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South African fans turn on flyhalf Handre Pollard after disastrous opening World Cup game
By Online Editors
As the all-time greatest 10 Dan Carter ranked his top three first-fives in the world last week, many South Africans felt aggrieved that their own favourite 10 wasn't mentioned by the former All Black.
Many South African fans rated Pollard the 'form 10 in the world right now' heading into the Rugby World Cup following the Springboks first ever Rugby Championship success.
Following a disastrous opening World Cup game by many Springboks, including Pollard who had six turnovers, the tide of opinion even amongst Bok supporters has swung.
Pollard was even labeled by some as 'the All Blacks best player on the pitch' as he missed a sitter of a penalty goal, committed way too many handling errors and on three occasions wasn't in a position to receive the pass from his teammate forcing his side to scramble.
His performance was described as a 'shocker' that 'single-handedly' cost the game, ranked even below that of Jerome Garces by one fan. Garces was lambasted in a social media video by South African fans that compiled all his supposed refereeing mistakes.
The Springboks struggled under the high ball as Aaron Smith's box kicks rained down on Yokohama Stadium, creating unstructured play in the hot humid conditions.
The All Blacks two tries came off the back of two spilled box kicks, using the second possession to open up the South Africans. After the game, Pollard said it's the small details the side has to get better at.
"It's not panic stations, its very calm. We've still got the confidence in the group and coaching staff. It's those small details we've got to be better at," he said.
"They (New Zealand) are for me arguably the best team in the world, and if you don't have everything set in place every single time that's what they are going to do to you."
The Springboks may get another chance to avenge the loss to the All Blacks, as will Pollard to redeem himself but for now perhaps the South African fans would be wise to listen to Dan Carter when it comes to ranking flyhalves.
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Latest Comments
"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"
I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.
But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.
Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.
"I'm afraid to say"
Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!
Go to commentsYou are a very horrible man Ojohn. Brain injury perhaps?
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