James Lowe. Other Irish defenders come in, hold him up, and force a collapsed maul turnover.
At that exact moment, the Springboks unload the 7-1 bench to inject fresh meat for the defensive scrum on Ireland’s five. Both locks, Etzebeth and Franco Mostert sub out, No 8 Wiese also leaves with one front rower Kitshoff.
The decision and timing is a masterstroke.
They turn the screws on Ireland’s feed, win a penalty, call another scrum and Cheslin Kolbe scores their first try. The unpredictable back-and-forth sequence of events ends up in South Africa’s favour massively.
Here is the kicker: if De Klerk makes the penalty kick then Kolbe’s try doesn’t eventuate. The field position and the scrum platform for the try all come from De Klerk’s penalty hitting the post.
Instead of three points they end up with five, but the narrative in the final wash is that we can add back De Klerk’s missed three to the end total plus Libbok’s conversion. Madness.
If you want to add the potential for three back, please subtract five first, and then cancel out the potential for two more from Libbok’s miss as conversions don’t occur without tries.
So already the narrative that the Springboks left 11 points on the field doesn’t hold any weight. They end up in a worse position if De Klerk makes the first penalty.
South Africa’s next penalty attempt at goal came with Ireland up 10-8 after Sexton reclaimed the lead with a regulation kick at goal.
A knock-on by De Allende led to an Irish scrum 40 metres out from their line on the angle. Again another fierce shove by South Africa at the scrum wins a penalty against the feed.
This was the most make-able kick of them all but unfortunately Libbok missed it, shaving the left upright.
Consider the decision-making of taking the shot in this situation.
Would you kick to the corner down by two points with 17 minutes remaining, or take a chance from 40 metres out and 15 metres in to take the lead by 11-10?
It is very reasonable to assume they would want to take the lead and a penalty would do that.
After Libbok’s missed penalty, Ireland clear the ball away downfield from a 22 restart. Kwagga Smith returns the restart near halfway and Ireland are penalised on the very next phase for being offside, leading to De Klerk’s second long-range attempt.
This comes directly from the sequence of play after Libbok’s penalty miss, less than 30 seconds apart. They don’t get the second chance to kick for goal if the first one is made.
If De Klerk made his first long-range attempt, cancelling out the Kolbe try, and Libbok made his penalty, the score would hypothetically be 10-9 in Ireland’s favour.
South Africa don’t kick for goal for the remainder of the game and would still lose but by 13-9.
However, this is an impossible assumption as the sequence of match events has already diverged from our realised sequence of what happened.
Questions were asked why the Springboks changed tact and starting kicking for the corner to go for the maul at the end of the game.
There is only one questionable roll of dice when the score is 10-8 after Pieter-Steph du Toit is tackled near the sideline and the ball is forced out.
Ireland are judged to have ripped it out of Du Toit’s hands and South Africa are awarded the throw.
The Springboks attempt a rolling maul and win a penalty, but turn down a third penalty shot out wide in favour of another maul since they are already in the corner.
This was the first tactical change with faith in the maul greater than their place kickers. There was 10 minutes remaining.
Flanker-turned-hooker Deon Fourie’s throw is not straight and the miscue hands Ireland a scrum. The Springboks give away a short-arm penalty and Ireland escape out of the situation.
Ireland then got ahead by five points, time was running out with three minutes remaining and the Springboks were then forced to chase seven points if they wanted to win.
There is nothing suspect about the way South Africa tried to manage the game and the decisions they made. It was by-the-book of how they would be expected to handle those situations in any other Test.
They tried to kick goals when they arose and when that didn’t work they tried to maul and failed. It is as simple as that.
There is no scenario in which the Springboks making their goals automatically leads to a reversal of the result.
Trying to twist the outcome match with revisionist possibilities is fraught with folly and in this case doesn’t add up to 11 extra points for the Springboks.
All we can say is Ireland won 13-8 and South Africa missed their chances to win, end of.
Comments on RugbyPass
It’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
6 Go to commentsDon’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
14 Go to commentsWho got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
14 Go to commentsWhat’s new its a common occurrence, just the journos out there expecting a negative spin. The outcome will be beneficial to jordie and Leinster. The home grown lads hav got some experience to step up to and be more competitive, that or spend the 6 months keeping the bench warm.
14 Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
3 Go to commentsThose are pretty good draws for the two top Aussie teams. I certainly wouldn't want my Chiefs to have a quarter final in Brisbane. None of the top teams will want the Crusaders.
1 Go to commentsHonestly, I am a bit lost here …. Ireland - RSA was (at least in my opinion) perhaps (from a purely technical / rugby-skills-show point of view) the pinnacle of the RWC2023 - almost flawless playing (putting aside the kicking of RSA which was the difference between the two teams), rugby at it’s very best …. if I were a Bok and after the game some Irish lads came around saying “see you in 5 weeks same place”, I definitely wouldn’t have thought of it as being in any way “arrogant”, rather a sort of jolly “if we both continue to play like this, no one could stop us” - besides, few of us fans would have, at that time, been surprised to see the same teams playing on 23 september and 28 october 2023 ….. well, we all know Ireland chose to hit a slump to keep the QF curse alive …..
136 Go to commentsThere’s value gleaned from having an All Black star running and training with your team. How many games he starts (or even where he plays in the backline) will be decided on a week by week basis based on the needs for that week. But the overall learning and growth for all concerned, I’d think, is massively beneficial. Especially for Irish players.
14 Go to commentsSon, whith just " raw athlete “ , you are able to beat “ better rugby players “ by 74 points…. May be England should recruit in athletics….
1 Go to commentsPffft. It’s not a one-way street bud and Irish teams don’t seem to have had an issue taking kiwi players previously.
14 Go to commentsParticularly great to have captain Scott Barrett back after going off last week for the Crusaders. Codie Taylor a real leader and mighty Tamaiti Williams join Fletcher Newell in the front row. Those 2 will make a big difference. Great bench with the likes of Tom Christie, Jamie Hannah etc who are playing well. Should be a great derby.
1 Go to commentsDoes a blitz defence not have a weekness against a well-placed grubber kick, perhaps angled cleverly. All the defence is up and the full-back can only cover so much ground. Thoughts?
28 Go to commentsWhile Iose is destructive in the Canes set-up, he is not big for an international 8 and could struggle against the top teams. With his speed, he could be developed into a seven but, as Ben points out, he doesn’t show a scavenging game with the Canes or make dominating tackles. Sotutu has shown a step up this year and attitude plus motivation seems to be the big areas of growth. Deserves another AB shot imo.
3 Go to commentsNaholo is my only question mark for this side. He wasn’t the only one who had a forgettable game against the Brumbies but he was passive, defensively poor and generally lacked energy. Needs to get a whole lot busier for me. I would have liked to see Sullivan on that wing with Higgins on the bench (if staying with a 6-2 as BeegMike points out on here!)
3 Go to commentsWell, I am sure that Eben said exactly what he meant to say, exactly how he meant to say it. Does he strike you as a man that doesn't know arrogance when he sees it. He should know it because he has shaken the arrogance out of many foes before.
136 Go to commentsPls get it into your thick arrogant heads that the final was played by two Southern Hemisphere teams. The best against the best and that Argentina was just unlucky otherwise non of the Northetn Hemisphere teams would have seen the light of day.
136 Go to commentsAs long as New Zealand youth are involved in sport they are passionate for, and are well supported, it’s all good. I love league as well as rugby. NRL clubs have long since scouted the First 15 competitions, the NH and Japan scout super rugby and NPC. It’s a miracle there’s any players left for the all blacks to pick from.
6 Go to commentsI'm a Bok fan, so I don't say this lightly, but he is one of my all time favourite players. I am really going to miss watching him play. Thanks for many great memories. You are a true legend of the game.
3 Go to commentsBest way to deal with all of this is to play another game.
136 Go to commentsIt’s 12-15 games Luke. Ringrose has barely played in 2024 and Henshaw and Keenan have also been out for spells in the same time period. There are always injuries and for younger players to play with the likes of Barrett will be great for them. It’s just looking for negatives where there are none.
14 Go to comments