What did I see in the warm up matches yesterday?
February 03, 2013, 10:05:12
There is a number of very worrying issues. There are a number of issues where there need to be urgent work done by the different teams and these can be summarized as follows:- Bulls Thir line out play was atrocious and needs urgent attention. Sr=crummaging was poor and the props were not really showing anything. Their backline did function satisfactorily - but it remains a averge unit at best - despite the heroics of Serfontein. Cheetahs There line-out efforts were below par - but their scrummaging was solid. The backline was not really the playes they would have in the series itself - so it is quite possible that there would be drastic improvement in performances on their part. Stormers Line-outs good and solid in scrums. However, despite the efforts of De Allende to put somme spark into their backline - they still have a bad case of dead backline syndrome. Outstanding Players There are a number of players that showed major potential and those include the following:- * Jan Serfontein - the star of the show * Damian de Allende - real potential to play top class rugby. If I have to use only what I saw yeterday would pik Serfontein as 12 and play De Allende from the bench insofar as Springbok selection is concerned. I have no real faith in Steyn and De Villiers and will have to see how they perform in the series - if they are average like they were last year - I would go with the young guns. What I like about the above two players is that they have ball sense.- something seriously absent from most other centers in SA. Springboks There were not many Springboks on display yesterday and my comments on some of them are as follows:- Taute - Since he was not really a center and hisexperience was largely at full back - I had high hopes for him as a full back. In some way he was disappointing and he made some crucial errors that cost his team dearly. Could be early season jitters - but he will have to up his game considerably to stay in contention for future selection. De Jongh - He had a very good service from De Allende who made progress in traffic, drew in defenders and off-loaded balls very well to him - putting him in space. De Jongh made some meters - in one case more or less ten meters - got tackled and the movse died. He still is really ineffective as a center and definitely part of the dead backline syndrome. Etzebeth - Remained the key in vey solid forward display by the Stormers.
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