By Lucky Vince Pienaar
- The Springboks’ 41-13 victory over Wales was dominant but highlighted areas needing improvement.
- The Bulls were outplayed by Glasgow Warriors in the final, unable to replicate their best form from the Leinster match.
- Blitzboks storm into the Olympic Games.
➤ It was never in doubt that the Springboks were going to beat Wales at Twickenham. With no disrespect to the makeshift Welsh team, the match was little more than a curtain-raiser for the Ireland tour in two weeks.
A scoreline of 41-13 for the Boks including four beautiful tries tells the story: it was a dominant win for the Boks, but it was far from perfect.
The match, as it was supposed to do, showed that this Bok team is far from complete.
Jordan Hendrikse, the undeniably talented young debutant failed every possible challenge a number 10 faces and clearly was not ready for the step up to Springbok standard. If throwing him to the Welsh Dragons was a mistake, playing him against Ireland could be a disaster. Not playing Siya Masuku gives Rassie Erasmus a headache for the first Ireland match.
Not surprisingly, Malcolm Marx was absent, begging the sad question: will he ever again attain the levels that made him the greatest hooker in the world?
And, oh yes. Did Eben Etzebeth play? We know he was there, but did he play?
Pieter-Steph du Toit as captain is an interesting experiment, but it didn’t work. He did very little as captain and it seemed to drag his performance down. Hopefully, he will be left to do his job: being the best flank in the world.
The back three? Brilliant! Makazole Mapimpi and especially Edwill van der Merwe were spectacular. Aphelele Fassi’s performance under the high ball was unbelievable and a confident, dominant, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu will be hard to keep out of the team.
The match has raised some juicy questions. Will Rassie come up with the right answers? We wait!
➤ Like it or not, the Bulls were outplayed in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship final at Loftus on Saturday.
The question about the Bulls playing their best rugby after last week’s match against Leinster was answered: they couldn’t. And it’s easy to forget that the Glasgow Warriors had the toughest possible game against Munster just the week before as well.
Did coach Franco Smith manage the Warriors better than Jake White managed the Bulls? The answer, sadly, has to be, yes.
When the Warriors came out firing in the second half, the Bulls fell into the trap of trying to crash over the line without any imagination. Although Johann Goosen certainly gave his best, he never brought wings Kurt-Lee Arendse and Sergeal Petersen into the match – and there was no Willie le Roux to take the leadership.
➤ Of course, the best athletics news of the weekend is that the Blitzboks are on their way to the Olympics in Paris, but the way they did it was particularly encouraging. They never lost their commitment (as they have been doing) and scored impressive wins, even though it was against inferior competition.
They scored 138 points (22 tries) and conceded only two tries and 12 points. They won their crunch match against Great Britain in the final 14-5. The Blitzboks are back in the hunt for Olympic gold.
Pictured above: The Springboks celebrating their victory over Wales.
Source: Springboks/X
