South Africa vs USA - No New Lessons Learned

Beating the USA was a hurdle the Springboks needed to cross to earn first place in their pool and it turned out to be a low hurdle.

A full-strength USA team would not trouble the Boks unduly, and this mostly second-string outfit – selected with an eye on Sunday’s game against Japan, when the first-choice Eagles team hope to earn their only win at RWC 2015 – were fortunate to lose only 64-0. Had the Boks fired on all cylinders from the start, the points spread could have been far worse.

For the Boks, there were no new lessons learned from this runaway win. Winning front-foot ball all day from a vastly superior scrum, lineout ball won without any seriously competing opponents, winning their breakdown ball without fuss, and running with purpose and determination in the second half – against the chaotic USA defence, the Boks scored 10 tries to none.

A few of the Bok tries were excellently constructed, albeit against porous defence. The Eagles missed 30 tackles of the 122 attempted – a feeble statistic at Test level. Credit then to Eagles prop Chris Baumann for his magnificent 16 tackles.

In amongst the superiority of possession and territory and 10 tries, were a few worries for the Springboks, mostly in the mediocre first half:

1     failing in the first half to finish and score tries, even from inside the attacking 5m line
2     a few badly executed kicks for position in the first half
3     running into contact instead of exploiting space
4     lack of numbers plus bad running lines in support play in the first half (better after halftime)
5     poor handling – inaccurate passing and dropped balls

These sorts of unforced errors could be costly for the Boks against the stronger teams.

On a happier note, what joy it was to see the tries from the wonderful angles run by Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel, another magnificent performance by locks Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager, and yet another superb performance by openside Francois Louw – something of an unsung hero for the Springboks game after game.