Praise to John Hayes too. Vickery was starting to fade after Rapellele was
replaced by a real hooker but the Bull did some might scrummaging. His power
lifting in lineouts and receiving kick-outs was immense also.
How Shane Williams got the MOTM is beyond me. He took both tries well, screwed
up another one with his aimless centering kick to no-mans-land and was totally
out of position for the two 'nearly' tries by SA. Bowe saved his ass big time.
Rob Kearney was immense and Heaslip put in the most physical performance of his
career.
I think Ireland would beat that team and either of their other Test XVs but it
was apparent that the Boks did lack the intensity they demonstrated in the
previous matches.
Good point about Hook/ROG last week Donal, but ROG was blown out of a tackle in
the exact same ways as Roberts. ROG was dazed but continued; Roberts wound up
having to go off. That surely demonstrates just how difficult Spies is to bring
down when running at you full tilt. ROG should have stayed down!
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: Frank Long
To: irishrugby@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2009 4:57 PM
Subject: RE: [irishrugby] Much better, but too little too late






Wasn't a full strength SA team, while a nice win, IMO, not really that big a
deal.

A full SA team would have been a different story, unfortunately.

I hope the reaction to this doesn't go overboard.


To: irishrugby@yahoogroups.com
From: obriaind@...
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 16:52:24 +0000
Subject: [irishrugby] Much better, but too little too late

Great performance in the end, but will only exacerbate the "what-ifs" from the
first 2.

For example, if bringing on Ellis and moving Philips to centre was a better
option to replace Flutey than putting Hook on as a straight swap, why was ROG
brought on in the centre last week?

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