Meyer had a few hangers-on who has lost steam - but on the whole the team was performing fairly well. However in the case of the EOYT he brought in Bakkies Botha and Jacque Fourie from outside the then squad. Since them his latest addition has been Victor Matfield.
Elsewhere I looked at the reuslts last year and the comparative results this year. There has been a marked degree of poorer performances this year compared to last year.
Lets be quie frank the so-called senior players have not made nay ifference whatsoever, matter of fact the impression gained is they have weakened the team structure.
Plays like rolling mauls went out of the window with players like Bakkies and Matfield in the mix. Fouri proved to be a good defender - when and itf his slow sppeed allows him to get atthe player - but was useless in attacking play.
In essence some of the hangers-on has also lost steam. This was particularly notuiceable in the over 30 players and was particularly strong in some players - who lost their perofrmance qqualities. Even De Villiers this year was markedly poorer in performance than he was last year.
Of the hangers on - three players performed particularly poorly - namely Morne Steyn, Ruan Pienaar and Gurthro Steenkamp. Can they at their age recover their mojo - very, very unlikely. Morne always was an iffy flyhalf - but since his move to France he has been disgstingly poor. Gurthro seems to eb out of contention afte a bad series of failures. Ruan Pienaar has lost it completely and is slower with a poorer service than he used to have.
I would not have any problems if players like Matfield and Bakkies Botha made a difference to team performance - but the performances this year is with one exception markedly poorer than it used to eb last year.
Incidentally - the one exception is the test against the Sctots - where none of the oldies made a serious contribution to the team.
So what can we expect from the so-called golden oldies? It has been proven that we will go bakwards with them in contention.
