Cloudy Status: Rugby Legend
Posts: 5183
RE: Coincidence?March 29, 2017, 10:39:17
I think when you are a passionate rugby fan it doesn't matter who's playing, I still watch even though my Blues are crapola too. Lots of talent just not being consistent. Being in a different time zone I don't stay up to watch the SA games but when they travel I get to see your teams and you never know, the Boks just might pull a rabbit out of the hat this year. But we can talk about that later :)
With reference to the main thread -
To be honest,all this mudslinging is really not my cup of tea. I am really to stupid at it and normally get pulled down to the level of the mudslinger and I am then beaten by experience on the mud-level.
But, RUGBY is my thing. I do not really have a favourite team. The union I played for is much too poor on money and talent to ever get anywhere. I love the game, I watch the games and applaud good rugby. I like to see the development of players and some I watch from junior level and follow their playing careers.There is a fundamental difference between the current NZ teams and the rest. There is definitely something special being done at junior level and that core is built there and it is enhanced with every level the player progresses. Although many of the kids in NZ inherited a special kind of athleticism and ball-sense, talent alone can only get you that far. It seems as if the synergy between the school, club, junior and senior levels is well maintained. The coaches seem to follow a specific strategic approach which flows from one level to the next.
Unfortunately the converse is true in South Africa. Here, every coach is his own hero and his own law. We have a clutter of lame ducks masquerading as a central body controlling rugby (SARU). The unfortunate part is that, inline with national government, their first priority is in enriching themselves and protecting their "territory" in an effort to protect their lucrative financial rewards.
I have yet to see a concerted effort from the idiot who calls himself the sports minister to positively engage the junior schools and grow the sport. Every effort that is currently undertaken is done so without the government's help. Much is done by the Legends and other similar NPO's. There are very few government schools that even have a rugby field, let alone a developed coach and other facilities. SARU's failed CEO (Alexander has had quite a few business initiatives that ended in disaster) does not have an inkling of testicles to take on the government in this regard. But, even then I really doubt if he has even the slightest knowledge of how to approach a decent development strategy. His predecessors were equally lame and clueless!
South Africa has been in the hands of the current lot from 1994 (officially)! If these silly sods were worth their jobs they would have started the development then. Give them a generous 10 years to set it all up. That would mean that SA could potentially have had two decent Springbok teams by 2014 - We could have had our own version of a "Maori" team consisting out of only ethnic blacks as well as a team consisting of the "rest".
However in reality-street every incumbent at SARU have only been interested in scraping off the cream and ensuring themselves a soft seat on the gravy train. Then, they do the unthinkable crime called "transformation quotas". This is probably the biggest of all cop-outs I have witnessed in all my years on planet earth. These sill buggers abdicated their responsibilities for 20 years and then try and apply a quick-fix. This stupid pollyfilla idea is not just detrimental to the game and players in SA, it is detrimental to the game world wide. Their inability to do their jobs is the cause of the absolute atrocious state of rugby in South Africa.
