So have we made any progress under Rassie?

1. 1st coach to beat the All Blacks by 5 tries in New Zealand
   
2. Beat England in a 3 test series
   
3. finished 2nd in the four Nations
   

Undoubtedly. There is an emerging pattern wrapped around the umbrella defence. It's a young team so they'll get better  with more experience but also interesting is that they're looking to score tries. Another improvement has been turnover ball and competing at the breakdown something past Bok teams used to ignore. Given time the Boks could be the real deal .

No. We are the very opposite of what fans are demanding for and have become more predictable as the season has progressed. That is not progress. We are in the a French half, in front of their 22 with momentum, we kick. We did this a number of times. The game plan is based on set piece dominance and a powerful pack, backed by kicking. 

Rassie has a number of selection issues to resolve. He has bumbled the season away with poor management of the centres and we need to settle on a loose trio. He painted himself into a corner electing Kolisi captain. There are lots of usable pieces at hand, which helps, but he needs to get serious. 2018 has seen a sharp drop in all statistical categories on attack. We need more. Compared to most countries we look a clunky and rigid pattern based team with little fluidity. Poor distributors among the backs is another problem. This needs a lot of work. However, there is an identity to the team that works better than the Coetzee era. More attention to detail, better fundamentals. The team doesn't look defeated before the whistle. Depending on the remainder of the EOYT, I may settle with a C+. We must defeat Scotland and Wales. 

The potential is there for a good 2019. Rassie will need to be bold. 

Sure Erasmus will need to be bold and rid the squad of the useless and under-performers,   On this list we have quite a number of players to be reconsidered.

In the backline I would add Serontein as a center and drop Esterhuizen.  I would also rid the team from the box kick madness that is one reason why the backline si not performing.

Amongst the forwards I am afraid that he should get rid of Whiteley, Mostert, and Louw - but unfortunately Kolisi is a political selection - totally out of place.

The squad has enough locks - we have to look at the loosies and strengthen same,   Marcell Coetzee instead of Louw is a given and I would definitely look at Van Dyk and Jean-Luc du Preez/Dan du Preez as back-up loosies.

As to the performance one would have to look at what Meyer achieved in 2012  and in 2014-15 respectively and what Coetzee achieved in his two years as a coach.  Both did not achieve what Erasmus has achieved.   Both coaches were poor compared to Erasmus - who is still building up a squad caused by the shambles left behind by his two predecessors.    In the period November 2014 to September 2015 the Springboks won only 3 tests from 9 played.     

AO claimed that Erasmus inherited a substantial number of players from Coetzee - but most have minimal experience in tests and were clueless as to what is expected from them.  

I m generally satisfied that Erasmus did better than both his predecessors - but he will have t look at some selections and a slight change to the game plan to become even better.        

I don't regard any rugby coaching role the hardest in the world, but it is hamstrung by decidedly backward people. Did Rassie have to persist with Damian? Did he have to elect Kolisi captain? The tactical blunders can't be blamed on the ANC. He has been out coached a few times and blew the biggest moment in his coaching career. He has the power to affect our problems. Can he do it? I don't know. I hope so. 

AO...

"Did he have to elect Kolisi captain?"

Thats a hard question to answer.

We don't know what pressures / instructions Rassie was under.

The ANC is a very secretive institution that often has secret meetings unbeknown to the rest of the world.

It may have been a part of his job description, it may have been a prerequisit or it may have just been a decision that Rassie took to ease the BEE weight on his shoulder.

No doubt, the decision to elect Kolisi as captain has made many a politician happy and may have been a masterstroke in that it allowed rassie an extra bit of freedom.

Kolisi has never been  a favourite of mine. Even when he was so animated and in the forground during the incoming English tour. It was all hype behind a phenominal comback win.

Color aside... is he good enough to be on the same playing field as Pollard, Marx, Dyantyi and Etsebeth?

Not in my book!

Seems there is growing support for the Dups brothers.

Pity we've gone about this year they way we have. They're obviously future Boks and France, Scotland and Wales games could have been a nice run out for them.

Kwagga would have replaced DDA since the first game of the season if it were up to me. Kwagga is even faster than DDA to. Literally better than him at every single aspect of being a 12.

AO does not understand rugby dynamics at all and he misunderstands what makes teams work,  

Everyone agrees that Kolisi should not be the captain and with rare exceptions everybody agrees he should not be in the team at all.   What is clear is that Kolisi is part of the pressure put on Erasmus and  one must accept that Erasmus thinks that he can off-set the situation by looking at the back row selections as a whole.

So what options did he really have.   He has Vermeulen at 8 - but there was a problem as well.   In the third English test in June Vermeulen did not produce the goods - neither did he make the grade at 7 - so it is obvious he should actually be played at 8, which is the position where he played and specialized in.  

It also became obvious that although he is really a top lock (despite the denigrating of him by Mozart and AO) - but he is also the best 7 available at present.   So it is obvious that he is the bests election at 7.  

For the rest both Mozart and AO is besotted about their idea about how to get rid of De Allende.   This campaign against De Allende started in 2014 and continued without break since then,   It went so far as to falsified what happened in games and them assuming the role to state that they were the only two people capable of identifying what actually happened.   

De Allende for the first time this year had a very average to poor performance on Saturday.   In the meantime the constant substandard  performances of Esterhuizen are not dealt with by the two.   They constantly make falsified statements about what happened and they hide away the poor defensive record of Esterhuizen.    I do not think they really are making headway - because after Esterrhuizen's poor performance against the English on 3 November coming from the bench, he was not on the bench against the French.

Not a chance in he'll we are watched the same games...

" De Allende for the first time this year had a very average to poor performance on Saturday"

Plum

What was wrong with the quoted statement?   

Shall I look through his stats in all tests played and compare that with what happened with Esterhuizen?

I agree with everyone De Allende is not an ideal center and mention Serfonten as an alternative.  The problem who else is really better than De Allende.    This issue was discussed at an earlier thread and the following center s were discussed:-

Vorster, Janse van Rensburg, Serfotnerin and Esterhuizen.

Everyone of those 4 have been looked at and everyone showed some deficiencies.   the lastc ase was a proprosition to play De Klerk at 9, Jantjies at 10 and Pollard at 12.

I am always horrified at Jantjies at 10 - he had a horrible record of failing badly when he started at 10 and was acceptable in the last two games when he came from the bench.    But is he really good enough to start on a regular basis?   It will give many people the creeps if it happens.  

My own problem is that in past tests both Jantjies and Pollard have defensive problems and so has Faf.  Two of them together may just stop the rot - three together will be a disastrous sieve.    

Rooi, all in all I agree with you about Kolisi as captain...and the Dup brothers should be phased in from the bench. Vermeulen is still the incumbent 8 and from this year's Allblack tests, PSDT is the incumbent 7...Eben 4 and Mosterdt 5....and we know wbo the rest of the team should be, if we like it or not.

Poin taken....but back on topic, we didn't lose by 57 points to NZ this year... definite progress in my book. Huge improvement u sing the only yardstick I care to use. 

Agreed Herr Gimp Boss, our defence improved immensely since the first couple of Pom tests...and our kicking game has improved notably too...as did our chasing of kicks...a few notable steps in the right direction. 

A work in progress. 

Right now Rassie has a 50% win record, he should have won at least 3 more. 

1st Test, Whales. Yes it was a stupid fixture to play it in the US and ask his players to travel twice the distance as whales, but then whales was also fielding a week team. The problem is that most of the sharks players were in Argentina, but what he should have done is to pick at least 10 shark players in his starting match and fly the rest to Argentina and from their on to the US which would have given the boks the edge because they would have recovered on jet lag, but instead the shark players had to fly all the way back to SA for a couple of days and then fly to the US. Very poor planning. 

2nd New Zealand test, had the all blacks on the rope, but had a very poor bench that could not shut the game out. Poor tactics in the last 15 min and should have pushed for the win instead of throwing 15 points away. 

4th England Test, that game as on the table for a win, but left to left. 

50% isn't great for a bok coach as you would expect at least 60%, but it is a relieve compared to Alistair and Snorre, 

But both Meyer and Erasmus inherited poor bok squads. 

Robert Du Preez by flyhalf standards is ordinary, sterile, he brings zip to the backline. Don't take this personally, I said as much a while back after I watched him play in the CC semi final.

KC

I think the losses under Erasmus can be explained rather easily.   Erasmus inherited a rubbishy situation from Coetzee,   There were a minimal number of experienced players from the Meyer era - who rarely played test rugby under Coetzee in the maiin due to injury.

To start with forming a comprehensive squad -  Erasmus used largely untested players in the following tests and the same player names appear in those tests:-

*    The Wales test in Washington - had only 6 experienced players in the squad

*     The Third English Test in June

*     The away test against Argentina

The latter two tests had more proven test players - but also some players who could be described as rookie players getting a second or first chance to play for the Springboks so as to indicate their suitability for future selection.

Some of the players failed badly in the two latter tests.

I regard the above three tests as experimental tests as experimental tests and not really as tests in which the strongest potential team played.   I say experimental because of the chaos left by Meyer and Coetzee and the need to identify a team structure to be utilized in the long run.

I think the two tests (the AB home test and the English test in November) were the youngish Springbok team allowed the opposition to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat and that I believe would become less in future. 

I am more optimistic now than I was for the past decade when it comes to the future of Springbok rugby.        

Mike, agree that about the team he inherited, but we should be pushing for wins, not squad depth. We were lucky both times against Eng. 

But the the 3 test I mentioned are the ones we should have won, but then again, I would never thought we would actual talking about beating the all blacks this year compared to how bad we were over the last couple of seasons. 

But it is great to be getting back to the top  

KC

Yes you are right about the need to win tests - but it must be born in mind that there are still selection problems in some positions and those must be done within the period before the  WC and there are not enough tests left to make sure they win tests and get the right team combination in place at the same time.

Rassie inherited a larger player pool than Coetzee. He also had Pollard. He inherited a team that already nearly beat New Zealand a year prior. This notion that Rassie has had to rebuild the team from nothing, with nothing is utter nonsense. Rassie is becoming the Damian or Lambie of the coaching world, so many excuses. This is particularly fascinating as he does everything Mike claims a coach shouldn't be doing. He was out-coached several times and blew the Pretoria test. The loss to England two weeks ago was embarrassing. We looked unprepared for the French. These aren't good. How many dominant tests have we had? Two and a half? 

AO

Tripe - the players inherited by Meyer was much more experienced than the pool of players inherited by Erasmus.   Most of them had more than 4 years test experience, with performance levels who were questionable by 2012.

The myth by you of blowing the test in Pretoria was exposed as BS and the main reason was never realized by you and Mozart and that was that Le Roux was injured and Erasmus has no right to overrule the medics in the case of him and that De Klerk was playing at half pace because of muscle problems.  

The total picture is another effort to paint Meyer - a proven failed coach - as being acceptable ahead of Erasmus.

AO

Tripe - the players inherited by Meyer was much more experienced than the pool of players inherited by Erasmus.   Most of them had more than 4 years test experience, with performance levels who were questionable by 2012.

The myth by you of blowing the test in Pretoria was exposed as BS and the main reason was never realized by you and Mozart and that was that Le Roux was injured and Erasmus has no right to overrule the medics in the case of him and that De Klerk was playing at half pace because of muscle problems.  

The total picture is another effort to paint Meyer - a proven failed coach - as being acceptable ahead of Erasmus.

Mozart

Your claim that there is no systematic try construction - it is laughable generalization  that needs proof.   Tries are scored at times based on opposition mistakes and or systematic defense deficiencies - but those are the exceptions.

It is weird that you and AO try to portray the fact that under Erasmus  there were deficiencies - which was not the case with Meyer and Coetzee - hence the increased number of tries scored in the first 10 tests in 2018. 

Mozart  - please don't generalize and create your own dreams as what you think happened or did not happen.   That ahs been the problem with you and AO all along - you make wild statements and that must be accepted and not regarded as BS.

Mozart

Your claim that there is no systematic try construction - it is laughable generalization  that needs proof.   Tries are scored at times based on opposition mistakes and or systematic defense deficiencies - but those are the exceptions.

It is weird that you and AO try to portray the fact that under Erasmus  there were deficiencies - which was not the case with Meyer and Coetzee - hence the increased number of tries scored in the first 10 tests in 2018. 

Mozart  - please don't generalize and create your own dreams as what you think happened or did not happen.   That ahs been the problem with you and AO all along - you make wild statements and that must be accepted and not regarded as BS.

Woosh over whose head - obviously yours.

Yep Duh Allende had tons of busts and line breaks against Eng, but that was against a guy that only plays 22 min all season. France more formidable in the midfield and gave the boks hardly any chances, but Duh Allende is a ball hogger where as Kriel has a really poor pass. How many of his passes has floated out of the touch line. 

At least Kriel is good on defence and actually prefer him over Am, but we lose our playmakers. 

Wondering whether Rassie should opt to go for 10 Jantjies, 12 Pollard and 13 Kriel? 

Not really seen much of New and not sure if he is the answer. 

Not sure if Rassie can experiment against scotland or wales as both of them are on the up. Scotland has only lost 1 home game out of the last 12 games played and that was by 2 points to NZ. 

Maybe Rassie should just opt for 9 Papier, 10 Elton, 11 Dyanti, 12 Pollard, 13 Kriel, 14 Nkosi and 15 Kolbe

That will give him at least 5 out of 7 AA/BEE players. Throw in Kwotalise at 6 and Bongi at 2 and bob is your uncle. 

Bench 

Marx

Louw

De Klerk

Willemse / Duh Allende

Le Roux