Meyer realises Bok dream
27 Jan 2012
Heyneke Meyer was on Friday named coach of the Springboks.
Four years after Meyer fell victim to political engineering that installed the inferior Peter de Villiers ahead of him, the 44-year-old strode through the doors of the Sports Science Centre in Cape Town with a tense expression. Privately he is undoubtedly apprehensive about what lies ahead.
There are few more unforgiving jobs in professional sports than that of Springboks coach. But for now his enthusiasm, optimism and unrelenting work ethic has yet to be dulled.
Meyer’s task, a four-year gig that will take him through to the World Cup in England in 2015, begins in arduous fashion. He’ll have roughly a week to prepare his Springboks for a three-Test series against England in June – a vicious introduction to Test coaching if ever there was one. And this without any certainty about who his assistants will be, with his preferences tied up in contracts.
Meyer, vehemently opposed to mediocrity, will pay no mind the fact that the bar was set decidedly low by his predecessor. A Tri-Nations title and series victory against the Lions plasters over three last placed finishes in the southern hemisphere showpiece and a quarter-final exit at the 2011 World Cup. Meyer has consistently said that the Springboks need to be held to a higher standard than they were made to, particularly on home soil. Now he will experience first hand the challenges associated with achieving that goal.
‘The World Cup is important but I believe you can’t build at Springbok level in the way you can in Super Rugby. My goal is to win every single game,’ Meyer said, in contrast to his predecessors, who’ve had an intense focus on winning the World Cup.
‘I’m not being arrogant and I respect other nations, many of whom have continuity [in their playing and coaching staff]. Every single game will be very important. So the World Cup will be the cherry on the top, but you want to be number one in the world for a long time. If you put the right structures in place, the right game plan, get the ethos of the team where you want it and get the type of players that will die for their country, then the World Cup will take care of itself.’
Saru CEO Jurie Roux explained that they had head-hunted Meyer and that he was their preferred candidate. He lamented a fallout with Bulls after Meyer indicated that he would like to take up the position of Springboks coach (he was their director of rugby) but maintained that Meyer had effected the exit clause in his contract.
Meyer thanked ‘the Bulls family’ and spoke fondly of his time at the union. On the Springboks job he spoke with visible emotion.
‘It is humbling to be named as coach. It’s an honour. I realise its a huge responsibility to represent the whole of the nation. But I’m ready and looking forward to the challenge. I realise that winning is the most important thing. But I also intend to make a difference to the lives of the people of our country. I hope I achieve that.
‘I want to be a Springbok coach of the people. And I want to make the Springboks accessible to all people. I want all our supporters to be proud of the team, and what the jersey stands for. My wish is that all South Africans will join hands in the bid to make this the best team in the world.’
By Ryan Vrede
429 Comments
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28 Jan 2012, 00:29 am
The provider of the substantiated truth (see quotes) is always the non-racist in this issue.
It is there in the history in black on white.
28 Jan 2012, 00:32 am
@David-396:
The red brick is very ‘South Oxfordshire’, Henley on Thames etc!
Catch you again.
28 Jan 2012, 00:33 am
How important is captaincy in rugby?
March, 2006
History has many examples of the right and the wrong captains having been selected – which begs the old question: Do you select the best player, or the best captain? And what is his influence on a team’s performance?
Anton Leonard, Joost van der Westhuizen and Corné Krige recently all captained succesfull teams. Ditto for Francois Pienaar and John Smit. With especially the Stormers currently suffering, it poses the question:
Do you select your best team, or a team with the best captain?
Going back in history, this topic comes to the fore often. The 1956 Springboks would probably have been much more succesfull had they stuck to Salty du Randt as captain. An unfortunate happening between him and Jan Pickard let to some fisticuffs on the eve of the team’s announcement – and Basie Viviers was plucked from obscurity to lead the team.
This lead to the dropping of the already selected Jack van der Schyff, with the highly rated Johnny Buchler selected as the second fullback. Throughout the tour the selectors struggled to warrant Viviers’ place in the team and even tried him at flyhalf.
The 1951/52 team lost their captain – Basil Kenyon – at an early stage and the leadership was thrust upon Hennie Muller.
Doc Craven later remarked that this was probably the best thing that could have happened to this conquering team, and is also on record that Salty du Rand (and Van der Schyff with him) received some of the rawest of deals in the history of the game.
“Wrong side of the railway line”
After that we had the 1960/61 team in the UK. Although succesfull, they would probably have been one of the great teams in history had they been captained by Doug Hopwood, and not by the 22-year old Avril Malan.
The fact that their team manager was crawling from one pub to the other and that their assistant-manager was one of the worst communicators in the game contributed to what really was not a very happy team.
Hopwood was a great No 8 and a very succesfull captain of Western Province, but the selectors saw him as someone from the “wrong side of the railway line” to captain a Springbok team.
The Boks struggled in the 1963 series against the Wallabies, mainly because of inconsistent selections and the captaincy alternating between Avril Malan to Abe Malan more than once in the series.
Thereafter the Boks had great captains. Pienaar may not have been the best in his posisition in the country, but he never stood out as a bad selection and was by far the best available captain.
28 Jan 2012, 01:38 am
Comment on post 293
How many here can deny the existence of the Afrikaner Broederbond / Afrikanerbond, even today in South Africa and the connections between the Afrikaner Broederbond/Afrikanerbond and the utterly despicable, corrupt(95 WC) Louis Luyt with his impeccable rugby pedigree? Address all the evidence provided.
The Broederbond had up to 24k members(some docs.) and 1400 branches at one stage across the land and concentrated clearly north of the Hex River Valley. Does that mentality just evaporate overnight yet the org. still exists?
That monumental political interest group does not exist for no purpose and is clearly there to create a huge sphere of political influence in all aspects of life including big money sports like rugby. There has since 1994 been huge white outcries of less jobs for their group and thus cricket and rugby, financially controlled by them/whites, undeniably, is heavily protected for their sons and daughters(where possible) and especially in the former Transvaal and OFS and other franchises/unions where they are heavily outnumbered and in general disfavour with the ruling authorities.
That the close to 100 year existing mentality and nasty social attitudes of the Afrikanerbond does not influence largely those coaches and presidents and ‘kraal’ people of those recalcitrant areas is grossly unthinkable. We know about much dissatisfaction expressed by black players in those areas and surely ‘merit’ selection is often a joke overall there.
That the working of the B-bond is secretive makes present knowledge more difficult to expose but time will deal with that, unfortunately always after the event.
Did your Afrikaner sections of your families(if not wholly so) know at the time of the 60s-90s political involvements and influences of the B-bond in respect of the Malans and Smith and De Villiers and much more, provided in an earlier post. If then why not now too?
Why now would a Matfield or a F.Du Preez express the desire to come out of retirement to play for a Heyneke Meyer if not because of the trust, surely political?
Because of the many, many decades of the B-bond involement many others (not me) earlier on this thread had the right ro express a figurative reference to Bond involvement. They do not have to prove anything now as history has created that question for them and that political interest rugby group has re-incarnated itself(why).
Clearly the onus is on the apologetic LIARS(why lie) to provide the evidence that the Bond does not interfere but since it is a secretive and higly vetted Afrikaner organisation that is not easily possible.
28 Jan 2012, 03:10 am
Interesting times ahead, can’t wait to see his troops in action. Good luck to him, unless he plays my teams.
@ET.-403: “Anton Leonard, Joost van der Westhuizen and Corné Krige recently all captained succesfull teams”
Maybe Krige captained succesful domestic sides (haven’t heard them winning anything since he left for Europe a decade ago), I would not say that about his Boks captaincy. After all, as far as I recall, his troops never beat neither Poms, nor Frogs, not to mention the Blacks.
28 Jan 2012, 05:43 am
@Nils-405:
The question that was being addressed was actually ” How important is captaincy in rugby? ” Thus it mentions captains of any team and not only the national team e.g. krige at Stormers who got to semis in Super rugby.
More importantly I used the included information in the article to highlight political interference in the selections of captains such as Avril and Abe Malan( brothers of Magnus Malan a Def. Minister) instead of the brainy and brilliant #8 Doug Hopwood – Afrikaner Broederbond interference.
So too were the selections of the capt. and his understudy, Dawie DeVilliers and Nellie Smith in the 1965 tour to N.Z a political interference- according to Danie Craven.
28 Jan 2012, 06:26 am
@ET.-400:
The Broederbond interferences in the 1960 and 1965 capts . and more were not revealed at that specific time but many decades later in 1995 when Craven spoke to Greyvenstein for his book. Such is the doings of a secret organisation.
Craven went as far as calling the ’65 Boks the Broederbond team and blamed that for their lost test series.
Earlier and in the 60s or a little later all of Fry, Kenyon, Felix Du Plessis(Morne’s dad) Dryburgh, Bedford, Morne Dup and Wynand Claasen were axed and suffered various degrees of criticism based on politics(says Craven) – note all are english-speaking capts.
The slogan to oust some of them was :
” You don’t play an Englishman against an Englishman, you play a Boer against an Englishman.” – the opponents were English or Lions or ABs or Wallabies
So what happened before and in 2004 and 2007 and 2011 will only be revealed 35 – 60 or so years from those respective dates the effects of a secret org.
28 Jan 2012, 08:43 am
@youknowwho-66:
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Should have happened before he shot his load in the twat of some roadside prossie in kimberley and you did not dribble out all the way
28 Jan 2012, 08:55 am
ai man
beast out for 3 months….
terrible blow
28 Jan 2012, 09:08 am
@ET.-404:
Where do I sign up for the English Brotherhood?
28 Jan 2012, 09:24 am
@Nils-405: It wasn’t just South Africa, none of the Tri nations teams beat the Poms in those days.
28 Jan 2012, 09:26 am
@410
Why don’t you just start one.
28 Jan 2012, 10:58 am
Can’t believe that Meyers moment was almost ruined by the prick Vrede.
28 Jan 2012, 11:00 am
@grant10-409:
Shame poor beast man, how did it happen?
28 Jan 2012, 12:38 pm
Eng now 37 for 4….
chasing 145
whoa!
28 Jan 2012, 14:14 pm
Go King Kenny!
28 Jan 2012, 14:36 pm
@RL-413: If Vrede is a journalist than I am Tarzan from George.
28 Jan 2012, 14:37 pm
@grant10-415: Bowled out for 72. Pakistan 2-0 up in the series
28 Jan 2012, 15:03 pm
@Michael-418: so the saffas playing for the Poms could not save them … bowled out for 72 :smile,
28 Jan 2012, 15:04 pm
@keo-2: @keo-2:
Keo Why do you allow these racist accounts to continue on this site??
The comments from the below is nothing but racism and some1 with a political agenda making use of this site for spewing SPAM across posts.. Seriously don’t need to see this **** here when we come to talk rugby.
@ChairmanShabazz-255:
ChairmanWanker piss off man *** u are doff. What a clown.. Take ur racial primitive ideas else were.
28 Jan 2012, 16:18 pm
LOL it looks like Mitch will be sending his Vodacom cup team to front the Kings … that will teach them for selecting a Border XV against his boys.
Lions to boycott weakened Kings Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:51
Lions coach John Mitchell is not interested in taking on a weakened Southern Kings outfit and warned that his team will not turn up for their pre-season clash if that is the case.
28 Jan 2012, 17:28 pm
@ChairmanShabazz-255:
You shall walk 500 furlongs sideways down a purple path and seal-clap above your head during zenith. On the 7th day you shall insert a dill pickle into the navel of a clown.
Why do you laugh? This is the way of my people.
28 Jan 2012, 18:00 pm
@RL-421:
What EXACTLY is a FULL STRENGTH Kings line up comprised of compared to the weakened side ?
28 Jan 2012, 19:01 pm
Luke Watson?
Don’t tell me you ALSO discovered the CAPS button.
28 Jan 2012, 19:25 pm
Cheetahs beat the Kings 33-20 after trailing 14-20 at half time.
28 Jan 2012, 19:33 pm
@RL-419: Good on Pakistan beating SA Second stringers
@PissAnt-425: Sounds like a good match for the Kings?
29 Jan 2012, 07:29 am
I see Capo has promoted himself to chairman. Walkies.
29 Jan 2012, 09:35 am
427 stormer in a teacup:
Chairman of the Bored..!!?
29 Jan 2012, 12:28 pm
@ufo-428: Chairman of the boarding Kennels?
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