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What South Africa 'A' would do differently if they tour again
By Ian Cameron
South Africa ‘A’ head coach Mzwandile Stick says his side would do things differently if they had a do-over of their winless tour of Europe.
SA 'A' were defeated 26-18 by Bristol Bears at Ashton Gate on Thursday night, a week after falling to Munster in Cork and will end the tour zero from two.
“We only have ourselves to blame,” said Stick after the match. “We started well, and we were in control, but then we allowed them back in the game. In the beginning our set pieces were good and we played a nice territorial game. But we ended up playing too much rugby in our half and there were some poor errors from our side.”
Stick added: “There were times we got into their 22, but then we panicked, and tried to force things, and I’m not sure why that happened. Hopefully the youngsters will learn from the mistakes. Despite this, they have bright careers ahead of them.”
Stick said the inability of the group to play to the standards they had set for themselves was disappointing.
Asked what he would do differently if they had another SA ‘A’ tour in future, Stick said: “If we have a similar tour to this again, perhaps we need to have a one-week camp to implement a few things before we leave because we only had one or two training session before the first game and three before the second game.”
SA ‘A’ captain Thomas du Toit was also glum in the face of their second loss: “The result was very disappointing for us because we take a lot of pride in the way we play. We made a lot of unforced errors and individual mistakes, and that cost the team.
“That said, the match could certainly have turned out a differently if we had cut out some of the individual errors. Like any game there were positives and negatives we can take from it.”
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Latest Comments
i think Argentina v France could be a good game too, depending on which Argentina turns up. The most difficult to call is Scotland Australia.
Go to commentsSmith is playing a different game with the rest of the backs struggling to understand. That's the problem with so called playmakers, if nobody gets what they're doing then it often just leads to a turnover. It gets worse when Borthwick changes one of them, which is why they don't score points at the end. Sometimes having a brilliant playmaker can be problematic if a team cannot be built around them. Once again Borthwick seems lacking in either coaching or selection. I can't help but think it's the latter coupled with pressure to select the big name players.
Lastly, his forward replacements are poor and exposed either lack of depth or selection pressure. Cole hemorrhages scrum penalties whenever he comes on, opponents take advantage of the England scrum and close out the game. Is that the best England can offer?
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