Semi Final - South Africa

[wayneha50]

Such a disappointing game. I thought after the try we’d really go for it but unfortunately we went back into iur shell & just played for penalties.

Horrible game with two sides afraid to play.

[Lizard]

The main upside of that game is that the 100th Am Blacks v Springboks match will be a competitive match, rather than a pointless 3/4 playoff.

[Insouciant]

16 - 16
Adams try, con.. H'penny 66 mins.

No one else seems to have noticed the forward pass for this one. Hmm.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Damn, that was painful. Nothing between the teams. Great achievement, getting to the semis. Shame they only wanted to kick the ball.

Well done to Gatland, getting us this far, but I'm looking forward to a coach who likes positive rugby. Not long now.

[Puja]

Bad luck guys - you fought well and were unlucky with injuries. I won't mind admitting that I'm not unhappy to have avoided playing you.

Now go pump the ABs in the 3rd/4th game!

Puja

[Sourdust]

Damn, that was painful. Nothing between the teams. Great achievement, getting to the semis. Shame they only wanted to kick the ball.

Well done to Gatland, getting us this far, but I'm looking forward to a coach who likes positive rugby. Not long now.

Maybe just me, but I'd like a coach who plays positive rugby AND can build a physically and mentally rock-hard unit out of basically nothing. Greedy?

Pivac seemed the obvious choice 2 years ago, much less so now. Absolutely no point in playing the pretty stuff if we just become soft touches again. Been there, and don't want to go back.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Damn, that was painful. Nothing between the teams. Great achievement, getting to the semis. Shame they only wanted to kick the ball.

Well done to Gatland, getting us this far, but I'm looking forward to a coach who likes positive rugby. Not long now.

Maybe just me, but I'd like a coach who plays positive rugby AND can build a physically and mentally rock-hard unit out of basically nothing. Greedy?

Pivac seemed the obvious choice 2 years ago, much less so now. Absolutely no point in playing the pretty stuff if we just become soft touches again. Been there, and don't want to go back.

Not greedy, but I share your hunger!

I'm not sure if any of the regions can really compete with the top Irish, English or French clubs consistently any more, no matter the coach. The resources just aren't there. I'm not sure any coach could do more than Pivac did with the Scarlets.

That said, of course it's a huge step up for him - the fear is that he will be another Townsend. That's why it's great that Jones has got into the Wales setup early, and a shame Edwards is going. I'm hopeful, but only time will tell for Pivac.

[Digby]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

[Son of Mathonwy]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

Damn, you've cracked that Gatland code!

[Digby]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

Damn, you've cracked that Gatland code!

There is it has won a number of games, allowed the side to build a base of consistency (albeit consistently doing sod all in attack) and it nearly worked again today.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

Damn, you've cracked that Gatland code!

There is it has won a number of games, allowed the side to build a base of consistency (albeit consistently doing sod all in attack) and it nearly worked again today.

Gatland keeps rolling the dice. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Wales can do better.

[Sandydragon]

We looked more dangerous with Tomos Williams on the field. Davies spent a lot of time looking at the floor today. Not his fault entirely due to how slow the ball oftne was, but there were opportunities to move the ball kn a bit quicker in times and generate some momentum which were missed.

[wayneha50]

We looked more dangerous with Tomos Williams on the field. Davies spent a lot of time looking at the floor today. Not his fault entirely due to how slow the ball oftne was, but there were opportunities to move the ball kn a bit quicker in times and generate some momentum which were missed.

I thought after we scored the try we’d see at least 15 mins of us playing rugby but we immediately went back into our shells trying to play for penalties. I personally can’t wait for a change of coaching direction. Today was just awful to watch.

[Sourdust]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

All fair.

I did note that there were still some Welsh fans madly clinging to the belief that we were somehow keeping something back; even after we still failed to deploy it with only 10 minutes to rescue the game against France. Like we were waiting for the perfect moment to unleash the SuperNinjaWales that would amaze everyone.

It was clear quite early on that there was nothing else. We're superbly good at our style but - especially when we miss a few players - we have to stay within those limits and hope it's enough. It has been many times. Today, it very nearly was again. I don't blame anyone in particular; the on-field tactics were a bit awry today but the strategy was sound enough. There's no point in trying to play a game we simply don't have the tools to play. It may have appeared for a few heady months last year that we had solved or depth crisis, but it seems now that the reality was that injuries weren't biting as deeply as they could. In a crunch, we're still completely screwed if we have more than one or two first-choice players unavailable at any one time. That may never change. We've got a bit more depth at the "Competent International" level perhaps, but that's been balanced with fewer World-class players than before.

I'm not saying we don't (or can't) have exciting, free-running players in Wales; but fucknose we've learned the hard way that losing gets you nowhere. Until someone solves the conundrum of how utilize Wales' meagre resources to play an attractive, attacking style AND actually win test matches, we're always going to chose the latter and we'd be bloody stupid not to.

[Digby]

I'm not saying you have to play attractive rugby, merely that you need some functional attack even if it's very limited. I have been quietly impressed for the last 2 years or so with your 1 out plays, you've done them in such a fashion the play the ball tempo is good and they've had low errors rates, but with dropping Evans you're down to just AWJ as a carrier, and your 9 is a running threat rather than any sort of link player so it's been tricky in the WC to make that work often enough

[Son of Mathonwy]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

All fair.

I did note that there were still some Welsh fans madly clinging to the belief that we were somehow keeping something back; even after we still failed to deploy it with only 10 minutes to rescue the game against France. Like we were waiting for the perfect moment to unleash the SuperNinjaWales that would amaze everyone.

It was clear quite early on that there was nothing else. We're superbly good at our style but - especially when we miss a few players - we have to stay within those limits and hope it's enough. It has been many times. Today, it very nearly was again. I don't blame anyone in particular; the on-field tactics were a bit awry today but the strategy was sound enough. There's no point in trying to play a game we simply don't have the tools to play. It may have appeared for a few heady months last year that we had solved or depth crisis, but it seems now that the reality was that injuries weren't biting as deeply as they could. In a crunch, we're still completely screwed if we have more than one or two first-choice players unavailable at any one time. That may never change. We've got a bit more depth at the "Competent International" level perhaps, but that's been balanced with fewer World-class players than before.

I'm not saying we don't (or can't) have exciting, free-running players in Wales; but fucknose we've learned the hard way that losing gets you nowhere. Until someone solves the conundrum of how utilize Wales' meagre resources to play an attractive, attacking style AND actually win test matches, we're always going to chose the latter and we'd be bloody stupid not to.

It was no surprise to me that there was no plan B - I'm with you on that. But it was a particularly one-dimensional performance, even for Gatland's Wales. We did seem to be a little more willing to pass the ball around in the Australia match, for instance. Today, I think Gatland was petrified that someone was going to throw an interception so he just instructed Biggar to kick everything.

The strategy is sound - it turns matches into a lottery - won or lost on a moment's fortune - which is, I agree, infinitely better than being slaughtered, but surely we can keep the solid defensive structure AND have a little more variety in attack? I do think we have the tools to play a more interesting attacking game, it just that Gatland discourages it and makes selections which reflect that.

We certainly have struggled for depth, but in the last couple of years we seem to have found enough players to be able to field 23 decent internationals at a time (including a handful of world-class players), and this does make a difference (hence the grand slam and high ranking). So I don't think it's really true any more, that we're in trouble if we lose one or two first choice players. I think Wales now has the players to play a more ambitious game.

[Sandydragon]

I believe that we were expecting a tight and edgy game and played tactics to match. True we struggled to get any tempo due to the Bokke defence but neither did we take any risks. The tactics seemed to be to try and milk penalties.

Yet when both sides tired to play a bit of rugby it worked.

[Sandydragon]

Interesting view from Rob Debney (former ref) in the Times

It wasn’t a great game of rugby, there was a lot of kicking. But you have to wonder if that was because they knew what they were getting with Jerome Garces, who makes it a lottery at the contact area.

He points out that the penalty against AWJ for holding on should have been a Welsh penalty as Dee was prevented from clearing out Louw due to another offside Bokke player.

These things happen in a match (although I do think the contact with Moriarty in the air could have been more), but we got away with stuff too.

Yet for both teams to play particular tactics because they were so worried at a refs interpretation of the breakdown is a bit concerning.

[Numbers]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

Yesterday we made no progress over the gainline, what we lack are ball carriers, SA just soaked us up and we had no answer than to box kick, it's pointless giving the backs the ball behind the gainline with no go forward, we were simply outmuscled by them.

[Mikey Brown]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

Yesterday we made no progress over the gainline, what we lack are ball carriers, SA just soaked us up and we had no answer than to box kick, it's pointless giving the backs the ball behind the gainline with no go forward, we were simply outmuscled by them.

Trying to put a positive spin on it, you almost made a RWC final with virtually no attacking game. That surely bodes well as a starting to point to bring in some of the Scarlets philosophy.

I did feel for Stephen Jones. I wonder how much freedom he really had with so little time to put any of his ideas in place.

[Digby]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

Yesterday we made no progress over the gainline, what we lack are ball carriers, SA just soaked us up and we had no answer than to box kick, it's pointless giving the backs the ball behind the gainline with no go forward, we were simply outmuscled by them.

I'm not saying you have to give the ball to the backs, though actually it would make things easier if done properly. But you need an attack system even if you only use 8 and 9.

Also people talk about kicking to create space forcing the other side to cover the backfield, but passing down the line can also earn you space on later phases if you can pass to the edge, you don't even need to be beating the edge but at least engage the defenders on the edge, and actually with SA so narrow even Wales worked the ball wide into space a number of times. But you need a better system to replicate such efforts, you need better ball presentation even without the better carriers which would I concede make it easier, you need better passing at 9, 10, 12 and 13, and you need a team being allowed to try

And some of that is doable if the team are given licence and instruction to play a little more, but in a number of little areas from ball presentation, clearouts being attacking rather than conservative, to the instructions given to the 9, to the lack of passing options (or at best functional passing) in the front three it's all too risk averse. A change doesn't mean you have to suddenly wang the ball around like Scotland or Australia, merely you need some other intent beyond one out and kicking

[Numbers]

Christ you could have an attack as basic as England did when they fluked a run to the final in '07, but you've got to have an attack that's more than kick the ball away and hope the other side drops it or concedes a penalty at the breakdown waiting for you to kick the ball away. It can't all be palmed off to losing Anscombe

Yesterday we made no progress over the gainline, what we lack are ball carriers, SA just soaked us up and we had no answer than to box kick, it's pointless giving the backs the ball behind the gainline with no go forward, we were simply outmuscled by them.

I'm not saying you have to give the ball to the backs, though actually it would make things easier if done properly. But you need an attack system even if you only use 8 and 9.

Also people talk about kicking to create space forcing the other side to cover the backfield, but passing down the line can also earn you space on later phases if you can pass to the edge, you don't even need to be beating the edge but at least engage the defenders on the edge, and actually with SA so narrow even Wales worked the ball wide into space a number of times. But you need a better system to replicate such efforts, you need better ball presentation even without the better carriers which would I concede make it easier, you need better passing at 9, 10, 12 and 13, and you need a team being allowed to try

And some of that is doable if the team are given licence and instruction to play a little more, but in a number of little areas from ball presentation, clearouts being attacking rather than conservative, to the instructions given to the 9, to the lack of passing options (or at best functional passing) in the front three it's all too risk averse. A change doesn't mean you have to suddenly wang the ball around like Scotland or Australia, merely you need some other intent beyond one out and kicking

If you are stood stock still and face a blitz defence then you are not going to be able to use any width, the fact that we couldn't get any go forward was why we kicked, passing the ball along the line in those circumstances is not the answer as you will just end up going backwards. We can gain quick ball against most teams, the SA's stopped that from happening yesterday so fair play to them, very similarly to what England did to stifle NZs play, a very aggressive defensive line and prevention of gainline success.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I did feel for Stephen Jones. I wonder how much freedom he really had with so little time to put any of his ideas in place.

I doubt that Howley had much freedom either, Gatland's system is so rigid.

I just hope Jones is taking notes on how the defensive system works (even if that isn't his area), so we can maintain it.

[Digby]

Yesterday we made no progress over the gainline, what we lack are ball carriers, SA just soaked us up and we had no answer than to box kick, it's pointless giving the backs the ball behind the gainline with no go forward, we were simply outmuscled by them.

I'm not saying you have to give the ball to the backs, though actually it would make things easier if done properly. But you need an attack system even if you only use 8 and 9.

Also people talk about kicking to create space forcing the other side to cover the backfield, but passing down the line can also earn you space on later phases if you can pass to the edge, you don't even need to be beating the edge but at least engage the defenders on the edge, and actually with SA so narrow even Wales worked the ball wide into space a number of times. But you need a better system to replicate such efforts, you need better ball presentation even without the better carriers which would I concede make it easier, you need better passing at 9, 10, 12 and 13, and you need a team being allowed to try

And some of that is doable if the team are given licence and instruction to play a little more, but in a number of little areas from ball presentation, clearouts being attacking rather than conservative, to the instructions given to the 9, to the lack of passing options (or at best functional passing) in the front three it's all too risk averse. A change doesn't mean you have to suddenly wang the ball around like Scotland or Australia, merely you need some other intent beyond one out and kicking

If you are stood stock still and face a blitz defence then you are not going to be able to use any width, the fact that we couldn't get any go forward was why we kicked, passing the ball along the line in those circumstances is not the answer as you will just end up going backwards. We can gain quick ball against most teams, the SA's stopped that from happening yesterday so fair play to them, very similarly to what England did to stifle NZs play, a very aggressive defensive line and prevention of gainline success.

You can't do everything you're currently doing and suddenly spin the ball out, but you can change lots of little things which mean you'd have more options and be giving defences more areas to cover. Not sure England were always that aggressive btw against NZ, we drifted a fair bit more than normal

Right now there's very little shape to the Welsh attack, and everything is ,intentionally one assumes, being done slowly with a degree of caution.

[Sandydragon]

And that is how we have played for most of the last 12 years. It won’t change overnight.