Rugby

Yes.
Yes.
Best performance from an England team I’ve ever seen.
N/A

SA have always played that kind of rugby, concentrating on strength and grinding it out. Just not much fun to watch. That’s why it was dull, not because England lost.

To me it looked like the NZ Eng game in reverse.

Contain and crushed.

Tbh I think Coles is likely regarded as a better scrummager than Sink (a part of the game he's improved and (at his tender years) has time to improve further to the point where it's not even the slightest weakness; it was his absence in his 1st/2nd receiver that was most noticeable

Pieter-Steph du Toit named player of the year, Rassie Erasmus was named as Coach of the Year, And Springboks named team of the year.

TBF I'm really glad that they ran in a couple of tries in. Them being defensively excellent and containing England wasn't the problem, it was that they had apparently no desire to (counter)attack with anything like a running game. As others have said, it's just dull, grinding, attritional rugby (with the occasional cynical foul). Impressive in a way, but just deeply dull up until those two tries.

You can say that if you feel like it...
England played the identical game with nz. No complaints there.

This game we had a concussion and and a dislocation in 5 odd mins? That's not boring.

What's boring is SA contained England. So that makes it boring. We couldn't get tries in the beginning because England were the squad that killed the ABs momentum. You don't just score tries with them.

Really suprised by the result last weekend, would have really thought England would crush SA. Seems like they had too much pressure making unusual mistakes. They must have played their final against NZ (too early!). Only Itoje Curry Underhill out of the water, the rest were complete garbage (Youngs, Daly, Cole, etc.).
To me big errors were also made by E. Jones, as much as he is competent. Bringing only two scrum half, because sub was injured in semi final so was forced to call someone back and thus couldn't take the risk of making him play on the final (too short notice) and thus had to leave Youngs on the field who was on a very terrible day. Moreover, bringing Slade on direct elimination games after no time play during pool stages was a mistake IMO, had a very average first game with errors (lost balls on contact), and he kept him on the bench for the rest and he did make the same mistakes on saturday losing the ball leading to Kolbe's try. I think it would have been interesting to rely more on Joseph but maybe it wasn't the best option either.

To be fair, usually totally dislike the drestruction rugby culture of SA, but I must say, those saying it was dull must remember that A) it was a final and B) the try on the blindside with Mapimpi/Ham was a complete beauty of flair and technique (instant pass by Marx, chip and chase, support, etc.).
Last try by Kolbe come from an error of Slade and you can't give him space otherwise in one vs one he is impossible to defend against.

Overall congratulations to SA, they played the right game with intelligence in line-outs, strong scrum, good defense, and relevant attacking choices. England has made a good tournament and can be proud of most of their games. Looking forward to the next world cup that will be at home!!

Both England and SA tied records, South Africa have now won it 3 times (tied with NZ) and England have been runners up 3 times (Tied with France)

Nice write up summary.

To be fair, usually totally dislike the destruction rugby culture of SA, but I must say, those saying it was dull must remember that A) it was a final and B) the try on the blindside with Mapimpi/Ham was a complete beauty of flair and technique (instant pass by Marx, chip and chase, support, etc.).

Yeah, that's basically my take on it and why I said I'm actually glad that they ran in some tries. "Destruction rugby culture" is a very good way of putting it as it seems to be based not on trying to construct a game, but ensuring that nobody has a chance to really play and just grinding out a win. Glad to see that there was some flair in there.

Thought it was absolutely class when Vermeulen singled out Manu, mid-game, for applause after Manu had just castled him - awesome.

England have a very young squad and typically the few older players are perhaps the weakest. Obviously the front rowers will retire and Youngs soon - how we need a deeper/better pool of SH but baring those I think the majority have at least another WC in them and in most cases 2+. Manu will likely not be around in 2023 but we have some good well known alternatives such as Marchant (who I rate highly) who weren't in the squad. With Watson possibly making the 15 shirt or possibly Woodward we have a pretty bright not too distant future

Any Saracens fans here? Thoughts?!

Not a Sarries fan (Bris actually). But a penalty equating to just under 3 wins per year for adjudged flagrant breaches over three years, when the spotlight was already on them, does actually seem pretty lenient.

I assume the learnings from this will include getting different accountants...

3 years? They've been breeching the cap for way longer than that, I thought.

Three years only was the finding, unless I've misread the report?

No idea whether pre-2016 was reviewed? (or whether it might be now Sarries have asked for the decision to be reviewed)

Prem Rugby statement:

https://www.premiershiprugby.com/news/premiership-rugby-statement-decision-on-salary-cap-charges

Well as a chiefs fan, I can only really think what if over that last 3 seasons.

Interesting to see what happens next season, and what they have to do to get under the cap.

I imagine they'll appeal and get a significant reduction or part suspended etc. Losing 35 pts wouldn't put them realistically at risk of finishing bottom but it'd definitely mean they'd not make the European Cup

Three years only was the finding, unless I've misread the report?

3 years was the scope of the investigation, rather than the finding - only those seasons were looked at.

Previous investigations, iirc, were stopped before anything was decided.

They've been at it for ages though

Just read back on that myself. Prem Rugby gave them a clean slate in 2015, so can't go any further back than that. Makes them look like they were taken for fools back then though.

Still think it's lenient.

Last year, it would have put them 10th. This year, with their first XV away on RWC duties and then compulsory rest, it could put them down. I fear we will see a slackening of the noose in the near future though.

Hmmm, not impossible but I tried to consider a world cup hangover. I used quite a complex logarithm which basically entailed looking at last year's points and deducting some for World cup hangover then basically looking at the relegation points over the last few seasons and thinking hmmm, yeeeah, they'll be ok.

Prem Rugby stating they wouldn't investigate other clubs is a bit of a cop-out too.

Saracens boycotting the Champions Cup launch today.
Supposed to send reps to give speeches (as holders) but no-one turned up.
This could all get messy

It's already pretty messy. But Chris Robshaw's allegations about clubs taking a pay out to keep quiet (whether this is founded or unfounded, I don't know) make it a whole lot messier! Will try to find source...

Quote (from D*ily M*il story):
Robshaw said: 'It’s been one of those things where unfortunately years and years ago a lot of clubs took a pay out to be quiet about the incident.

'And now it is one of those things that has been spoken about for a long time amongst players and the wider public. 'We look at their squad and it is a big squad of international players. I don’t think you have to be a genius to work one of these things out. It looks like it is starting to be dealt with and hopefully it is going in the right direction.

'Hopefully we can get back to a level playing field. Because that is what the salary cap is about, isn’t it? Making sure everyone has a chance, everyone has the same level and we can compete and we have a competitive league.

'It is not great the game that we loved is in the world eye. The pinnacle of English rugby is illegal.

'I think it puts our sport in a very dangerous place. We are a sport that always claimed to be whiter than white, we would look down on football and look down on this and that, we would say how it is but we are like everyone else.

'Call it what you want. It is cheating. It is not a good situation for our sport to be in. It is not a thing we pride ourselves on.

'When you look at cheating in athletics, when you look at cheating in cycling, when you look at cheating in baseball – for us as a sport we like to think our sport is cleaner and cleaner than everyone else.

'It is not anymore. It is not. We have to be realistic about that. As a sport we got to take the damage that comes with that now. I am sure it will be like that for a while. It is not going to be easy for our sport to move forward.

'I know the World Cup didn’t finish as we would have liked but look at the high it brought the country. And now we got some damage control to do.'

The beast has announced his retirement

Booooooo