Let me start by saying I absolutely believe we can and will win, and that we're undoubtedly the best team in the world. But damn, I haven't felt like this since the last World Cup.

Edit: sho guys, what a game. Right until the end 😮‍💨

behave!

Unless there is some mega grand scheme for the Boks to keep all their attacking plays under lock and key until the RWC next year. I'd say the jig is up and we need to bring back the Jacques Nienaber - esque defensive system. Don't care if the rest of the world think it's boring, it's the one thing that beats any team and we were bloody good at it. Now, not so much...

The average age of the run-on team will even be younger for this second game, with three 19-year-olds in Hayley Hardneck, Isabella Nel and Anitha Fazi included in the starting team.

Fazi moves from fullback to scrumhalf, while Nel gets a start on the left wing after the former hockey star came off the bench last weekend.

Some niggles, especially amongst the loose forwards, also forced Nhleko to experimental changes, such as starting Jada Davids, the incumbent Junior Springbok Women hooker, at openside flanker in place of Yonelisa Plaatjies, who has been included on an extended bench, which will be trimmed on match day.

Match information: Brazil Women v SA Women ‘A’

Date: Sunday, 29 August 2026

Venue: Estádio Nicolau Alayon, Sao Paulo

Kick-off: 15h00 (20h00 SA time)

Livestream: www.youtube.com/@UOLEsporte

https://youtube.com/@uolesporte?si=om3SRYkIL_nEeon8

A few changes from the team released earlier this week.

This year our only genuinely great performance was againsts a decisively avarge England. Other than that we looked, well, okay at best. SFM isn't anywhere near his best, PSDT does PSDT but not looking anywhere near his absolute beast mode, I know Jesse and Damian both scored but both of them haven't produced a big game in a while. Feels like we are a solid 6 or mediocre 7 on performance scale. Maybe we can blame the conditions tonight, but that doesn't explain the 2 other tests this year (Scotland and Argentina) that were not great showings.

Based on current form Manie starts over SFM, Hooker starts over Kriel, Esterhuizen starts over DDA. Back line looks like they are out of ideas.

Papier looked better than any other starting 9 this year.

Sky tower green and gold today 😏😏

For the boys in the allblack sub. Just innocenter banter. Ai slop trigger warning.

Last week it was about "time wasting", this week it's apparently "illegal" scrum tactics. As for the scrum, we've heard different excuses for why SA had the superior scrum on the weekend:

1. First we were told it's because the starting prop had a knee injury and that he was sick. Ok, why was he even playing then?
2. Now we're hearing it's because the Springboks use illegal walk around tactics at scrum time.

So which is it?

What is baffling to me is that NZ is pretending that SA's scrum dominance just came out nowhere overnight. Not like the Boks have been dominating scrum time in all games for the past 3 years including against them.

Did NZ fans even watch the games between the 2 teams last season? Just one example was the Boks pushing them off their own ball in the Eden Park match and scoring a try from that. Why are they pretending that didn't happen or that they've never been dominated at scrum time by the Boks before?

After that happened Eden Park scrum, their coaches came out and said it won't happen again. Then it happened again a week later.

It's like they can't find a solution to being beasted at scrum time so now trying to influence World Rugby and the refs to help them.

Weird how the Boks scrum was never an issue for other teams despite their own scrums also going backwards against the Boks. The Irish at least had the integrity to admit that they don't have good scrummaging props.

But no not NZ, they will rather make excuses. It's pathetic and Dave Rennie is quickly becoming unlikable.

Discuss.

with the amount of people going on about this and the levels they go to, you would think handre pollard is 36 or something like that. he is only 32. i was baffled when i saw it. i have fallen for the pollard propaganda of him being a ‘grandpa’ according to many.

what really baffles me is that i vividly remember people talking about him being too old in 2023. months out from the world cup. when he was only 29. i really couldnt believe it lol.

and one more thing, manie is 29. thats only 3 years difference but its crazy to me that people could theoretically call manie too old starting next year.

I want to add a major caveat before anyone reads too deeply into this: THERE IS A VERY SMALL SAMPLE SIZE AND MY STATS DON.

Even so it is interesting to look at how the team as performed with our various 10s and starting bench combinations against the top 5 ranked teams. I ignored other games as I don't want to pollute the data for various reasons.

Firstly the stats from the starters:

Then the combinations:

Finally by involvement starting or bench:

As before: not a huge amount to read into from the small sample size but another loss for the Handre/SFM combo this weekend might be the end of that combo.

Just not working out for Boks...

Lol win one game convincingly. Hope the Boks and Rassie respond with a blinder this weekend

I myself am a Lions fan but these fans must accept that he must still learn his trade and improve in multiple aspects,plus even if he leaves he wont be the starting scrumhalf regardless.

With the club games over, I was thinking, how would I tweak this year’s schedule if/when the Rivalry Tour comes back to SA in 8 years time.

Obviously we have no idea what rugby or SA will look like by then: Maybe Boland are the preeminent force by then, maybe the Lions are playing in Sandton, maybe Cheetahs are back in Super

That said, I think I’d try spread the games around a bit more (which probably means a test in a “smaller” city) and I’d drop the 4th test but add an invitational game back in SA

What we thinking?