Now lets get this straight. Both Mozart and Pakie has developed a new norm for defense - recognized by them and noby anybody else, namely the average tackle attempts per 80 minutes played. This has been developed for two of their favoured players - Mostert and Esterhuizen. I must admit their cheek in developing rubbish is amazing.
The norm generally recognized world wide is ignored - namely the MISSED TACKLE RATIO. That showed the average number of successful tackles per game played compared to the number of tackle attempts. But that generally show up their favourites as weak compared to their pet hate players.
This type of thing is ignored by them because it shows up their favouries as problematic iro defense, And their other habit is they ignore scoring of tries in matches as a norm too. Fact is Mozart hide that away as it is not applicable.
When it comes to players involved in this case I have serious reservations about both De Allende and Esterhuizen. Both show deficiencies and the question is who is the worst of the two. That I believe is the normal consideration of Erasmus on the issue as well and that is why he prefers De Allende to Esterhuizen.
One aspect which affect both in defense and attack is pace, Esterhuizen looks good as a crashballer - but when carrying the ball over distances shows him up badly. There were two instances where that problem was shown as seriously problematic in matches this season. Take the cases of what happened in the games of the Sharks and the stormers and the Sharks and the Reds - as well as two of the tests in which Eterhuizen played in last year. In the Super Rugby games two very similar instances happened, The ball was carried over distances twice by two players and in the S tormers case the attack ended when Du Toit tackled him in the red zone and there was a turnover in possession at the end nullifying the whole value of the attack. In the case of the Reds when tackled Esterhuizen spilled the ball and that ended the attack. If it only happened in those two matches it was fine - but it happened twice in the famous Washington test and the territory gained was lost because of turnover of possession.
The second issue - which is typical was in the English test in November. It relates to the last attack of the Springboks when Esterhuizen inexplicably ran a line nobody expected to happen and after he was tackled by Farrell - legally or not - ended up leaving himself isolated and a ball turnover was inevitable where the match ended. Lack of thinking rugby at times shows deficiencies in both players - but is much more evident in Esterhuizen compared to De Allende.
Both Mozart and Pakie identified De Allende as a target for attack on site as early as 2014 and has been attacking him ever since. They had a string of favourites supposedly better than De Allende ever since. Initially they based their attacks on the famous Missed Tackle Ratio and at that stage fully justified, However - since that issue largely disappeared last year they used all kinds of things to try and elevate Esterhuizen as their candidate for selection.
Basically I wish another better 12 emerges and I have referred to in the past to some players to look at. Until then there remains two main choices - namely De Allende and Esterhuizen. I do not have a prejudice against either - but based on actual performances De Allende is factually the better of the two. That is why I believe Erasmus prefer De Allende to Esterhuizen.