Boks badly exposed
South Africa played like world chumps in Europe, writes Keo in his weekly Business Day column.
Let’s skip all the emotional claptrap, the political correctness and new found South African way of justifying that our teams don’t lose, the other teams just score more points. Let’s get real and call Saturday’s Springbok Test defeat and the five-match tour of Europe exactly what it was: an absolute disaster and a disgrace.
I love John Robbie on talkback radio. He is the best because he calls it like it is, but when he is explaining losses to France and Ireland as nothing more than fatigue I get worried about those ultra positive contracts one has to sign to be allowed onto SuperSport.
The Boks lost to a half decent French team, a Leicester team missing 12 of their regulars, a Saracens SA XV that would not end in the top six of the Currie Cup, made Italy look like Six Nations contenders and should have been put away by 20 points by Ireland, who in the last year have been the most consistent international team of the year. That the Boks were named IRB Team of the Year after taking a beating from the Irish was as close as it comes to an Irish joke, and it wasn’t a particularly funny one.
Australia losing to Scotland put some perspective to the Tri-Nations campaign. New Zealand’s changing of coaching roles and reversal to a more conservative approach orchestrated by the world’s best flyhalf Dan Carter, who incidentally did not play in the two defeats against the Boks in South Africa, adds more reality to the quality of the Tri-Nations win and the All Blacks fitness in Marseilles ended any arguments that the Boks lost because they were simply too tired. The All Blacks, in club and provincial games, played just as much rugby as the Boks and the Test side have played even more matches this year than the Springboks.
The Boks lost because a French team physically roughed them up and exposed the fragile Bok front row with John Smit as a tighthead. The Bok scrum only resembled a quality unit when BJ Botha was at tighthead against Ireland and Smit was at hooker. The moment Smit moved to tighthead the only area of dominance that belonged to the Boks disappeared.
The lineout, the strength of the Boks since the 2007 World Cup, was a shambles and the fact that the man who coached the lineout between 2004 and 2007 was not even mentioned in the post-match TV analysis was as diabolical as the justification for the defeats.
Gert Smal’s true value to the Boks was illustrated in Dublin on Saturday. The Bok lineout did not struggle because Smit’s lineout throwing was poor. Smit is the best lineout thrower in world rugby. The Bok lineout was reduced to rubble because the new coaching staff have not changed anything since 2007. The calls are still the same and this was a case of the master (Smal, now with Ireland) upstaging the student (Victor Matfield). I have never seen a Test where Matfield has been so innocuous and lacked such presence. Smal, more than anything else, beat the Boks and it showed how little this team has actually advanced.
The senior players have run the team since Peter de Villiers took over, but there comes a point when a team needs a coach who coaches and not a coach who takes them to the ground in the comfort also known as a team bus.
Should De Villiers get fired? No. But he needs help and the most qualified person to help him, in the role of national director of coaching, is the man who masterminded South Africa’s 2007 World Cup win. Jake White is the soundboard that could turn De Villiers into a coach and not the players’ mate who allows them to do as they please.
The fatigued South African players are hanging around for a match against the All Blacks. Could someone at the South African Rugby Union explain that one to me? No because there isn’t anyone there with the rugby acumen to give me that answer.
Think of this tour and the chaos and lies. Let’s start with the lie about transformation. Black players selected in the squad were sent home and white players not in the original squad ended up playing in the Tests when De Villiers hit the first of many panic buttons.
De Villiers said Smit’s future was at tighthead, so why did he draft in BJ Botha? Why was Bandise Maku not put on the bench against Italy instead of Adriaan Strausss, who was not even in the original tour squad? Window dressing at its most crass. The same applies to the selection of Davon Raubenheimer and Ashley Johnson when Jean Deysel also went straight from the beach to the Test squad. I believe the selections of Deysel and Strauss should have been made originally, but the squad chosen was a transformation con that insulted any decent black rugby player in this country.
If Smit is going to the World Cup at tighthead then they had to persist with him through all the struggles. If Morne Steyn is going to kick South Africa that World Cup-winning penalty then you play him through the shocker he had in Dublin and write it off to an experience that will make him stronger. When Juan de Jongh is the find of the midweek side and Adi Jacobs gets injured you don’t draft a 50-Test cap Springbok based in Munster into the Test squad and get him to sit on the bench for 63 minutes. You either start with Jean de Villiers, who is the best inside centre in the game, or you say to the newcomer De Jongh this is your chance to take that step up. If South Africa had lost with the next generation of player there would be no issue, but to have got beaten so convincingly with the best team available, outside of Bakkies Botha and Frans Steyn, then the selectors need to ask themselves why they haven’t resigned.
The tour objective was to develop players and win. Neither objective was achieved. More careers were broken than made and the denial within the team simply intensified.
The rugby the Boks played was poor. The substitutions were not tactical they were terrible, and they have been all year. The All Blacks played stupid rugby against South Africa in South Africa and paid the price. The Boks fed off their mistakes and never had to play risk rugby.
In Hamilton, the Boks were a cross kick from defeat, in Pretoria they were saved by a last minute 53m penalty and in Johannesburg they were pulverized by the British & Irish Lions. In Toulouse, Leicester, Wembley and Croke Park they looked like world chumps and not world champs.
Whoever let Smal go should be fired, yet that won’t happen because no one will remember him ever asking to make a further contribution to the Springboks. There is no explanation why a guy who won South Africa the World Cup won’t be used to improve the chances of them retaining the Cup.
Excellence is punished; mediocrity gets the equivalent of a knighthood.
This tour did not ask questions, it provided every answer and someone at South African rugby has to have he balls to bring together the best rugby brains, facilitate the uber egos and clean the wound instead of adding an elastoplasts by claiming the Boks are the IRB Team of the Year.
Now is the time for honesty because the best team in the world does not get smashed in Brisbane, Leicester, Wembley, Toulouse, Dublin, Johannesburg and sneak two three-point wins in Pretoria and Hamilton.
The Boks are not as tired as we think and they are not as good as we think. But they could be the best if every agenda was put to one side and decisions were made that benefit the Springboks and confront issues instead of blaming referees, fatigue and glorifying five-point losses.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
@bananas:
Don’t take exception its an internet forum not a church meeting.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
dont forget capn fanny, he normally pokes his cheeky head above the parapet after a bok loss or two…never has such a great exponent of hit+run been seen on a blog site…fanny normally drops of a couple of tasty paragraphs late at night just before bedding downunder into hibernation pleased with himself…
November 30th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Yeah , things like this only happens in South Africa.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Does anyone actually take Mark Keohane seriously anymore? Difficult to respect anyone’s opinion, when its clear they’ve sold their journalistic integrity.
A few disclosures on your part might help to rehabilitate your reputation Keo.
For instance, you can’t really criticise John Robbie for being positive on SuperSport when that’s the relationship you tried to cultivate between them an SA Rugby when you were with the Boks.
It’s interesting that Gert Smal is now a coaching genius. This would be the same Gert Smal who coached the forwards in the 1997 defeat to the Lions, and the same person who coached the forwards under Rudolph Straeuli, when they regularly got eaten-up by the England pack.
You’re a joke! Time to take a look in the mirror…once you pull your head (and probably a few more Rand) out of Jake White’s back-side.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
@cab:
Has he not been around after a loss or 4?
November 30th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Jake also took a bunch of greenhorns on his first EOYT in 2004.
Bryan Habana, Tim Dlulane, Jongi Nokwe!!!
And none of them had played S14 rugby at that stage!!!
November 30th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
@NZINCHINA:
hehe,,,yeah i saw some of his work the other night, one could almost sense those cocky tail feathers unfurling,,,and just nefore i could take aim, he was gone in a puff of smoke.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
its not Grant calling for heads to roll its me I say drop the prima donna’s till they realize what true teamwork and commitment means just like Ab’s showed. They got far too big for their overrated boots especially the senior status Blou Bul quo and herr kapitan. And stop whining about fatigue and all sorts of other side wind issue ****. Problem is in their overrated incapacitated heads to beast to running game when its required, not in their tiring brains.
I thought Smit was the captain the one that changes game plan when things don’t pan out. And Matfield wtf was he thinking or where was he all game long. Burger did fine, so did Brussow, Roussouw should have been at 4 first half not 8. Schalk should have been at 8. Deysel should have been at 7. But main unmitigating failure was Fdp and M. Steyn thats where we lost our oats nowhere else.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
beast – adapt
November 30th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
herr kapitan sounds german, i thought smit was a soutie, look unfortuntely you gus dont like the players from teh bulls and sharks cos you support the WP.
the WP play some lovely rugby, bless their little socks, but the last time they won anything was when the dodo went extinct.
they dont win the colliusions you see. trying to explain that to a WP-supporter is an absolurtely lost cause, whuch is why poor rassie is fighting a losing battle. unless they see loosefotwards doing backflip opasses, and locks who can pirouette – there;s no razmataaz.
the old bokke are too passe in their eyes, even tho they get moered by these ou dooose every time.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
@crazy ******: Post of the day! Nice one.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
@PissAnt:
that is not entirely true.
The Bulls S14 side played possibly the most dynamic brand of rugby a south african side has ever played….and yet the test side played pretty conservatively just a few weeks later.
i do not believe that there is any right or wrong way of playing the game. The 2 most important issues are always…
1. winning
2. variation
….the Boks displayed neither on this tour.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
@skopskiet: Skoppie, Carol showed me a picture of you yesterday, saw some photos of her visit to Cape Town….lok of lelike manne there, she should have spent more time in Natal
November 30th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
we can only hope that our senior Bok stalwarts are emotionally mature, astute and ambitious enough to analize their recent performances, make the needed improvements and adjustments and get back to wanting to win.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
@skopskiet: All true, but no need to drop anyone. Except maybe Burger. When viewing the year as a whole the stand-out performers are the same guys you want to drop.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl:
PDV is on record saying he is moulding the Boks game plan around the Bulls recipe for success.
And also don’t get me wrong, the game plan in itself is low risk and produces results more often than not if executed correctly.
What did not happen on this tour is our execution lacked in all major areas of this game plan but what I was eluding to more with my post, is that when that failed or we had to call up on a plan B, none was existant.
That is my biggest concern, and explains my thinking behind 22-man rugby and using your bench effectively.
Impact players from the bench should do exactly what it their name says, make an impact, either to shift momentum from the oppo to their own team (change of plan and tactics) or kill off the opposition.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Everyone knows this tour was always only going to be about the Barbarians game. And boy, are we ever going to klap them…
November 30th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
@ grant and loser skoppie. Grant10 says the following: “I am convinced at least 2 of that pack today not gonna be at wc 2011….Smit and Matfield…..
seriously, we need to rebuild.”
Rebuild what? We’ve just had the best year in years?
November 30th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
@PissAnt:
I agree with all of that but my comment was withregards to an earlier post of yours where you asked how can a Bok side be asked to play attacking rugby when all the provincial setups are playing negatively.
I don’t believe that to always be the case.
Anyone could see that by the final whistle of the currie cup the Bulls where holding on for dear life and looked completely knackered….as were the the Sharks just a week before that.
And then, just 6 days later the mid-week side played a game.
And DeVilliers selects Ralapelle as the Captain who was injured for the final?
And then he get’s injured after 20 minutes….ot the sharpest tool in the box it would appear.
DeVilliers is definately n
November 30th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
@crazy ******: This is why i referred to Mark Keohane as journalistic s!ut in an earlier post. The guy cruises with the highest bidder @ the boudoir.
Why results matter
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006
Keo, in his News 24 column, writes that if Jake White has to pay R350 to watch the Boks lose every Saturday he’ll also start believing test results are important.
If five wins out of 12 is acceptable fare for the Springboks then don’t waste your time on a World Cup ticket in 2007.
Jake White has told us not to judge him on five wins out of 12, but on what his strongest team could do at the World Cup – the kind of team that has beaten the All Blacks in the past few years, but also that team that lost in Dublin to Ireland and at Twickenham to England.
For the moment, let’s forget about the losses and concentrate on the wins, even if they haven’t been that many.
And let’s look at who achieved our famous wins for the Bok coach.
The Boks, if they put together their strongest team, can beat anyone on their day. How often have I heard this in the past 12 months? Hell, I’ve even said it myself on more than 10 occasions.
But will the Boks ever put out their strongest team? And does such a thing actually exist?
The Bok coach has said often this year that the ideal match 22 he has in his mind has (in 37 tests) never played. That could be because they’re all New Zealanders, but we’ll give Jake the benefit on this one and actually believe they are all South Africans.
Then, what is the best XV? Is it an ageing Percy Montgomery or a youthful Francois Steyn? Schalk Burger, Juan Smith, Danie Rossouw, Pierre Spies, Kabamba Floors and Pedrie Wannenburg don’t go into three. It can only be one of Ricky Januarie or Fourie du Preez at scrumhalf … the best to beat Ireland is perhaps a different best to beat New Zealand.
You need bulk to batter the Kiwis, but more mobility to see off the Wallabies. Which is better and what makes one player better than the other? One’s skill could be potent in a particular game plan and not a factor when played in a different combination.
It is fantastic to develop depth and to have two or more players to cover every position. But the moment a team reaches that level, what they gain in quality they lose in talk of a best team. The latter term then no longer exists because you can only play 15 at one time.
So when Jake White says his best team can beat the All Blacks and whoever else at the World Cup and win it, who is this best team he has developed over three years?
You’d have to say Steyn has overtaken Montgomery, even if White won’t be as quick to agree with you. You’d have to say Bryan Habana’s shares have dropped, even if White won’t agree with you. You could argue a place has to be made for Wynand Olivier and that Jaque Fourie and Jean de Villiers aren’t as good as we’d like to think. Of the flyhalves Andre Pretorius rose from the dead at Twickenham, but only next year will tell us if the life in his international career has 12 months or more. Can Butch James’s knees take another year and will Meyer Bosman come good?
At scrumhalf there’s Ruan Pienaar, Januarie and Du Preez. Who do you play against whom?
The loosies number 10, but only three can start. We know who the locks will be, we know who the hooker will be if White takes the team to the World Cup and we know who the loosehead prop will be, even though White keeps on bemoaning Gurthro Steenkamp’s absence. If he can breathe, Os du Randt will be there.
Given this little exercise you can’t say with any certainty after three years of White’s coaching which is the best 15 out of the 64 players he has used.
And I seriously doubt White can tell us who they are either.
This brings me back to results and the need to win more than you lose every Saturday during the test match season.
White has to be judged on the team he picks every test and on the subsequent results. If we do that we are dealing in tangibles.
If we start buying into the ‘judge me at the World Cup’ and ‘when I pick my ideal team’ then we may as well stop keeping score on a Saturday and all sign up for the fantasy league.
And if we do that then SARU may as well stop charging outrageous cash for test match tickets.
Professional coaches are well paid to do a job and that job is about each Saturday and not 44 supposedly meaningless tests between World Cups; tests that cost the punter more than R350 a pop.
Sorry Jake, but you have to be judged on a 59 percent win record in the last three years. No more and no less.
If SARU’s bosses believe that is acceptable, then you should stay. If not, then get in the queue for a World Cup ticket and you’ll soon start seeing that when you are paying every test result does actually count. When you’re cashing big dollars to watch a team, you are entitled to performance and not four year promises from coaches.
I’ve said it often: the World Cup has become a four year excuse for the majority of the game’s coaches. The World Cup should be a bonus to winning more test matches in four years than you actually lose.
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 6:00 am and
November 30th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
@Ratel Brussow (MSIUR):
….you can’t rebuiled a side in 18 months or so.
I’d be interest to know exactly how many more test matches there are before the world cup starts.
November 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
@WP Till I Die: black panther is wakanathan….apparently!
November 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
@Transformation: Who the fck reads a thesis like that here on keo?
November 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
@Ratel Brussow (MSIUR): @218
ah yes, Mr Chirpy himself.
Seems to have quietened down sowehwat over the past few months, Ratel.
The mocking seems to have stopped. What, noone reaching the Ratel ‘Poo Monitor’ ?
What an opportunistic disrespectful piece of petri-dish mould you are.
November 30th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl:
If I used the word negative rugby then it was not my intention.
There are two main types of rugby that exists for me, one where you build pace on the ball and play a dynamic type of rugby, and one where you play a static (point to point) type of rugby.
Both types are effective, as the Boks and NZ success in the last 4 years have showed. The ideal is of course to marry the two somewhere along the line and play what the situation demands, and in that respect NZ have the advantage because of the mecurial Dan Carter who can be both brilliant on front foot ball as well as hanging back and playing the tactical game.
IN SA, the Bulls do not marry the two and static rugby does not mean you do not score tries, it just means you score them differently and through a different type of build up.
But it is not only the BUlls, all our top rugby unions dont, Sharks dont either and failed dismally when they tried, Cheetahs and Lions possibly gets closest to this but they are overpowered by the more structured, static approach to the game.
Whichever way you adopt however, it means little if you do not execute the basics correctly, and this is mainly where we failed as Boks.
Peter summed it up nicely saying they were a second or so off the pace of the opposition, and that is all you need to fluff it up, because a second off the pace is a second you rob yourself of in executing plays, and at test level, you cannot afford to lose even just a second.
November 30th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
On news 24.
“Next year’s Test between France and South Africa, scheduled initially for June 12 in Cape Town as part of a French tour, will not take place in South Africa and could be moved to Europe, an informed source said on Sunday.
SARU will be unable to host the match at the appointed time as the 2010 Soccer World Cup will be under way by then from June 11.
The source indicated that Wembley Stadium was a possible choice of venue.”
Some peoples’ wishes will come true earlier than they may have ever dreamt of. The Boks touring Europe early in our season playing France. This time at a neutral venue.
Time to start thinking of new excuses in case the Boks lose.
“Fatigue”, “meaningless EOYT”, “long season”, “Ras Dumisane” etc just won’t cut it.
November 30th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@katman: those who don’t suffer from ADD…
November 30th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Same with heinie adams and francois hougaard, hougaard was on the bench for the mid-week game, but look who has the test cap????
November 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Talk on this forum at the beginning of the year by the anti-PdV brigade was that the senior BB players (VM, Bakkies,FdP) will quit the game or go overseas if they win the B&I Lions series because they would then have achieved all there is to achieve in rugby.
CC win.
WC win.
S14 win
3Nations win
This, according to some bloggers, would then “expose PdV for the **** coach that he is” as he would not be able to rely on them (the senior players) to do his job in coaching the team.
I see that FdP already indicated that he will not retire because of the “wonderful atmosphere” set by the Bok management team. I wonder if anybody can enlighten me what the position of the other two is at this stage.
November 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
@katman: I do. It’s evidence of what a fraud Keo is. Kissing Jake’s *** must be very lucrative for Keo indeed.
November 30th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
@WakaNathan: Are you black panther?
November 30th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
NONSENSE
NONSENSE
NONSENSE
WE HAD MANY FRESH PLAYERS WAITING FOR THE CHANCE TO SHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Francois Hougaard, Meyer Bosman, Earl Rose, Davon Raubenheimer, Ash Johnson.
Had these young hungry men been given their time they would have swept away the Irish like a Karoo thunderstorm in November.
And get off Oom PDV’s back. He is the best coach our country has ever had. The players cost us the game and nobody else.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
@omanishark: the one thing that keo and his latter day delusional disciples won’t ever, ever admit is that pdv was right. Even the best south africa has to offer ie fourie du preez, is a “robot”, a functional robot when the whole army of robots are insync, but when one of those robots short circuits ie victor matfield, all the other robots can not automatically over-ride the system and adopt to the new environment. Hence the calls to re-hire the original designer of the software or micro-chip.
The fdp “robot” comes with an attached label “no modifications allowed” hence in 2008 the “robot” was flashing the warning sign “don’t know new ELV software, don’t like using it” – remember in cape town when it kept box-kicking out on the full and was devoid of any alternative ideas?
November 30th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Jake strutted into Dublin the game before this one bragging that not more than 3 Paddies would make it to his Bok team squad. Then the quiet, polite Irishmen whacked them. As they whacked them the time before that.
It’s not fatigue than undoes the Boks. It’s arrogance.
Fatigue is a myth. Look at how razzle-dazzlingly fresh NZ performed after just as arduous a season as the Boks. They scored 5 tries and ripped France to shreds in their Marseilles fortress. Time to jump off Noaksie’s old hobby-horse.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
@TheTackler: But you see sir. Thats not true. The Bokke are the most humble players in the world after the Argentianians. You can never see the Bokke being nasty. Even the coach. Ol Jake maybe said those naughty things but not our PDv. our PDv is too much of a great man to do that sort of thing.
We respected the Irish.
But we should have had fresher younger fitter players there to be a substitute after 60 minutes you check ?
November 30th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
If at the beginning of the year you had asked me if i would except losing to France and Ireland away if we won 3N and BIL tests I would not have even thought twice about it. Just winning the game against the Lions and AB means nothing ALONG AS YOU WIN!
This is a fact a lot of you are missing when QQing about how kuk we played over here (believe me i know i was at the SA vs SA game at Wembley).
Its all about winning the big matches and trophies and we seem to be doing ok in that. I know this because I support the Proteas and being no1 mean sweet f all when you aint won the world cup, ICC trophy or 20/20. Dont get me started on the Sharks, at least they won the CC last year!
November 30th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
A brilliant article by Keo. Let’s put one thing into perspective here, for all those who keep nay-saying the influence and rugby acumen of Jake White. Jake took a team in disaster and disarray, after Rudolf Straeuli and the shambles of 2003 – and made them RWC champions 4 years later. JAKE actually BUILT the team from ’scratch’ as it were. Winning the Tri-Nations in his first year too… Mission accomplished!
The useless, papsak-inebriated, incompetent, AA-appointed, bird-brain we have masquerading as a rugby coach INHERITED a RWC chapion team. And then proceeded to dismantle it into chumps just 8 months later – coming LAST in the Tri-Nations of 2008 (Duhh-Uhh – well done papsak!). And almost single-handedly derailing a team in 2009, which should be sweeping all before it with relative ease, with his absurd, quota-driven, team selections and, even worse, his on-field substitutions and timing there-of. THAT IS WHY KEO KEEPS REFERING TO JAKE WHITE. We’ve gone from having a coach with a very astute rugby brain – to a piece of rubbish…
Papsak is beyond stupid. But then – what does one expect of any quota appointment…??? Gary Gold too – where does he come from?? Who the heck is Gary Gold?? I said it years ago at the Stormers – I say it again now – Gary Gold is a useless ignoramus. Obviously he’s giving someone good head to keep his job…and happily “passing go” and collecting his money…
The selectors and coaching staff CANNOT use “fatigue” as an excuse. THEY selected them!! Or – did they GENUINELY not think the players are fatigued?? If so – then OMG – how UNBELIEVABLY STUPID and rugby-ignorant is that!!??? Oh yes – the players are fatigued – I, personally, warned against taking the run-on Tri-Nations pack to Europe as long ago as August – it’s not ‘rocket-science’ – and it’s something EXPERTS like Prof Noakes have been warning about for ages – the need for 8 to 10 weeks consistent rest to get over physical AND mental fatigue. Basic rugby understanding. No-one listened – so THEY must fall on their collective swords…
Alas – the useless free-riders wont…
Keo, however, is wrong though when he compares our first choice team and the amount of rugby played, with that of NZ. Firstly – we played the Lions in June – a far tougher schedule than what the AB’s had. Secondly – the NZ NPC (or whatever they call it now) is nowhere near as tough/hard/competitive as the Currie Cup.
AND – crucially – the AB’s are ALL selected on merit. They don’t have to accommodate quotas. That’s a problem unique to SA. All other teams can select their best squads – we have to accommodate useless non-white players to make-up the numbers – while better white players who would get the job done – stay at home. FACT. Not very PC of me, is it – BUT it’s the ‘bare-knuckle’ TRUTH.
We have fantastic players available (I’m talking about genuine merit selections, of course) to the Springboks (I INCLUDE those based in Europe) – with the most useless, inept, coaching staff ever. Even more useless than Rudolf Straeuli… But we all know why Jake had to go – and the useless, incompetent, papsak appointed. AA at its best (ie worst!)… LOL!
November 30th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
@Nick Armstrong: hey @*******, point out the non-merit selections in this team!
Springboks – 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Wynand Olivier, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Morne Steyn, 9 Fourie du Preez, 8 Danie Rossouw, 7 Schalk Burger, 6 Heinrich Brussow, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 BJ Botha, 2 John Smit (c), 1 Beast Mtawarira.
Subs: 16 Bismarck du Plessis, 17 CJ van der Linde, 18 Andries Bekker, 19 Jean Deysel, 20 Dewald Potgieter, 21 Ruan Pienaar, 22 Jean de Villiers.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
@Transformation: i dont know where u ind this stuff from the archives but it obviously shows how much of a twat and sell-out Keo is
if it wasnt for some of you bloggers we’d never get the truth out
November 30th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
@Nick Armstrong: @237
Im intrigued. On what basis have you come to the widely held assumption that an injury-hit and talent-deficient Lions team (the weakest on paper in memory) were “far tougher” than a series against France ?
November 30th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
@omanishark: yeah but heini adams got injured dude
met him on sunday at petrol station
he had a cast on his leg
he would’ve been 1st in line for bench as he outplayed hougaard in sarries game and helps to fulfill the political mindfield
why the ones who love to talk abt quotas and political window dressing dont hamper on the fact that this scrummie-***-centre-***-wing-***-”out of his depth at international level” player..ASTOUNDS ME!!
November 30th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
@Nick Armstrong:
another of these whiter than white inebriated self ordained pieces of **** masquerading as evolved intelligence. why don’t you colonialists just f’ck right off to where you belong, or where the hell you think you hail from schmuck *** ********.
Oh and take your glory seeking hero with you, somehow he just don’t fit the Bill.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
@metalheart: oh yes
ur point is so valid abt the proteas
what is the point of being ranked number 1 with no medals or trophies to show for it
at the end of the day we won the games that counted
November 30th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
keo and his pdv- bashing brigade should make up their minds what they want out of life!firstly they stood on top of table mountain,drakensberge and whatever other mountains and deplored the fact that pdv tried to let the boks play a more expansive game,pdv relented and allowed the boks to revert back to this **** and bull rugby of kicking the leather of the ball.now that this strategy back-fired badly keo wants jake white to be pdv’s saviour now.this must be the biggest joke of the year and clearly shows how delusional mark keohane has become or how far he has crept up jake white’s arse.jeez,running rugby might not always work out but at least i give graham henry credit for trying something different and not to make a mockery of the game we all love so much.keohane took delight in the fact that the senior players decided to revert back to this kicking game and basically went against pdv.who are you blaming now keohane for this kicking game that finally bombed in our faces?keohane you are a disgrace to sa rugby and thankfully you have no official involvement in it anymore!
November 30th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
HOW CAN I LET MY SON USE THIS SITE WITH SO MANY BAD LANGUAGE BEING USED ? Its a shame for young rugby lovers .
November 30th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
@Valkyrie: u okes Kill me
ROFLMAO
“keohane you are a disgrace to sa rugby and thankfully you have no official involvement in it anymore!”
Still ROFLMAO
November 30th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
@rugbygenius: sometimes okes get ahead of themselves and forget who else comes on this website..but you’re right
guys CUT THE **** AND MIND YOUR LANGUAGE!
generally the LESS ARTICULATE resort to CUSSING
November 30th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
PA – Would have been interesting if PDV left the Boks who did 3N dutie at home, except JFourie as he didn’t play CC, and the Bok bench and selected all the Boks playing in Europe plus all the 2nd stringers from home!
We may have been surprised to see some good Bok rugby. Now we sit with some exhausted players and terrible results! And question marks over who our 2nd best players are?
It was abvious that the Boks with BJ and CJ are much better, especially with JSmit at hooker, very powerful front row!!
PDV lost an oppurtunity to blood some new players. I like what i see now in Kirchner, not a bad player at all. It was abvious that Ruan Pienaar is a better attacking flyhalf than Morne Steyn and Du Preez’s kicking game was shown up in Europe.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
@Papoose: Thank you Papoose for saying this. I like my son to check what other wise rugby people are saying but I can’t let him come here when people are using the bad words. So thank you for that sir.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
@Papoose: hey Papoose…i know bra, i reckon he thinks we’re all stupid and have no memories.
check this out…
Jake’s joker 6, 7 and 8 cards
Coach Jake White’s refusal to acknowledge the relevance of a specialist open-side flanker in the northern hemisphere has proved disastrous for the Springboks.
Match statistics from the defeats against Ireland and England are alarmingly weighted in the favour of the hosts and shows up the folly of White’s insistence that an open-sider is not a necessity in test rugby.
In the two tests the Boks battled for ball to such an extent that Ireland and England made 321 passes to South Africa’s 151. The Boks made almost double the amount of tackles, 187 to 100, while the ruck and pass domination was a staggering 120 to 46 to the home teams.
The most damning statistic that shows up the lack of impact White’s loose-trio has had in the two test matches is that the Boks won 18 turnovers to the 17 of Ireland and England’s. It is damning because the Boks, by virtue of Ireland and England’s dominance of the ball, had nearly three times the breakdowns to contest. Ireland and England took the ball into the contest 138 times and the Boks won it back on 18 occasions. The Boks were the attackers at just 63 rucks and they lost it 17 times.
I spoke to several prominent coaches in South Africa and analysts and asked them for their interpretation of the breakdown statistics. All of them expressed a similar view that the Boks were unable to provide continuity because no openside flanker had been selected.
What compounded the situation was the absence of a mobile hooker.
The Boks were making double the amount of tackles because there was no one to turn over the opposition ball. Both Ireland and England were comfortable in retaining possession and recycling this possession. England made a mess of the possession, but alarmingly still comfortably took it through 10 and 20 phases on occasions. Ireland did the same, but the class of their back division and cohesion between the loose-forwards and halfbacks meant they easily broke down the Bok defence with 18 linebreaks.
White on this tour has opted for three loose-forwards capable of providing lineout options, but his search for a potent lineout has been at the expense of speed and accuracy in the support play. When the Boks did make a linebreak there was rarely one of the loose-forwards running on the inside shoulder of the linebreaker.
Against England it was at its worst when Akona Ndungane and Francois Steyn were both put into space and confronted with a one on one with Josh Lewsey. A traditional open-sider’s angle of run would have been on the inside shoulder of the player with ball in hand. It didn’t happen for the Boks because the national coach, unlike every other coach in the country (or for that matter the world), doesn’t see the value of picking one of his loose-forwards to do that function.
England’s public is not being fooled by the mediocrity of performance in winning for the first time in eight tests and the South African public should also not be fooled that the Bok defeat was more heroic than it was horrid.
With the right selections and strategy England should have been dismantled and Andy Robinson should be looking for a new job today. The Boks should also have won for the first time in 10 years.
Ireland, France, New Zealand and Argentina have all won at Twickenham in the last two years. The Boks have not.
White got his selection balance wrong, just like he did in Dublin and just like he did in 2004 against Ireland and England. Even in 2004, Schalk Burger was not a decisive factor in the northern hemisphere because he is not a natural open-sider.
Burger, at his peak, is a freak who is capable in this role in southern hemisphere conditions. Against Ireland and England in 2004 he looked lost and frustrated playing against specialist open-siders.
You would have thought the lessons would have been learned two years ago. They haven’t because White did not believe there was a lesson taught. The coach stubbornly believes in picking tall loose-forwards, but all that the last two tests have shown is that the only thing we can learn from this history is that White has learned nothing.
The additional lineout options have won the Boks four against the throw on this tour and they’ve also lost four against the throw. They’ve scored a try from one against the throw and they’ve also conceded a try from one against the throw.
White continues to believe his philosophy is right and every critic and South African coach who thinks otherwise is wrong.
What White can’t argue with is a record that reads played 12 overseas against New Zealand, Australia, England, France and Ireland and lost 11.
In the Northern Hemisphere White has played Ireland twice, England twice and France once and every time he has done the same thing and got the same result – a defeat.
Now he has introduced Kabamba Floors into the mix – a month after saying the player simply did not fit into the Boks’ playing style? It makes no sense, unless there is an acknowledgement that if Floors plays, he does so as an open-sider.
It is fantastic that Floors has been called up, but it does make a mockery of White’s mantra that he could not fly Luke Watson to New Zealand earlier this year because the player would not have enough time to learn the team playing systems.
Floors will have one training run with the team at Wasps on Tuesday morning, but White has already confirmed he will be in the match 22.
Don’t ask where the logic is in that because logic is not something you’d associate with Bok selections.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 12:21 am