SARrugby.com

We kick, the Ausies and Nzers run. Morne is the worst offender and if only we had one of the young guns in there, things would be different. Sound familiar? Well here are the stats for our last 6 matches.....post the Bargies and including our 4 matches against NZ and Oz..

The ball has reached our flyhalf 132 times versus 187 for our opposing flyhalves.  Of those balls our opponents kicked 25% of the time, passed 60% of the time and ran 15% of the time. The Boks kicked 31% of the time, passed 55% of the time and ran 14% of the time.  Very much the same.

But there's more.....if you drop Sexton, who seemed to pass almost every ball, from the list.....the remaining flyhalves including Cooper, Beale, Carter and Cruden  were even closer. That group of running flyhalves kicked 28% of the time, passed 56% of the time and ran 16% of the time......almost exactly the same as the Boks.

And if you drop Lambie from the list...... the Boks kicked 28% of the time, passed 57% of the time and ran 15% of the time. Exactly the numbers of their international running opponents.

So what we have here is no big difference from our opponents, with slightly more conservative play after a young flyhalf came into the team.

Wow.....how did that work out for you!

And do those stats tell us the kind of kicks employed.............up and unders vs little chips vs into space vs cross kicks for the wings vs clearing for touch.

The problem with the Boks is that the majority of those kicks are those worthless up and unders.

Play it like Carter, thats all we ask - a 10 that runs it, kicks it and passes it in equal proportions.......and does so with effect..........Morne is equipped to kick it and thats where it ends..............Lambie, Jantjies and Goosen are equipped to play it like Carter

The majority of those kicks, for any team, are line clearing kicks. The fact remains, we run and pass as much as our key rivals. So now all we have to moan about is the nature of our kicks. And of course your first offering is a complete piece of BS about the majority of our kicks being U and Unders.

Oh FFS bloody hell, all and sundry will tell you that the Boks are kicking possession away with worthless up and unders and its not only the 10, add Pienaar to the equation and Kirchner for that matter.......its not only our 10.

Lambie kicked far too much and its not his natural game. To imply that Morne runs it or passes it as much as Carter is a joke. I dont care what the other sides do. The model is Carter and the AB's and the same can be said of Freddie for France and Cooper for Oz.

These sides strike a balance.......they play an allround game, we dont - our centres and wings are starved of action. I read a article pointing the blame at Jean for much of our inactivity, I'll have to dig it out for you, think I saw it on the SS site

I don't particularly care what all and sundry tell me.

kicking is just as any other aspect of the game. if its not used correctly or used in bad areas its more counter productive than anything else. the predictable aspect to the boks kicking play is more the area of concern.

HM game pattern creates the crashball second five 8 its not franna's nor jean's fault but rather the support structure around them