SA Women v Black Ferns, SA v AB (RGR-3), Argentina v Australia

 

South Africa Women v Black Ferns

This match had a few more twists and turns but, in essence was played in two styles, depending on who was in control of the ball. If the Black Ferns kept the ball in hand, and in the field of play, they scored pretty much at will. If the SA Women, or the referee (who was also from SA which helps explain the huge imbalance in the penalty count), got the play to set pieces, then they looked much better. 

Unfortunately for the SA Women, set piece opportunities were relatively few and far between. The Black Ferns' handling was excellent, the stats say 13 turnovers lost but I think most of those are spilled high balls under pressure. There were a couple of knocks on, but not many. Penalties to SA and then lineouts tended to relieve pressure, but they then lost shape and handed the ball back to the women in black. If they spilt ball, the Black Ferns rarely need a scrum, they could take the advantage. They even scored two tries whilst down to 13 for 10 minutes. 

The coaches of both sides will look at this and feel they’ve got some positives and some things to learn. But at 52-28, the Kiwis will be much happier. 

South Africa v New Zealand, Test Three

Before I get into the review in any detail, this match was really affected by a strong, gusty and swirling wind. You could see kicks bend in flight, suddenly stop and drop as the wind picked up and hit them and so on. It was also affected by injuries. Willemse didn’t start, Kolbe went off after 9 minutes for an HIA and didn’t return (he actually broke his jaw by trying to stop Jacobsen's knee with it, ouch), which rejigged the SA backs but the loss of those two massively reduced the quality of the SA kick chase. For the first time, I would suggest that the Kiwis were ahead in this area of this game. Ardie Savea only played about half an hour and scored two tries in that time! His absence was keenly felt in the last 20 minutes or so, when the ABs needed someone to stand up and be counted, to lead them to victory. No one did that in his absence, and it mattered on the day.

Having criticised Gus last week over his management of the lineout, this week Nika shouted at them once, pinged the AB once and everyone played nicely after that. He awarded the Boks a penalty try “because the AB was going backwards” which is not actually an offence - but he may have seen other problems and not communicated them clearly in what is, I believe, his fifth language. I’m not going to complain too much. Teams going backwards, and fairly fast, frequently do naughty things and deserve the penalties. We didn't get a close up or reply to judge by, because the scrum-halves got into a spat, and Reinarch tip-tackled Roigard and dropped him on his shoulder, earning the All Blacks a penalty restart. That was examined a few times by the refereeing team.

The first half ended a bit less one sided than the first test, but similar. NZ four entries and three points per entry, SA six entries but only two points each time. The AB defence had improved and the Boks were sloppy with the ball. 

In the second half, the match really continued very much as a tight arm wrestle. The Boks were on top at the scrum, not the massive dominance we've seen them exhibit against some other teams (the stats say both teams won 100% of their put ins, the ABs 11 and SA 6, but these are misleading and although the penalty count was basically even (11 to SA, 12 to NZ) a bunch of those penalties to SA came from the scrum), but definitely on top. The lineout stats look pretty even, and again that is fair, although NZ threw a lot to the prop right at the front - this wasn't bad ball for them though, Kiwi props have soft hands, and the ball was quickly out to the backs and on into open play.

However, in the last 15 minutes or so, the Bok opened a gap, first from a bit of sustained pressure and an powerful run from Kriel pushing aside a poor tackle from Carter, then a penalty. The pressure came after back-to-back stupid penalties and really that five minutes is when they missed Ardie to just bash heads and get everyone to focus. After that, the AB scored a try and made it tense again for the last couple of minutes, but the Boks held on.

The SA fans will be celebrating going 2-1 up in the series, but this was close and uncomfortable again. That said, this week it looked like the Boks clearly deserved their win. There might not be much between the teams, possibly it was only home-field advantage at the end of the day, but they did have just that little edge.

Argentina v Australia

This was a tough match to watch. There were pretty extensive swings in momentum, Argentina started playing very poorly and were rightly shown a yellow card. Australia played pretty well during this period and opened up a 14-0 lead. But, as almost always happens in rugby, the momentum swung and Los Pumas smashed their way back into the game, scoring two tries, and unlucky not to score a third before halftime. 

The second half was a bit more evenly back and forth, still two tries each though, but perhaps the most telling part was that Argentina ended up basically playing the last ten minutes down two players and Australia couldn’t capitalise. They never even really looked close to scoring. 

There are those, there are definitely those, who blame the referee for this being hard to watch. I didn’t notice any egregious mistakes from him, I’m sure there were the odd errors, but no big ones that I caught. But what I saw was two teams making errors that affected the game and the ref blowing the whistle. If you don’t want that to happen, have players who infringe less often and have better skills. 

Looking Ahead

In the immediate term, the Kiwis and Saffas play in Baltimore next week. Australia move on to face SA, then two Bledisloe Cup matches against the ABs. The ABs rest until those two matches. SA rest until the northern leg of the Nations Cup. 

The Black Ferns are moving on to WXV in a couple of weeks.