Autumn Internationals 2022

Talking with my mates we felt it was a lot of of the same problems. Our props aren't good enough. I don't think Barret and Whitelock are a good combo at test level. If Rettallick isn't available I'd rather Vaea as the other lock. Loosies are good but Akira is hot and cold whereas Frizzel seems more consistent. Akira can go missing from the tight work. Papali'i is better than Cane.

Christie wasn't bad but didn't grab his chance. Barrett is Barrett but I'm not sold on Havilli. Also prefer ALB at 12 than 13 but I think Jordie has shown he's the best 12.

Subs made an impact. Glad to TJ showing he still has something to offer.

We never seem to put Scotland to the sword at Murrayfield. Never feel like we're going to lose but it takes ages to finish them.

Foster is delusional and needs to go. I'm not seeing any progress in the side. Just a lot of the same inconsistencies.

Erasmus is technically not disseminating falsehoods. But could the flagrant one-sidedness of his third party communications, which are damaging to the reputation of a professional referee, be straying into the territory of defamation?

I wonder if he was smart enough to look into what said referee does during the week....

If this jumped from Twitter to the courts it might bring in some new fans.

Barnes is just an ok ref. Talks a lot, is very arrogant and barely gets more right than wrong. Not saying that Rassie is right to raise these issues on Twitter (he is not) but inconsistency should be fused through the right channels. As for the French and the comms problems with the final try replay - they should be fined. It is not the first time.

Rassie is taking short clips and making big statements about them, he might be right in what he is saying but he shouldn't be airing his laundry in public, there is a mechanism in place for coaches to discuss items with officials.

Rugby is a complex game to referee, every has multiple players from two sides entering from different angles that need watching, players rolling away, holding on, poaching, going off their feet, playing the ball on the ground and all within the space of a few seconds, there isnt a Hope that the 4 officials watching play will catch everything.

What rassie is not taking into account are the calls that go his way where his players are in the wrong, the officials on the most part get things right and what they dont tends to balance out

Well that's wrong although if you never watched a game of rugby before you could be forgiven for believing that.

The hate for South Africa is so evident in this post.

No mention anywhere of the France red card which was even more dangerous. I was very surprised to see Dupont do that.

Both were definite reds. Both will lead to lengthy bans.

Rassie does what he does. If you don't like it don't read or listen to it. It's your choice. I don't like it but I firmly believe it's a move to bring his team together with an us vs the world attitude.

Whatever you have to say about him he's been great for South African rugby.

Gonna make my Donald Trump comparison again here.

The New York billionaire (and son of a billionaire) convinced a lot of gullible people and self-interested snakes that he was the man to stand up for the working man against the "coastal elites".

Now we have a lad above who says Rassie is sticking it to the "old boys club" of rugby, and there are legions of SA people on twitter rowing in behind that line. Just a reminder that SA are one of the most powerful members of that old boys club. They got away with subjugating an entire race of people purely on the basis of their status in said club.

This is nothing to do with his team. Like Trump, this is all about Rassie and his ego.

I don't mind the SA poster slavishly defending him, that's in his DNA. What melts my brain is Irish people doing it when all he did was p"ss in our face and tell us it was lemonade.

I havent seen much from SA to suggest they are going to win the RWC or are even on track to do it. Is their team good enough to do it? Yes but what evidence is there that the coaches or Rassie are doing anything that's in the end going to lead to them lifting the trophy. To me this talk about winning the RWC is a lazy excuse to just to buy themselves time, identical to what Jones is doing with England it seems. The reality is throughout this cycle what have SA done very little to advance their game, if they were to play a RWC final tomorrow and everyone was fit and on form they XV SA would name would more or less be the same as 2019 bar fullback and arguably No.8 which was already a squad in its prime if not slightly on the older side. So with all this talk about 2023 what has the coaches changed? If anything they seem to be hiding behind the "we won RWC last time which means we can automatically win it against" bollocks

Do you remember the Autumn internationals the year before the last World Cup? They beat a bad French team by 3 points, an even worse Scotland by six points and lost to England and Wales. They finished second in the 2018 rugby championship and won it in 2019. They finished second in this year's rugby championship, let's see how they do next year.

Does this time around seem any different so far?

I want to be clear here, I don't like Rassie and how he goes on but I respect how good he is at his job.

But once again you prove my point about the Book coaching staff basically hiding behind the "we did it last time" excuse. I have yet to see how exactly those Autumn internatioanls played any role in them winning the RWC?

So basically after 4 years in the job he is in a position no different than he was in 2018...doesn't that sort of prove my point? At least in 2018 he had the excuse that his squad was in transition, you cant make that excuse with this squad.

Its smart by Rassie, hide behind the "we won the RWC in 2019" excuse and then when it all implodes next year he cant be fired as he'll already completed his job, not that it matters as he's practically his own boss.

Hiding behind winning the World Cup? How is that a thing? 😁

They won the World Cup, that's a huge achievement. It doesn't matter if they don't do it this time. It's an incredible achievement if they do.

They won the WC where they got spanked by NZ, beat a game Japan, struggled past an average Wales who were only in the semi by virtue of Vahamina being an idiot, and beat a good English team. All conquering they were not.

I presume you read my post. Can you tell me where I said they were "all conquering" or even suggested it?

It doesn't matter how you win a World Cup by the way, winning it is all that matters.

People will celebrate it every bit as much as if you destroyed every team and you'll be in the record books as World Cup winners.