Erasmus underwent Chemotherapy during WC

The following from news24:-

"Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus faced a potentially life-threatening health scare in 2019 that required chemotherapy before and during the Rugby World Cup in Japan. 

According to a Rapport article on Sunday, Erasmus was diagnosed with microscopic polyangiitis with granulomatosis - a rare autoimmune disease - in early 2019. 

The disease is not cancerous but it can severely impact the lungs, kidneys, sinuses and trachea and Erasmus is understood to have suffered a rare strain of the disease that, according to his doctor Johan Theron, was potentially fatal.   According to the report, Erasmus continued with the treatment until March 2020 and it was considered successful. 

"Rassie was treated for a serious condition in 2019, from which he has recovered," a SA Rugby spokesperson confirmed to Sport24 on Sunday.

"He thanks people for their concern but wishes to keep the matter private."

The report adds that, during the World Cup, Erasmus' chemotherapy doses were lowered so that he could give his full attention to the Springboks. 

"He really doubted at one stage whether he would be able to push through with his position as Springbok coach," Theron said.

After winning the World Cup, Erasmus stood down as head coach of the Springboks and moved into his role as director of rugby on a full-time basis, handing the coaching reins to Jacques Nienaber".

This guy is something special - hope he is fully recovered.  We need him in years to come. 

Regardless of what I think of his coaching, I'm very glad to hear that he is doing well. I wouldn't wish health troubles on anyone. These kinds of battles are quite taxing, even little niggles can whittle away at a person. 

Stressful job too!

Yes, the more comedians: 

JJ is the best 13 since Gerber
Damian is the best 12 since readmission
Julies should be 12 in the 2007 WC
Watson before Schalk
Pretorius before Butch
Cooper best 10 in the world (2013)

Need I go on? Strauss of beard fame as Bok captain. Yes, comedians, we need more of these 

Here's a puzzle, how do we separate the work of Rassie from Nienaber? It seems like Jose is like a consultant to Nienaber. 

Great guy and world's best coach.

All the very best Rassie, the thinking man's coach.

Org  time to wise up about Rassie. Admit defeat and try and win the next one. Hahahaha. 

Damien is regarded as one of the key reasons for the Springboks winning the WC in 2019 - but idiot speaker AO does not realize it. because he knows zero about rugby at all.   He ii just too stupid to believe anything he writes on site,    

Every member on site has punted players - but if they do not work out they are not supported again.  The problem is a person has to look at performance as a norm for selection.  Idiots like AO does not understand what real performance is.  That is why he rated Meyer and Coetzee as coaches  and went on the rampage against Erasmus.   What happened to his two star coaches during the past year - both were fired due to INCOMPETENCE  - yet he rates them higher than Erasmus.  One has to remember the statements this idiot makes like Steyn is on par with Carter as a flyhalf. Kirchner is better than Folau as a full back, Mohoje is a better loosie than McCaw.  That says it all - the man knows zero about rugby and then lies about what happened in matches.     

Damien the tractor.....the mobile loose scrum....hell he botched an attacking movement in the first few minutes of the final, and then got totally gassed by the Pom winger when he should have got him in the in-goal area. Wasted opportunity squared.....the man got an arm chair ride from the pack and still had nothing to offer except tractoring.

And if you think he did....give us examples.

Sharkbok, shouldn't you be enquiring about a brain transplant! Think of all the BS that would be eliminated here!

Org is a very in formed guy Mike, he just sometimes gets confused by too much information! . .

Mozart

We know that you hate De Allende and make unusual assumed statements on him - but this is pushing it a hell of a lot.  What potential attacking movement did De Allende botch in the final?

OK - I can give you plenty examples but will concentrate only on two - both leading up to points for the Springboks.   The one is the last penalty in the first half when De Allende started he attack and drew in a defender -leading to a gap for Am  to carry the ball further, etc - scrum Springbok penalty converted.    The second one relates to the final penalty conversion in the second half.

Go and watch the tests again without blinkers and you may see what really happened. .

Okay:

1 De Allende is by far not the best 12 in the game....he had the best platform at the WC and played against very weak centres in the playoffs.

2 The only thing that counted that Allende did was shrug off Biggar who stupidly tried to strip the ball instead of put a break on the tractor.

3 You yourself didn’t pick Allende early in the contest...by that definition you don’t know the game.

4 His try against Wales was the result of poor defence.

5 Ford was pulled because he couldn’t handle the rush defence....nothing to do with Allende.

6 See point 6.

7 Spot on.

Here you go Mike:

Firstly Willie has the ball opposite Ford and slides outside him forcing the gap. Allende is outside him, marked by Farrell. As Willie looks to break free Farrell turns inside to help. That's the moment a smart, fast centre would have gone outside Farrell and been in position for an offload.

Allende inexplicably tries to run through the gap Farrell has closed and finds himself blocked behind Farrell. So he slows down and trots behind the move. Willie looks to offload to his right where Allende should  be....nada....Kolbe who was on the touchline tries to get in position but he's  too far away for an offload. Chance lost.

Secondly the Boks get the ball well inside the Pom 22....it goes to Allende with a pod of 3 forwards opposite him.....then a gap in the Pom defence to Underhill further away. A natural centre would have run outside  Itoje on the open  side of the pod....forcing Underhill to come in and exploited the resultant overlap. 

Or as an Alternative, he could  have shaped to offload in Itoje's tackle to Malherbe who was positioned in the gap. Instead Allende crash balls into the three forwards and the Pom defence reforms, opportunity gone. A centre like Goodhue would have turned both of these situations into try scoring chances.

The third dead head move was allowing May, pinned against the touchline, to step inside him. Make that tackle with the aid of the touchline and we either have a 2 on 1 at the breakdown on their line....or a lineout throw 5 metres out. But instead of making a good low tackle we see the familiar upper body paw and May waltzes away.

Three excellent chances in the first six minutes...all blown by slow thinking and sloppy execution. Why do the rugby talking heads and writers fail to see these obvious things? Hard to say....and there will be more instances. Instead of seeing these things as they do in American Football they blather on about power, power which beat 1 defender in 12 runs....and vote this one dimensional centre into the WC team.

Hahahaha Dave.......The Tractor is the greatest 12 in the world on Nov2, but on October 18 he never even made your Bok team. One can’t make up this kind of material, it has to come from the bowel.

Rugby » How different the Bok side is to mine 

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I’d have gone with Rassie’s choice at 15 with Willie and Gelant as backup. 

My wings would have been Nkosi and Dyanti but given the Dyanti demise I probably would have gone with Duhan vd Merwe 

Rassie’s choice of Kolbe has been brilliant and certainly trumps my call 

My centres would have been Serfontein and Kriel. I’m not sure how injured Serfontein is so given it’s a close call between de Allende and Serfontein, I’m more than happy with Rassie’s choice at 12. I rate Am and would have included Janse v Rensburg in my squad.

Allende had to make 2 open field tackles on backs....one on an isolated May on the English goal line. He makes that tackle we likely score.The second on Watson running up the right flank in a potential try scoring position. 

Allende misses both tackles, but fortunately Frans stops Watson.

Allende is given credit for his defence, but he remains very vulnerable in space or when some anticipation is required. 

Mozart

You are indeed a nut case when it comes to Rugby - when you dislike a player you make an utter fool of yourself.   Where was De Allende when the missed tackles took place?   Have a serious look at the runs of May and Watson before you make statement like you came up with above.  The fact is that he was too far inside and ran to the side where the ball went.   The case of  Watson he was so far inside that he never reached him to tackle him.   

Watson bumbed Steyn out of the way when he ran straight at him and on the process he fell and Du Toit stopped any further movement by Watson.  That was what really happened - not what you came up with,

What you do not realize is that De Allende and Du Toit was highly rated by experts 0 but not by you - so the story is that really it is time to stop your blinkers and start thinking for a change.              

Damian can't reliably stop head-on traffic. His defence is terrible in its entirety. He also lacks skill. The best we saw of Damian throughout 2019 were those chips down the touchline in the early part of super rugby.

AO

You stupid idiot - none of the tackles missed by De Allende were head on tackles.  Try again - you remain a total fool all the time.   

A rising tide lifts all boats......even the Duds.

It was ebbtide for 6 years,  

And the Duds ebbed along with the tide. But actually HM’s team played the ABs much closer ..... 18 to 20 vs 13 to 23 .. in a bigger game. There’s your inconvenient truth.

Matfield was the MOM in the WC 3rd place playoff..... .Lomp was the guy who missed the tackle that got the ABs off the hook. Your logic is faulty. The mistake HM made was starting Lomp  and not Matfield.

No Mozart

The fact is that when the try was scored by Kaino the following was included in the ESPN report:-

"Wow, first try of the game! Boks have been rattled back and Kaino has notched the first five points down the right flank. The All Blacks have eventually managed to stretch the Boks line and some nice handling from Kaino keeps the ball in play and Lood de Jager's last ditch tackle can't reach the flanker who plants down in the corner."

That was the real description of what happened.  Despite the dive in a desperate effort by De Jager he never reached Kaino - did not even tough him.  That was  the real scenario - not the BS you have been spreading for years now.   

As to Matfield, he royally fucked up when he came on in the semi - details were repeatedly given on site,  In the bronze medal match against the Argentina "B" team Matfield did quite well, but the much better player in the game was Malherbe - so the MOM in that game was not really anything bar a farewell present to Matfield.   That is not even worth mentioning as the team the Springboks played was weakened and would never have played in any of the other matches in the series.    Nobody takes bronze medal play-off  games seriously anyway,      

The big duds of the 2015 WC: Coenie, Lood, Steph, Malherbe, Kriel, Damian, Lambie. 

I do blame Meyer for most of those selections. I also call out those that lauded those selections. Even more, I lambaste those who criticize the coach, but not the failures on the field. The latter seems to be a peculiar sickness restricted to South Africa.

OA

Under what name were you posting in 2015?   San Tzu or Gonzo the Ape?   You never ever said Meyer made he wro ng selections - but his coaching ability was non-existent.   He never known coaching - hence his subsequent firing by Stade Francais.  That applies to both on-field and off-field coaching and team selection.    

The actual big duds were Jannie, Bismarck, Burger, Pienaar, Matfield, Pietersen, Oosthuizen  and then there were the unplayable passengers, Morne, Kirschner, Paige and De Villiers..      

I am less interested in De Allende and others and more interested in Rassie’s illness and progress. 

This seems to be a potential life threatening disease and from what I have been able to find out about it, they do not normally treat it with chemo, although some of the drugs mentioned could well be chemo. From what I understand, most of the names of the immunotherapy drugs end with ....umab. 

Some of the drugs used for Rassie’s conditions also end with ...umab and it may well be that the same goes for chemo drugs as well. I am on immunotherapy and was first treated with Pembrolizumab. When that did not have the desired effect, it was switched to Ipilimumab. The other immunotherapy drugs used by the NHS have similar names. 

Lomp reached Kaino....he was face planted.

Lie again = will always lie when he has been caught put.   

https://www.google.com/search?q=rugby+world+cup+semi+final+2015&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

You need only look at 60  seconds of the shorts  highlights to see Lomp grasp Kaino...get shoved off.....fall on the deck. ...give NZ momentum and valuable points.

Face planted!

If De Jager in fact touched Kaino it might have been with his fingertips.  He made a tackle earlier in the same move  and them get top Kaino when it was way too late,  ESPN description  is accurate - yours is standard biased BS.    I looked at the clip and what you said remains BS.   

Kaino literally has a handful of Lomp’s Jersey.....Lomp is being handed off in the classical style. He went too high and was soooooo slow getting across. A potential WC losing tackle attempt.

Watch your video clip please,