All Blacks legend Sir John Kirwan has praised the Springboks\u2019 innovation in the victory over Italy, but believes it was one of the worst performances Rassie Erasmus\u2019 men have produced in some time.<\/p>\n
South Africa scored seven tries en route to their 45-0 thrashing of the Azzurri, the team Kirwan previously coached, with two of the scores engineered from their new open play lineout tactic.<\/p>\n
The Boks<\/a> clinched the comprehensive victory despite a red card to Jasper Wiese in the 20th minute of the match and even went down to 13 men at one stage when Wilco Louw was yellow carded.<\/p>\n Worst and most frustrating Springboks performance<\/p>\n Still, that was not enough to impress Kirwan<\/a>, though. However, the former winger did enjoy the innovation, particularly the first ploy of the game to manufacture a scrum as Manie Libbok chipped the kick-off short to Andre Esterhuizen<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a laugh at that because when I was coaching Italy, we did that kick-off against Ireland in about 2003 because we felt that we had a better scrum,\u201d Kirwan remarked on The Rivals podcast with Springboks great Victor Matfield.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we got penalised straight away like South Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I love the innovation, but we need to understand when we are flaunting with the laws rather than being innovative.<\/p>\n \u201cI love Rassie\u2019s innovation, I do think they are great\u2026 but we\u2019ve spoken about the physical player changing and if we introduce some of these things, is it going to fundamentally change what we all stand for in the game?\u201d<\/p>\n Zoning in on the performance of the Boks, Kirwan feels that there will be a lot that the likes of France and the All Blacks could take away, stating that it\u2019s the worst he has seen the Springboks play in some time.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was the worst and most frustrating performance I\u2019ve seen from South Africa in a long time,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you play Italy, sometimes they can be incredibly frustrating. I know they scored six or seven tries, I just didn\u2019t feel that they got into the real rhythm of their game.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Africa and France are the two teams that I feel have real big depth but a few of the guys on the weekend, I don\u2019t feel they were up to the level of the older guys.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it was a really revealing [performance], if you are an All Black or a Frenchman and you are looking at the current world champion Springboks, you are always looking for a fault or a way to beat them. So, I don\u2019t feel it was a great performance from South Africa as a whole.<\/p>\n Justin Marshall: Springboks haven\u2019t \u2018changed much\u2019 but would still beat \u2018evolving\u2019 All Blacks<\/a><\/p>\n Matfield hits back<\/p>\n His comments seemed to have baffled Matfield, who pressed Kirwan to pinpoint the players he felt did not \u2018stand up\u2019 against the Azzurri.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole front-five,\u201d the New Zealander replied.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if that was a tactical change early on with your prop [Thomas du Toit], who was struggling with the Italians.<\/p>\n \u201cI just felt your leadership, too, you got frustrated, which didn\u2019t help with the red card. But it didn\u2019t seem like you stuck to the plan of breaking down Italy, then running them off their feet and letting them explode.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel they left them on the side a little bit.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t think that the front five were dominant, and they just wanted to bully the opposition rather than outplay them.\u201d<\/p>\n