First of all congratulations to the AB's for a well-deserved victory - the English with or without their propaganda machine remains below par. They were not much against the Aussies and they were much less yesterday.
However, back to my question. After repeated injuries in games this year - in Super 15 and in tests- Carter played for 10 minutes yesterday and was then subbed. He hobbled off and it looked like an injury replacement to me.
Is he going on a sabbatical over the next six months?
Cloudy
My problem with great players like Carter is that they often enough overstay the stage where there performances are on the level where we are accustomed to and then start performing on a lower level - in the long run harming their reputation. I have always thought of Carter a one of the greatest flyhalfs ever - But his recent performances shows a different Carter and is being on a lower level than it used to be - that is if he in fact can play in between injuries.
I know most New Zealanders will hope that he can stay on - but they have two good enough flyhalfs in Cruden and Barrett to replace him. The latter are definitely not on par with Carter - both being good in attacking play, but a bit of a nightmare in defence. Prefer Barrett to Cruden - the latter sometimes look bit problematic under pressure.
Bad news - what the heck an I going to do in fantasy rugby without Carter as a banker?
We had a problem in SA - they were always showing two tests here on different channels all the time and although I watched in themmain the AB game - I at times switched to the second channel to get the scores there - especially in view of my Superbru predictions. That is why I did not really look at times in the AB match. Busy too much looking at the game itself. What I did thought was a shorter playing period was in fact 25 minutes.
Talking of Superbru - I so far had only 1 out of 9 predictions wrong - I had Canada beating Romania - that is where I went wrong. My final prediction is on the Scotland- SA match - where I predicted a win by 6 points by the Springboks. Have the jitters about that one though - because of Meyer's selections.
Beeno
He who lives in a glass house should not throw stones. There is no worse a collection of old has beens in the AB's team than there are in the Springbok team. I say the Springboks are even worse in that regard.
Meyer has gone dilly by going for players 0f thirty or well pass it and then include in his squad a list of 29 year olds that would be 30 soon. Most of them are not even up to the standard of the younger players anymore - that s if they were ever up to standard.
The rugby geriatrics are all of Kirchner, Fourie, Morne Steyn, Du Preez, Pienaar, Alberts, Bakkies, Jannie du Plessis, Steenkamp. The over 30's who produce the goods are only De Villiers and Habana. Problem is the above were all part of the 2010 and 2011 Springbok team that performed like Sh!t those years. Two years on and they could only be regarded as worst than they were then. You cannot build a tam around a core of losers. If you want to build a team start with experienced players who have proved themselves in the recent past - not those who are in the team on reputation only.
I for one am not going to keep pointing fingers at the AB's when we have to actually point fingers at the rubbish selections of Meyer. I am ready to make detailed noted of the game and will soon enough tell you who buggered up badly today and who in fact earned their living by decent performances.
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