Boks trounce England

I don't particularly feel like doing the usual blogger piece rating the South African players but I would like to make some comments on this end of year tour and what the Boks took out of it.

The Springboks comfortably trounced a very average English side 42-6 yesterday at Twickenham yesterday.

Despite the scoreline - I doubt it will ever be remembered as a great Bok result, largely because it was a performance big on heart but hardly a structured game.

I think the highlight of the tour will be the image of lock Bakkies Botha ranging up from the midfield on a flying England fullback (Armitage) and half tackling him when a try looked like a certainty. For a big lock to cover that much ground, you have to appreciate the commitment.

While quite a few guys got to have a bit of a run for 10 - 20 minutes at the end of the tour, I'm not totally sure what we learnt. Here's what I think we take away:

- Jacques Fourie is dangerous from the moment he comes on to the field (Somewhere a space needs to be found)

- Adi Jacobs and Jean DeVilliers are brilliant in midfield

- John Smit can play tighthead

- "The Beast" has an enormous work rate and coud easily be the best number 1 in the game at the moment

But still some issues abound

- Why did Jannie Du Plessis get called up from SA (and start the English test match) when John Smit - the tighthead prop who can also play hooker - ,Brian Mujati and Chilliboy Rallepele were
the first choice players to tour.

- Why - when Earl Rose was identified as the tour number 2 flyhalf (and assuming Butch James is at the end of his career) - did Rose not get any game time?

- Not rotation - starting lineup wise - between Spies and Kankowski?

It was great to see Chilliboy get some game time in the last test match - it is important for SA rugby, but there still seems to be some issues about what exactly the tour achieved for SA rugby beyond running some tired, battered and bruised players through an 'experimental' touring side and then not experiement?