"Owen Farrell's head high no arms tackle on Esterhuizen was as clear a card as I have ever seen - that is a disgrace. Can't change the result but if there is any honour in rugby there has to be a citing." - Dan Retief (@Retief_Dan) on Twitter Volume 1, Number 14 08 November 2018 Register to receive your own free weekly newsletter at www.leopardnewsletters.co.za

Daylight Robbery at Twickenham

It was a terrible day at the office for the Springboks at Twickenham. That they should have won the game is not in dispute.

Indeed, All Out Rugby’s Stat Attack makes it abundantly clear that this was a game the Boks should have put away much earlier in the day. You can find the full tale of the tape here but I’ll zoom into the first phase stats: the Boks won 14 lineouts, four of which were on the English throw; and the Boks won two scrums against the head to the zero by England.

That, coupled to the domination of possession and territory should have assured the win. But alas, as Mark Keohane (@mark_keohane) put it so succinctly But for me, the most priceless reaction was Rassie’s on Twitter: response in the post-match press conference: “The Springboks lost to England because they lost “Nothing upset me, because if it was legal we just four lineouts in the red zone, got hammered at the have to latch on a little bit and tackle the same. If it breakdown and just dropped so much ball. But there was legal, we should do it because it’s very effective. is no excuse for the absurd bias of referee Angus To tackle a guy like André Esterhuizen like that and Gardener in ignoring Owen Farrell's shoulder charge stop him in his tracks, that’s unbelievable, so we’ll in the final min.” Keohane was even more scathing of have to try and practice that.” the referee in the opinion piece on his blog: “Australian referee Angus Gardener should never You watch a video clip from that press conference again referee an international match.” via Twitter. There were also analyses from Robert Kitson in The Guardian, blaming , Which brings us to that no-arms tackle: that Farrell Gavin Rich for SuperSport who blamed the Boks got away with it would be astonishing if we had not generally, John Goliath on KweséESPN, who blames seen this movie before. Usually, it’s only South Rassie’s use of the bench and Ben Smith (not the Africa and the Pacific Island nations who get rugby player) also on RugbyPass who wondered penalised for that sort of play. why the Boks didn’t go for a drop goal.

KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Six Players Join Bok Squad in Paris Does Rugby Need Two referees? MOMENTS: 2018 Rugby Championship All Blacks May Break a World Record More South Africans Head North Boks needed Willemse on the ball

Page 1 Six Players Join Bok Squad in Paris

There’s a niggling thought at the back of my head making me suspect that the absence of key Springboks from the match last weekend was contrived in English boardrooms. That the match fell outside of the test window was convenient (and probably contrived) window dressing used to deprive Rassie of some star players.

Think about it: Faf de Klerk (Sale), Wille le Roux (Sale), Francois Louw (Bath) and Vincent Koch (Saracens) all play for English clubs. Only Koch was actually selected for his club last week and he came off the bench for 15 minutes. All four are among the six who have joined the team All are vastly experienced and could have made a in Paris for this weekend’s match against France. The massive difference, probably preventing the daylight other two are , whom Rassie chose to robbery at Twickenham last Saturday. It wasn’t to be give a break to settle in at his English club but some very hard questions must be asked of those (Gloucester), and Cheslin Kolbe, who played a full masquerading as administrators while wandering 80 minutes for Toulouse on Saturday night. aimlessly around SARU House in .

MOMENTS: 2018 Rugby Championship

The Ultimate Rugby web site has a series of clips from the latest iteration of the Rugby Championship between Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Entitled MOMENTS: 2018 Rugby Championship, it's definitely worth a gander.

The headline clip was the superb try by Argentina’s Santiago González Iglesias shortly after coming on as a replacement in the 31st minute against Australia in Argentina. His step off the right foot was something special to behold.

Another delicious clip from the 2018 Rugby Championship is entitled simple, Most Tries and features our very own Aphiwe Dyantyi. The Lions flier ended his debut Rugby Championship season as joint leader on the try list with five (from four matches). There are other stunning clips in the series hosted on YouTube.

Page 2 Page 3 Another Weekend of Missed Opportunities

Sunday promised to be a delicious afternoon of rugby but after the utter disaster at Twickenham on Saturday (reported elsewhere in this issue), it became a bit of a damp squib.

First up were the Southern Kings against last year’s champions, Leinster. weekend of missed opportunities. In very windy and difficult conditions, the Kings were let down by their discipline again, receiving five yellow cards, but still only lost the That looked to continue when Munster were first to match by seven points (31-38). They also scored four score in the second half but then the home side tries and thus earned two bonus points from the game. ran in three scintillating tries to get back into the game, taking the lead for the first time at the 64 A couple of hours later, the Cheetahs kicked off in minute mark. But it didn’t last and it was too little, Bloemfontein against another Irish team, Munster. too late. The home side did a passable impression of its own worst enemy, knocking on when on attack and All in all, it was yet another weekend of missed making silly decisions. To be frank, throughout the opportunities. The PRO14 now takes a three-week first half the Cheetahs looked completely at sea and break (presumably to allow players to represent their utterly clueless on how to breach the Munster countries in the November Test window) before defence. resuming on the weekend of 23-25 November.

More South Africans Head North

A few weeks ago we ran a story about Blue Bulls’ young outside centre, Johnny Kotze, being loaned to Swansea-based Ospreys for three months to play in the PRO14 (the second story). Well, according to Rugby 365 it seems that other local players have joined the exodus to Europe, temporarily at least.

Former Bulls coach, Heyneke Meyer, has secured the services of three of Kotze's young Bulls teammates to play in France on a temporary transfer deal. Hanro Liebenberg, André Warner and Hendré Stassen were released on a short-term arrangement with Stade Francais Paris. Meanwhile, and Western Province lock Chris van Zyl has signed for Saracens, also on a short- All four Bulls players are expected to return to South term deal. The 32-year-old will provide cover in the Africa in time to begin training for the 2019 Super second row during the November Test internationals Rugby season. whilst Maro Itoje and George Kruis are away with England.

Page 4 Page 5 Does Rugby Need Two referees? All Blacks May Break a World Record

Probably in a bid to distract attention from his Although Steve Hansen has apparently not even player’s horrendous tackle on André Esterhuizen last acknowledged the possibility, the All Blacks could Saturday, England coach Eddie Jones has suggested set a new World Record against England this that rugby union may need two referees on the field weekend. All they need to do is to score four tries in to keep up with the increasing intensity of the game. the match and they will have done so in each of their last international matches. "The game [against South Africa] went for 100 minutes on the weekend with 39 minutes of ball in By crushing Japan 69-31 in Tokyo on Saturday, New play. So there was 61 minutes where the players Zealand equalled its own best run of 12 tests with could recover, adding to the intensity of the hits, the four or more tries, which they achieved in 2016. The quickness of the contact. Kiwis streak of tries started off in their final match of 2017 in which they demolished Wales 33-18, scoring "We are asking one referee to do it the way they did five tries in the process. it when blokes like me were playing – jogging around the field basically. And he's still doing the same job.”

They then did it three matches on the trot against France in New Zealand and took that total up to ten in the six home and away Rugby Championship However, three years ago World Rugby announced matches against Australia, Argentina and South an experiment to use two referees in New Zealand Africa this year. domestic rugby but nothing ever came of it. Subsequently, the All Blacks solidified their streak in Besides, in case you hadn't noticed, there are already Japan by recording five in the final Bledisloe Cup three referees on the field - one with the whistle and match against the Wallabies and then 10 tries against two assistants running the touch lines. There's also a the Blossoms. Steven Hansen's side could become fourth one sitting behind a television monitor the first team to achieve the feat but faces somewhere looking at endless replays. All are fully competition from an unlikely source in Namibia. qualified referees, allegedly. Also on a special 12-game run, the Namibians have If four referees cannot get it right today, what good faced the likes of Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, will it do to add a fifth? No. The problem lies with Morocco, Kenya, Senegal and Uruguay. Crucially, laws applied inconsistently and without recourse. they could be first to achieve the record in a match Either the laws are too complex or the referees are against Russia a few hours before the clash at too dumb – or, maybe, both. Twickenham.

Page 6 Boks Needed Willemse on the Ball

In his latest column on All Out Rugby, Oom Rugby ( “If we get this blend wrong then we will see a @Oom_Rugby) unpacked what I’m still calling the malfunctioning backline, and this is something the Boks daylight robbery at Twickenham. But he did first take suffered from on Saturday.” time to poke fun at a certain illegal tackle that wasn’t blown: And he breaks it down in great detail that is well worth the read but can be summed up the Bok problems in one “After the loss to England I needed a hug, so I went to statement: “…the wrong type of player was brought onto my wife and I just stood very, very close to her for a the ball at the wrong time.” while; because apparently we do not need to use our arms anymore.”

Once he had recovered his composure, Oom looked at the match again to see what caused the Springboks to miss so many opportunities. He came to the conclusion that the many crucial lost lineouts had a much bigger say in the loss than the referee’s ignorance of Farrell’s shoulder charge.

But apart from that, there was another big issue that he identified: with the backline on attack. The bottom line for Oom is that if an exploiter like “One way of looking at backline attack in rugby is like Willie le Roux is not playing then it we should “consider this: first we must create good conditions for attack, someone like Elton at 10 to pull the strings that need then we must be able to exploit those conditions, and pulling. Or we must force a bigger role on Willemse to finally we must have the ability to finish. take charge at crucial moments.

“In terms of players, this is the balance that any “Whatever the answer, we must sort it out quickly backline must have. You must have guys who can play because I think this cost us more than anything else this direct and physical to tie up the opposition and weekend against England. The good news is that we manipulate the defence. Then you must have guys with doing all the right things to create opportunities, and we the vision and ability to magnify the cracks that have have some wonderful finishers, we just need players who appeared. And finally you must have finishers with the can build a bridge between them!” speed and footwork to close the deal. As usual, Oom is spot on.

Page 7 The Weekend Rugby Action

After the daylight robbery at Twickenham last week, the Springboks have to win all three of their remaining matches if they want to take something positive from the European tour. This weekend, it’s in Paris against France and it will be no walkover – especially if we see the same quality of refereeing we saw last weekend. Kick-off is just after 10pm Saturday night.

Before that on Saturday, Italy plays host to Georgia, Scotland entertains Fiji, England gets slaughtered by New Zealand (we hope), Wales take on Australia, USA plays Samoa, and Ireland faces Argentina. And, an hour after the kick-off in Paris, Brazil hosts the Maori All Blacks. And while other club competitions take a break for the November window of test rugby, the English Premiership continues on its merry way.

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