rugby: June 2012

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Springboks v Poms

Plaudits to the Poms, always managing to come back and stay in the game everytime we thought it was all over. I'll also tip my hat to JP Pieterson, I've always ridiculed Bok supporters, saying he wouldn't make a NZ S15 team but on recent form he has to be 1 of the form wingers in the game. Now it only remains for him to pull his horns in a bit, all his post tackle pushing & attitude is reminiscent of a South African forward. It belittles him.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

All Blacks Ireland 2nd test

My grizzle here is the gulf in refereeing habits between north & south. You saw it last week and Owens put in the same performance 2nd time up.  This Irish team would get penalised out of the game in S15 or the Tri Nations. Their unwillingness to clear away from the tackle area takes inhibits the All Blacks greatest weapon of quick ball. The ABs clearly came out in the 2nd half to be more aggressive at the ruck and to make up Owens' shortcomings. It started strongly enough but it's energy sapping stuff and is always going to be hard yakka keeping that up for 40. In contrast was the Wallabies Wales affair was twice the game to watch. The Welsh got stung a couple of times early on for not getting clear but learnt quickly.  A Southern Hemisphere ref and we saw a game of action over 80mins fuelled by quick ball.