England 14 - 14 South Africa - A Draw!
By kath
June 23 2012
England will be disappointed that they could not pull off the win but a draw is fantastic, when you think of last week's performance. The players will have learnt a lot from this tour and will be looking forward to a re-match at Twickenham in November. Again my MOM Danny Care and well deserved. He looked really sharp today and I do hope he will feature in the Autumn Internationals
South Africa v England
Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium - Port Elizabeth
Saturday 23rd June 2012 - 3rd Test
Match Report / Points
England from the kick off started quite well, within three minutes they had a penalty in front of the posts, which Toby Flood slotted over. However South African Spies steals a lineout and Habana chasing down a box kick. He's held up unfairly and that gives Morne Steyn a penalty chance to come back 3-3. What a different match to last week, England are more aware of the crucial first 10mins and this week they are living with the Boks. I don't feel the same intensity as last week from South Africa,
England are really playing well and after 11mins score the first try of the match from a Palmer charge down to a Steyn kick and Care tap kicks then shimmies his way through to the line, Excellent play from Danny Care Toby Flood misses the conversion 3-8.
Danny Care - Archive Empics Pic
Flood has an injury and is replaced by Owen Farrell. South Africa as you would expect come back at England strongly and they get another penalty due to Palmer slowing the ball down after a tackle, Steyn makes to mistakes and slots the ball over the posts. 6-8 after 16 minutes.
South Africa are now waking up and piling on the pressure, England again giving penalties, Steve Walsh warning England no more otherwise it will be yellow cards next. 27minutes 9-8. England are giving far too many penalties away, they seem to have lost their heads at the moment. Owen Farrell now gone off with a blood injury, Brad Barritt comes on.
Once again a bit of aerial ping pong, England lose that contest as Goode puts it out and South Africa come charging back at them in the England 22. 35 minutes and Owen Farrell back on Barritt off. Although England are losing by one point at the moment, they have proved much better opponents this week. South Africa piling on the pressure, 8/9th phase of play England holding their line, excellent defence by England, ball knocked on by the Boks and Goode kicks the ball down field - hearts all a flutter England run after the ball but the Boks a a kick the ball out to take the pressure of them.
A much better performance from England, shame they could not have produced this game last week. C'est la vie
Half Time South Africa 9 - 8 England
Off we go again....... The Boks kick off, again a bit of aerial ping pong and South Africa on the charge again. England will insist on kicking the ball away -WHY!! High kick put up from Farrell, Aplon collects but what a HIT from Ashton get in!! As a result penalty to England 25m out, Farrell to take penalty and he gets it Yesssss................ 9-11 45 minutes.
South Africa putting on the pressure again 49 mins England give yet another penalty ( come on guys this has to stop), Steyn amazingly misses the penalty. 9-11 score 50minutes
England Captain slowing the ball down and Steve Walsh does not hesitate to send him to the bin for 10 mins. He was warned, how stupid, England must learn to keep their discipline under pressure.
England can win this but they really have to keep their heads to do it. South Africa knocked on 54mins, England re-group and scrum down. The scrum not working and re-set again. England away, Ben Foden darting through the middle of the field, he looked like he was going to kick but made good ground off loaded to Goode who just could not take it.
Ben Foden - Empic Archive Pic
Up and down the field we go --- 60 mins utter madness on the England line, pass from Pienaar and South Africa go over for the try by Pietersen....................oh England !! Steyn to convert and he misses again 14-11
England continue to give penalties, well we know what they have to work on don't we DISCIPLINE, I remember saying this of another England team many years ago on the build to the RWC 2003. I am sure Lancaster will drum this in from now on.
To play and win at this level it is so important to defend well, take the opportunities and don't give penalties, oh and have a good kicker.
68mins 6 phase England moving up the field, Steve Walsh getting in the way!!! 10th phase now England trying hard to break through, 15th phase in the 22. Advantage to England, they get the put in to the scrum. Good scrum from England, England piling on the pressure 5meters to the line - Steve Walsh pulls the game back for Advantage to England. England take the points 14 -14.
73 mins - more aerial ping pong Foden calls for the mark, he kicks and slices the ball, South Africa on the charge again, Steyn went for Drop Goal and misses it. England need to keep cool heads now,
South Africa moving down the field trying to set up another drop goal for Steyn waiting in the pocket, as the forwards power on. They take too long setting it, and give away a penalty! England will get the ball down the field. England look tired 11th phase, the hooter sounds 14dth phase, wave after wave from England, just outside the Boks 22. 19th phase Farrell tries to go for a drop goal but makes a horrible mess of it.
Full Time: South Africa 14- England 14 Draw
Comnment: England will be disappointed that they could not pull off the win but a draw is fantastic, when you think of last week's performance. The players will have learnt a lot from this tour and will be looking forward to a re-match at Twickenham in November. Again my MOM Danny Care and well deserved. He looked really sharp today and I do hope he will feature in the Autumn Internationals
SOUTH AFRICA: 15-Gio Aplon, 14-JP Pietersen, 13-Jean de Villiers (captain), 12-Wynand Olivier, 11-Bryan Habana, 10-Morne Steyn, 9-Francois Hougaard, 8-Pierre Spies, 7-Jacques Potgieter, 6-Marcell Coetzee, 5-Juandre Kruger, 4-Eben Etzebeth, 3-Jannie du Plessis, 2-Bismarck du Plessis, 1-Tendai Mtawarira - Replacements: 16-Adriaan Strauss, 17-Werner Kruger, 18-Flip van der Merwe, 19-Ryan Kankowski, 20-Ruan Pienaar, 21-Elton Jantjies, 22-Bjorn Basson
ENGLAND: 15-Alex Goode, 14-Chris Ashton, 13-Jonathan Joseph, 12-Manusamoa Tuilagi, 11-Ben Foden, 10-Toby Flood, 9-Danny Care, 8-Thomas Waldrom, 7-James Haskell, 6-Tom Johnson, 5-Geoff Parling, 4-Tom Palmer, 3-Dan Cole, 2-Dylan Hartley (captain), 1-Alex Corbisiero - Replacements: 16-Lee Mears, 17-Joe Marler, 18-Mouritz Botha, 19-Phil Dowson, 20-Lee Dickson, 21-Owen Farrell, 22-Brad Barritt.
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Southern hemisphere clubs develop from within.
England's fly half ranks are not good. How many Englishmen are filling the 10 jersey in the premiership?
There are gaps elsewhere too.
Quote:Rarua
England's fly half ranks are not good. How many Englishmen are filling the 10 jersey in the premiership?
Toby Flood (Leicester)
Charlie Hodgson (Saracens)
Stephen Myler/ Ryan Lamb (Northampton)
Shane Geraghty (London Irish)
Freddie Burns (Gloucester)
Danny Cipriani (Sale)
Andy Goode (Worcester)
Rory Clegg (22, Harlequins), Owen Farrell (20, Saracens), Tom Heathcote (20, Bath) & George Ford (19, Leicester) are second choice iirc.
We also need to develop some vision in the backs, too much hard won ball was kicked away over the three games, much of the time aimlessly and achieved little but to give SA chances to attack again. It is no use having pace on the wings if you don't use it other for kick and chase. In the dying minutes of Saturdays game the forwards had sucked in SA leaving an overlap and acres of space on the right , we of course went left.
Quote:Rarua
Northern hemisphere sides are hamstrung by their clubs who buy foreigners to fill gaps in their teams.
Southern hemisphere clubs develop from within[u].[/u]
England's fly half ranks are not good. How many Englishmen are filling the 10 jersey in the premiership?
There are gaps elsewhere too.
Fair to say too that SH clubs (NZ in particular) develop from the PI ers ............... ouch!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:06:26:21:39:16 by Hardlymyfaultisit.
I think we made some improvements in attacking areas i.e we did attack with ball in hand on occasion. I would like to see us further advanced in this area, but not too alarmed yet. There are still large proportions of our attack that look ponderous, simply shifting ball to
Manu and expecting him to run through walls (he might occasionally, but not really a game winning plan). Or aimless kicks, an issue that was not wholly removed with the exclusion of Farrell, though he was/is the worst offender. What makes our lack of dynamism worse, for me, is that on the few occasions where we do put pace on the ball and good lines on our running, we actually look quite good at it.
AI's should be interesting, and whilst, for me, the emphasis should still be on performance rather than results, we should be looking to getting a more wins than losses at home, despite a tough schedule.
Unhappiness, where's when I was young
And we didn't give a damn
'Cause we were raised
To see life as a fun and take it if we can
Quote:HardlymyfaultisitQuote:Rarua
Northern hemisphere sides are hamstrung by their clubs who buy foreigners to fill gaps in their teams.
Southern hemisphere clubs develop from within[u].[/u]
England's fly half ranks are not good. How many Englishmen are filling the 10 jersey in the premiership?
There are gaps elsewhere too.
Fair to say too that SH clubs (NZ in particular) develop from the PI ers ............... ouch!
So where should we send the Maori players? Or the Samoan who has a Kiwi parent? Should all NZers qualify for Tonga, Fiji or Samoa and be preferentially picked for one of those and only if rejected get to play for All Blacks?
Quote:RaruaQuote:HardlymyfaultisitQuote:Rarua
Northern hemisphere sides are hamstrung by their clubs who buy foreigners to fill gaps in their teams.
Southern hemisphere clubs develop from within[u].[/u]
England's fly half ranks are not good. How many Englishmen are filling the 10 jersey in the premiership?
There are gaps elsewhere too.
Fair to say too that SH clubs (NZ in particular) develop from the PI ers ............... ouch!
So where should we send the Maori players? Or the Samoan who has a Kiwi parent? Should all NZers qualify for Tonga, Fiji or Samoa and be preferentially picked for one of those and only if rejected get to play for All Blacks?
Personally I dont give a flying stuff where you send anyone, only saying its a bit rich for some SH loon to crib about who plays in a domestic league 12000 miles from where he lives and leaps onto a bandwagon of Fijians, Samoans, Tongans etc representing New Zealand ...... have a word with yourself eh!
Quote:
Depends who is claiming what is a fact ......... and within that piece of shoddy journalism, there are a few flaws!
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to the South Sea Island Invitation XV this autumn!
I am looking forward to the New Zealand maori team touring though. Hopefully they will play England and beat them again in there own back yard. I would enjoy that immensely being part maori myself.
This is the the kind of Rugby England can only dream of playing
[">www.youtube.com]
Quote:Horowhenua
Im not really looking forward to it, these autumn grand slam conquering tours have become a bit predictable in recent times.
I am looking forward to the New Zealand maori team touring though. Hopefully they will play England and beat them again in there own back yard. I would enjoy that immensely being part maori myself.
This is the the kind of Rugby England can only dream of playing
[">www.youtube.com]
Ah ........... no surprise return post then!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:07:15:13:21:54 by Hardlymyfaultisit.
Quote:I am looking forward to the New Zealand maori team touring though. Hopefully they will play England and beat them again in there own back yard.
England's second team beat the Maori team last time they played each other in our own backyard
[">www.youtube.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:07:18:11:46:57 by ballsout.