POLL: England vs South Africa

[Michael Alexander]

What will the outcome of Saturday's final be?

???

[Yvette Kroukamp (Biccard)]

I'll say one very pissed SA nation and finally I can remove the "leaping springbokkies" from my lounge wall.  And a certain family member can put away those bloody springbok horns, she insists on wearing in front of the TV.

And by the way Richard, "my cutex is green" so there!!!!!

Bokke!!!

[darryl weidemann]

i say we should beat the poms provided we remember to do the basics right.
prediction : SA 25 ENG 17

[Michael Alexander]

I prefer 36-0

;D

[Paul Alexander]

SA 21 - 12 ENG

Done deal, I've already watched the game... so I know

[Richard Opperman]

Hi Yvette,

We would not allow bokkies to graze in our lounge - skiet die ding!!  ;D

Quite a - cutey - "My Cutex is Green"  :)

Cutex en Bloed hou hande en ons sal wen!!

Go Bokke!!

[Michael Alexander]

Paul, go for a spit braai rather...mmmh!  ;D

[Dalene Steenkamp (Coetzee)]

Weet nie hoekom ons moet POLL nie -  dit gaan vir die Bokke net so verloop soos die VRYSTAAT teen die bulletjies.

I'm not going to predict a score, but I know that I'll have to stock up on 'giggel sous' for celebrations during and after the game!

Mike -  will see you in Bloem for the finals.  Was there yesterday - everything still wet, but as we all have seen, the Vrystaters can swim and play rugby and they can do both at the same time as well. 

[Yvette Kroukamp (Biccard)]

Richard & Erwin make the trip we cant watch the game alone man!!!  :-*

Nita and Debby stock up on airtime before the game.

[darryl weidemann]

i dont know how many of you follow the banter that happens between the teams before and leading up to the game , its quite something ....the england team are saying that the one chap in the team ( i think they said his name was taite) would match habana for speed ....ha!! then the idiot says he does not have the big side step of the basic strength of habana but the speed he has....now what kind of idiot thinks that speed is the only thing that makes habana good ...if thats the case this poor chap is in for a large wake up call

[Julie Vice (Willson)]

Greg read "The Sun" the UK skinner blad today and the tabloids say that the English team plans to ruffel Percys hair to put him off his game. It's bad if they have to stoop so low to try and win a match, wouldn't it be funny if he shaved his head befor the game, that would bugger up their game plan.

Paula
:)

[Sheena]

Hi Paula

When are you back in town?  Need to know if I must arrange something for Noel's birthday or not.
Be good and see you soon.

[Michael Alexander]

I just read this in the New Zealand Herald, the Kiwi's are behind us...

"Chris Rattue: Please Springboks end this nightmare
Come on South Africa. Please, please, please.
If there is any justice in this world, the Springboks will annihilate England in the Rugby World Cup final on Sunday morning and strike a blow for southern hemisphere rugby's mad, crazy obsession with providing a bit of entertainment.
England are in the World Cup final. England are in the World Cup final. England are in the World Cup final. You can repeat these words over and over again, and they still sound like a crazy nightmare.
Boring and hopeless England are in the World Cup final ... it doesn't get any better.
How about England are the world champions, England are the world champions, England are the world champions. That might be next week's real live nightmare, featuring a cast of characters all scoffing at what takes place in southern hemisphere rugby. How on earth did this tournament come to such a hellish state?
Looking on the positive side, if there is one, it was a great relief to see Argentina shoved out of the tournament by South Africa, whose pack was shoved all over the place by the
England's semifinal meandering against a very average French team at least provided a close and therefore gripping contest, thanks largely to the brilliant Paris crowd and stadium.
But once again, the delights of Argentinian rugby escaped me, to be honest.
Surely Argentina weren't the darlings of the tournament, as some made out.
The darlings of sporting world cups are actually teams like the Ghanian soccer outfit whose adventure and skill blossoms from out of impoverished ground.
Mini-me England rugby teams like Argentina aren't darlings. They are dullards and it's very difficult to work out why anyone would think the Sanzar tournaments would be enhanced by continually flying our players all the way to Buenos Aires so they can get mown down by a load of life-sized bowling balls. It would take years off the players' careers, not to mention their lives.
Yes, the Pumas face obstacles and don't get the respect they deserve and blah blah blah but could there have been a more tragic Rugby World Cup final than the sight of Argentinian beef barging into British bulldog for 80 minutes? It would have been rugby's answer to barking mad cow disease.
Just imagine. Had that final ended at say two penalties and three drop kicks all, it would have led to extra time consisting of more of the same, followed by the most appropriate ending of all - a goalkicking contest.
There is actually an even more appropriate deadlock-breaking system the IRB should institute, having witnessed the kick-orientated game plans employed by most teams at this World Cup.
That would be force back, the one-tactic schoolyard kicking game in which most of the combatants are too slow or disinterested to get involved, and a couple of clever clogs take over because they can punt the ball a country mile.
This World Cup should actually have been played on a grassy reserve, with a cluster of feijoa trees at one end, a slippery bank at the other, with a jungle gym and tuck shop nearby. The conclusion to all the games should have been signalled with a bell.
In fact, what is needed in Paris is for a school kid to run out on to the field during the final and invent a new World Cup by picking up the ball and running with it.
So, a tournament of fascinating upsets and endless kicking is near its end. This final isn't just a game between two teams we don't care about, however.
It was an eerie and deeply disturbing experience being at an English friend's place on Sunday morning, as Ashton's Army bludgeoned France with an array of blunt instruments.
Never, in a month of Sundays, did I think the price to pay for a superb English semifinal breakfast during this World Cup tournament would be watching a grown man wriggling on the floor while singing "Swing low, swing chariot".
What the heck is that song about anyway?
"I can't wait to get to work this week," the friend announced, positively oozing a new-found Jonny Wilkinson work ethic as I swung my chariot at speed out of his drive.
"Must get to work myself," I yelled back, while catching a glimpse of an over-sized Union Jack tea mug in the rear vision mirror. England's march must be brought to a halt before the world wakes up to find it has a Sir Brian Ashton in its midst.
For the sake of this final, the Springboks represent all that is right in rugby, sport, and the universe, even though in reality they aren't much more inventive than Argentina and live off mistakes like a fourth term politician.
At least the Springboks have an element of talent in their backline, and when their halfback Fourie du Preez is on song, it is hard to recall a better player wearing a test No 9 jersey. Du Preez and the lineout king Victor Matfield should be the major difference between the sides in the final.
Even more importantly than South Africa's small nod to a running game, they are now the de facto representatives of New Zealand and Australian rugby. It's now up to Jake White and Eddie Jones to set things right on behalf of Tri-Nations frivolity.
We can't share in South African glory should they lift the Webb Ellis Trophy for a second time, but we can sleep a lot easier if they do. A lot easier.
"

;D

[Michael Alexander]

and for those of you that are interested in foreign opinion of this great clash,here is a link..

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=1501154&objectid=10468400

[Richard Opperman]

Hi Michael,

A bit of sour grapes if you ask me, like the Aussie  - Whine - Cherry and Kenny posted under another topic.  ;D

Read this article two days ago on www.rugbyheaven.co.nz - bit more positive towards the Bokke!

Boks - what the All Blacks could have been
By MARC HINTON - RugbyHeaven | Monday, 15 October 2007

That was how the All Blacks could have played. Should have played. An exercise in clinical finishing, punishment of opposition errors and how to play front-running rugby. The Springboks are the team New Zealand could have been, if they were good enough.

That's the stark realisation that struck me after watching the South Africans secure their place in next weekend's World Cup final, and with it, surely, their second global title. Only a rugby god with a cruel sense of perspective would reward the limited, if gritty, England side with a second straight crown.

It's been impressive stuff from the Boks, pretty much throughout the tournament. They made the most emphatic of statements with their 36-0 dismantling of England in pool play, lost concentration a bit with their second-string outfit against Tonga, took care of the rest easily enough and then survived a Fijian comeback in the quarter-final and were good enough to win easing away.

Then, when it really counted, when they were up against a legitimate threat, which Marcelo Loffreda's Pumas assuredly were, they took their game up a level. They pounced on two intercepts, punished the Argentinians for an error in possession for another and put Bryan Habana into all the space he needed for the fourth. Meanwhile Percy Montgomery – one of many individual success story in this Boks lineup – kicked the goals with unerring precision.

The Pumas, like the French, were a team that could have been a real handful if you let them. But the Boks never let them get a sniff. Each time they'd look like working their way back into the match, the South Africans would strike, either with a try or a penalty, and move the buffer back out. In the end the Argentines were left playing a game of catchup they were ill at ease with.

It was impressive stuff by the South Africans who I think will win next weekend's final with some ease. Having spent some time around them the week of their quarter-final in Marseille, I got a fair sense of what they're about.

There's a real purpose about these Springboks, a feeling that destiny is theirs to take. There's a slight inclination to take their eye off the ball when they sense they don't have to produce their very best (ie against Fiji) but when they know their A game is required, they're good enough to deliver it.

I also don't think they've produced anything near their best since that shutout of the English. Even then their forwards took a bit of a knock back that day, conceding a couple of tightheads at scrum time and struggling to impose in their normal physical fashion.

I expect them to respond in style in the final. And if that happens, with the Boks' ability to finish, and to collect points at regular intervals, they could pull away from an English side that needs to keep the score low to have any chance.

There's no doubt that the All Blacks could have cut a similar swathe through this tournament and, by rights, should have been squaring up against them in what would have been an epic final next week.

But when it counted the New Zealanders could not put away an inferior team. They could not make their dominance pay. They couldn't punish an opponent struggling to stay in the match.

But there are also many more differences. This is a settled Boks outfit. Graham Henry never gave his men a chance to go anywhere near that state of comfort.

It's also a match hardened one. Most of these men played the entire Super 14, the majority right to the very end, where, fittingly, two South African sides fought out the final. When they needed a little break to recharge the batteries, it was given them during the meaningless test season, which was nothing more than a phoney war.

Do these Boks looked tired to you, as Henry insisted his All Blacks would have been if he'd asked them to play maybe as many as 13 matches in the Super 14? Like heck they do. There's a spring in their step, as there should be with a world title right within their grasp.

As mentioned I expect them to win easily in the final. For Os du Randt who is looking to bookend his remarkable career with World Cup crowns; for the incomparable Victor Matfield who's off to play his rugby in France; for Fourie du preez, the most complete halfback of this era; for Montgomery who has reinvented himself as a classy test fullback; for that fantastic skipper of theirs, the redoubtable John Smit; and for young talents such as Bryan Habana, Frans Steyn, JP Pietersen, Juan Smith and Schalk Burger who deserve the ultimate reward for their endeavour.

But most of all I expect them to win because they're a balanced, motivated, hardened, effective rugby team who can play whatever style they have to in order to win a test match.

The addition of Eddie Jones was also a master stroke that cannot be overplayed. Not only has the Australian's tactical acumen been vital, but the pressure he has taken off Jake White as a confidante and co-conspirator has been immense. The Boks coach, finally given an offsider he respects, likes and is invigorated by, has been in his element this World Cup.

Who knows, maybe as New Zealand continues its fruitless search for an All Blacks coach with the vision and veracity to bring back the World Cup, they could do worse than cast their net the way of the Boks coach who will be looking for a new job after this World Cup. Seems to me like the guy knows his stuff. And apparently he loves the New Zealand rugby culture.  ???

Won't happen. I know that. Doesn't mean it shouldn't.  :P

GO BOKKE!!  8)