South Africa vs England: Predict the series result.

South africa and england in are very much in the same boat. They will both be sporting a new coach, a whole host of new players and hopefully a new game plan as well.

I wouldn't hold my breath to much yet, if you are a South African supporter though. Heyneke Meyer will have to put his money where his mouth is, there are a handfull of players most likely not available for the series, some due to retirement and some due to the fact they they have signed overseas contracts. John Smit, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Fourie du Preez, Frans Steyn, Jaque Fourie, Juan Smith and Guthro Steenkamp are all players who may not be available for the series.

So you could expect a new look springbok teama dnthis in my opinion is the best chance for england to get a series win over the Springboks.

England ended the six Nations strong by eating the Irish alive, the question does however remain on whether they will be able to evolve their game plan beyond individual performances and a strong forward pack.

England has been the most successful home nation touring to the SH giants, they have played 39 test matches and won 8, their last win coming against australia in 2010

I've gone for 2-1 to South Africa.

This series is impossible to call really, as we are yet to see what sort of side Meyer will select, and we still don't know who will lead England in the summer.

Going on Lancaster being in charge and the strides that England have made, I think we have the ability to at very least take a test out there. I suspect that there will be little change in gameplan for the Boks under Meyer, with Morne at 10 and a forward dominated approach.

I can't see this series being pretty, but I can see it being enthralling.

It should be a fascinating build up and series - there are so many unansered questions. Obviously SA will be strong favourites playing at home, but any side that is missing John Smit, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Fourie du Preez, Frans Steyn, Jaque Fourie, Juan Smith and Guthro Steenkamp must have some big doubts about them. I hope that England take their strongest squad out there or they could suffer. Hopefully the hard pitches in SA will help England to develop a more expansive game.

Geez thats the guts out of the middle but even more I think its the leadership that is missing and not replacing some of these players earlier may cost SA this year. In fact theres potential for a horror year I'd hate to suggest.

Replacing long term players and leaders in key positions in the tight, loose and midfield areas isnt easy and we went through that some time ago- late 90's early 00's with the switchover from the Fitzy, Jones, Cullen, Wilson days when weak ol' Randall and Blackadder were at the helm.

Hanging on to those players has left a huge hole of experience and they need to be replaced quickly- a big ask indeed.

Who is the logical captain after Smit and Matfield are gone?

The best thing about this is the opportunity SA have been given to kickstart another era of SA rugby. Thats the exciting part. Nailbiting during the transition is the not so fun bit.

In saying that we are in a similar boat though we're not losing as many key leaders with McCaw, Carter, Smith, Mealamu etc still there.

England have turned around rather quickly as though everything that happened between the two Ireland 6N matches 2011 and 2012 didnt even happen such was their form this time last year.

Are the vote options correct? How does SA 1, Eng 0 work as an option?

Taylorman I think some of the positions don't concern me to much.

Our front row will be better for it with Beast, Bismarck and Jannie.

Locks, Andries Bekker will step up no doubt, the other lock is a question mark.

Backrow will be fine, so only our tight five will not only lose experinece but also with Danie rossouw who has been a stand out, stand in gone, it might lack the leadership you are talking about.

For all intnet and purposes SA have not been playing with their back line on attack fro some time. My biggest concern is the potential loss of Jaque Fourie. The other concern is the host of small players that might get a look in, such as Aplon, Du Jongh, Basson.

This could severely affect our defensive organisation, and I expect us to leak a good number of tries.

Taylorman wrote:Are the vote options correct? How does SA 1, Eng 0 work as an option?

two draws.

Come on Taylor 3 test series it is extremely complicated to figure out what should be up there in the poll.

Thats true., Could just leave them out I suppose
Mind you- chances are over 9 tests one draw is probably likely.

Good to have this this year. Why havnt we had these earlier?

won't be able to tell you, the logic of test rugby makes no sense. I would prefer the autumn internationals also to be test series, not one offs

2-1 to South Africa for me

God i am boring, 2-1 to the Saffers

4-0 Saffers

Woodstock wrote:4-0 Saffers

I suppose the 4th win is the fight?

2-1 for me with ENG winning the first test in Durban.

Its a question of personnel really for ENG. Their strength in depth is not as strong as the boks IMO. They looked quite exposed at Hooker, Prop, Centre and Wing if they get any injuries.

Go into the match with their XV similar to that now and fresh then I would back them to win one match at least.

SA - They still have a lot of leaders out there.... Burger, JDV, Bismaarck and even now Frans Steyn can be counted as senior players with an air of authority about them.
With rumours that Frans will be back into the fold for the summer tour I do feel that ENG will need to be at their best esp. in the backs to compete.

The forwards... Croft and Parling will be key to disrupting SA's new lineout yet if chosen Kruger should be able to give useful insight against Hartley & Lawes from his time at Northampton.

Meyer has to be careful about this one... lose a series and his season could tumble down from there. Many of us from outside of the transvaal don't hold him in such a favourable light as those particularly in loftus do. He doesn't have the weapons he has traditionally built his teams around so it will be interesting to see how he plans to re-establish SA on the world scene.

Yeah, I am reserving judgment on Heyneke Meyer as well.

This is the team I reckon he will pick (injuries aside)

Beast, Bismaarck, Jannie, Bekker, Kruger, Burger (c), Brussow, Spies, Hougaard, M. Steyn, Basson, Lambie, De Jongh, Aplon, F. Steyn... perhaps Lambie & F. Steyn will swap places.

I reckon that side will cause ENG a lot of problems. Morne, Frans and Lambie are all good kickers and if ENG go into the series fielding only Farrell or Flood as a recognised kicker then ENG may be beaten on the length and accuracy of their terrirtorial kicks from hand.

Perhaps ENG should play with Flood at 10 and Farrell at 12 to counter this threat and drop Barritt to the bench. I think Farrell on his own will be very exposed esp. given his lack of test experience. Perhaps they could counter this by putting SA's front five on the back foot but with Brussow, Bismaarck & Schalk on the breakdown its unlikely this will have much positive impact.

I would prefer the bruising power of Willem alberts rather than Pierre Spies.

Wouldn't want to see a combination of Aplon, Bassn and Du Jongh. Tuiali, Croft and Morgan will have a field day against those three.

JP Pietersen has loked good at centre, Haban is seemingly getting his work rate up again and his confidence back. A bad Habana is still better than an Aplon or Basson.

I hope Jaque fourie hasn;t forsaken us completely, without him we are lost.

We do not have a prayer against the Saffas. I agree with the 4-0 prediction.

We might as well send a D team "for experience" and cop another tour of hell.

Our kick chase game with rush defence may work well in rainy conditions but it wont work on the fast South African tracks.

Also we still dont have a specialist 7.

We're in for a thrashing.

I agree on Spies... I reckon there are about 3 or 4 better players holding their hands up... its just that I reckon Meyer would pick Spies.

I must admit I forgot about Pietersen.. SA will look a bit vunerable with the revolving door De Jongh defending against Tuilagi... Pietersen would be a much better choice at 13... although De Jongh is the superior attacker.

You really think Du jongh is better in attack than Pietersen. wow, I truly don't think so.

He is quick of the mark yes, but Pietersen is stronger running into the defender, can break tackles easier and still has enough pace to hit a whole. du Jongh for me doesn't look for the offload much either, where as Pietersen does.

Triangulation

2 of the matches will be played on the coast in June (our autumn).. its a little different from the hard pitches of Bloemfontein.

You should have a little more confidence on your team... they aren't that much below SA in terms of their 1st team quality.

You just look at the history and think 2-1 to SA if we're lucky...

But I'm a little more irrational than that.

So I'm going to assume the vast majority of the ifs and buts are settled and the preparations have gone well and this bunch has some of the fizz I think (again, perhaps irrationally) it does and say England can do better than that.

An England 3-0 series win would be an outright disaster for SA. I just can't see it happening. So I'm going to chance it a bit and say 2-1 to England and Biltongbek wearing black in mourning for PDV. Yaaay!

biltongbek

I'm a big fan of Pietersen and think he could go on another 10 years... he has that Mike Catt/Monty look about him (whilst a winger his game has never been about pace).

I think De Jongh is superior in terms of eyeing a gap and is more explosive.

You're right about the offload though... he can be very frustrating.. but thats probably due to him being young and right up to SR he was probably running rings around entire teams from the first time he picked up a rugby ball. He will mature though.

Fa, it sure will be interesting to see what Meyer comes up with.

But I have to admit, I am nervous, I don't trust anyone coming from north of the Jukskei river to have any inclination of anyhting other than 10 man rugby. My fear is we will be stuck in that mould for another 4 years.

biltongbek... its been very successful in the past both for Meyer and SA so perhaps just perhaps it may just work. I would question the quality of his personnel to achieve such success on that plan however.

In the end... I doubt any fan really cares about entertaining rugby if it comes against winning rugby.

I think they could all be close...two teams in rebuilding.

2-1 to the boks...

A loss for England but success as more players are blooded and do well in an unforgiving rugby arena...

Look I don't want us to play like any other nation, I do however expect more variation and less predictability.

Morne Steyn is in my eyes the most predictable flyhalf in world rugby.

2-1 Boks. We should have enough to win a game and challenge for the series, but in SA I'm not hopeful that we will win it

given Englands recent record over Aus, I would prefer to be touring there than SA who we have been terrible against in recent years. Correct me if I'm wrong but England havent won in SA since 2000, which is clearly dreadful.

With a raft of new faces in both teams, its very difficult to predict. Despite the uncertainty factor of SA, I cant see us winning a series there so will (optimistically) predict a 2-1 scoreline to SA.

I wonder what the actual targets will be.

Surely for the Boks its to win a home series.

For England probably to win 1 game and be competitive in the others..with the key targets to give more fringe players exposure to this level of rugby...

biltongbek wrote:Look I don't want us to play like any other nation, I do however expect more variation and less predictability.

Morne Steyn is in my eyes the most predictable flyhalf in world rugby.

Have you seen Beauxis play? I guess with him its hard to predict where the ball will actually go but you can see where hes going ot try and kick it.

fa0019 wrote:Triangulation

2 of the matches will be played on the coast in June (our autumn).. its a little different from the hard pitches of Bloemfontein.

You should have a little more confidence on your team... they aren't that much below SA in terms of their 1st team quality.

fa0019

We haven't a hope. We'll be thrashed. We haven't a hope.

I have been chanting this mantra all the way through the 6N and i am not about to stop now!

PSW, the problem we have had with our back line can be summarised in one player's performance.

Under Jake white Habana scored 30 tries in 35 tests. Under PDv he scored 10 tries in 39 matches.

You may want to argue a player loses form, but it is only game plan that can be blamed when a wing who scored near a try per test, has been reduced to 1 try every 4 games.

damngoodOvalball wrote:given Englands recent record over Aus, I would prefer to be touring there than SA who we have been terrible against in recent years. Correct me if I'm wrong but England havent won in SA since 2000, which is clearly dreadful.

With a raft of new faces in both teams, its very difficult to predict. Despite the uncertainty factor of SA, I cant see us winning a series there so will (optimistically) predict a 2-1 scoreline to SA.

I disagree. As an England supporter i see this as a possible opportunity to improve our rubbish record in SA. You see threat i see oppportunity. That said i cant see us standing a chance in hell - But with credit in the bank the results are not as important as continuing development.

Against Australia it is pretty obvious that we would again try (probably with some success) to smash them at scrum time. As a result i think that the rest of our game may not develop much over there because it may not get the needed attention.

In SA we wont be able to smash scrum and will be FORCED to develop something more in attack.

All to the good.

Hey Tri it's too early for the reverse psychology! We need to wait until the lads are on the plane, then really ramp up the doom- mongering!

biltongbek wrote:PSW, the problem we have had with our back line can be summarised in one player's performance.

Under Jake white Habana scored 30 tries in 35 tests. Under PDv he scored 10 tries in 39 matches.

You may want to argue a player loses form, but it is only game plan that can be blamed when a wing who scored near a try per test, has been reduced to 1 try every 4 games.

See also : Chris Ahston
With Wilko/Flood/Johnson : 18 games 15 tries
With Hodgson/Farrrel ( plus one sub from Flood)/ Lancaster : 5 games 0 tries

Triangulation wrote:

damngoodOvalball wrote:given Englands recent record over Aus, I would prefer to be touring there than SA who we have been terrible against in recent years. Correct me if I'm wrong but England havent won in SA since 2000, which is clearly dreadful.

With a raft of new faces in both teams, its very difficult to predict. Despite the uncertainty factor of SA, I cant see us winning a series there so will (optimistically) predict a 2-1 scoreline to SA.

I disagree. As an England supporter i see this as a possible opportunity to improve our rubbish record in SA. You see threat i see oppportunity. That said i cant see us standing a chance in hell - But with credit in the bank the results are not as important as continuing development.

Against Australia it is pretty obvious that we would again try (probably with some success) to smash them at scrum time. As a result i think that the rest of our game may not develop much over there because it may not get the needed attention.

I see you point Tri, although we did play a pretty open game in our last two outings against Oz scoring (I think) 5 tries in all, with some decent running rugby. That said, the victory in Oz was based on totally demolishing them up front. Will be interesting to see how Wales get on there. Despite their awful record in Oz, I can see them taking a Test down there. England will have to utilise Foden and the wings far more than we did in the 6N in order to do well in SA.

damngoodOvalball wrote:

Triangulation wrote:

damngoodOvalball wrote:given Englands recent record over Aus, I would prefer to be touring there than SA who we have been terrible against in recent years. Correct me if I'm wrong but England havent won in SA since 2000, which is clearly dreadful.

With a raft of new faces in both teams, its very difficult to predict. Despite the uncertainty factor of SA, I cant see us winning a series there so will (optimistically) predict a 2-1 scoreline to SA.

I disagree. As an England supporter i see this as a possible opportunity to improve our rubbish record in SA. You see threat i see oppportunity. That said i cant see us standing a chance in hell - But with credit in the bank the results are not as important as continuing development.

Against Australia it is pretty obvious that we would again try (probably with some success) to smash them at scrum time. As a result i think that the rest of our game may not develop much over there because it may not get the needed attention.

I see you point Tri, although we did play a pretty open game in our last two outings against Oz scoring (I think) 5 tries in all, with some decent running rugby. That said, the victory in Oz was based on totally demolishing them up front. Will be interesting to see how Wales get on there. Despite their awful record in Oz, I can see them taking a Test down there. England will have to utilise Foden and the wings far more than we did in the 6N in order to do well in SA.

I'm not convinced that Wales are ruthless enough with their scrum as a weapon. Alternatively they cant help themselves and want to (mistakenly) use the backs when the forwards are on top and would possibly do the job more efficiently. E.g in the England v Wales game i thought there was one occasion when they were on top and won a scrum penalty they should have taken another scrum but they took another option. It was a missed opportunity i remember thinking. We take those opportunities. When our scrum is on top 1) we know it and 2) we turn the screw.

Carpe Diem wrote:Hey Tri it's too early for the reverse psychology! We need to wait until the lads are on the plane, then really ramp up the doom- mongering!

Carpe Diem

Yes fair point. Sensible discussion and then the doom mongering as we approach the match!

As many have said, there are really too many unknowns here so it's very tough to call.

Aside from the fact that English performances improved throughout the 6 nations, perhaps more encouraging is that we displayed a lack of fear and a positive intensity in all of the matches. Maintaining this attitude on a tour to South Africa is - of course - a much bigger test of our inexperienced squad, but if Lancaster remains at the helm then I am quietly confident that they will go and give a good account of themselves (there are at least 5 unknowns in those last couple of sentences!! ).

(there are at least 5 unknowns in those last couple of sentences!! ).

chuckle. Yeah. And one of them is your prediction!

Triangulation wrote:

fa0019 wrote:Triangulation
2 of the matches will be played on the coast in June (our autumn).. its a little different from the hard pitches of Bloemfontein.
You should have a little more confidence on your team... they aren't that much below SA in terms of their 1st team quality.

fa0019
We haven't a hope. We'll be thrashed. We haven't a hope.
I have been chanting this mantra all the way through the 6N and i am not about to stop now!

You've been chanting that mantra for as long as I can remember.
When was the last time that you felt that we had a reasonable chance in any match?

About 18 months ago, I remember you saying that we were going to lost every AI by a record margin and that we should rebuild the entire team
Well, we won some of those games and played well in others (as well as badly)
You seemed to go quiet for a while after that


I've been away from the forum for a while, and now I come back and you're still saying the same old nonsense.
Can't you just try to be a little bit positive?
It really does make it all a little bit more enjoyable

(Until we lose the series 3-0 by 20 points in each match.... and then I'll join you)

Let's put it this way. With so many new faces and injuries, England were not given much of a chance in this 6N. They ended up being not too far away from a back-to-back 6N win. I think they have found a points scorer who will be able to tick the scoreboard over.

What both sides have not been so good at is being more ambitious in their style of play. England´s victory against Ireland was more or less won in the scrum. SA did not play a ball-in-hand style of play under PDV. Neither side has to play an expansive game but a more varied game wouldn´t go amiss.

SA is not an easy place to play. It is one of the toughest asks in world rugby. But England won all their games away this 6N. It´s a much tougher ask but not beyond the realms of possibility. A very interesting series in store. Who will chance their arm? Who will get psychological ascendancy? You´d have to say SA has the latter at the moment but things can change quickly.

Cowshot wrote:

(there are at least 5 unknowns in those last couple of sentences!! ).

chuckle. Yeah. And one of them is your prediction!

Right, maybe it's cos it's nearly lunchtime, or maybe it's cos it's nearly the weekend, but I'm feeling optimistic....I've gone 2-1 to England!!

Triangulation wrote:

I disagree. As an England supporter i see this as a possible opportunity to improve our rubbish record in SA. You see threat i see oppportunity. That said i cant see us standing a chance in hell - But with credit in the bank the results are not as important as continuing development.

Against Australia it is pretty obvious that we would again try (probably with some success) to smash them at scrum time. As a result i think that the rest of our game may not develop much over there because it may not get the needed attention.

In SA we wont be able to smash scrum and will be FORCED to develop something more in attack.

All to the good.

OK... I take it back....
that's actually quite positive.....


Sorry

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

biltongbek wrote:PSW, the problem we have had with our back line can be summarised in one player's performance.

Under Jake white Habana scored 30 tries in 35 tests. Under PDv he scored 10 tries in 39 matches.

You may want to argue a player loses form, but it is only game plan that can be blamed when a wing who scored near a try per test, has been reduced to 1 try every 4 games.

See also : Chris Ahston
With Wilko/Flood/Johnson : 18 games 15 tries
With Hodgson/Farrrel ( plus one sub from Flood)/ Lancaster : 5 games 0 tries

Hmmmm...
With Flood, during the 6N's last year, Ashton was popping up on Floods shoulder all the time waiting for an Inside pass.
He used that to great effect in a few games at the start of the tournament.
It then appeared as though the opposition got wise and cut that channel down....
In my opinion, that's when Ashton stopped scoring.

The other thing in England's favour is that half our team will be playing at home

wasps wrote:

The other thing in England's favour is that half our team will be playing at home

Damn, there goes our home advantage.