SA v Ireland test 2

Humphreys spent time on the bench

All true, and the only thing I'd add is Humphries spent his first three years at test level competing with Eric Elwood, until he retired after the 1999 World Cup. He tends to be overlooked as we rightly celebrate Humphries, O'Gara, and Sexton; but Elwood was rare a bright light in what was a dark time for Irish rugby in the mid and late 1990s.

Beating world champions in ther own turf is more meaningful than a club game, be it a final, besides having the guts to try it again afer what happened, is even more special, most players would hide in that situation, but the greats learn, and try again

Couldn't agree more. I'm forever banging on about this. I call it the Nigel Owens effect. He brought the "referee as centre stage" to new levels. He got plenty of publicity for doing so. A lot of the other refs (particularly British ones) want a piece of that action and attention.

I detest the first names nonsense. The players should be referred to as the number on their back or the position.

Glad I am not the only one who thinks this. There is a promising player in Pollard, but he has been pushed into a pattern where he is not the playmaker and he rarely takes the ball as first receiver, I don't know if he will be that player again. If you saw how he played for the under-20's he was flat on the line and threatening it. Now he just stands back as a forward or De Allende takes the ball at first receiver.

Add in he is terrible on defense as well. He misses a lot of one on one tackles. But…he has 2 world cup wins and that counts for so much more than playing well or being the playmaker as Sexton was. He was paid a lot of money by Montpellier and only played 29 matches in 3 years and was on the bench before he left. I think that says a lot about him. He was also relatively anonymous against Leinster in the Champions Cup, both matches, this year.

Libbok cannot be trusted to kick at goal, but he offers so much more on attack. Rassie though is a conservative coach and he will go with the player that will execute the game plan over Libbok who is more unpredictable. Rassie likes his playmakers on 11, 14 and 15 where they are far away from the ball.

Libbok might have missed a few kicks - like Pollard did last week - but he might have added a bit of attacking spark and Pollard made a lot of errors.

SA never looked like scoring a try unless it was from one of the back three picking it up in broken play and scorching up the field. Their OH was a non-entity.

I feel sorry for the refs tbh. Rugby is becoming like football withfans whinging about refs. Plenty of Irish fans think that Ireland and their provinces only ever lose game because of the refs. It's embarrassing. One minutes rugby fans whinge about the TMO getting too involved, the next rugby fans whinge when the a TMO doesn't get involved. It seems they'll always be in a no win situation. Letting managers ans certain players away with the antic they have around the refs has made it even worse as well.

He basically accused Lawes of coming from a privileged background and claimed his father was a high up in some big multinational based on research he had done. He ascribed Lawes' conservative politics to this. Turns out Lawes came from a single income family who lived on the breadline. Lawes was fairly upset and called him out on it.

I've no love whatsoever for Tories but Squidge had no right to go digging for muck because he doesn't like Lawes' politics. It's even worse when you consider he claimed Lawes was like that because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth when it's the farthest thing from the truth.

Whilst arguments can be made for both,they are different levels (club v country) You do understand that,right?

some game. What a finish. The last 10 minutes was unreal stuff.
some balls on Frawley two unreal drop kicks.

Delighted to beat them, their arrogance is unreal. Playing zombie last week, they can shove it up their holes.

full match

Revolutionary new tactic: diving before making contact with the opposition player.