Hapless Stompies named . . .

The Stompies have named the side that will be humiliated by the Hurricanes on Friday evening.

Jaco Taute returns at fullback, Gio Aplon goes to the wing, Damian de Allende returns to his favoured position of inside centre, Jean de Villiers switches to outside centre and  Michael van der Spuy drops out.

Hapless Stompies: 15 Jaco Taute, 14 Kobus van Wyk, 13 Jean de Villiers (c), 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Gio Aplon, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Louis Schreuder,8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Schalk Burger, 6 Siya Kolisi, 5 Manuel Carizza, 4 Rynhardt Elstadt, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Scarra Ntubeni, 1 Steven Kitshoff.

Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Oliver Kebble, 18 Pat Cilliers, 19 Michael Rhodes, 20 Nizaam Carr, 21 Nic Groom, 22 Kurt Coleman, 23 Ryno Eksteen.

Bluebok

Oliver is Guy Kebble's son.

I am very worried about the above team because -

*   Carriza and Kolisi was the worst performing players on Saturday and did squat of value;

*   Burger was useless and only slightly better than the latter 2.

Burger is completely out of depth on Super 15 level and should not even be on the bench.   The other two should have been benched until they prove that they can perform better when brought from the bench.   

Saffex

Are you daft?  Every game De Allende played at center for either the Stormers or WP was in the no 12 position - he never ever played at 13.   Even when De Villiers was available - De Villiers played at 13 with De Allende at 12.

He is a more thinking player with better reading of the ga me than you give him credit for - so lets leave it at that. 

Oh boy Mike you are so dom.......what part of my post did you not get? Your 13 is usually quicker than your 12 and your 12 is certainly the more creative one......the one with the good rugby brain.......so logic dictates to me that given Jean is a great 12 and a very average 13, that you would retain Jean at 12......the more creative and intelligent rugby player of the 2.

de Allende has had a few stints on the wing and is not nearly as astute as Jean......so that tells me he is certainly quick enough for 13 and again logic dictates that he should be at 13 with Jean at 12......that is the way I would play it.

Moz as for wee de Jongh carrying JJ that is yet another load of rubbish........de Jongh has never come close to carrying JJ and never will. A half baked step that amounted to zero hardly counts as a carry.

In de Allende and de Jongh, we have two pretenders......in JJ we have a Bok recently rewarded with a Bok contract.......its chalk and cheese stuff

One wonders why de Jongh bothered to step JJ when he beat him down the right touchline and Ndungane had to rally round to stop the dangerous break. He was pretty much just as succesful running straight through the feeble JJ.

Becs, after reading your posting I have a better grasp of your challenges. Please accept my apologies for any insensitive comments I may have made in the past. But I'm still going to tease you about Pomerania!

Saffex

How many games did you see De Allende play on the wing?  I have seen him coming off the bench ONCE for WP and playing on the wing on Saturday,  He was mostly on the bench for the Storners last year - but the games he did play for them, he invariably played at 12 - not anywhere else.

Your argument is daft in two respects inasmuch as -

*  you underrate the speed of De Villiers; and

*  under-estimate the fact that Se Allende is a thinking player with ball sense.

However, you better hope that the Stormers keep him at 12 - at 13 he will definitely play the fool with Engelbrecht and that will not be g ood for the image of the latter.  On the other hand he is twice the center at 12 as Witless Hog will ever be - so there is a problem for the latter as well.  

Kingcorm

Playing Taute at 13 would be a disaster.  Taute played for the Lions at full back for 2 years.  Because of injury problems in their center positions - he was moved to Venter for the Lions  at center (13)  for four matches.   That was followed by his selection at 13  for the Springboks - that can be regarded as a roaring success - now can it?

Taute is not a center since his Under 20 days and in fact wants to specialize as a full back.

There is nothing wrong with playing the center combination of  De Villiers and De Allende.   I think there is no way that De Villiers will not have a say who  of the two of them should be 12 and who should be the 13.  

That is why I think that Saffex is daft in this case.   He insisted that De Villiers = who played many games on the wing himself - is too slow to p lay at 13 and that De Allende is clueless as to rugby nous.

Understandable if you take into account the duds Saffex support to play in certain positions and continue to support despite proven failings.   

 Saffex

De Villiers was handicapped when he played at 13 for the Springboks outside the donkey kicking Morne and the crashballing Witless Hog,  There is not a 13 in the world that would show anything with those two inside of him.

Is Witless Hog a playmaker?  

You missed out on 90% of the performances of De Allende if you did not see him as a playmaker.