Great read.
I have been living in France for 14 years now so I treated myself and my family and got category 1 tickets to the game. What an extraordinary weekend! I have been to a France-SA match at the Stade de France in Paris, but Marseille was 100 times better. The atmosphere from Friday afternoon already, mingling with French and SA supporters in the bars and on the street. We proudly paraded everywhere with our Springbok shirts and people stared, commented, took pictures with us. Saturday by 11h the intensity went up a notch, the bars installed serving points on the sidewalks and the crowds drank and sang, blue and green everywhere, shoulder to shoulder.
By 20h we took our seats in the stadium, four spots of green in a sea of blue. The buildup was immense and there was friendly banter all around, the French were happy to have some “authentic” South Africans amongst them so we pretended not to speak French. At some points during the match I had to put my fingers in my ears, the noise was deafening.
When the red card came I thought we were going to get a proper hiding, but I was pleasantly surprised by the fight in the team and the running game from the back. In the end I felt sad that we lost, but strangely happy as well. We lost, but somehow I felt that we had more to feel good about than the French as I see room for improvement whereas I think the French were at the limit.
After the game as people walked past us, some stopped and chatted, some just said “good game”, “what a match”, and mostly positive comments about the game and SA in general. Reading the French news sites and comments there are many comments about the Boks being brutal, boorish, butchers etc., but also many comments saying that the French were lucky to win, that the Boks had the upper hand, that we played the more attractive rugby.
Somehow I am confident that this team with the right selections and few tweaks can win the cup again.

I really believe should bring some element of surprise into our attack and mix things up a bit, like some big up and unders by Mostert or Kolisi and the odd box kick by Vermeulen or Ox, that should keep the All Blacks guessing.

I will not defend the Boks’ style of play, I hate it as much as most others, but it takes two teams to play the game and I don’t remember the All Blacks playing a free running, stylish game scoring many tries on Saturday. They looked as boring to me as the Springboks, just in a different way. And why is it always the Springboks dragging other teams down to their level according to the comments? Shouldn’t a good team be able to lift itself and impose its game plan on the opponent? As much as I hate the kick fest from the Boks, I find it a bit much to blame them for a closely fought battle and “lack of entertainment” in the game.

I remember Carel du Plessis trying to coach the Boks into an expansive style of play, unfortunately just when they started getting things right he got sacked. His last match in charge was the 61-22 win against Australia.
With Rassie as director of rugby I don’t think we will see him get rid of his buddy Jacques and in any case, they believe in the same playing style. If we keep losing, maybe they will both get sacked by SARU.
My dream is to get an All Black coach like Foster who can shake things up and get the players to believe that there’s more than kick-and-chase in their DNA.
In the meantime I will keep replaying old videos of Danie Gerber, Carel du Plessis, Ray Mordt, Joost van der Westhuysen…

I am just as sick hearing this DNA nonsense from the coach and I see the players are also spouting this nonsense. It is killing any initiative and any potential for playing a different game sometime in future. If a parent tells a child it is in his DNA to be bad at maths for example I am sure that child will be bad at maths even if in reality he might be a genius. In any case, I am 56 years old and have been supporting the Boks since the early 70’s and never thought it was in our DNA to play this limited kick-and-chase game.
In addition, where the All Blacks pick new players, give them freedom to play an open and expansive game and building depth at the same time, the Boks under Nienaber are going backwards. He is picking older, slower players and he is letting them play a more and more restricted game.
Next we will have Jannie and Bismarck du Plessis back in the squad and he will probably try and get Matfield and Bakkies Botha to come out of retirement.

Excellent piece. As a South African I am happy for the Wallabies and their supporters and jealous of them for having a proper coach. I never liked Rassie’s style of play that he imposed on the Boks, but I accepted that winning ugly was better than losing. Now it is just plain ugly.
Our players are better than what they have been showing from the start of the Lions series and during the RC, but they seem unfit and all flair and initiative have been coached out of them. As you mentioned, this is not what we see in the Currie Cup where the style of play is totally different so the idea of this being the SA DNA is not entirely true. The Bok players are so used to chasing kicks and never getting the ball from a backline move that when they do eventually run it they knock it on or they don’t know what to do with it.
Sad as it will be to see them humiliated against the ABs, it will be a blessing in disguise because maybe they need a proper humiliation for Rassie and Jacques to change their ways.

I am genuinely frustrated with the Boks and the Rassie/Jacques game plan which they stubbornly stick to. It is as if they are absolutely convinced that kick and chase is the only way to win and if they lose, they must simply kick and chase more/better the next game. Even Siya is saying that the style of play is in the Boks’ DNA, which I don’t believe at all. I have been watching the Boks since the seventies and cannot remember ever seeing this type of game plan that is never deviated from.
We have always had big and strong forwards and backs, but since 2019 we simply refuse to use our backs for anything other than defending or chasing kicks. I cannot remember ever seeing Danie Gerber, Ray Mordt or Carel du Plessis chasing up and unders. In addition, when you are in the opposition half or 22 you run it. I almost broke my tele on Sunday when Willie kicked a chip kick while in the Wallaby 22!
I sometimes think an overseas coach should be appointed to help the players achieve their full potential. If you have the most potent weapon in world rugby on the wing, why would you starve him of ball?
Winning ugly is possibly forgivable as long as you’re winning, but losing ugly is plain ugly.

I am just incredibly disappointed with the Bok game plan. We have so much more to offer and we have great backline players, but they are unable to catch or pass a ball because they never see it other than 50 m up in the air from Faf’s boot. Regarding Kolbe I feel like someone who has paid 1000 euros to eat in a Michelin 5 star restaurant for their plat de résistance and then they tell me it’s not available. I sit in front of my TV for 90 min to see the genius of the man and then after 90 min I get up hungry, not a single ball from a backline move. Such a player comes along once in a decade, what a waste of talent in a green jersey. Highlights of his tries on Youtube are rarely in a Springbok jersey.

Incredible how on many sites, including this one, the comments focus on the unfair yellow card and the non-referral of some Lions’ tries. I haven’t bothered dissecting all of them, but in the Marx try the slow motion replays show that the ball was on or even slightly over the line before it was pushed back by the players on the ground. On the yellow card, the question of intent is irrelevant, the Lions were clearly on the attack with momentum on their side and a good chance of scoring when Barret raked the ball back with his feet. He was even looking at the ball while doing it, surely he could have tried to avoid it?

In any case, I want to mention the issue of the Ardie Savea try which to me looked like it should have been a penalty to the Lions instead. The player that slapped the ball out of Ross Cronjé’s hands was standing in an offside position, he wasn’t bound to the ruck and didn’t come from behind the last feet. He was clearly on the side of the ruck, almost on the Lions’ side. Maybe I don’t know my rules well enough, but I would like to know what others think about that one.

Well I have been living in France for 8 years and I still cannot bring myself to be a French rugby supporter. On the other hand they just managed to beat Argentina 27-0, which is better than what the Boks managed to do recently.

I think the French top 14 is partly to blame fir Duane Vermeulen’s performance, in a relatively weak competition he looks like a star, but there is quite a gap between top 14 and test rugby.

I also think our coaches lack rugby intelligence and tactical nous, I hope I am wrong but I see a gradual slide further down the ranking ladder.

I will always support the Boks, but I have a feeling I will end up being disappointed more often than not in future.

The rugby we dished up was disgusting, like coaches before him it took AC one game to abandon his promises of attractive attacking rugby and revert to WW1 style trench warfare. In France the French talk about our rugby as rugby “bourrin”, which means anything but attractive.

Furthermore, all the comments by everyone commenting here mention players that are white, how will AC justify having more and more white players?

Lastly, Adriaan Strauss is not even a good player, let alone a good captain. Willie runs laterally and when he ends up against the sideline he gives a switch pass to the inside, how easy is that to read and defend against? The French are right, we play brainless rugby, I am so disgusted I can cry. I am 50 years old, I will feed off my memories of invincible Springbok teams, my son is 21 years old, he doesn’t know what I am talking about, but Springbok rugby lost him as a supporter after this series. I am nostalgic about Springbok rugby, he needed to be convinced. Unfortunately he is 21 years old and he can see for himself, rest in peace the mighty Springbok.

Exactly my feeling, of all nations currently playing in the top 10 of the rankings I believe the Boks have the most rubbish and boring game. Argentina is now playing the type of rugby the ABs are playing and the type I enjoy watching. In addition, it works, as shown by the U20 Argentinans who just humiliated our U20 Bokkies 49-19.

Sadly SA rugby is dead.

As a South African I just about started cheering for Ireland in the last 10 minutes. If that is what we call Springbok rugby I will not watch anymore of it. Ireland did all the playing, you deserved to win that one, bad luck.

Personally I thought that was one of the most inept and frustrating performances I have ever seen from a Bok team. It seems as if Jantjes decided that he would kick everything, regardless of the situation. Kick and hope strategy that worked against them 9 times out of 10. I was a forward in my days and our motto was that we worked hard to get hold of the ball and we sure as hell expected the backs to hang on to it when they got it. In my days it was all about posession, nowadays the Boks seem to prefer practicing their tackling. Give the ball back to the opposition and then tackle, tackle, tackle.

I see no skill, no ideas, no plan, nothing. This Bok team is on its way to the last place in the RC and the ABs must be licking their lips, I see some record scores coming.

The biggest gripe I have is that someone has now decided that there is rugby and there is non-rugby and that the Springboks play non-rugby, not worthy of being praised and hated by the whole world. I am the first to admit that the Boks should play a lot more with the ball in hand. Yet the All Blacks vs France game was the least interesting of the four this weekend, it became boring seeing a 7’s style of rugby with one team completely annihilating the other. I cannot see why neutrals would enjoy such one sided affairs.

In addition, rugby is a game made for all styles and types and if all teams played like the All Blacks I don’t think I would find it interesting anymore. In tennis some players play from the back of the court, some like going to the net, some have a power game with bullet serves, some don’t have that power and have to play with finesse. Isn’t that the beauty of the sport, different styles trying to outwit each other?

A very powerful and strong knockout specialist of a boxer against a more nimble and fleet footed one? A golfer that’s strong off the tee against one that’s better on the greens and out of the bunkers?

Then I suppose you could get the ones that have no weaknesses and they will remain at the top for a while, but don’t we like seeing the more limited competitor beating the one with no weaknesses from time to time?

I loved seeing Tiger Woods getting beaten at golf. It seems that some people only get a kick from seeing him grinding others into dust. The world seems to not have place for differences anymore, we should all be clones of the most perfect.

Well that’s the thing I don’t understand. The forwards fight their backsides off to get the ball, the backs kick it away and right into the hands of the opposition and then we have to defend like crazy again. Against more limited attacking teams we might hope to win the ball back in the air or benefit from a knock on by the other team, but against a sharp attacking team like the All Blacks I would have thought that the one thing drilled into their heads is “don’t give them any ball to play with”.

Yet we don’t learn, we keep doing the same thing, kicking away possession. When I played rugby at school I remember the forwards getting angry at the backs when they kicked instead of hanging on to the ball. We used to shout at them and say that we worked hard to get, so damn well don’t give it back to them.

This is where I see a lack of intelligence in the coaching staff and the players, surely someone has worked out long ago that you have to starve the dangerous All Blacks of possession and make them do the tackling? Or am I missing something here?

Wow, so much hatred for one team! I almost feel guilty that the Boks made it to the semis. I hope we do the French thing and fall on our swords to not let the world have to suffer through another match involving the Springboks. May the rugby gods punish this one dimensional Springbok team not worthy of being on the same pitch as the holy All Blacks with the most embarrassing loss in the history of the World Cup. The mighty Spiro has spoken.

Having watched the four quarter final matches I am afraid that the Boks look the worst of the four teams that will compete in the semis next week. We started playing more expansive rugby last year and I hoped that the kick and hope tactics would be a thing of the past, but especially since the loss to Japan they look like a team that’s afraid to lose rather than one that wants to win.

I see another humiliation coming next week. The All Blacks will run us ragged with all the balls that we will kick back to them.

Our handling is atrocious, one spilled ball after the other. Willie has not done anything to warrant his place and is a shadow of the unpredictable attacking player he once was.

The sad thing is that the whole world wants us to lose against the All Blacks because we play such boring rugby. Happy as I am that we made it to the semis, I can’t help being sad, feeling like we don’t really deserve to be there and that the All Blacks will humiliate us.

No reason why Aus can’t do this. Of course I hope they don’t, but it can be done.

I’m watching on crictime, works great.

Very uncalled for Mark, geez what type of person are you? One kiwi I wouldn’t like to meet, thankfully there are others that I like and respect.

No excuses, well played to the ABs. brilliant side.

Spot on. I would have been more devastated about the loss if the Boks had played boring rugby. In the end the defense seemed to be forgotten at the expense of attack, but at least the rugby was attractive and great to watch. I am not sure where our improvement is going to come from though, it’s probably a combination of better players in some positions, improvement in coaching, improvement in fitness, and getting more and more comfortable with the new expansive approach.

As a South African I have to take my hat off to the All Blacks, what an incredible team. I am sad about the loss, but at the same time I am proud of the Boks for contributing so much to what was an amazing spectacle. Sadly it was the defense that let us down tonight, there were some very ordinary tackle attempts, but this is one game where at least I end up with no regrets. The ref was great and both teams played exceptionally well, the winner was rugby.