Has South Africa reached the stage of desperation?

SA has always been a hard team to beat. But we did it anyway. The conspiracy theory is a joke. Players in a test match always push the rules to the limit. All sides. Jersey pulling, niggling etc. always go on. But there are some things that you can't do nowdays, thankfully. To rely on high kicks almost exclusively limits you to almost no options. Players under the high ball are protected by the rules now. I'm sure all of us remember the bad old days and the brutal results of taking a high ball. But thuggery is no longer condoned and rightly so.

The best prepared and coached team won both tests. It was hard slog but scintillating rugby at times. I hope OZ can more than match it with SA and send them home winless. If all a coach can do is try to influence the ref before the game they are bereft of ideas and skill. I agree that a change of coach for SA would be a good idea unless you are playing against them.

I wish SA well but until they get that thug mentality out of them they will continue to be penalized and have only themselves to blame. They had it way back in the 50s, when I first watched them. It still emerges.

All NZ needs to do is not choke in the big ones.

Botha is an idiot and got what he deserved Jimmy should have penalised but he held his jersey does that deserve a head butt ? Russow was hard done by but off the ball "baiting" in front of the ref is dumb penalty not a card but use your head dumb ass. Devilliers tackle all though not intended is dangerous he got the penalty. No conspiracy there just brain explosions by SA players and with their moron of a coach no surprises either.

We have been over and over the reffing its getting old. SA lost by not being good enough the ref did not help them but they were outplayed.

Playing Northern hemisphere teams and saying we are good then playing NZ and now we are shite and blaming the ref is ridiculous. Wales, Italy and France are all poop at the moment they do not deserve to be made comparisons with either SA or NZ.

SA lost because they played last years game NZ was waiting they knew what was coming they had based their whole game around countering it, surely the greatest sign of respect. SA did not have a plan B the players in the pivotal positions 8,9 and 10 failed and so their only game plan was ineffective.

Get Fourie back sack your circus clown for a coach and you will be a far better team.

slow down!!!! I'm South African and yes we do feel the ref was a little harsh on us BUUUUUUUUT 90% of South Africans actually know that a) they were just outplayed on the day b) the gameplan or lack of gameplan was more the problem c) the selection policy of players was wrong d) PdV is a sh*t coach!

lets be honest here, think about the facts.

PdV is a sh*t coach! but he was appointed by SA Rugby, thus when PdV opens his idiot mouth they are obviously going to back him. SARU realised a while back that they messed up by selecting PdV especially when it comes to the media.

the problem comes in that SARU are to head-strong and "proud" to admit that they made a mistake with PdV selection and would rather stand by him than admit that they f*cked up!

so please all black supporters just laugh it off because we all know the truth; the All Blacks are the better team at the end of the day regardless of what PdV says. Springboks are no.2 in the world at the moment for a reason, not because of "refereeing conspiracies" or some other stupid lame excuse.

just feel sorry for the south african rugby fans here, cause we had such high expectations and now we get to watch some monkey f*ck it up!

I'll start off by quoting our captain, John Smit. When asked by a journalist if he was in anyway surprised by the amount of warnings the All Balcks received regarding ruck/breakdown infringements, the amount of leniency shown to one Richie McCaw and the perceived presence of two variations of law interpretations by Allan Roland, Smit responded by saying; "If this was my first tour of New Zealand, I would have been surprised."

First-up, your insinuation that Rossouw was attempting to eye-gouge McCaw is great proof of the major problem regarding the Boks and world Rugby opinion. Because we have a "dirty" reputation, the minute something innocent looks as if it could be construed as an attempt to do major damage, everybody jumps on it. I see it as Rossouw giving McCaw a little slap, you see it as an attempted eye-gouge because another Bok done it. You paint the whole team with one brush.

We have absolutely dominated Super Rugby for 4 years now, and especially this year, we cleaned it up. We travelled to Wales, and although played scrappily, we beat them. We came home and trounced Italy, no real surprise, and hammered the reigning Northern Hemisphere Grand Slam champions, France. Clearly we do not have a problem with the laws, right? Then all of a sudden, we fly into New Zealand and now we cannot get a damn thing right. See the strangeness? So, de Villiers is correct in demanding clarification on the laws. We get it right in Super Rugby, we got it right in Wales, we got it right at home against Northern Hemisphere opponents but in New Zealand, there seemed to be two rulebooks in use at times.

We took a rightful pasting in Game 1. But in Game 2, no ways. We received an early, very kickable penalty that became a penalty to New Zealand and a sin-binning for us and that immediately changed the whole game as we went behind by 10 points within 10 minutes. McCaw and the rest of the All Blacks forwards regularly dove on and killed the ball in Wellington. Bakkies Botha got a yellow card for that in Game 1 as it was deemed a "Professional Foul". Cowan was holding Bakkies' back by his jersey in Game 1, "Professional Foul"?. No, nothing. I do not condone Bakkies' brain-failure in headbutting Cowan, but the prick deserved something for that.

I don't think there's a World conspiracy against us but many people seem to have one big paintbrush at hand to paint the whole team with.

Obviously you see it as right down the middle, as it all benefitted you in the end. I'd like to see your comments if, God help us, the AB's come over here and get some rotten decisions going their way.

it's become an annual ritual for the Boks and it does them no credit. If there is a conspiracy, it is to get in the head of this weekend's ref to ping the wallabies off the park. He might be a clown in front of the media but it's a deliberate and childish tactic.

I'd like to know if any player has been cited for gouging, kicking or butting a Bok in a test? The whinging would get frenetic then, if it's this bad when their player perpetrate it.

South Africa are rubbish away from home. They are the poorest losers in world rugby, blaming everyone except their own ineptness. As for dominating super rugby, if you load all your best players into 2 sides like they have you will get what appears dominance but how did their 3rd, 4th and 5th sides fare compared to the NZ and Australian ones? Very poorly. If NZ where to take the best players they have and load them into 2 sides like South Africa has, the South Africans wouldnt get a sniff

The only one who is desperate seems to be you ! You obviously have all this pent-up frustration against the Boks, and you are just as bad at making accusations as the people you are pointing fingers at ! Russouw attempting to eye-gouge is laughable, and the food-poisoning debacle was and is just as comical. Also to mention that we are desperate after losing 2 games, well that has to be the biggest joke of them all, seriously it is only just a game of rugby, after all !! Appears you may have forgotten that !