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'We got near our goal': Springbok captain Kolisi defends game plan
By Rugby365
Springbok captain Siya Kolisi has backed his team’s game plan once again after they fell short in their Rugby Championship title bid.
New Zealand won the tournament for an eighth time on Saturday after rivals South Africa failed to secure a bonus point and a wide winning margin when beating Argentina 38-21 in Durban.
The Springboks needed a bonus point in the final match of the tournament and victory by at least 39 points to pip the All Blacks for first place.
Earlier on Saturday, New Zealand thrashed Australia 40-14 in Auckland for a bonus-point triumph that took them to 19 points in the six-round Championship.
“It’s always an honour to get a win against a team like Argentina.
“We had a plan and we got near our goal.
“It was going well [when leading 17-0] and we wanted to score again but they scored just before half-time and that set us back a little bit.
“They started well in the second half and then our discipline let us down at times and we had two yellow cards.
“The biggest thing [so far] from this season was that even in the games we lost we created so many chances.
“Our game plan is working but we just don’t take the opportunities.”
Kolisi believes the last few rounds of the Rugby Championship has helped his team build some momentum heading into their November tour.
“We had some great, great moments in the Rugby Championship, and we also had some weak moments,” said the captain.
“We were looking for consistency.
“We know we can win against anyone in the world on our day, but today was a big step forward because it was a third win in a row and we want to take that momentum with us into the end-of-year tour.”
The Springboks will face Ireland, France, Italy and England on consecutive Saturdays in November.
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The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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