Mpower...
I've had some similar thoughts around Swy's mental issues.
Probably wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a story told to cover for him leaving due to "different philosophies".
I honestly don't know if SA has ever had a better coach than that guy. Meyer's Bulls won Trophies, so there's that...but he also had big stars in his side and never played the breathtaking rugby that Swys' Lions did.
Swys has got some genuine coaching pedigree and it is a pity that he can’t be at the Boks no more…
Not knocking Rassie but he had an opportunity of having perhaps the best SA rugby players of class to select from.
His biggest problem was to decide who to leave out of the squad.
The selection by him of the last squad to win the RWC was perhaps questionable with the number of scrum halves selected and then some of the call ups to replace injured players.
Fortunately for him he won the RWC a second time and was able to celebrate and to be hailed as the best coach ever of the Springboks by many rugby fans.
I for one sure enjoyed the wins.
Rassie’s group better than others? I don’t think so
Better than Jake’s comprising Percy, Habana, Fourie, Jean, Frans, JP, Butch, Pienaar, Fourie du Preez, Os, Smit, Bismark, CJ, Jannie, Bakkies, Matfield, Schalk, Juan Smith, Danie Roussouw and Skinstad
Think again
Pollard
Call it a push on starters….the difference Pollard and the bench. And the decline of NZ and Australian teams . Of course Jake lost zero matches at the WC Geraasmus lost 2 to better teams he luckily never faced again.
Well pleased to see Pienaar was a member of your best squad at a RWC Dave??????????
What’s wrong with Ruan Pienaar you idiot?
Pollard played a small part - it takes a team on 23 and a genius coach to win back to back WC’s
You don’t get to kick for poles without the help of your team mates
Small part…..tell that to Ramos and Barrett. They played small parts, Pollard played the crucial part.
Yep small part - the game is not won by kickers it’s won by a team
Ramos is the best kicker in the game - what have the French won?
"Ramos is the best kicker in the game - what have the French won?"
Good point, good question. It will be too much for the egg-faced old rugby noob to answer without deflecting or showing his massive rugby ignorance again.
You’d have to be a bit of a laughable rugby follower to ever believe a game is won by a single player
Effectively negating all the work done by the other 22 over 80 minutes
It’s beyond absurd but…………
Well, if you never played the game, those are the kind of conclusions you'll draw . . .
Pollard was the difference…both NZ and France had chances to win, which means the efforts of the remainder of the Bok team were at best a neutral. Pollard made the difference ….he succeeded where Ramos, Barrett and Mo’unga all failed.
One of them makes the key kick….and it was game over
And Geraasmus left Pollard at home….dumbest selection decision ever.
some epic logic here -
If Pollard makes the kick and wins the WC then Rassie is a genius.
If Pollard misses the kick then Rassie isn't a genius.
Rassie deserves plenty of credit, but you guys take it way too far.
To me, this year is where we see what has actually been built.
He can't claim to be experimenting with combinations any longer. It's been 6 years.
Whatever we see against NZ, France and Ireland...that should be the culmination of all the years of experimenting, combination building and gameplan design.
Those games in NZ are gonna be spicy.
Plum, I agree that there was a bit of luck involved in our second RWC win a.d I'lltake that, thanks...the RWC was a bonus, but if you look at where we are ATM and you compare that to where we were under Coetzee...and even Myer before him, the difference is staggering...and he did that in a relative short time...yes, we have great players, but Rassie has been nurturing them for a very long time...he drew them from the same pool we've always had...our schools roll out these players year after year...it's up to the coaches what they do with the talent...Rassie has his failings, but he's got what it takes to perform at the level of a Bok coach...that includes the politics and other challenges South Africa has that the other top nations don't have to navigate...I don’t see another coach here or abroad ruddering the Bok ship so seamlessly through the treacherous waters of what sports are in South Africa.
Rassie has proven his worth as a coach...his next challenge is succession planning and grooming....and that has already started. Will he be able to identify and groom his successor for a seamless transfer...I hope so...Dwayne is my pick, and it looks like he is already the new waterboy.
Bullshit Draad you don’t beat England, France and NZ in a row with a bit of luck
Moz what part of Pollard not being match fit at the time of the squad selection is beyond your comprehension
So there was no luck involved in three one point Victories??
Also After Eluckmiss realised that he fucked up with leaving Pollard behind, you claim there was zero luck involved in how he ended up in France??
Without Pollard, there would have been no WC Title….or are you saying that we would have won, regardless if Pollard was there or not??
It's a stale argument, we've heard it all before, the only thing that matters is the runs on the scoreboard or in this case trophies in the cabinet.
How, why, cut it, slice it and dice it anyway you like history will tell us the Boks won two WCs back to back.
Saying the Springboks wouldn't have won the 2025 RWC without Pollard is nothing but subjective (and in this case, biased) guesswork. We'll never know.
What we do know is that we won back-to-back RWCs making us the most successful RWC side in history. That isn't guesswork, that is fact.
Understand the difference.
Just by the way, Pieter-Steph du Toit was far more influential in us winning the RWC than Pollard was. We wouldn't have been in those positions and Pollard wouldn't have had the kicks at goal if PSdT hadn't demolished the All Blacks almost single-handedly.
All this talk of "if we didn't do this or if we did that then this or that would have happened" is just subjective speculation. We did win the RWC . . .and more than any individual, the Springboks collectively showed the will to win all those tight encounters.
I know it upsets the likes of Moffie and giMp who were on their knees praying for an All Black win . . . but their prayers weren't answered and - spin it however you want - Rassie Erasmus coached the Springboks to back-to-back RWCs.
That is fact and no amount of squealing or whimpering will change it.
But you see before you said this the Boks had already won their first WC with a much more convincing final performance than they produced in 2023:
RooinekHall Of Famer
15,372 posts
Oct 26, 2023, 08:16
"& we picked 4 number 9s"
There's some irony there. Like I said earlier, if we win this RWC it'll be despite Rassie, not because of him.
The initial selection of 4 scrumhalves, the decision to exclude Pollard from the original squad, the selection of Am to replace Mapimpi when we didn't use him even once, the 7-1 split for the final, the kick-and-hope game plan . . . all stupid shortsighted decisions made by an egotistical fool trying to prove he's some kind of genius.
……
So what exactly are you saying here. Let’s parse it a little.Firstly you are saying if we win it will be despite Rassie not because of him. But then immediately we won by 1 point against a team who played most of the game with 14 men…..you totally switched gears and called him a genius.
You rip the 7-1 split, you call the Erasmus game plan kick and hope, you say his decisions are shortsighted….but he is making them to boost his own image.
So you are calling him shortsighted, egotistical, tactically naive, selfish and a fool. You are not just calling him a rotten coach, you are saying he is a bad human being.
And you mention the decision to leave out Pollard from the original squad, no mention now of going with Libbok. But before France you said this:
‘If it was me I’d have called up Dweba to be my bench option and I’d have stuck with Manie, flaky goal-kicking or not’.
And then after all that, we scrape home with Pollard delivering every time and the AB’s kicking at 50%…..and suddenly all that rhetoric is forgotten and he becomes a genius?
All of that is funny and pitiful enough, but then you have the lack of awareness of your status on this topic, to actually opine again. When you have made an utter fool of yourself you have no cred….embarrassed on every point you made
Understand the difference.
The only argument here is that you guys say no luck was involved in winning WC 23.
Where the events that actually transpired, paint’s a very different picture.
Would you say that most of PSDT tackle’s made in the final, was actual try saving tackles ??
Saying his contribution was more than pollard is short sighted , as there is no way that Stef could slot those clutch kicks.
His Defence on the other hand, was a important contribution in grinding the game out.
". . . as there is no way that Stef could slot those clutch kicks."
My goodness, just how stupid is giMp?
Deliberately misunderstanding M’s comment. A standard Drinksbreak tactic. You just keep repeating yourself….most posters on this Board are stupid according to you, Fools, egotistical, fat, noobs, egg faced, old , drunk, cowards.
All the usual Drinksbreak contributions to civilized debate. A man with serious psychological issues as Dr Ikey pointed out many years ago.
I suppose on every forum you have the nut jobs…..
"Fools, egotistical, fat, noobs, egg faced, old , drunk, cowards."
Actually, that set of descriptions is just you, Moffie.
It is a phenomenally stupid comment by giMp. I patiently explain to him that it's not just about the kicker, that the other players have to play well enough to earn those shots at goal . . . and the half-wit replies that Pieter-Steph wouldn't have kicked the kicks over.
Possibly the dumbest comment ever made on this board by someone other than ou Maaik.
You the one that made the Dumb claim that PDST was more influential than Pollard??
In which way was he better then? My comment was meant to be ironic, like Stef could ever make those kicks….
Fuck off you tosser….
In what way was PSdT better? Well he was named man of the match in the final, you thick plank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Rugby_World_Cup_final
Go read it for yourself . . . and when you've finished wiping all that egg off your stupid face, come back and say yes Rooinek, you were right and I was wrong.
LMAO!
Like this poorly read fool would ever understand irony. Remember his rant about the One Hundred Years of Solitude series not providing enough time to complete the book. The moron never realized there was a second season. Hilarious flub after hilarious flub from Solitude.
Imagine edging the ball in the air through slips three times in a row.
...the only way you'd describe your survival would be that you were lucky.
But win three rugby matches in the knockout stages, by 1 point each, and relying on usually reliable kickers to miss regulation kicks while your kicker has three perfect games.
That's genius.
Ruckers logic.
Careful you might confuse Drinksbreak, he probably thinks the ‘slips’ is some form of ambulatory disease.
". . . he probably thinks the ‘slips’ is some form of ambulatory disease."
You mean like slipping on a banana "peal" (sic)?
LMAO!
You refer again to the sting…3xStung. Slink away into your cups Lush.
ROFL!
Funniest thread of the year!
Yes for once you anticipated the Sting, predicted it….but couldn’t resist and got Stung anyway! Monumental stupidity.
But this is all an attempt to distract from your trashing of Erasmus….you are fooling nobody. Still given how utterly stupid you look I suppose you had to try something.
ROFL!
Mozart
Have a look at the video on coaching by ErasmusL-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWZ0_2hkj_o
I believe in most cases the description by the presenter is correct.
Bump….emphasis added to Solitude’s rant about Geraasmus.
Moffie, is there a time of the day when I'm not foremost in your mind or when you aren't dreaming of getting the better of me for the first time?
If so, I'd like to know what time that is.