Ireland v South Africa Virgin media 17:30

I watched the game on the South African Super Sport channel. I tend to do this when ireland play to see what the other side are saying.

Sky New Zealand provided ireland for their win and team progression over the few years after the series win.

South African pundits, complained for 15 mins solid about the ref. The actually complained about the ref before the game started which frankly shows the mindset

Kolbe isnt getting cited, rassies whinging likely have made WR gun shy and dont want to give him more ammo for bias complaints. Both of them deserve a citing for that spear tackle.

If it starts to have an effect on how refs approach games involving SA because of the fear that Rassie will target them, and or if it dissuades WR from penalizing SA or citing players then it's bad news for rugby as it will basically force other coaches to follow suit. To me this is a potential arms race and WR should really sort it out by throwing the book at Rassie and go after the SA union to get it under control.

The fish rots from the head.

Be interesting to see how we build around that. The space was there to be exploited, if those passes had stuck.

Ireland would be more worried than SA.3 illegal moves to score tries from and played against a team with no specialist 10 or fullback and just got over the line.

The only reason he landed on his shoulder was because Hansen moved, the players involved in the tackle took no care, the intent behind the tackle should be whats punished not the result which in this case was nowhere near as bad as it could have been which was solely down to Hansens ability to not allow his neck be snapped.

I know the way the card and citing system works is mainly the problem here but its no less annoying that 2 players get away with such dreadful actions.

U talk about intent?what about sexton around the neck?or Hansen taking a player out in the air when not contesting the ball at all?that’s all intent.anyway little things like that get missed all the time.what I think is worse is when a game is decided by bad reffing.one maybe two tries where forward passes,kicking the ball out resulting in a try when the other team got penalized for that only a few minutes earlier.was a good game otherwise and like I said SA wouldn’t be too worried.

I don't think the pass for Hansen's try was in any way definitively forward, and I don't think bad reffing decided the game. I think Ireland did really well against some, eh, let's say Big Bokkes.

That just shows what a muppet u are if u can’t look at it without ur green glasses on.

...I’m not here to be biased but anyone looking at the game as a neutral will agree.

But you're not exactly neutral either; you're a SA fan, right?

Some belated thoughts on that:

• Must be one of the most physical test matches I've seen in awhile (the first half in particular). We weathered the storm, lost 3 starters and still improved in the 2nd half. Quality.
• To get a try from a lineout maul against that pack is no mean feat. Huge credit to VDF for the finish as well.
• Hansen's try was class as well; we seem to be really trying to attack on turnover ball and keeping the ball alive (which is at the point the defence is at it's most unstructured).
• Great to be scoring very different types of tries; defence's will have to respect our maul and our attack thru the backs. (And the handling of some of the forwards in phase play is really excellent).
• Felt sorry for McCloskey; was going really well and could be another option for us. JOB excellent when he came on.
• Also thought it was Murray's best game in awhile. He clearly doesn't bring the same zip as JGP, but on this showing still has something to offer. (Incidentally, as an aside, I think JGP's box kicking has improved; the one in the lead up to the try was excellent).
• The back-row were all exceptional. There may have been a worry pre-game they were under-powered against their counterparts (especially with Beirne in the 2nd row too), but they didn't take a backwards step. Doris MOTM for me.
• Hansen got the try, but overall I thought he was excellent. I think there was a spell where Johnny was down injured and he stepped in as the main player-maker. He's making himself pretty central to how we play.
• Bealham has become a quality back-up to Furlong. The cover on the LH side is now a much bigger worry.
• James Ryan put himself about, but thought he was very lucky with a few of his ruck entries. You play to the line the ref dictates, but I fear it could come back to bite us at some point.
• I think it was the scrum penalty Bealham won where the 2 prop's went down on their heads gave me pause about how dangerous any scrum can be. We complain about speed of re-sets (and it is a problem) but it's definitely understandable when you think of the safety aspect.

Utterly delicious that the poster doesn't have the self awareness to see the irony in this post.

Didn’t drop a player on he’s head