Preview Australia v SA

Everything about this match suggests SA should win. They broke their NZ hoodoo, their Carrisbrook hoodoo, the ABs home winning streak and so on, and are full of confidence.

They're playing against a side that is lacking experience of playing at the highest level (the matches against Ireland and in particular junior-France don't really count) and although Robbie Deans is a tactical genius, it will take time for Australia to adjust to playing the game his way. Has he had enough time? Will they remember what to do under pressure as well as the Crusaders (who had donkey's years of it after all)?

Additionally in terms of world scrums, AB, SA and England would be the perennial "big guns." France, on occasion Wales fight right up there too, but you're really looking at countries like Romania, Georgia etc. being ahead of Australia in the tight. Australia make up for it in general fitness and their backs, plus their loose forwards do a lot better a job of getting the ball. In line outs Australia have been right up there with SA for a while, but are they still there? Mind you, the same could be asked of SA - although their line out was solid and they did steal some AB ball, it wasn't as one sided as expected by the pundits.

And, of course, we have Gatland's and Edwards' heroics with Wales this February and March. They took a team and in very little time produced grand slam winners. They may have been helped by England self-destructing in their first match, but they still produced a team that was strong enough and canny enough to take advantage of that and come out on top. Who is the better coach? You'd probably have to go with Deans in my estimation, although it's hard to judge from the outside.

The AB fan in me hopes that Australia wins by 8 or more points whilst not scoring 4 tries, but I can't quite see that. If Australia win, it will be tight, a point or two. More likely SA win, probably not with 4 tries, but probably by 10 -15 points.

NZ 28 - 30 SA

So, SA broke their Carrisbroke duck and their 10 year losing streak, although it was really close and relied on a moment of sheer brilliance from RIcky Januarie and a couple of missed drop goals from Dan Carter.

But, that isn't really the story of the match. The referee was incredibly pedantic, and yet missed a couple of really blatant penalties, probably one each way, although the playing off the ball committed on Thompson was in a really kickable position. Whilst thinking of the referee, I'm not sure that I like the idea of "high tackle credit being used up" which is pretty much what he said. It wasn't a particularly dirty game, and whilst there were a few high tackles none of them were reckless and deserving of a yellow card in and of themselves, none of them were obvious cynical and so deserving of a yellow on that basis. Matfield missed the last 8 minutes because the ref wanted to be seen to be doing, as he had all match, and really it was purely because the ref wanted to be involved. Perhaps he (the referee that is) should get man of the match.

In the first half the tactics were a little odd... or perhaps off from the ABs. The Boks reliably and routinely isolated a player near the touchline and deep in AB territory with kicks from kick-off and from open play. The ABs responded by kicking badly (particularly Ellis) and giving the Boks territory. In the second half the ABs moved the ball around much more and looked much better for it. Saying that Smith's name wasn't mentioned in the first half is not to criticise him (he had a pretty superb second half), it reflected the fact that the Boks kicked to the wingers, and the ABs either kicked from 9 or 10, or gave the ball to Nonu to drive up to get a better position for the kick on the next phase.

The loss of Ali Williams (after a completely legal but very uncomfortable looking clash of heads with Burger left him dazed) left the AB pack looking incredibly light in experience - a total of 3 caps in the second row against Matfield and Botha - ouch! That said, the AB pack looked OK in the tight and not obviously weak at line out either (there were a couple of line outs won by the Bok off the AB throw, but it wasn't a disaster area), but no Williams and no Thorn left a hole in ball carrying and defensive alignments too.

There's also an issue at the 8-9 axis for the ABs. Kaino didn't have a great game, and Ellis didn't have one behind him either. The thing that was interesting is that when Kaino went off and Lauaki came on, Ellis looked a lot better. Perhaps a bit more training and playing together will sort out the issues between Kaino and Ellis, but if that doesn't work Henry might have to make a choice - does he want Kaino or Ellis more? Mind you, it's not clear who he would have as the new #9 if he does decide to stay with Kaino. Lauaki also had a much better game than Kaino this week, so maybe in a fortnight's time he'll get the start. No axe to grind here, I think they're both really good players, and perhaps when McCaw is fit again there will be a real tussle for the #8 shirt between the three of them -Thompson seems like a shoe in at 6 at the moment - and I don't know who would win. Perhaps keeping Lauaki as an impact player is a hint for So'oialo and Lauaki as the pair to swap with Thompson, McCaw and So'oialo as the starting lose trio?

Congratulations to the Boks. I still think they didn't deserve to win with their team selection - and they looked much more threatening when Steyn and Jantijes came on, and they didn't look weaker in defence. However, on the night, they played well enough to keep it close and that flash of inspiration gave them a win that it's hard to begrudge.

The week gone by and the match to come

South Africa seem to have been involved in a mess of off-field name calling this week. New Zealand on the other hand seem to have been rather focussed on the match to come.

There's no doubt what Thorn did to Smit was a dangerous tackle, and it should have been yellow carded at the time. Mind you, so should Smit for the grinding of Thorn's head into the ground that immediately preceded the drop. Some form of suspension is the right decision, but as dangerous tackles go, it was NOT a spear tackle (there's no driving in, he dropped him, and he didn't drop him on his head and/or neck, he didn't hit him above the line of the shoulders etc.) so a punishment towards the low end of the scale seems pretty reasonable. Thorn also has a pretty good record of not doing these things which also helps keep the penalty down. Complaining that Matfield and Botha would have got longer suspensions is not, however much Smit might like to believe it, comparing like with like - they've both been in disciplinary hot water several times - and that tends to increase the tariff (although apparently not reduce the tendency to reoffend). One week seems pretty light, but given provocation, good record and such a mildly dangerous act, not entirely unreasonable.

The irony of Smit's name calling after the repeated late hits (and the occasional late and/or high tackle when James remembered to use his arms) on Carter needs to be considered too. It's hard to believe that your #10 hits theirs so often so late without it being a planned tactic to intimidate. There is, of course, nothing wrong with intimidating the opposition #10, but there are legal ways to do it, and James' approach wasn't legal quite often. It's impossible to believe that the captain didn't know it was going to happen.

Dowd has also been back in the press for making rude comments about the SA coach. Rude enough that the SA Consul in NZ rebuked him. However, from an outsider to SARU's perspective it does seem to be a fair comment to wonder just how political de Villiers' appointment was and how good a coach he is. There may be some reasons for dropping, completely, an apparently uninjured player who was, by quite some margin, the best player you had last weekend. I'm just not sure what it was. There may be some reason for keeping two players (at 10 and 13) who didn't play so well. OK, replacing both of them is quite heavy going, but slotting Steyn in at 12, moving the current 12 out to 13, and dropping the 13 might help the 10: you get a second kicking option, and a better one than James to be honest and that could let James focus on the other parts of his game. You also move a stronger defender into that 13 channel, and you know Nonu and Smith will target that this time.

The weather forecast for Dunedin is a bit like the weather here at the moment (except they're in the depths of winter so cold and wet is what they're meant to be having) which suggests it won't be a really high scoring match again. But, you have to consider that the All Blacks have spent this week focussing on improving and playing better against their foes having seen them play in anger. The Boks appear, at least outwardly, to be stoking that anger. This could be a really ugly match, and we have a debutante test referee trying to keep control. Will he keep control by whipping the cards out? He may well need to.

The score really depends on South Africa and how well they behave, and how harshly they're punished if they don't. You could easily see the Bokke playing with 12 or 13 men if they really get up the referee's nose and the anger they're talking transfers to the pitch. If that happens, despite the cold and wet, it will be a cricket score. Even without that, my feeling is that they've weakened the team by their selections, and whilst Boric might be a weakness compared to Thorn (certainly in experience) the ABs still look strong. AB's by 15+ to grind their #1 in the world status home hard.

New Zealand 19 - 8 South Africa

As you might guess from the scoreline this was a heavily defensive match. That isn't to say that there was a lot of attacking flair on display, particularly from the All Blacks (but on occasion from the Boks too) but there was always a scrambling, scrabbling body to dot the ball, make the tackle or whatever. The scoreline was helped to look more respectable than it probably should have been by a dodgy offside call against Kaino denying him his second try in the game.

There was an interesting no try as well. I think it was the right decision, Carter kicked through and chased, Habana appeared between Carter and the ball and grounded it. BUT Carter's hand was on the ball too... you'd have to say they both grounded the ball so is that a try? The guy with two hands and a chest on the ball ought to be awarded the grounding of the ball, but I'm not sure that's what the laws say.

Speaking of the laws, the game had a lot of niggle. It would be tempting, and true, to say that was largely from the Boks, but that is because they were the ones defending for most of the game. It would also be tempting and true to say the refereeing team turned rather a blind eye to shirt pulling, late hits, high tackles and the like, particularly as the Boks tried to intimidate Carter but whilst this definitely contributed to a highly defensive match it didn't seem to spoil the match.

As expected the ABs dominated the scrums. Rather unexpectedly they very much held their own in the line out too. That was helped by avoiding kicking the ball out on most occasions, but the Boks did and the AB line out worked pretty well throughout. In fact the weakest part of the set piece, ironically, was the 8-9 axis. Kaino didn't seem to control the ball on several occasions, which put Ellis under quite a bit of pressure. Mind you, the boot was firmly on the other foot for the Bok puts-in, as their scrum creaked, groaned, went round in circles, went up, went down, went backwards (sadly often illegally and without being penalised).

I don't normally do Man of the Match comments and this time I'm really pleased I don't. I'm pretty sure that Carter will get most of the plaudits, but it would be fair to say that just about any of the ABs should have been in the running. After about 20 minutes they flashed up a little player stats thing: Conrad Smith, 3 tackles. What that didn't say was that all three were huge tackles that completely stalled a promising look Bok move dead in its tracks. Sivivatu started the game marking Habana. Until he moved off Habana each time the latter got the ball he got harassed and almost always tackled and often turned over by Sivivatu. In fairness, except for that try, Wolf did a good job too, just not as dramatically so as Sivivatu.

Nonu looked a bit anonymous in defense, but with Carter and Smith tackling out of their skins, this wasn't a weakness for the ABs, and carrying the ball forward he looked as fluent, strong and dangerous as always. I could keep going - every player, just about, had their highlights and their moments to hold their hands up and be counted, at least if they were playing in black. Burger and Jantijes get a big shout for the guys in green.

Whilst Carter might be the obvious choice, I'm torn between Thompson and So'oliao - How much higher praise can there be than "McCaw's absence wasn't a weakness" I wonder?