Jake White finally lost a home game. He blames a lack of experience, but I do not agree. Our guys are still making basic handling errors, and they don't seem to be getting better at all. Also our defense was poor, especially in the backline, where there were quite a number of missed first tackles. You just cannot afford to make these mistakes at international level.
On the attacking side, our guys seem to be scared to be tackled. Nine out of ten times the ball carrier will offload without drawing the defense. This leaves the opposition free to cover the new ball carrier, and he gets taken out without making any progress.
When are we going to concentrate on getting the basics right before trying the rest?
Do the guys even train basic handling skills? In my opinion you need to train this as often as possible to keep the skill sharpened.
Another thing that a lot of the commentators are mentioning is that Jake selects a lot of players out of their normal position. Maybe the powers that be should be giving him more power of the provincial coaches, so that he can instruct them to try some of the players in other positions, so that he can see how they do, and not have to use an international match to experiment.
Maybe he can also get the provincial coaches to include the basic skills into their training methods.