For me…
Marx takes man of the series. I don’t think anybody else contributed as consistently. Hands down the best 2 SA has ever had.
As Moz says, Cam and MVB are clearly the new incumbents… so extremely clearly!
I know Cam didn’t have much game time, but bloody hell, he is a perfect rugby player. There are two games to watch… the match, and then Cam’s efficiency game. Again last night, probably because it’s become a habit now, I was watching Cam off the ball. He has efficiency down to a fine art. And that’s why he is able to contribute at such a high rate, because everything he does off the ball puts him in such excellent positions.
Now, tell me, if DDA was allowed to play like he did last night, would any of us ever complain? I know I wouldn’t. It’s quite sweet, after this series, to be able to say that the guy I have probably had the biggest issue with over the years actually went alright.
Arendse showed that he’s still right there with Kolbe. Hooker was again playing like he’s been there for 80 Tests. I’m sure he was a Test player in a past life because you can’t have this few Tests under your belt and be that cool.
Steph truly is a spent force at this point. I actually feel sorry for him because one can tell his body is done. And it’s no secret. I’ve watched a good few podcasts where guys who have recently played with him talk about him and say he’s a warrior, but he’s playing with a broken machine. It’s time he moves to the bench.
Eben continues to cement himself as probably the Bok most likely to be remembered a hundred years from now. He contributed at crucial times, and I felt he combined excellently with Nortje to keep the engine room ticking along.
Speaking about Nortje, he’ll barely get a mention, but slang man is doing the dirty work that nobody mentions. Much like Wiese, he’s come into the Boks and not really missed a beat. Mostert 2.0 is here and will be here for a good long time.
Sacha probably had his worst game in a Bok jersey and actually irritated me last night. Anybody who has ever played any sport knows that sometimes you’re on the field and you can feel that you’re off. And that’s not the time to be clever. It’s when you are meant to go back to basics, yet he tried a crazy cross-field 50/22 and then tried to eat the entire muffin in one go just before half-time… neither of them working out.
I was actually quite annoyed by his performance. That attempted touch-finder just before half-time was the most annoying. Why not aim just inside the AB 22 instead of aiming at the 5m line? Truly, that was hyper-annoying.
Aside from the series win, the good news is that there are more good players that the Boks can add to the ranks. A fit Ruan Venter, combining with Cam, is absolutely mouthwatering. Wessels is the guy I wanted to have more of a chance in this series, but I think we’ll see more of him now. He was a monster at the Bulls this year, and I can’t understand the selection of Fourie, but that experiment is probably over now.
Roos is still somewhere around and should come into the Boks, with a role created for him. You simply have to find a way to channel him because, no matter what anybody says, he is a dangerous player. Papier should also be coming in now, and if Mills can continue to rise, I think Rassie might start to look at him too.
I know that isn’t a Dave-length list, but the point is that we do have a strong first string and a lot of quality to bolster the second with. So it’s good news.
Where are NZ, though? As suspected, if not believed, Dickson was rather pedantic last night. He called some side entries, didn’t allow playing the ball on the ground, and actually penalised the ABs for holding on to Cam after the ruck. It showed that when a ref doesn’t get caught up in the action and simply allows the game to go on, rather than avoiding stopping play, the ABs really struggle.
They got away with a lot of stuff earlier in the series that I feel allowed them to be more competitive than they should have been.
So, Razor or Rennie? For me, Razor. He was building something and looking to balance out the AB game. Rennie has come in and their set piece is a bloody shambles. They are even worse under high balls, constantly being caught behind the gain line and then panicking, and his comments in the media have made the team less popular.
I honestly feel they should have stuck with Razor. How often do we see it? A new coach comes in, there are new vibes and inspiration, there is a strong start, and then it fizzles out and the side ends up in a worse position. I’m getting that feeling from these ABs.
Have they earned the right to play how they are playing? I don’t think they have. In Union, you have to create the platform, and theirs has been shaky, yet the mandate of run at all costs and from anywhere has remained. I feel that is probably rather shortsighted.
They seemed almost uninterested in playing any territory at all, and it boggles the mind as to why they wouldn’t try to balance out their game. I guess we’ll see where they go from here, but if that road doesn’t involve fixing their platform, then it will be a short one.
Not to pick on him for the sake of picking on him, but compare DMac to Willemse. Willemse remains in possession of some of the most balanced 15 play possible. He seems to understand exactly when it’s on and when to play territory and safety, and executes at a crazily high rate.
DMac seems clueless and simply thinks he was born to run absolutely everything. Under the high ball, it’s not even a contest. How many momentum winning high-ball takes do you remember DMac making in this series? Compare that to Willemse… starting to see what I mean?
It’s a gulf, and a microcosm of the difference between the sides.
The ABs will say they learned a lot during this series, but I'd like to know what they learned that they didn't already know. To me, every single one of their problems are the exact same problems that have had for a few years now. Problems that Razor was slowly sorting out, and problems that they now appear to have less of a handle on than before.
They've had had six big games this year. 4 against us and then France and Ireland. They've won 50% of those.
