And the winners are …
2 Dec 2009
Keo.co.za picks the real winners and losers of 2009.
THE HEROES
Test Player of the Year – How the IRB overlooked Fourie du Preez for their Player of the Year award in favour of Richie McCaw is perplexing. He was the fulcrum around which the Springboks rotated in the British & Irish Lions series and in the Tri-Nations. Seven of the nine judges are from the northern hemisphere, where the All Blacks are revered, while selection convenor John Eales is known to be anti-Bok. Testament to this is that he wanted Juan Martin Hernandez named World Player of the Year in 2007 ahead of the irrepressible Bryan Habana. Thankfully sanity prevailed that time, but it seems he has had his revenge. Despite the unbelievable call, Du Preez should be content in the knowledge that we think he’s the business. That’s all that matters. Victor Matfield was phenomenal and Heinrich Brüssow established himself as the finest openside flank on the planet in 2009, but Du Preez’s consistent brilliance earns him the prize.
Test Rookie of the Year – Who else but the prolific Morné Steyn. One should never underestimate the mental strength it took for him to come off the bench in the second Lions Test, have a short while to settle, then kick a 50m series-winning penalty to banish 12 years of heartache. He then carried his form into the Tri-Nations and showed that he had the aptitude to not only survive, but excel, against the world’s best players.
Test Young Gun of the Year – Since his rise to prominence in 2008, Dewald Potgieter had Springbok written all over him. He resembles a rookie Schalk Burger – bustling, powerful and fearless – and looks the natural successor to the Springbok treasure. His debut against Ireland was too brief to establish his capacity to play at Test level, but he’ll get more opportunities in future, and will develop into one of the great Springboks. Francois Hougaard didn’t show the full range of his ability on tour, but be assured, he is a quality scrumhalf, one who Fourie du Preez has tipped to succeed him.
Mighty Mouse Award – The physique of a juiced-up dwarf but the heart the size of South Africa and wonderful skills to boot – Heinrich Brüssow turned in some sensational performances in 2009. When he was burning white hot he was unstoppable, and even when he was ordinary he still made his presence felt, particularly at the breakdown. By the end of the season, the France and Ireland players couldn’t stop talking about him as the primary threat, which bears testament to the telling impact he’s made in 2009. Schalk who? Nah, kidding, but if Brüssow is anywhere near as good as he was this season in 2010, there may not be so much jest to that statement when you read this awards piece next year.
Test Try of the Year – Jaque Fourie’s two-fingered salute to the Springbok coaching staff for omitting him from the starting line-up against the Lions. He came on, as a wing, and negotiated a number of defenders en route to the try that dragged the Springboks back into the contest, and ultimately saw them go on to win the series. Brilliant.
Coach of the Year – John Smit held the Springboks together and even made the substitution calls during the second Test after the coaching staff’s ‘mare at King’s Park. Read between the lines of his book and you’ll reach the same conclusion: without Smitty, the Boks are on auto-pilot.
With special mentions to: The Springbok Sevens side for winning their first ever title.
THE VILLAINS
The Foot in Mouth Award – He’s toned it down over the last six months, but the king retains his crown purely for the madcap utterances during the Lions series. From allusions to ballet to eye-gouging lions on the highveld, Peter de Villiers entertained as much as he embarrassed.
The Sultans of Spin – The British and Irish media for dubbing the Lions tour a resounding success despite a 2-1 scoreline in favour of the Boks. Those who are interested should visit their local newsagent for a look at tour books written by respected journalists that unequivocally claim the Lions so nearly won the series 3-0. Laughable.
The Wet Nappy Whinge Award – This accolade goes to a player referred to by some Boks as ‘The Wanker of the Tour’. Mike Phillips niggled on the field and was the sorest of losers off it after the Lions went down in Pretoria.
The Brain Explosion Award – Sireli Naqelevuki for his high-tackle in the dying seconds of the Currie Cup semi-final. When will he prove worth the money and effort Province produced to extract him from Fiji?
With special mention to: The IRB Awards panel – Honestly, what were you drinking when you named Richie McCaw the Player of the Year? He missed half the Tri-Nations through injury and was captain of a Crusaders side that bowed out in the Super 14 semi-finals. Fourie du Preez and Brian O’Driscoll were the only players in this race.
Worst boots-to-performance ratio - The most impressive thing about Lote Tuqiri’s rugby these days is his flashy boots.
Dirtiest attempt at a moustache – Matt Giteau’s was pretty gross and Drew Mitchell won’t keep any photos of his, but the dirtiest Movember effort goes to Corey Jane.
By Jon Cardinelli and Ryan Vrede
326 Comments
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2 Dec 2009, 14:25 pm
We just got buzzed by a flight of SAAF JAS Gripens…
2 Dec 2009, 14:27 pm
@CenturionShark (aka LondonShark):
I’m not a Kiwi – I’m with the Boks. But even FdP can’t be upset about missing out on an award to McCaw. BOD is okay on the field but lets himself down with whinging off the field
2 Dec 2009, 14:27 pm
this
is
biased
tabloid
journalism
at
it’s
worst
bye blog, it was fun.
2 Dec 2009, 14:29 pm
In fact, we’ve had quite some military hardware flying over Cape Town the last while…some Agusta A109 helicopters and of course the bright, shiny-new JAS 39 Gripens fighter jets…
2 Dec 2009, 14:31 pm
yeah u chomping at the self important bit for all you’re worth, chomp chomp. Keep on chomping its all thats ever going to get you rid of that over zealous self worth arrogance of yours. Pity you can’t see it. . .yet, but it will come around.. no doubt.
2 Dec 2009, 14:35 pm
yeah and u still sitting on your arse bemoaning luck and the toilet bowl around you.
2 Dec 2009, 14:42 pm
@WP Till I Die:
that will make lesotho think twice about invading…
2 Dec 2009, 14:44 pm
@rich1:
Oh sorry, I thought you were from the dark side
Mmm, agree to disagree. IMO FDP was robbed.
2 Dec 2009, 14:44 pm
The skopskiet vs cab show is hilarious.
2 Dec 2009, 14:45 pm
@gunther:
LOL.
2 Dec 2009, 14:45 pm
@skopskiet: Skoppie the worst form of pride is “reverse humility” i.e when someone appears to be humble for the sake of gaining selfish recognition. Everyone of us has pride, be that pride in what we achieve,our abilities or where we belong etc. but its when that pride is demonstrated by the denigrating of others simply for the sake of boosting oneself or that it becomes a means of persuing self interest that it is damaging. Fdp’s style of play in that he puts a lot of faith in his own ability is not pride and doesn’t mean he is less of a team player than Adams. It may just show that he has a lot more confidence in his own ability and consequently is feared a lot more by the opposition than Heinie I would venture to say.
2 Dec 2009, 14:45 pm
@WP Till I Die:
I know. Skop though has some deep seated issues. Makes for a good laugh I will admit.
2 Dec 2009, 14:48 pm
bemoaning?? Huh? Who’s bemoaning? just simply sitting on my *** watching it go by as it actually is. The toilet bowl that is. Its you lot that bemoan and seek meaning and chase shadows of glorified achievement not knowing exactly how ephemeral it actually all is. You still under the illusion its all so emphatically real all this vain glorious achievement you’re chasing. Keep on I tell you, yank for all you can when the elusive flusher is all empty, thats when you’ll find out what in fact its all about.
Battery low. Out.
2 Dec 2009, 14:53 pm
@skopskiet:
Your battery is permanently low.
2 Dec 2009, 14:54 pm
yeah but you do chase something and you do nothing about it, except for sitting on your arse making proclamation of truth like big chief sitting bull and bemoan the toilet bowl, and instead begrudge others their successes who actually put in alot of effort and work into what they achieve and thus understably take pride. I;d be pretty proud of a world cup.
2 Dec 2009, 14:55 pm
thank the lord for the finite nature of the lithium battery….
2 Dec 2009, 15:02 pm
**** YOU KEO, YOU ARE THE WORST RUGBY ANALYST ON THE PLANET EVER, IT IS TIME TO ACCEPT THAT A NEW AGE HAS BEGUN AND THAT SA RUGBY IS RUN BY A BLACK MAN, OPEN YOUR COLLONIALIST EYES AND PULL YOUR BRAIN FROM YOUR ***, SO YOU TO CAN ARISE TO THE REALITY THAT RUGBY WILL NEVER BE CONTROLLED BY THE IMPERIALST NEVER EVER, EVER, YOU BLOODY *** KISSING WHINING, ONE DIMENSIONAL THIKING, SHORT SIGHTED SORRY EXCUSE FOR A RUGBT RACIST ANAYLIST.
2 Dec 2009, 15:05 pm
I ALMOST NEVER POST ON THIS SITE, BECUASE OF THIS KIND OF ****, YOU NEED SOME SCHOOLING YOU AND YOUR WHOLE GANG YOU IDIOTIC MORONS, I WONDER HOW YOU LOOK IN REAL LIFE MAYBE THAT WILL EXPLAIN YOUR BRAIN CAPACITY ( JUST JOKING ) MAYBE!!!?
2 Dec 2009, 15:11 pm
@graeme1: Well you’ve certainly shown yours by that tirade. The task of a journalist is to get people thinking about the issues and just as these boys are taking the current coaching set-up to task, the previous set up was equally questioned.
2 Dec 2009, 15:12 pm
@graeme1: Stop shouting you gave me a headache
2 Dec 2009, 15:24 pm
@graeme1: tsk tsk tsk ……
very mature mate , now go clean your nappy
2 Dec 2009, 16:09 pm
I must say skoppie as unbiased raised a chuckle from me. Balanced I can understand – chip on both shoulders. The JS for coach is just trolling keo rubbish. My view is that keo is just a cynical journo – knows the price of everything butthe value of nothing and would sell ma’s soul for a storey, his having been sold already. Nice to waffle on his site though, real time waster.
Saffers are a divisive lot and that is why we have never reached our rugby potential (let alone anything else). So now skoppie types will never acknowledge that jw’s team won the RWC, even though he wasn’t a great coach, just technically good. Also the skoppie clones will never acknowledge that PDV fluffed 2008 TN and just maybe JS et al influenced him to be a bit conservative and structured. Trouble is the Boks got stuck there – they need to move forward.
My thought – you can’t drive a car forward by looking in the rear view mirror (apologies Warren Buffet, I think). I reckon SA rugby (and everything else) should look and plan for the future, not keep grovelling in the rubbish of the past except to learn from it. Not happening yet.
2 Dec 2009, 16:47 pm
@Transformation: its amazing to see in clear daylight how wrong MK has been the way he was ranting on abt JW,
its funny to see how its the same ramblings going on abt PdV only difference is these rantings against PdV continue in a year when he won BIL and Tri-nations and New Zealand 3 duck
heaven forbid he has a year like White had
the assumption is that since he started off with a World Cup winning side they should be invincible
i dont see why that should be the case cos history has not shown that
even Aus didnt win tri nations as World champions I mean
it even took the 95 Boks 3 years as WC champions be4 they won tri nations.
These stats dont lie
Winners of the Tri Nations Championship
2008 New Zealand
2007 New Zealand
2006 New Zealand
2005 New Zealand
2004 South Africa
2003 New Zealand
2002 New Zealand
2001 Australia
2000 Australia
1999 New Zealand
1998 South Africa
1997 New Zealand
1996 New Zealand
2 Dec 2009, 16:49 pm
122. Breakdown Boy :
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 am
@sparticus: I think FDV wanted to leave because of the poor season last year, both the Bulls and the boks.
FDP own words quoted below –
“But the way things have gone made it difficult to contemplate quitting. The atmosphere that was set by the Springbok management was really wonderful. This Bok management is really some of the best ever and in that aspect I enjoy being part of the Springboks. They made it easier to make the decision.”
2 Dec 2009, 16:55 pm
@the peanut gallery: @112
Youve also missed the boat on the full picture there.
‘Movember’ is indeed about growing Mo’s. But in the aid of charity for postrate cancer, the biggest killing-cancer of males. It has been extremely successful in NZ & Australia with fellas getting sponsored to grow-a-mo for the month of November and then Competitions to see who is named ‘Mr Movember’.
Use it.
2 Dec 2009, 17:02 pm
@Papoose: this is the point where KEO became Jake White’s lackey, spotting potential riches, he ingraciated himself with great alacrity.
Don’t be a fool Jake … go on Sunday
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 6:17 am
Jake White would only be setting himself up for failure and frustration if he continued with the Boks in 2008.
A day before the Springboks beat Argentina in the World Cup semi-finals, Jake White, Cape Argus sports Editor Gary Lemke and I were walking back to the team hotel after a coffee at the Bercy Village.
“Watch out,” said Jake, pulling me out of the road as a car whizzed past. Then he turned to Gary and said: “A year ago I would have pushed him into the road.”
We all laughed but the truth is given an opportunity 12 months ago Jake probably would have pushed me into the road because I was among those who had written he should be given the bullet as Bok coach. I wrote he had nothing more to offer the Springboks and we needed something else.
The Boks had lost seven of their last eight Test matches and White, in my opinion, had only been consistent in his inconsistency. That was 12 months ago.
Did I get it wrong? I could argue that I didn’t but the fact of the matter is the Boks are in the World Cup final, so whatever spin I’d want to put on it, I didn’t get it right.
I could also argue, as some have, that the Boks would not be in the World Cup final had it not been for the input of former Wallabies coach Eddie Jones. Then again the counter is that Jones is only there because of White.
Whatever your view, whether you’ve applauded Jake White in the last four years, condemned him, screamed at him or felt for him, you can’t ignore the immense courage it has taken to survive as Bok coach.
No Bok coach in the history of the game had made it to four consecutive years or 40 Tests. White on Saturday will be in charge for a 52nd successive Test.
White is in Paris this week because he never wanted to be anywhere else in the final week of the World Cup. Springbok rugby is his passion and South African rugby is his love.
He has made his mistakes, suffered because of them, sacrificed the normality of being at home when his kids eat dinner and fought incredible forces within the South African game. But he has also triumphed on so many levels.
At the same time he has been left perplexed by a South African media that voted him media personality in one year and outcast the next.
No-one ever promised White it would be easy to coach the Springboks, but no-one ever told him it would be this hard.
Yet he still wants the job, despite the media intrusion on his life and the abuse that comes with losing 49-0, as the Boks did to Australia a year ago.
What makes a man want to put himself and those around him through that kind of turmoil? What makes a man want to save the guy who a year ago tortured him in print?
When the wise heads of South African rugby advertised White’s job a week ago, they asked for someone who could handle abnormality, intrusion and ridicule.
They did this at the time when an extraordinary character was busy negotiating the kind of social and political obstacles no other coach in world rugby can comprehend.
They did this without looking at what they already had – a guy who has absorbed the pressure, stumbled because of it, but is still standing.
There is no prouder South African in Paris this week than Jake White. But if he continues in South African rugby there will be no bigger fool.
When he hurried me across the road I did tell him that he needed to walk away once he’d won the World Cup.
South African rugby doesn’t deserve him. I couldn’t think of a bigger thank you to give him.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 6:17 am
2 Dec 2009, 17:05 pm
ingraciated – ingratiated
2 Dec 2009, 17:54 pm
” has made his mistakes, suffered because of them, sacrificed the normality of being at home when his kids eat dinner and fought incredible forces within the South African game.”
Of course, at that time, we didn’t know he was shacked up with one of his mistresses in Paris”. I wonder if Mark new?
2 Dec 2009, 17:59 pm
@David: the poppie was there for the coffee! But mark had to only count the manne the time.
2 Dec 2009, 18:06 pm
Wankanathan:
“Prostrate” themselves is what the All Blacks do after the Boks have kicked their a$$es.
“prostate” cancer is what growing mos is about.
2 Dec 2009, 19:45 pm
My poor Sireli. It’s ok bud, come game day you can sit next to me… in the granstand… off the field
2 Dec 2009, 19:59 pm
@drew: @230
and making immature and inappropriate jokes about cancer seems to be a temptation too easy to ignore.
2 Dec 2009, 20:20 pm
@WakaNathan:
waka, didn’t see any joke about cancer in drew’s post.
he was simply making fun of your spelling of prostate
2 Dec 2009, 20:26 pm
skoppie clones? no such thing, skoppie comes only as one of a kind, no clones of skoppie banding about, not here or anywhere else for that matter.
Sorry to disappoint you husky but there ain’t no clones of skoppie anywhere else on this planet, you can be quite sure of that without any further concerns that might assail your thinking.
2 Dec 2009, 20:30 pm
@skopskiet: as you get with all brands… you get the cheap knock-offs
2 Dec 2009, 20:35 pm
I suppose princess Sarah but knock offs aren’t the original, not even if they try, certain patents are simply not cloneable.
2 Dec 2009, 20:38 pm
@skopskiet: that’s why they’re so cheap… lol
2 Dec 2009, 20:40 pm
@skopskiet: And thank fk for that.
2 Dec 2009, 20:47 pm
Yeah soda just like there no clones of anyone else, I doubt there any other Soda’s parading around anywhere either. Seems thats one of the beauties of nature, when it comes to humans unless you got an identical twin you’re more n likely one of a kind uniquely you.
2 Dec 2009, 20:59 pm
Sodajoes twin = Jimmy Abbot. The only other lions supporter I know.
2 Dec 2009, 21:05 pm
@SodaJoe: Soda, I hope you saw that I voted you as most amusing blogger on Keo last night….
You have to keep standards up as Gunther is breathing down your neck!!
2 Dec 2009, 21:05 pm
@Slappes: I didn’t even know the Lions had supporters until last year
2 Dec 2009, 21:06 pm
@SpringbokSarah: Hi Sarah, some good Percy shots in your ‘album’ on FB!!
2 Dec 2009, 21:07 pm
@SpringbokSarah: Lions supporters are very handsome Soda tells me!!
The ones on RT are, it has to be said!!
2 Dec 2009, 21:11 pm
@carol: that’s not even half of them!
@carol: ja and the loftus faithful are skinny
2 Dec 2009, 21:11 pm
@SpringbokSarah: shame that’s mean… let’s go with and Andries Bekker is short
2 Dec 2009, 21:11 pm
Sarah
yeah lions fans are extinct, but Jimmy and Soda are die hards. Very sad.
2 Dec 2009, 21:13 pm
the budget for Invictus was $60 million….
2 Dec 2009, 21:14 pm
@Slappes: rofl thought most of the would have moved to the Bulls
2 Dec 2009, 21:15 pm
Hi Carol, google Jimmy Abbot if you wanna see what Sodajoe looks like. Soda is a bit heavier these days though.
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