"He ran very fast and very flat.....

....but it almost looked like he overran that pass". Says the South African commentary. No kidding, I had the NZ feed and thought everybody missed JJ mistiming his run 5 metres out. Turns out others caught his mistake.

Next there was also a chance to take a look at Kolisi failing to clear Read. Jeez Dave you have to be desperate to scarifice your golden boy Kolisi, but this is platinum boy JJ at stake. Turns out though Kolisi is 5 metres away and only hits Read after the ball was already plucked. He might have caused it to squirt backwards off the rising Read....but had no chance to stop the steal.

Finally on the Barrett try Jean rushed up on Smith who flipped it inside to Barrett, Jean was positioned to cover outside. Then Barrett cut between Steyn and Jean...Steyn was an arm's length away and just got his hands on Barretts shoulder. Barrett was running to his right slap into JJ....and straight through JJ the only player who has a good shot at him.

Bye bye Miss American Pie.

Mozart

Twp tries - two flops.   Funny enough the same three players were involved in both.   Steyn by not kicking a relieving kick from within his own 22 and passing from there to Jean and then to JJ who got robbed of the ball.  Incredibly stupid by Morne - an ill-judgement by Jean - and a flop by JJ - no wonder Naas wanted to freak out.

Second one - Jean did what you always condemn in respect of Engelbreht - go out of line and Barrett ran past him - Morne slapped Barrett on his back and wished him well on his way to score the try and JJ missed his tackle.

Major question who to blame.  First try - and I quote Naas - Morne was primarily to blame - secondary blame to Engelbrecht and thirdly Jean - with Kolisi added because he missed his tackle on Messam - the latter really ran over him like he was not there.

Second try - Jean who did what you always blame Engelbrecht for - going out of line in defence - or Morne who did the minimum (ie near to zero) or Engelbrecht who missed his tackle.  Here I would blame primarily Engelbrecht, secondary Morne and thirdly  Jean.

Who won the flop competition in those two  cases?  Morne came first, Engelbrecht second and Jean third.

Mozart

OK - Engelbrecht in my opinion did overrun that ball and tried to catch it behind him.  Fatal mistake - that one could have led to an SA try - but the emphasis is on could and not necessarily would,   I did say in another another thread that I think Engelbrecht is one-dimensional and relies virtually totally on his speed - without the ability to read games and create space for himself and other teammates.   Look like his bad reading of the situation was the case here - he was not in the position to really catch that pass and a knock-on was to be expected.   If that happens he should have let the ball pass behind him and be caught by the next backline player.  I have seen that often enough in other backline moves - so it is nothing new.

Similar to what I said about him running into the tacklers and not kicking the ball over their heads - like Habana and Le Roux would have done.  With all due respect to Saffex - I still think that in the long run Engelbrecht would be a better wing than he is at  present at 13.   For me he has  not totally adjusted to the 13 as yet and may never really be doing so.   Prior to his moving to the Bulls he always played on the wing with Sadie at center - he only started at 13 when Sadie was injured and when he did not perform to their satisfaction.  

Sadie did himself a favour by moving to the Cheetahs - he is really playing very well for them at 13 and had a hand in their progression in both Super 15 and in CC     

 That is exactly how I saw it. JJ was the only player with a real and good shot at making the hit on Barrett.

We know the truth, Saffex knows too but he is too far gone in his lies to come back now. Lets drop this one now because I am sure JJ will give us another one to talk about pretty soon. The man may be shit scared to tackle low. Duno how he has managed to go through the ranks with this career defining flaw in his game!

One thing is certain. If he continues to play, he will cost us more games! He adds nothing but blind pace..So much so he is even over running passes now. Nothing of value there..Move on..Give him some things to go away and work on and we might look at him a bit later again!

boklogic

You should know by now that Saffex go wild when anybody - even marginally - criticize one of his favoured players.  He never sees their poor play and when they do well - it Is like they are performing miracles beyond belief.  I know he is fanatical about players like Jantjies, Hougaard, JJ, Francois Steyn, Kolisi and Du Toit and could not understand why people differ from him on them.

Of the above I rate Pieter Steph highly - but for the rest they vary from disgustingly poor (Jantjies) to poor at least over the past year (Francois Steyn and Hougaard) to average (Engelbrecht and Kolisi with question marks as to their suitability on test level) so we often enough disagree about those - sometimes in rather obnoxious terms.

There is in fact a few selections  we agree with - and those are Morne Steyn not being  acceptable at all, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Arno Botha.  

I obviously disagree with you about De Jongh though - he is just not up to standard.     

 boklogic

I do not agree about De Jongh for clearly stated reasons - even Mozart his chief protagonist - does not see him as a permanent solution.

Personally I have my doubts as to Francois Steyn playing at 13 - he is rather lacking in the speed department and tends to be one-dimentional as well - prefer to run straight at players and hope he can run over them with crashballing being the outcome.    Not sure how he is going to perform in the game on Saturday - but I do not expect any miracles.

I have the same problem with JJ and Francois Steyn - neither are clever players with ball sense - and their reading of the game is not up to standard.   Engelbrecht seems to think he can beat opponents through speed only - Steyn thinks all that is required is brute strength - hence my comment on them being one-dimentional.  

I frankly think that Serfontein is a 12 and will not be successful at 13.   I have my own reasons for that as well.   He know dount is a clever youngster and bodily strong - but his speed is nothing to write home about.   He does not run straight at defenders and as a result he is a slippery customer.   A very good 12 - that is an excellent understudy for De Villiers - but not an ideal 13.

As to the ultimate solution for the 13 position in the longer run,  one will have to wait for Super 15 2014.   There are some really promising possibilities and players like Jordaan (with the best tackle stats of any 13 in Super 15 this year with a miss ratio of only 6% and being a very clever player as well), Sadie (very good in ball play - he is not known for nothing by the name "Slim" Sadie and he has ball sense - with a slight question mark as to his defence and being sometimes too clever - resulting in handling errors by him and his team mates) and Engelbreht or Steyn - but they will have to up aspects of their game considerably compared to their performances over the past year.   Steyn must improve in the speed department and as he missed an awful number of tackles this year in Super 15,  in defence - JJ in respect of especially ball handling and defence.       

Brute strength … ??? Frans Steyn??? Nah … I think there’s a misconception regarding brute strength vs obesity.

Take a 150kg obese man … pit him against a 90kg man. If the 150kg fat ass lands his punch he’ll knock your damn head off.  Not cause he’s powerful but rather cause he has a weight advantage.

All the 90kg man has to do is keep away from the fat ass for 2 minutes. By that time he’ll notice that the fat ass (like Stupid’s son) will be gasping for breath. Suddenly there’s no more “strength” … just an out of shape fat lump trying his best not to have a heart attack. That’s when you step in an exploit this gasping lump to the full by beating three kinds of shit outta him.

Strength … I think not.

That’s what Frans Steyn’s all about. A fat lump, using his superior belly size and weight to get over the advantage line.

Cleancut

Please just leave Saffex son out of it - it is not fair to bring him into this type of discussion.

You have said enough about Francois Steyn to give him a heart attack or seizure - so let us concentrate on that one.

Do you agree with me that  both Engelbrecht and Steyn are one-dimentional with virtually know ability to read games (no ball sense) - thus limiting their usage at 13?

 Cleancut

Am not standing up for Saffex at all and I do not need support in any duels with Mozart.   I have enough differences with Saffex to fill a book and am not afraid to state my views clearly.   However - to be frank - I personally would not draw his son into the context of this site.

I think Engelbrecht and Steyn has limitations and do not see them as long term solutions for no 13.  Personally I think that Steyn would ruin the attacking abilities of the backline and would not like to see him at center - so we are more of less thinking alike in the case of these two players.  

Oh so now almost over runs constitutes an over run does it? It means he ALMOST overran the pass, well he did not, the pass was delivered behind him and at no point was JJ EVER ahead of Morne, the video footage proves that.

As for Kolisi being 5m away from Read when the ball is scooped back, that is the biggest load of shit I have read in ages......again video footage proves that by the time Read gets up after diving on JJ, to effect the turnover, Kolisi makes contact with Read - FACT

Lastly Jean is the first to offend by rushing out and missing Barrett, Barrett heads between Morne and JJ, Morne is right up on Barrett but goes high.......at this point JJ who was always covering wide, has to readjust and come from behind, goes high and that is it.......with Kirchner missing the cover tackle

JJ set up what should have been 3 scoring opportunities......first Jean, second Willie and thirdly Willie or Morne - he set these up with class especially the third passage of play which was the best bit of individual attacking play by any Bok player this year.

On defence he JJ missed only one tackle, unlike Jean who missed 2 and Morne 4......JJ had a fantastic test with ball in hand confirming his status as our premier 13 for years to come......he effectively in one game, put to bed, Moz's ill informed assertion that JJ was all about pace in space........he showed in his beating of Savea that he can step and beat his man on the OUTSIDE, yes the OUTSIDE.......not to mention his physicality run straight through Conrad Smith and his step of Cruden on the half......it was pure class.

You can all bang on and bullshit till the cows come home, JJ had an outstanding test just as Sas mentioned, creating much of our go forward ball.......JJ is here to stay and thank goodness for that........gone is the useless de Jongh, who like Jacobs is a pure pretender when it comes to test rugby.

Go JJ, I look forward to many more tests where he silent those who would not know creative if it slapped them in the face

Mozart

Thanks for the English lesson.  Do you agree with what I wrote about the overrun issue?  

 Beeno

How much is Saffex paying you to write the above?

I read somewhere today that Meyer may select De Allende for the EOYT - because of problems with Engelbrecht - have you heard anything like that?

 Mozart

There would be no HOWLING -in the case of De Jongh.  Everybody accept that his tackling record this year was atrocious - so why would a miss tackle like that be resulting in howling?

How about your calls on Watson, Sykes, Greyling, Werner Kruger, Britz, Pienaar at flyhalf, Murray , Barrett, Mvovo, Ludik,Taute, Kirchner?

Dave in your desire to be this great rugby fundi, you destroy all your credibility by not accepting things others can see with their own eyes.

Honestly Dave guys like Joubert, Russell, Habana , Jean, de Jongh etc have made scores of steps like that. One step in space is really not a big deal. But enough said, I'll make a note of your actual handpicked team this time and will provide periodic updates.