All Black Tour: what did we learn so far

Opening up a thread to drive some conversations around how we think local players are performing, how the teams has played against the mighty abs and what clues the boks should look for

Here is my take.

Stormers game was probably the toughest test, as per rest protocol, many key players were still running around their Speedos in Clifton beach taking on the local life savers in a game of touch. Yet, the Stormers did pitch up, only to be depleted of quality players. One thing I would say, only Rassie knows how to use a 6/2 split or even a 7/1. Dobbo has no brains. That is why you hear and often see players go from flank to hooker. Or from wing to scrum half. The game is tough injuries happen and need to have the player mentality that they want to play, and will play anywhere.

The ABs almost came off 2nd best, really poor discipline, but got a win. Stormers fielded Yasqueen, seemed solid, but nothing flashy and the 40 year old playing for 63 minutes and being a menace. Had it been a conditioned team with all of the boks like Willemse, it would have been a different game

Sharks, this is probably the worst team in history. Obsession with Transformation, a coach with no coaching credentials other than being a former player and running the youth team with no trophies. His eagerness to try build from a youth team that looks amazing at u20 but that is about their ceiling. Some journeyman and the man that just don't have anything else going other than Rugby. Nonu, really sad when you see players whose whole life has been rugby. We see how Derick Hougaard is unravelling which is heart breaking. 44 year old amongst boys.

What I did learn from the ABs in the last 20 minutes. They will rely heavily on their Pacific Island bodies. Low center of gravity, happy to make contact, get the pass away , these are not 50 50 passes. They are controlled. Run into holes, defending players bite in and the support runner comes from the inside shoulder to out. Very smart rugby. The ball hardly ever touch the ground. They did make mistakes, ball dropped behind and this is where they will lose and how they lost in the past. That all black DNA from running from anywhere.

It was hard to tell with the sharks.

Siyaya is age group player, has a long journey ahead of him and no Kolbe at that age and even Kolbe was only ready at 25 or 26. So he will go the same route as Bosch if not managed. Luthuli Bester, great size and speed, was age group part of the worst performing baby boks. No contact skills whatsoever.

The sharks team are a tapestry of players, on under transformation trying to prove something and a team with no identity. They were able to become a dominant team in the 90s for 3 decades, but only because they brought all the Freestate players in. The culture was easier to manage. The sharks either have to go completely Zulu or black to keep the team jelling but what people don't understand is that SA is many countries and cultures and we are not that much in harmony. Only Rassie knows how to pull players together like that. He doesn't treat any player with kids gloves. Even kolisi gets a dress down and often not even the captain.

So next up are the Bulls. Ackermann already making excuses and saying team won't be ready.

Given our new endless rugby season. I would have said they should have started with this 2 months ago.

Rugby needs a global calendar or we will always hear of teams coming into the match not conditioned or it is the end of very long season.

Nonetheless, just hope these games are too soft for the ABs and they get trainwrecked with what's waiting for them

I stopped watching early in the second half of the Sharks game because it did, as expected, just turn out to be an AB flex.

Juju impressed with a couple of gain line success moments, but then, reading the match thread later I notice he missed more tackles than he made.

Is he yet another one of those chaps that are good in very specific scenarios but horrendous in all others? I know for a fact he has no high ball game, doesn't have much pace, and now it seems he's a poor defender too.

As it stands, would anybody reasonably pick him ahead of Moodie, Kriel or Hooker at 13?

Siyaya was also a total liability in the part of the game I watched. Making poor decision after poor decision. When you are that size, you simply have to be on point. See Kolbe, Edwil and Arendse for reference. You can count their bad decisions on one hand. Siyaya made about 4 in one half. Perhaps he'll be a world beater one day but that day is many moons from now.

The Sharks are very shit. I shan't be watching many, if any, of their URC games this season.

I watched Juju's misses on the highlights. Saw two that led directly to tries where he simply went too high and got handed off. There might have been more that were costly but the highlights these days are so shit, they barely show the leadup to any try, just the last few seconds. You can't tackle like that at this level, it's the same shit that got Jesse Kriel handed off for the winning try in that Japan game in 2015. So maybe Juju will learn like Jesse did, maybe he won't. I wonder about the guy's temperament and BMT.

There was little to tell from the first half, it was a slippy slidey error strewn mess. Looks like it got better in the second judging by the AB tries. I also only watched the last 7/8 minutes of the second. All Blacks dropped some balls yes but the game was being played in a swimming pool. Siyaya is still a kid. It's just like SA supporters to talk someone up the moment they step one or two people. This kid has done nothing so far apart from a few nice runs and steps but he's already being elevated to the next best thing. People should just chill out. I see potential, but small guys need to be exceptionally special to make it at test level. How far he'll go at the mess that is the Sharks, who knows.

The Stormers showed that you can frustrate the All Blacks with good defensive line speed, which the Sharks had none of. But then we knew that because that's how the Boks shut down sides like France and the All Blacks. I hear rumblings of the ABs looking to exploit the Boks on the edges, and of course they would cause that's where Scotland exposed us, where Aus exposed us when they beat us. So hardly a secret that any opponent of ours would be looking at that.