Are the Boks on the downside

 We have more talent than we have ever had since I followed the game and that is the very reason Meyer should not be the national coach. His love affair with the past makes it impossible for him to invest in our abundance of talent. The man is far too conservative for the job, evidenced by him being forced to pick willie as a starter. The ignorant fool had willie on the bench and I jury forced his hand. Meyer is one of our worst coaches since isolation and that will be proved in the rc and early exit from next year's wc

We may have more talent, although that's debatable. But not more top talent, which is the only talent that counts in tests.
Dave you are a Destroyli clone....cap everything that moves and bring in more new players when the first ones fail. There won't be one player missing on Saturday who has a snow balls chance of out competing at an Oz/ NZ level. It's all naive bs.  

Mozart - Your Dimness
Still living in the past - you really are not up to date with the rugby world.   
"So we turn to our 2011 RWC team and Habana, JP, Jean, Morne, du Preez, Beast/ Steenkamp, Jannie, Victor and Louw are still the best in their positions."
The 2011 RWC team ws a mess - they did not even got to the semis.    Fact.   Now lets look at the heroes from 2000 that is still acceptable and those who are so far beyobnd their prime it is unbelievable:-
Still Going Strong
Habana, JP, Jean, Beast, Louw
Who are 50:50 Cases
Du Preez, Jannie 
Who are not up to standard anymore  Morne,  Victor, Steenkamp.
Morne was never a good selection and any flyhalf with half a brain is an improvement on him.   He is the Stade Francais Reject 0 he cannot even make the starting line up for his club.  Matfield really is a present day joke - he is tossed out of mauls like a lightweight he really is and is no good physically.   Steenkamp cannot make the Toulouse starting line-up.
The last three is totally unacceptable in any present squad.   Du Preez and Jannie is not what they used to be.  Du Preez slowed down drastically in in the RC tests last year he became invisible.   Jannie has one good match and two bad ones.  In the bad ones his penalty count is too high.
It is only in your solidified brain that you cannot see what rugby is being played by your so-called heroes - who are definitely not even remotely still good enough - especially in the three cases I mentioned.
Only you could come up with the standard BS that implies that they players of 2007 - who was by 2011 already burnt out - is still good enough at present.  Living in a kind of dreamworld that it is still 2007 do not help at present. 
Our rugby is moving ahead - accept it and forget about 2007 to 2009.    
    

 We have more test quality youngsters than ever and nope I am not a destroyli - I just know that we no longer need the services of the likes of kirchner,  fourie,  morne,  pienaar,  du Preez, steenkamp,  jannie,  bakkies, matfield,  louw,  schalk, Smith and alberts as we have far better youngsters to invest in. Playing these old boys is just so obviously wrong. 
We have more than enough experience to draw on in habana, jp, frans, hougaard, beast, bismark,  strauss,  brussouw,  and vermeulen to draw on and to a lesser extent Jean and jannie - we do not need the rest for they are past it 

They wont be past it....until the youngsters are better. As we saw in the S15 final again, with Mvovo, Jordaan, Lambie, Reinach, Lewies and Coetzee....the youngsters are not better. Every one was outplayed, and if they are outplayed in the S15  they will certainly be outplayed in the RC.

True moz, but hopefully our baby Boks will start to emerge amongst the seniors as from next year on. There must be a lot of talent waiting in that team, because to beat the junior ABs twice (both in New Zealand) and  the Ozzies is already an achievement. I just hope their current coach, Dawie Theron, can take over from Heinecke Meyer (or joins Meyer) at a later stage.   

 Mozart
Your Dimness - the younger players are already better than the hasbeens and in Morne's case a never-hasbeen.
EWhy don't you read things up like what Monty said about a change in the role of the full back, etc    The game has changed and you fail to realize that.
The players you always dote about was a disaster in 2010-2013 and they swill be even worse this year.   

Well Blikkies we already have Pollard, who is odds on to be our RWC flyhalf. And I'm sure some of the other chaps will emerge. If they become better they should play. My point has always been they have to perform when given the chance. The fact is HM has given many new players a shot....few have used the opportunity.  

Saffex

Status: Hall Of Fame
Posts: 8645 RE: Are the Boks on the downside
August 12, 2014, 20:19:49  We have more test quality youngsters than ever and nope I am not a destroyli - I just know that we no longer need the services of the likes of kirchner,  fourie,  morne,  pienaar,  du Preez, steenkamp,  jannie,  bakkies, matfield,  louw,  schalk, Smith and alberts as we have far better youngsters to invest in. Playing these old boys is just so obviously wrong. 
We have more than enough experience to draw on in habana, jp, frans, hougaard, beast, bismark,  strauss,  brussouw,  and vermeulen to draw on and to a lesser extent Jean and jannie - we do not need the rest for they are past it 

There are a number of anomalies in this post.

This, to me, indicates that it is purely an age issue:

"Playing these old boys is just so obviously wrong."

These are the ones to be discarded:
Kirchner (30)
FDP (32)
Morne (30)
Pienaar (30)
Jaque Fourie (31)
Steenkamp (33)
Bakkies (34)
Matfield (37)
Louw (29)
Schalk (31)
Juan (33)
Alberts (30)

These ones are still OK:
Habana (31) - same age as JF and SB and a year older than Kirchner, Pienaar, Morne and Alberst and two years older than FLouw.
JPP (28) - Only one year younger than FLouw, and Louw is a forward. Bordering on too old in your books.
FS (27) - and we don't know how committed he is.
Hougaard (26) - Also bordering on too old in your books.
Beast (29) - Same age as over the hill Louw.
Bismarck (30) - Same age as over the hill Alberts and a year older than over the hill FLouw
Strauss (28) - Only one year younger than over the hill FLouw and also bordering heavily on too old in your books.
Brussow (28) - Ditto Strauss
Vermeulen (28) - Ditto Strauss and Brussow

These are OK'ish:
JDV (33) - Wow. Three years older than Kirchner, Morne, Pienaar and Alberts and a year older than FDP and two years older than JF and Schalk.
Jannie (31) - Same age as JF and Schalk and a year older than Kirchner, Morne, Pienaar and Alberts and two years older than FLouw.

Your reasoning is irrational. Specially since, for example, you already had Habana as too old as long ago as 2011 only to have him back in the main stream again two months later without him even having played a single minute of rugby since you decided that he should have been discarded two months prior.

 Ceradunce the Clown and and Mozart - his Dimness
First of all - letsd get back to the original topic.  The issue here is two-fold.   There is in fact two issues here,  namely -
*   the decline as mentioned by Mozart; and*   the clueless use of age as a norm.
Sure - the Springboks as a team is on the decline - but NOT for the reasons as stated by Mozart.  Secondly age is not a factor - performance is.
The reasons and statement about the decline is exactly opposite to what Mozart is given - th main reason being that Meyer's present squad is showing decline because of the factor of NON-PERFORMANCE by and selection based on REPUTATION of too many of the present squad of Meyer.  
That is the reason for the decline in the Springbok team - not the fact that players are not coming through for selection.
What Mozart see as reasons for retention of the players he says are the best - is blind performance evaluation.  He claims the players that he listed are the best and other candidates are not up to standard based on what he sees as acceptable performance of players he listed.   What he bases his evaluation on are things that his favoured players do and by implication other players cannot do.  His evaluation is also based on totally false issues such as _
*   the role of the flyhalf is only to convert kicks at goal;*   the role of locks are only to  catch line out throw-ins; and*   the role of loosies are only to carry balls in traffic with no regard to ball skills and ball protection and recovery.
The above leads to false and often enough faked evaluations.  According to Mozart Morn Steyn is the best flyhalf in SA, because of his goal kicking. Matfield the best lock because of his line-out takes, Alberts because he makes about 4 or so carries of balls in traffic with zero regard to effectiveness of carries.    These evaluation by Mozart is in fact farcical  and superficial not actualkly based on  real performance.    Farcical - because they are not based on full performance requirements - but a very limited interpretation of what is expected from players in their respective positions.
There is no way that there are not better alternative players than the  under-performing and clueless players like  Morne, Bakkies, Alberts, Matfield and Steenkamp - to name but a few.
Ceradunce's problem is that he claims that others say that age as a  the reason for exclusion of players.  Age is not a factor at all - he issue is that age ebcomes a factr when performances decline on the bases of age - in other words afe is not linked to performance - the key remains performance is the norm.
Take for example the two most hopeless centers in Super 15 this year - players Mozart and Ceradunce rate highly - Francois Steyn and Juan de Jongh..   Bioth are still relatively young in rugby terms - but complete wash-outs from a performance perspective.    On the other hand players can be over 30 and still the best performers in their respective positions.   
If there is one aspect of Meyer which is negative - it is his selection of players he is familiar with without regard to present-day performance.    There are way too many of those in the present squad.     That is and remains the reason for the present evident decline in expected performance of the Springboks.         

Whoosh!  

 Mozart
Your Dimness - you are always talking BS - so whoosh yourself.  Any fool supporting players like Morne. Matfield, Alberts and Botha should in fact woosh out of the public view to hide their foolishness.

 Jerome
You must realize that Mozart has already written up a match report by the time the game has started.   He will praise the players he always praise and invent anything imaginable against players he does not like.   
Take for instance the case of Bakkies Botha during th SWcottish test last year.  Within half an hour after the final whistle - he had an ubelievable praise song on Botha on this site.   When Boatha's actual performance was subsequently analyzed and it was a fact that he ws below par - Mozart vanished form that thread - but he constantly comes back with more and more praise songs.     
And most of the younger players are on his shitlist.   You will never find him having a bad word about any of his favoured players - most of them five years part their best.  If they foul up - nothing will be said by Mozart.   He will still praise them to high heaven.  His performance assessments are tainted and even if a player he does not like have done nothing wrong in games - he will invent scenarios to criticize the player concerned,
In essence whomsoever accept Mozart's assessments of players cannot differentiate between a sick joke and a real one.