Women's Rugby World Cup, Week 2, Supplement

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I decided not to watch England destroy Samoa, beyond the highlights. So, on with the suprise result of the weekend.

South Africa v Italy

I said last week that watching SA play reminded me of Bryan Habana era Springboks. this week has really reinforced that. Their dominance at set piece over Italy was brutal, the French will be analysing that and thinking about it, but not necessarily worrying about it too much. They seemed to have corrected most of their lineout woes from last week and their scrum was also incredibly dominant against the Italians; it also pretty much holds its own against the English scrum which I’m guessing is better than the South African scrum, so I don’t think it’s going to be such a big weapon for the SA side next week.

The forwards are not their only weapon, their backs are quick and can exploit a space, they scored some nice tries.

However, 29-24 feels like a fair reflection of the game. Italy were able to defend quite a lot of attacks, and although they couldn’t rely on their set piece, they could make metres in attack pretty much at will. If they could get their set piece to work, or a bit of luck they could, and did, score some nice tries.

France are faster and better organised in attack, certainly better organised in defence, and their pack is better at the set pieces than the Italians. It might be an arm wrestle for a while but France should win.

Obviously the Italians will be disappointed to have lost. To some extent they will have to look at their inability to get Dinka into the game. The passes to her were terrible. All of them, even when there was no pressure. Given she was chasing down SA speedsters and making good tackles to save Italy, I don’t think she was carrying a niggle and a bit slower than they were expecting, it was just a case of bad passing. Ok, bad set pieces were a bigger problem, yes, but if you lose by five points and miss your star winger with at least that many passes when she’s in space? That’s not good.

The South African dominance at set piece seemed to wane a little through the second half. I think they fatigued more than Italy, or perhaps their replacements are not as good as the Italians?

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