Clever Mike, why are you so obsessed with past players? You keep talking about players that haven't played for South Africa in 4 or more years! Jake hasn't coached the Boks for nearly ten years. I haven't seen you talk about Rassie or the current team. Why is that?
I am not the one living in the past - Mozart is/ The only thing that bothers me about the past is the seriously disastrous impact Meyer had on the present scenario, His selection of dead wood caused a serious void in team selection and lack of experience in players in 2016 to date.
There is a huge difference between Meyer and Erasmus as a rugby coach, Erasmus has a rugby brain and he has a plan how to enhance the game developing a team into playing positive rugby/ It is too early to comment on whether he will succeed, but so far there are positive signs
2012
Meyer selects 4 uncapped players in his first test. Etzebeth, Coenie, Kruger, Coetzee. 8 players under 20 caps.
New Caps
Etzebeth, Coenie, Kruger, Coetzee, Potgieter, Cilliers, Liebenberg, Vermeulen, Goosen, Taute, Jantjies, Arno, Vermaak, Willie, Serfontein, Nyakane, Kolisi, van Zyl, Franco van der Merwe, Steph, Adriaanse, Hendricks, Lood, Pollard, Marcel van der Merwe, Mohoje, Boshoff, Lewies, Damian, Whiteley, Reinach, Carr, Redelinghuis, Kriel, Koch, Mapoe, Paige
36 new caps. So much for not looking for new players. Meyers teams were odd when you look at the caps. There are always players with a few caps with players at 30 to 80 (the minority) in every Meyer team. It was very uneven in terms of experience. Not only does this affect the team individually but the cohesiveness of the units. The midfield saw lots of changes and few things really stuck. Likewise in the forwards. Change of coach has not seen an increase I performance as predicted by the reporters.
How many of the players quoted by you had more than 3 tests at all? Some never got beyond bench appearances.
When Hansen had to replace some NZ oldies after the 2015 WC - none of the replacements had less than 16 test caps. That is building a squad - what Meyer did was the exact opposite.
Clever Mike the players did not stick. Do you think New Zealand would have let these players have 16 tests of no show performances? Firstly in 2012 Meyer had no choice. He had 2 days to work with the team before the England series and had none of the spine of the world cup team.
@Bluebok: Your right he did feel the pressure. But he gave a lot of players good chances. I agree that Brussow was a big mistake. He really cleaned up in the Rugby Championship in 2015. He was never dominated in any test he played, especially against New Zealand. But Louw was a productive player and the tandem in the loose trio was great when healthy. I don't think that was the biggest problem. Ball carrying forwards was a huge issue in 2014 and 2015. Coetzee was okay and showed a few glimmers from time to time. Steph didn't really show anything. None of the centres were great passers but Jean did have a strong period after 2012. It was the nail in the team when he got injured. A lot of chopping and changing at centre. But we never produce good centres for the most part. For most of his era Meyer kept the Boks #2. With #6 quality team. I don't think we can really complain about that. These are players that get dominated week in and week out and our best talent are patchy performers like Etzebeth or frail little girlies like Thor. It's unreasonable to demand that a coach makes them into the best team in the world. Even if Meyer kept with the best players he had available we wouldn't have done very much better.
Lurker
Two days to work with the players before the June tests in 2012? Utter BS - Meyer was appointed in January - what was he doing until June? He had camps and the players who did not turn up was the NH players. Try another one.
The players did not "stick" according to you. So lets look at what happened. In 2012 Meyer picked 14 Bulls players - with which Meyer was "acquinted" with them and vey few stuck.
Meyer also had another delusion - he started replacing them with geriatrics and players like Steenkamp who was totally out of form. That inclination continued with him constantly bringing in the elderly and replacing younger players with has beens and never has beens.
Most of the younger players came in as injury replacements in the squad and was with one exception immediately ditched when the injured players return and he also had to drop some habitual failures like Morne Steyn (once in 2012 and twice in 2014).
By the time the WC squad was selected the average age of the players were just under 30.
That was reason for the Japan disaster - when Meyer claimed he was fielding th most experienced Springbok team in that test. He had to drop some of the "Experienced players after that disaster and never used players who were holidaying with the squad.
If you call that team renewal - keep on living on cloud 9.
I was wrong he had 3 camps. He had no time because of Super rugby. He made good use of that time though.
http://www.rugby-talk.com/2012/04/springbok-planning-camps/
Meyer's Boks had 7 Sharks players and 5 Bulls players in his starting lineup. 8 Sharks in the starting lineup in the second test. He had a Shark bias and dropped a couple of Sharks who underperformed in the first two tests. The Sharks forwards were poor in the England series apart from Albert's. The squad got better representation in the Rugby Championship as Bull and Shark numbers dropped. You got it so badly wrong again!
Not wrong - but real. The fact is that he picked a squad and from that the playing squad in tests. Anyway I did not refer to the English tests only - I referred to all tests in 2012
In fact I enjoyed your post about getting rid of the useless - it is hilarious - typically Meyer he kept the three most useless players, namely -
* Morne Steyn - whom he only fired after total bugger-ups in Argentina, Australia and NZ:
* Fay Fransie - the center who is no center according to Plumtree not a center at all - The Fat slob got injured and was out for keeps;
* Willem Alberts - what was he? He was too slow to be a loosie - so what was he actually? Something like a slow prop playing at loosie and a slower lock who was too slow and heavy to make line-out jumps.
Says a lot abo ut Meyer and hi selection norms.
Why are you so offensive? Fat slob? This is a human being we are talking about here. Why do you hate a rugby player so personally? He wasn't bad in 2012. I think he got injured though and Jean cemented his place. Morne had this yips and lost his place, so that's a mark against Meyer? I also referred to more tests too. You were wrong. Albert's was fast enough to be a breakdown menace with Thor. Speed isn't enough. Did you ever notice how lots of our fast players are always caught out of position? Economy of movement. McCaw was amazing at this. Speed issues can be mitigated by how you move around the field efficiently. Albert's speed was not an issue at all. In fact he often defended well on the outside of the line. Could marshall the short side almost on his own or at least allow the line to spread out. Clever Mike you keep falling onto your face every time you speak. It's too much cringe.
Alberts slow? Ha. Ha.
Skip to 1:10 if the link doesn't do it automatically and see Alberts take a pass from Kankowski, beat the Blues wing and then sprint clear away. Pity he didn't throw the pass at the end.
Mozart and Pakie
What sprint - all I saw was a strong carry at slow pace. Really a deseparte story showing Alberts playing against the Bulls and then two clips as a Springbok. A career of circa 10 years - they must have been desperate to find something positive about him to show.
BS Mozart
As per normal.
