Experience trumps bright young talent.....

This team has no experience where it counts.......in the pack. Beast has played many tests but isn't looked up to as a leader. Jannie only became a fixture in the last few years. For the rest there is nobody.

In the backs things are a little better.....but experience is less crucial here, outside the halves and fullback.

We are paying the price for having a team together for 8 years. It happens. The year is lost......but hopefully we can learn how to play a more positive game as we build new veterans.

The facts is we tried to defend our way to victory after the first half.  Its just too hard. Our current game plan is too hard to execute, it requires forward dominance, something we can no longer count on. We need to evolve from Bools rugby to Sharks rugby.....and build some new greats.

But here is aword of caution. Not every newbie is a test player, as we saw with Mvovo yesterday.....good S15 form isnt a guarantee. We need to find new heroes.....but not every bright young player is positioned for tests. Goosen and Etzebeth will succeed. Coetzee is very talented, but what's his role? Jantjies, Mvovo, JJ, Taute, Potgieter.....you can forget about. Jordaan looks like the business but we need to see more.

As I see it we need to build a new team, but unlike 2004 there are very few candidates. Pity Meyer, he is in for a nightmarish few years. That's the optimistic view.

 Maybe the focus is wrong.  Mybe Meyer should have his strategies and focus alighned to build a cohesive unit in the nex 12 - 18 months.  Currently I think the focus is too much on winning.  Pick a squad with all these up and coming young stars and let them play and get used to one another.  The Matfield - bakkies thing worked because they knew each other so well.  Fourie du Preez made Morne look good and together they probably were very good.  Players need to know and trust one another - currently I do not think we have that benefit.

Du Preez made Morne look good? That argument no longer holds any weight whatsoever. To the point though, Our next up and coming players are just not of the quality of the old guard, had they been it would have been a smoother transition. Having a team for eight years does not have to result in a slump, many sides in many sports have proven that, but when you lose a host of legends it's only obvious that you are not going to have the same quality as before. Of the current pack, Beast is certainly a long way off the Steenkamp of 2010 and 2011, and Jannie only truly delivered in 2011, but is back to where he was before that which is a big concern. Ditch Bekker and stick with Kruger and Etzebeth, then bring Brussow back into the fold. A loose trio of Duane, Alberts and Brussow is probably the best we are capable of putting together.

The focus is wrong I think. Heyneke is digging himself a deep hole with this winning every game thing. Certainly that should be every coach's goal, but not so publically....and with less recriminations when we lose. I hate this building for the RWC bs we have been fed for years. But there's nothing wrong with saying we are trying to establish a new team....that's an obvious fact.

So lets call out what we did well and poorly. But lets also give ourselves enough scope to make a quality transition.

Wrong, the problem with this side and Meyer is his reliance on old hasbeens or neverbeens - look no further than the pathetic Morne at 10 and ineffective Jean at 13. Enough has been said about Morne, but what exactly does Jean provide at 13 - sweet stuff all and his defence yesterday was pathetic.

Pienaar at 9, apart from his kicking offered nothing, Morne was an insult - hell Goosen with his first touch in test rugby showed exactly what we need at 10.

Then we have donkies like Alberts in the backrow - yes he is big oaf, but bloody hell he brings no brains to the position. He made an impression in one of the tests against England and has gone awol since. Vermeulens hands were piss poor yesterday. Jeandre Kruger proved he does not have the physicality for test rugby, his miss tackle on the Oz prop for the try was pathetic. Cilliers is an insult as a bench prop as is Liebenberg as a hooker. Leaving Bekker out after one below average test was a piss poor call of Meyers, much like discarding players like JJ, Jantjies and Daniel having played so little rugby under him.

Meyer had better catch a wake up fast - the likes of Kirchner, Habana, Jean, Morne, Pienaar, Liebenberg, Cilliers, J.Kruger and Alberts have to go. We need to bring in our youngsters and build a new side.......we need to see Lambie, Mvovo, Jordaan, JJ, Taute, Serfontein, Goosen, Jantjies,v/Zyl, Hougaard at 9, Kitshoff, Malherbe, Coenie, Bekker retained and a host of talented young loosies like CJ Stander, Arno Botha, Josh Strauss, Elstadt and Kolisi brought in and the return of Brussouw. Man we are missing JP and Bismark and Coenie off the bench. We need to see real lock options as back-ups like Steph du Toit, Bresler and Quinn Roux

Meyer and his team lack imagination, leasdership and show no attacking clout at all. The obsession with kicking possession away is pathetic, as is the inability of the players to think outside of playing direct route predictable rugby. Meyer is living in the dark ages - the question is, will he learn - I bet we see that useless Morne at 10 against the AB's

safesex....

Where you been brother?

I missed your pale ass!

My ass has been a very busy one bud

Yeah Saf...

Missed your whining a lot last week!

Thought something happened to you!

Thought you were doing some young player scouting at some of South Africas finest secondary education institutions or something!

Welcome back pale ass!

lol

Yeah I can see why you lot missed me - most seem to be missing the obvious as always. Hell if I left for too long, you'd all still be convinced Morne and Jean are our answers!!!

too funny you lot! Can't stop laughing!

Anyway back to rugby - the reason the Boks lost was simply the fact that they let the Wallabies play the game they wanted to play! Cooper and Genia were never harrassed or harried, infact the Boks all stood there and watched, admired and applauded them! Cooper and Genia had time to run at the defensive line, fix the defenders and then pick and chose which gaps to put runners through! I would have thought you would have picked up on the ABs defensive linespeed against the Wobblies especially against Genia and Cooper whom Dean's Term as Wallabies Coach depends on .

Avtually, it was a very tight game and the Aussies never had anything like the game they wanted. Cooper and Genia were well contained and the two centres did very little, though AC clearly outplayed Jean which gave them a significant edge. Our front row, fielding the supposedly unconquerable Shark's props were easily beaten. Our scrum was poor and the lineouts were simply okay. Our loose trio were bettered by the Aussies and in the end sloppy defending at very crucial times gave Australia a win.

I think we can all come up with varying details that can point to why or where we failed and my points to follow will only add to the complexity of this most unlikable situation. I made it clear in previous posts that I have a real issue sitting in 3rd place behind what I deem a very weak Wallabie team.

However, what I have realised through simple ignorance is not that the Wallabies are weak but more so how much better the AB's are over the Wallabies and the click up that the Wallabies are over us...Make sense?

Nonetheless, we have the opportunity to pile on home pressure when we the Wallabies and AB's travel our way. The Wallabies will sincerely miss Genia and that is good as it will even the playing field for us.

On another question, I do pose to everyone how different our team would have played if we had Bissie, Schalk, JP, Juan, Kanko all back playing as I am sure they all would have had a massive impact on the team dynamics, composure and the obviouis lack of experience needed to close down the tight games? Mind you to be fair if OZ had Horwill, Pocock, O Connor and Wycliff Palu back I am sure it would have evened up the day?

So here is my 5 cents worth guys and I am happy for us to agree to disagree as that is the reason we are all hear to do isn't it......

• HM mentioned that there is no such thing as a game plan and that 80% of the time it remains the same - my problem with that statement HM is what happens in the 20% when things go wrong its not so romanticised and lurid as you stated it was. It was evident that our game plan in the first half was actually had a sail and a rudder heading in the right direction with the captain at the wheel steering nicely. Second half wwe hit some wind and choppy seas and guess what?..."Its abandon ship"....lol...it was so painful to see it unfold that you knew the inevitable would occur. I am sorry HM but if you think we are going to go forth with a single minded approach and stay the course on that approach then I am afraid your dinasour thinking will quickly have you looking for a new job.

• JDV as captain is a bad choice and I at least have been consistent in my thoughts all the way through in why I think this way about him. He is a good deputy in the backline and I do understand that the injuries have impacted on his appointment. However, we are suffering from having a back as our leader and with Bissie missing there is simply no one leading our guys. Is Keegan Daniels as bad a player as what has been displayed so far? I think not...but what he will bring is leadership and certainly we need some at this stage - DVM is a good 8 man and another few games will not make a difference if we bring in Daniels to add that leadership we need. I also fear that DVM will struggle to last 40 minutes against the pace of the AB's I at least feel confident that KD will keep up.

• I would be happy for Morne and Goosen to share the role as Johan will learn while he is doing so and it would be good for him to understand that test rugby is just not about attack attack attack!!!! But he did look the goods even though he didn't have Genia to contend with. Sadly Bok rugby is probably going to go into "panic" mode if we aren't already there yet after what we could probably assume will be a loss to the AB's - forgive my negtive approach but I have no reason at all to assume anything other than a loss to NZ. So going forward my thoughts would be to throw down the gauntlet and give young Goosen a running start at the AB's so that they at least will not know what to expect in the attack department? We have everything to gain and nothing to lose as we are already 6 points behind the AB's and the only way we can win the RC is to take every point from here on in and hope the AB's get unstuck against the Argies at home.

• Kirchner for some reason has HM ear and as a result his position in the team will remain alongside Mvovo whom is seriously inadequate for an international wing position - Our man Hbana appears to be joing the ranks of many other aging players and starting to feel the cahes and pains a lot more and at the same time taking longer to recover. Our conditiong programmes appear to be significantly inferior to what NZ are conducting as they have literally no one out bar Richard Kahui with any serious injuries. So what do they do differently that SA does? We play the same amount of games - We play the same competitions - we all have conditioning and training regeims that are of the highest level - What makes it even more interesting is that the NZ and OZ teams play up-tempo games and shy away from the full frontal smash and bash that SA rugby is renowned for. But with that thought comes the scenario that a faster game requires better fitness levels and this may be a reason why we constantly have higher rates of injury simply because we just aint as fit...!!!!

I have much more thats on my mind but I dont want this post to turn into "war in peace"....lol

Bismarck gives us no advantage, certainly not a player for tight tests at all. Had a truly awful Super rugby campaign and took that into the tests. Should never be picked again. Kankowski has never produced anything special at test level. Schalk? I think I would rather have him than Alberts, who looks to be back to his old languid self. Schalk's energy and work rate is solid, but to be honest, Kolisi was a massive step up this year. Schalk's days are over. We did lack Juan Smith though. We could certainly use his services badly, and then of course Brussow. Steenkamp is another big loss, and so too Fourie. So, all in all we are really hurting at 1, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 13.

In terms of conditioning, the All Blacks prefer to use short bursts, it helps keep players fresher for longer, it has a high impact effect. They also do not play anywhere near our level of physicality. Our directness puts us in the line of fire more and of course it will take it's toll in a cyclic pattern, hence Jake very keen on resting his players in 2006 and early 2007. 

Every word Meyer stated about game plans is spot on.

Relying on Goosen to do it all on his own would be suicide and will never work against any top side. I have already identified specifically our shortcomings. If you want to go down the route of, "Give it to Gits", then please not the carnage it left behind. Australia rely very heavily on their 10 to do something, they have a 51% record under Deans and they struggle to use their backline at all. In fact, their backplay is a sad and pathetic joke.

you touch on it radtab....they problem is also conditioning of the players. i feel with the short turn around time for layers from the super comp to international level HM and co cant really condition players into a state really because that side of developement needs to be there already.

the up tempo attacking style of the ab and oz takes less hits on the body but requires more fittnes to be implemented correctly. so if all unions dont buy into that concept we are doomed from the start.

our direct style takes its toll on the body and we are not in effect a victim of our own style. the only way to combat this is to condition better and to shift the focus areas of running directly at players to running 1 or 2 meters either side of a defender ext.

the more up tempo one plays the more space there is to play and the end result will be more trys ext. its just a approach that needs to change. on goosen i doubt HM has the forsight nor the ablity to give goosen a chance where the team plays they way it does at the moment. for the backline to get some sort of decent ball HM needs to pick brussouw.