Ireland host the Springboks in the opening match of the End of Year international window, the Irish playing in their new alternate kit for the first time, while Heyneke Meyer’s Springboks look to restore some faith from the supporters.
The Irish team are battling with injuries, with two British and Irish Lions captains and two Irish Players of the Year ruled out, with a rookie captain in Jamie Haelsip and a debut for the South African born Richardt Strauss, who will face his cousin, Adriaan Strauss. Despite this, the Irish have been talking their chances of winning this match, and will be hoping to keep the poor performing South African at bay.
For the Springboks, this game is all-important as they try new combinations and players, with Pat Lambie getting his shot to prove his worth in the flyhalf jersey, while Francois Hougaard and Jaco Taute will look for improved performances out of their natural position in a hope to get more game time. On the bench there is a return to national duty for Schalk Brits, who has been touted as an impact player by Meyer, and he will look to get a solid 20 minutes worth of action.
A tough encounter await the teams, on paper the Springboks have a far superior team, but playing in Ireland against a team in the middle of their season and not at the end of it as the South Africans are, this game is by no means in the bag.
Ireland: 15 Simon Zebo, 14 Tommy Bowe, 13 Keith Earls, 12 Gordon D’Arcy, 11 Andrew Trimble, 10 Jonathan Sexton, 9 Conor Murray, 8 Jamie Heaslip (captain), 7 Chris Henry, 6 Peter O’Mahony, 5 Mike McCarthy, 4 Donnacha Ryan, 3 Mike Ross, 2 Richardt Strauss, 1 Cian Healy.
Replacements: 16 Sean Cronin, 17 David Kilcoyne, 18 Michael Bent, 19 Donncha O’Callaghan, 20 Iain Henderson, 21 Eoin Reddan, 22 Ronan O’Gara, 23 Fergus McFadden
South Africa: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jaco Taute, 12 Jean de Villiers (captain), 11 François Hougaard, 10 Pat Lambie, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Willem Alberts, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Juandré Kruger, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 CJ van der Linde.
Replacements: 16 Schalk Brits, 17 Heinke van der Merwe , 18 Pat Cilliers, 19 Flip van der Merwe, 20 Marcell Coetzee, 21 Morné Steyn, 22 Juan de Jongh, 23 Lwazi Mvovo.
Date: Saturday, 10 November 2012
Kick-off: 17.30 (17.30 GMT)
Venue: Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Expected weather: Partly cloudy with a high of 9°C, dropping to 2°C.
Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)
Assistant referees: Steve Walsh (Australia), Luke Pierce (England)
TMO: Giulio De Santis (Italy)
Tweet
Beast has been withdrawn.
Beast out with heart palpitations.
This is not the first time that he has had something like this, I think.
The useless CJ to start on Heinke Van Der Merwe on the bench.
Go Boks! Go Lambie! I hope lambie has a cracker of a game!
Sad to see Beast is out already but he probably needed the break in anycase.
Timmy Bowe –> got respect for that man! SA are going to have to watch him carefully when/if the ball gets spun out wide.
Will be interesting to see the return of JP Pietersen and then of course the selection that has kept me going all through this difficult weak –> Lambie at flyhalf. I hope he has a classy game.
What is RSA kick off time?
@catfish (Comment 5) : 19h30
THanks boerie
Hope Beast is ok. With CJ there boks will not have their way at scrums. Bokke should still win.
JC Janse van Rensburg might be called up as a replacement for Beast.
Was the Argies first try not a thing of beauty……….something the HM bold with DV and WA could not do………… Argies learns a lot from there first SH season.
@Bayshark (Comment 10) : A fine win for us;-)
Good thing Ruan Pienaar is playing today, he played a couple of games under the new rule, the 5 second rule, in the Northern hemisphere.
Go bokke. Give us hope
Kick off. Go Bokke
SA’s best fullback. Haha
Penalty to Ireland. Not rolling away. Going for touch.
Another penalty to Ireland. Making contact with the player in the line out. Going for posts.
Ireland 3
SA 0
6min
Another penalty against SA. Entry Alberts. Ireland set up the line out bout 40m out
Another penalty against SA. Jannie offside, Ireland going for goal.
Ireland 6
SA 0
11min
SA get a penalty. 4 not rolling away, going for touch set up just outside the 22
Penalty for SA. 5 offside
Going for posts
SA 3
Ireland 6
18min
Penalty Ireland. De Villiers offside. Going for posts.
Ireland 9
SA 3
21min
Penalty to Ireland. Kirchner holding on. Going for the line out bout 40m out
SA get a penalty. Ireland holding on. Lambie going for goal just inside his own half. But wide
SA 3
Ireland 9
26min
SA get a penalty. Ireland holding on. Sets up the line out just inside our half
From the line out we lose the ball via a penalty. Ireland take a quick tap
Another penalty for Ireland. Offside. Going for posts
Ireland 12
SA 3
31min
From the kick off all hell breaks lose.
Petersen tackling the Irish player early from the kick off, sent off with a yellow card
Ireland gets a penalty off the scrum. SA put Alberts to defend the gap in the backline and had a 7 man scrum
Hometown reffing … Reverse angle shows knockon before pieterson tackle … And it was a great tackle
How many kickable penalties has SA been awarded?
Penalty against Kruger. Offside at the maul. Ireland going for goal. But misses
Ireland 12
SA 3
39min
Great steal by Louw. SA getting a penalty and taking the quick tap
Dark ages kak we have to watch here. Bring back Divvie!
Ruan Pienaar going for goal. Inside his own half on the angle bout 60m. But short
Halftime
Ireland 12
SA 3
Come on Boks! We shouldn’t be trailing against this side!
Nooooo. Technical problems from Supersport
@Mutley (Comment 38) : http://lsh.lshunter.tv/static/popups/12004103068940.html
We are back for the 2nd half and SA have a penalty. Lambie not going for goal, going for the line out
Heaslip yellowcarded!
Healslip get a yellow from the resulting ruck. Going for the line out again
Another penalty, going for the quick tap
TMO try for Pienaar, yes givin under the posts
Pienaar! Try!
Converted
SA 10
Ireland 12
44min
Backline has finally woken up!
Penalty awarded to SA
Penalty to SA. Right in front. Lambie going for goal
SA 13
Ireland 12
52min
Pat converts
12-13 for SA
Heaslip back
Heaslip back on
Great defense by SA and results in penalty for SA
Pat on for Jannie
Steve Walsh makes one of his infamous calls 👿
Another penalty against SA. Taute late tackle
Another penalty. Hougard offside
Going for goal, Sexton short
Ireland 12
SA 13
61min
5 second rule bites Ireland. Scrum awarded to SA.
Ireland scrum straight down. Penalty to SA
Scrum penalty for SA
Coetzee on for Alberts
Penalty to SA, Ireland playing Etsebeth in the air in the line out. Lambie going for goal. Short
SA 13
Ireland 12
66min
Penalty SA!
O yes. Heinke wins another scrum penalty. Easy points for Lambie
SA 16
Ireland 12
69min
@Mutley (Comment 65) : Woohoo!!!
Ireland pile in the replacements
SA applying a lot of pressure in the scrums! Meyer’s gamble on Heinke seems to have paid off
Edit: And Murphy has the last laugh as I post this!
Ireland wins a scrum penalty, going for the line out, sets it up bout 30m out
Did Coetzee force that penalty?
Great defense again by SA, Ireland not releasing the ball. SA get penalty
5min left
4min left
3min left
2min left
1min left
Ireland have a penalty, go for the line out and set the line out up inside their half
SA wins!
Petersen runs the ball into touch.
SA 16
Ireland 12
Fulltime
Good 2nd half. Terrible 1st half
@Mutley (Comment 80) : Yip. What do you reckon? Best SA forward: Etsebth, Best SA back: Pienaar
March of the Palookas. Rather watch this for quality ball carrying skills: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFSGhasyHhY
@vanmartin (Comment 81) : It’s Estebeth. 🙂 Irish commentators are as bad as Aussies.
MAN I thought our commentators were kak then I heard the potatoe munchers.
*The Paddy’s say nothing about Ireland slowing down the lineouts but complain about how the Boks “always” slow the pace of the agme down.
*The two best screw-ups of the game were where they said Lambie inspires no confidence and the only reason he is in the side is for his kicking 😀 (They must have missed the bit where the Bulls fans (HM and others) said he kept on NOT being selected because of his poor tactical kicking.
There is nothing so bad as a biased commentator who slowly sees his team’s victory slipping away.
@Vanmartin
Yes, pretty much.
@KSA Shark © (Comment 84) :
You have to admit though, his tactical kicking was very poor in that 1st half, but I’m please HM kept him on the field and made the changes to take the pressure off. The last thing we need is a different fly-half every match. I was anyway much more comfortable with him taking those crunch penalties than I would have been with Morne on the field. He’ll do better next week and next and hopefully the Sharks will let him play 10 also.
What a terrible first half performance. We should have thrashed this Irish team but instead we looked like a team of individuals.
Much better second half though.
Good performances from Strauss, Ruan, Etzebeth, Flouw and Vermuelen.
I thought Marcell also did well when he came on. Should deffo start ahead of Alberts next week.
Lambie was quite decent considering it was his first start at 10.
Well for one thing he is miles better than Morne and he will improve going forward.
@wpw (Comment 88) : I thin k he had a mediocre game, I just hope he gets a next chance, because he WILL improve.
Heinke MUST start if Beast is out. On todays performance cj in line for “worst bok team”.
@wpw (Comment 88) : who in SA is currently not miles ahead of morné? Don’t know why morné is on the bench Elton must be on the bench ahead of him, if morné came on at the end of this game we whould have lost this game.
@KSA Shark © (Comment 89) : All of the bokke had a mediocre first half. What Lambie did good all game was his tackling, for a “small” guy he really don’t stand back and wait for someone else to tackle the big guys. Lambie had a quite day but who in the backline had a huge game today?!
@JD (Comment 92) :
I thought Jean de Villiers had a good game from the backline… Easily his best performance this year in the Bok jersey
Lambie didn’t have opportunity to control the game, it seems that was left to Pienaar, which worked well with Steyn at fh.
Lambie will do better with Houghaard at scrummy.
Nobody in the backline stood out like the Irish backliners did. And the reason is simple. We play with our forwards…the age old bumpercar rugby. The Irish knew this and just stood waiting, because the bok players will run towards them. And they ripped the ball numerous times as part of the strategy employed by SA.
The Irish played with their backline players. Playing away from the SA forwards who in anycase do not contest rucks. So Paddies get quicker ball. When we had the ball, we struggled to get quick ball on a number of occassions because their more aggressive rucking prevented this.
Lambie was told to improve his tactical kicking and I’m of the opinion that he focused to prove that this had indeed improved and his natural game went out of the window.
It looks to me as if Lambie is tentative in playing the style of Rugby we are used to seeing him produce. Whats the point in having Lambie ,a multi-skilled dynamo ,if our coach is going to insist on him playing a certain way.
Read somewhere ,must have been Keo, that the Springboks looked best when sticking to our traditional strengths. Problem with this type of thinking is we are a)assuming our mauls ,scrums ,line-outs are superior to NZ(our measuring stick) which they are not & b)as a result emphasis is placed on these aspects of play while we neglect others . It irritates me immensely when HM defendants say we do not have the players to beat NZ with running rugby…no you f’n morons ,we do, they are just held at ransom(bullied into playing a certain way) in the bok squad or not selected.
Finally I agree with previous posts ,Marcel should replace Alberts, we need that speed to the ball that he provides.
Our loose-forwards are lacking any link type players ala Keegan Daniel, Kieran Reid and Kankowski ,which is another reason why I would like to see Coetzee in there.
@Talent (Comment 96) :
We have the players to beat NZ with running rugby? Perhaps you can give us some evidence for that. Point us to the last SA teams that topped the kiwis with running rugby.
Problem is not beating nz with running rugby, the problem is rest of the rugby world know what boks will do and stand and wait for it. SA has player with x-factor bok coaches just did not pick them as we always flattened opposition with giant forwards. That’s not working as good as it use to and bokke must adapt to changing opposition and rules.
@fyndraai (Comment 98) :One just has to look at who made it to this years Super Rugby final.
We have the players to compliment the the hard work done by our forwards. With players like Morne Steyn in the mix we will never finish opportunities out wide.
@JD (Comment 99) : Well put
People think running Rugby means that you play like Fiji 😕 It does not mean you abandon other aspects of the game.
Under Jake White we played some of our best attacking rugby and constantly threatened NZ .
It’s not rocket science…. look at what Irish did to bokke in first half when we played blue bok rugby and when bokke changed it up abit in the second half Irish were out of the game.
Just hope meyer gives Lambie another game on Saturday.
Last time we played really good attacking rugby was when Straueli was still coach, back in 2002. Back when Marius Joubert was in the form of his life and out-maneuvering the best midfields in world rugby, when Werner Greeff ran brilliant attacking lines and Brent Russell could make something happen out of nothing.
Just a shame he (Straueli) completely lost the plot after that years Tri Nations. Then went ahead and did an incredible amount of damage that can still be felt today.
Under Jake White we only really ever scored off opposition mistakes.
I’m all for giving Lambie a decent shot at the 10 jersey…
But a ‘decent’ performance shouldn’t secure it for him.
It’s going to be tough for some of you to handle, but Goosen is Meyer’s 10. He played Morne, yes, but saw him as a short-term solution. Long-term, he sees Goosen as the guy he wants there.
You should all just imagine Goosen was with the Sharks and Lambie was with the Cheetahs. Will make what happens in the future a lot easier to handle.
@hendrikp (Comment 106) : Good comment. We need to take our blinkers off and judge fairly. Lambie was mediocre in a team performance that was below par. Playing with 14 men in the 1st half also stifled any momentum. Give him another run next week. Pienaar was good. Goosen is the best 10 as far as potential goes. Just need him to get over these injuries. That was a fired up Irish side and they didnt allow us to have too much front foot ball. Give them credit. Strauss at hooker is growing every game. What a bonus for when Bismark comes back to have him on the bench.
I really hope Lambie gets another shot. He did not play his best game this Saturday, even though he had minimal opportunities, I felt like there was a few things he could have done better.
It would be unfair to Jantjies not to give him a shot on this tour, but I also think it would be unfair to give Lambie only one game.
Give him a chance to show what he can to once he’s settled into his role and his partnership with Ruan and de Villiers.
@hendrikp (Comment 106) :
Luckily Goosen will always be injured ..
Lambie was no worse on Saturday than Goosen was in either of his two starting test matches. Let’s compare players based on what they actually do on the field, rather than this mythical “potential” bollocks that we dream up based on watching them at school.
I didn’t think lambie did that badly taking all factors into consideration. He was under enormous pressure from Heyneke Meyer’s statements in the press about this being the chance for players to prove themselves, saying Lambie had to improve his tactical kicking, and then Meyer telling everyone that he has included Steyn on the bench as his “insurance policy”.
Was Meyer deliberately trying to undermine Lambie’s confidence with all this drivel to the press? It would be a travesty not to start Lambie against Scotland, he has to be given the same opportunities to make the position his own that were given to players like Hougaard, Spies and Morne Steyn. Oh but they are all Bulls players aren’t they?
@hendrikp (Comment 106) :
Give me one specific game of where Goosen showed he’s this rugby guru that you see him as. Not little snippets in every other game mate…
Also, explain to me what Goosen would have done in that 1st half? I think Meyer does see him as the future 10 but he’s looking for someone to prove him wrong on this tour…
From his post match interview it seems as if HM is looking to give Pat another chance.
@HORSEFLY (Comment 112) : dude, hendrik wears Johan Goosen pajamas…. no point in trying to argue this one on any sensible basis.
Ag yaaaaaaawn, still the same detractors finding fault with everything Lambie 🙄
His first game at fh for the Boks in how many years (can’t remember if he did infact pl,ay a game at fh under PdV?)? And he needed but one half to find his feet….not bad for this average fh 🙄
I cannot see any SA flyhalf do any better in that first half. Bok team struggled to come to terms with a trigger happy ref – so could hardly get any momentum.
I personally rate Goosen as a great talent too, but this automatic promotion to first choice flyhalf is doing a major disservice to the player. When he screws up in a game as he will, the same pundits will call for his head.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 114) : I think he started a game against NZ at 10. Morne Steyn was played at 15.
@robdylan (Comment 113) :
😆
@robdylan (Comment 113) : Don’t forget about the Johan Goosen G-string. 😆
I dont see any comments asking for Lambie to be axed, or maybe I missed them? I think all level headed people are saying he was fine but not great. There again no-one was great. Mst people are saying give him and the rest of the team another chance together against Scotland. Unfortunately some reporters are saying everyone must get a chance and Jaantjies must start. We would really have achieved nothing then. Maybe have Jaantjies on the bench and see how the game pans out. No matter what anyone says, Goosen had a great S15 before getting injured. He showed class that not too many others could ever show. Problem is his injuries.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 114) : I think my preference to give Elton a shot first is well documented on Sharksworld but I was very impressed with two aspects of Lambie’s game:
1. Rock solid defence – I reckon Francois Hougaard owes him a beer for one of the cover tackles he made.
2. He made Jean de Villiers look really good. de Villiers was thriving off those deft passes from Lambie that was constantly putting him into space. It’s a real pity that JdV doesn’t have a better offloading game.
@Bokhoring (Comment 115) : Good point on Goosen!
@Amateur (Comment 119) :
Mate, I guess many people said the exact same things about Andre Pretorius back then.
And what is it with this “potential”? A battery has potential. Attach a light bulb to see if there is any potential over the two poles. Maybe the bulb won’t burn as bright…..