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Ken Borland



Clarke salutes top-class Mitch, but warns SA will be tougher in PE 0

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Ken

Australia captain Michael Clarke saluted his wrecking-ball fast bowler Mitchell Johnson for his top-class effort in destroying South Africa in the first Test at Centurion over the weekend, but added that he expected the hosts to be a much tougher proposition in the second Test starting in Port Elizabeth on Thursday.

“Everyone who loves cricket around the world knows that Mitchell Johnson is bowling at 150km/h and executing his skills better than anyone else in the game at the moment. It’s an amazing skill to bowl fast, but to also hit the mark like he did is top-class,” Clarke said after the 281-run walloping at SuperSport Park.

“But there’s still a lot of skill left in that South African changeroom and I’m sure they’ll be a tougher proposition when they come out in Port Elizabeth and we’ll have to be at our best again. Against the number one side in the world, away from home, the only way to beat them is to be at your best all day, every day. They are a world-class team, there’s no doubt about it.”

South Africa captain Graeme Smith denied that there would be any mental scarring after the Johnson working-over, but it is certainly going to take a mental shift for the home side to rebound and stay in the series.

“We’ve only lost a cricket match, even though we were beaten comprehensively. There’s still a lot of confidence in our side and we still have reference points, not long ago we put Mitchell Johnson under pressure.

“We need to find a way to curb him. Our game plan and mindsets are good, but the surface really suited him with indifferent bounce. He obviously bowled well, but the pitch played a big role. The key is to make sure our top-order builds big partnerships against him,” Smith said.

Clarke himself admitted that the pitch, on which the bounce became more and more inconsistent, had played a large role in South Africa’s fourth-day capitulation.

“It was quite a nasty wicket to be honest, you’d not like to see any team batting second on that. That’s why I declared after 3.2 overs, which certainly wasn’t the plan. But I saw enough to know the pitch was quite dangerous and we got off as quickly as we could. The conditions had a lot to do with what happened today,” Clarke said after South Africa were bundled out for 200 in 59.4 overs.

Apart from Johnson, who boasted match figures of 12 for 127, the best by a fast bowler against South Africa since readmission, the other noticeable difference between the two sides at Centurion was the amount of intensity Australia showed in everything they did. It comes from the pain they have suffered recently before turning their fortunes around in the Ashes at home.

“I’ve addressed the group several times about attitude and hunger and the response has been outstanding. We keep finding ways to get back into games and we’ve been able to run with momentum when we have it.

“Our batsmen deserve a lot of credit for making runs on quite a tough pitch and Shaun Marsh and Alex Doolan really showed that hunger against the best attack I’ve played against.

“You have to go through tough times to really cherish these moments and we take nothing for granted. We want to get back to number one and we’re showing a large amount of hunger to do it,” Clarke said.

South Africa, number one for so long, have received a huge wake-up call and hopefully their pride has been sufficiently stung for them to produce the massive improvement required in Port Elizabeth to keep the series alive.

“Again we’ve started a series very slowly, but this result will benefit us long-term,” Smith said. “We need to make good leadership decisions and not get caught in the emotion. We deserve every bit of criticism coming our way, but we need to be smart and respond well.”

 

A further step up needed by Bok pack 0

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Ken

South Africa’s inexperienced pack produced a top-class effort to surprise the All Blacks in Dunedin, but they need to step it up against the Wallabies in Pretoria this weekend.

While a Wallaby pack is often unfairly regarded as not being as daunting as those of their neighbours in New Zealand, a common feature of South Africa’s 26 defeats in 47 matches against Australia since the end of isolation has been a failure to live up to promises of smashing them physically upfront.

That’s because the Wallabies invariably bring a nous to their game that makes up for any perceived physical shortcomings.

Since 1992, South African rugby fans have been fed a steady diet of tripe about how physically superior the Springboks are to all other teams. That may have been the case in the amateur days, but since professionalism reached rugby union, all the top nations have strength and conditioning programmes that match, if not outstrip, those of the Boks.

When Jake White took over as Springbok coach in 2004, he used to talk about “men versus boys” and the demoralising effect it had on the Springboks when they saw the chiselled bodies of their rivals in the locker room after games.

The opposition is only too happy to feed the myth, because it means the Springboks will rely on brawn and not develop the more cerebral parts of their game.

Even on Tuesday, Wallaby flank Dave Dennis was toeing the party line.

“You’ve got to respect the All Blacks and Springbok packs, maybe it’s a visual thing because they just seem bigger,” he said. “We’ve obviously struggled in areas of our scrum in the past and we’re still working on being a strong forward pack. It’s not so much about our size, but our attitude and competitiveness go a long way.”

Springbok tighthead prop Jannie du Plessis has plenty of experience of playing against the Wallabies, and he pointed out that for them, scrummaging is not an end in itself, unlike their southern hemisphere rivals. They’re using the tight phases for far more than just physical combat.

“The Australian scrum is different. While the All Blacks view scrums in the same mould as us, as a place to exert physical dominance over the opposition, the Wallabies are much more tactical, they know what they want from certain areas of the field,” he said. “So it’s a big challenge against them, they have a great loosehead in Benn Robinson and he scrums well with Tatafu Polota-Nau, they’re both short and stocky.”

The Wallabies dominated the Springboks up front in the second half of the Perth game and Johann van Graan, the South Africa forwards coach, said the inexperienced pack would need to shift to the next level on Saturday.

“I’m really proud of the performance against the All Blacks, we played some of our best rugby and to have 58 percent territory and 52 percent possession against them at home is a great effort. But we can improve on the lineout, where we lost a couple of balls, and Australia scrummed very well against us in Perth. Nathan Sharpe is one of the best locks of all time, so their lineout is tricky and their kick-offs are to different places to put you under pressure,” Van Graan said.

As Du Plessis pointed out, one of the advantages of having inexperienced players new to Test rugby is that their hunger and enthusiasm ensures that they won’t head for the hills when the going gets tough.

“As they say, a hungry dog hunts best,” Du Plessis said.

Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer is likely to name the same pack when he announces the team on Wednesday, leaving the pet issue of whether South Africa need a fetcher still unanswered. Francois Louw had a busy game in Dunedin, but he is not a classical fetcher, he’s more of a hybrid between an openside scavenger and a ball-carrying, tackling blindside.

Australia do have an out-and-out fetcher in Michael Hooper, who’s so good he managed to convert Brumbies coach Jake White, who also had a long-time aversion to that breed of rugby player.

“I like to think I won Jake over, and now he’s dragged David Pocock over to the Brumbies, maybe he’s changed his opinion on fetchers! But he still likes the big South African ball-carriers … “ Hooper said.

Of course, if the Springbok ball-carriers can blast through the tackles and get over the advantage line, then Hooper has a slimmer chance of pilfering the ball.

However, Franco-Irish referee Alain Rolland is the man in charge on Saturday and he is known to favor a bit more disruption at the ruck than southern hemisphere referees.

The Springboks will, of course, have analysed both the Wallabies and Rolland’s tendencies in their usual professional manner. Hopefully they will realise that they will need to be clever as well as physically fierce in order to overturn recent history against Australia – the ledger now standing at a record five straight defeats to the “other” Green and Gold team.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-09-26-rugby-men-versus-boys

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    John 13:35 – “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

    “The Christian’s standards are the standards of Christ and, in his entire conduct and disposition, he strives to reflect the image of Christ.

    “Christ fills us with the love that we lack so that we can achieve his purpose with our lives. If we find it difficult to love, … open our lives to his Spirit and allow him to love others through us.” – Solly Ozrovech, A Shelter From The Storm

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