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.