Go.....

Jean Devilliers! What an individual try!

Maybe that will be the try that gets the Stormers into this match.... Great stuff.

C'mon boys!

Hhhhmmm

The Lions finally got a Super 14 win on the table when they beat the Brumbies at home last night.... It has taken me 24 hours to recover from the shock before blogging on the subject.

I guess it is always good when an SA side beats an Australian side but geez they made it hard work for themselves.

There are a couple of guys I feel genuinely sorry for in SA rugby - Cobus "Baywatch" Grobbelaar, Louis Ludik, Heinke VD Merwe and Jaques Fourie.

Baywatch and Ludik are guys who simply try their hearts out game after game and they deserve to be on the winning side from time to time.

When it comes to Fourie - you almost wish he could be playing for a class side - between him, Adi Jacobs and Jean Devilliers, he is probably one of the best "pure" centres in South African rugby and yet he keeps turning out for the Lions every year.

Sorry to say but I think Andre Pretorius is finished.... His performance yesterday was weak and his kicking out of hand was directionless. The side has been banking on a Pretorius recovery for the last two seasons and finally he is fit and starting again and he's not delivering....

Dunno we'll watch the next few weeks and see how this Lions side plays out... So long as they don't interfere with the Stormers rebound to make the Semis.... ;-)

Stormers reviewed

6 days until the Super 14 kicks off and South African sides have finally announced their teams.

Rugby Strategist has taken a look at the sides and tried to identify some key players who will shape the Super 14 campaigns for SA:

STORMERS:
Andries Bekker, Wikus Blaauw, Gcobani Bobo, Schalk Brits, Schalk Burger, Tonderai Chavhanga, Bolla Conradie, Jean de Villiers, Dylan des Fountain, Dewaldt Duvenhage, Schalk Ferreira, Adriaan Fondse, Deon Fourie, Peter Grant, Conrad Jantjes, Ricky Januarie, Francois Louw, JD Moller, Brian Mujati, Pieter Myburgh, Sireli Naqelevuki, Morgan Newman, Luke Watson, Percy
Montgomery, Nick Koster, JC Kritzinger, Hilton Lobberts, Joe Pietersen, AJ Venter, Duanne Vermeulen.

Experienced flyhalf Willem De Waal was not considered due to injury as was Brock Harris the prop.

Big performances are obviously expected of Schalk Burger and Jean de Villiers but the real testing points for the Stormers will be Peter Grant and flyhalf and in the front row where they have been given grief in some of the warm up games.

I'm a Stormers supporter so I'll obviously be biased in their favour but its a decent looking side with the ability to beat almost anybody on their day.

The makeup of the backline is going to be interesting to watch with Nick Koster being reinvented as a wing and Sireli Naqelevuki having to deliver the goods as the human battering ram.

2008 SA Rugby awards

SA rugby honoured its players of 2008, at a function in Midrand last night.

Jean De villiers scooped the big awards and I don't think you can argue with Ricky Januarie picking up the try of the year!

The full list of award winners is listed below:



SA Rugby Player of the Year
Winner: Jean de Villiers (Western Province)

Young Player of the Year
Winner: Robert Ebersohn (Free State Cheetahs)

Players’ Player of the Year
Winner: Jean de Villiers (Western Province)

Team of the Year
Winner: Sharks (Vodacom Super 14 team)
Also nominated: Leopards, Sharks (Absa Currie Cup team), Blue Bulls, Stormers.

Coach of the Year
Winner: John Plumtree (Sharks, Absa Currie Cup)

Super 14 Player of the Year
Winner: Ryan Kankowski (Sharks)

Absa Currie Cup Premier Division Player of the Year
Winner: Jean Deysel (Sharks)
Absa Currie Cup First Division Player of the Year
Winner: Kennedy Tsimba (Griffons).

Vodacom Cup Player of the Year
Winner: Burton Francis (Blue Bulls)

SuperSport Try of the Year
Winner: Ricky Januarie (SA v New Zealand, Dunedin)

Sevens Player of the Year
Renfred Deysel

SA Under-20 Player of the Year
Robert Ebersohn (Free State Cheetahs)

Women’s Player of the Year
Lorinda Brown (Eastern Province)

National Club Champs Player of the Tournament
Lola Waka (Pukke)

Refereeing Achievement of the Year
Mark Lawrence

Craven Week Player of the Tournament
Sampie Mastriet (Boland)

Statistics and Dan Carter

Statistics are an interesting thing to look at when trying to understand how a team played and how a particular individual is doing in a position.

Today an interesting statistic popped up relating to Dan Carter's performance against the Springboks.

Basically the All Blacks were leading South Africa 5-0 about 58 minutes into the game and it could still have gone either way.

Carters statistics at the time read:

Balls Passed - 10
Balls Kicked - 14
Tackles made - 2
Defenders beaten - 0

Statistics tell you 2 things - the Boks weren't prepared to run at the Carter channel and Carter wasn't going to mix it up with the Bok defenders by trying to take them on.

Instead he was quite happy to mix it up by spreading it wide and kicking tactically into the corners. (Which he did like a machine).

The first time Carter beat a defender was when he straightened the line and scored the second All Black try.

Instead of trying to take the defenders on, Carter was quite happy to let the line do the work while he marshalled the troops and controlled the pace. I agree completely that Butch James is a type of flyhalf but the problem is that where Carter seems to be able to decide the game he is planning to play, James seems to be one dimensional in what he is going to work. When it comes off, it looks great, but when it doesn't he can't seem to get his backline going forward.

I don't believe its an issue that James can't play a dynamic game, I just don't think he is being given the responsibility of dictating the pace in the backline.

Its almost like the backline kicking game for the Boks comes from whoever is playing scrum half and the creativity is expected to come from Jean De Villiers as the outside centre.

That means positions 9 and 13 are dictating how the game is going to be played... Doesn't sound right.

Will be interesting to see how the Bok coach responds over the next 2 fixtures against the Australians...