Jake White hails the irremovable Bullsh*t Steyn

A great role model for younger players that want to play a one-dimensional donkey kicking game. 

Vodacom Bulls coach Jake White says veteran flyhalf Morne Steyn still has a ‘massive role to play’ for the team during the upcoming domestic season.

Steyn is one of two flyhalves in the Bulls 30-man squad for Saturday’s pre-season clash with the Sharks, with 26-year-old Chris Smith also in the squad.

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The 36-year-old returned to Pretoria at the beginning of this year after spending seven years in France with Stade Francais, a move which coincided with youngster Manie Libbok’s exit from the franchise.

It will be the first time that Steyn and former Springbok coach White work together as during Steyn’s peak, White was overseas with the Brumbies and Montpellier.

Speaking before the Super Fan Saturday matches, with the Bulls back in action for the first time since mid-March, White hailed Steyn’s ability.

‘I have never worked with Morne Steyn before and when he was flourishing in South Africa, I was overseas,’ White said.

‘I did watch his progression at Stade Francais, where he won championships with them, and he’s just an unbelievable team guy, full of energy.

‘He’s a lot more athletic than people think and the older he’s got, the more he understands what he can and cannot do.

‘He looks after himself, he’s very fit and he’s a great role model. There’s no doubt that he still has a massive role to play at the Bulls and he’s exactly the sort of general we need.’

Well the Bulls have just whipped the Sharks. Jake of ours is a lot more shrewd than his critics here. 

"Jake of ours is a lot more shrewd than his critics here."

For once we agree.

Lister calling out a successful professional coach when he has consistently backed flubs. Funny. I hope you aren't a gambling man Lister. 

Saved by Eddie Jones, what a crock. Hell if Eddie had hired. Jake in 2019 instead of that clueless NZ chap, perhaps he’d also be a WC winning head coach.

Jake’s push defence, adopte d by Nienaber won the WC....again.

Funny, Jake whalloping Eddie contributed significantly to Jones getting fired by the Wallabies. During the very same cycle Jake won the WC. 

Well Jake stuck around for 4 years during which he won the TN, was within 5 minutes of winning a second TN......both without Eddie. And won the WC with the same tactics in the knockouts he started with.....including the rush defence.

Dave you never gave Jake a fair shake, because he (rightly) resisted the pressure to play tiny Luke.

Jake's Boks scored one try less than the All Blacks scored against his Boks over those 4 years. All without Jones. Beat Jones three times in 2005, for a total of 4 wins and 2 losses (1 in the dying moments of an away test). Jones is better? Had a heck of a lot of ammo at hand too. 

Jake is good but Rassie is luckier.

Saffex, I don't buy into that Jake was deliberately poor. You have to go back at the squads he picked and some of the star players he brought forward during that time. It was Jake that got Habana, Steyn and Pietersen in early. 

Nobody knew who Habana was, but Jake selected him only after playing a couple of Currie Cup matches at 13

I think he is a great coach at identifying young talent. 

He also deliberately picked a weaker squad that meant we lost a few games, but that was in the interest of the player welfare and the rugby World Cup. 

Don't forget, Rassie did the same, he had a 50/50 win ratio in the first year and actually had a really good B team that won key matches against Argentina and Australia. 

I don't like Jake on the way he conducts himself in the media, he has a seriously bad attitude and is perhaps a bit of an opportunist, but he delivers and I'm expecting the Bulls to do well.

I'm also glad he is coaching in SA again as he will help SA unearth some more fantastic young players

2006? Injuries: Schalk Burger (broken neck), Bakkies Botha (calf surgery), Jean De Villiers (cracked rib), Bryan Habana (cracked rib), Butch James (groin and knee), André Pretorius (groin), Joe Van Niekerk (C5 & C6 vertebrae), Jacques Cronje (cracked rib), Danie Rossouw (hamstring), Juan Smith (left quadriceps), Eddie Andrews (back), BJ Botha (back surgery), CJ Van Der Linde (Leg), Gurthro Steenkamp (broken hand), Pedrie Wannenburg (wrist surgery), Marius Joubert (fractured hand) among other lesser injuries.

He still ended stronger than he started, with a last second kick preventing an away win over Australia and taking the All Blacks close away. Beat them both back to back to close the campaign and broke England's stranglehold on us. Sure sign off a great coach.

Rassie, the ideas man, without the ideas. The most defensive and negative handsoff head Bok coach we've had in my lifetime. Leaning heavily on that crutch, Nienaber. Taken the Boks from a modern and evolving team to a stoneage collection of plodders behind tier two nations. One big game against a very good match up and a win over the worst Wallaby side in 45 years (thanks mostly to Esterhuizen, whom Josè Erasmus overlooked for the cart horse Dud1, who failed to deliver yet again). 

Lest we forget:

Worse than Coetzee's 2017 season. One received praise, one was fired. 

Coetzee had no f*ing clue what he was doing. He just thought he would show up with a tracksuit and win games. 

One thing that our best coaches had in common was all the work they did behind the scenes

He did know what he was doing. He doesn't know nothing about the game. He tried to install an attacking game, that the fans had demanded for years, without strong defence. Rassie merely limited the attack and tried to conceal those defensive vulnerabilities. They are still present, those flubs from the likes of Damian and Steph are still present, but the team isn't leaving itself open to turnovers in quite the same manner. Coetzee's model wasn't well suited to the Boks, or those particular players. Rassie leaned on Krutch Nienaber. In the end, Coetzee achieved a higher output on attack and his 2017 stands as superior to Rassie's 2018. That's not an opinion. That's a statement of fact. 

On the away leg of the 2007 TNs, Jake selected a weaker team. The NZ pilots made a joke when introducing them to the rest of the passengers. That patchwork team held Australia to 21-0 at half time and held NZ to within 6 points until the final 20 minutes of the game. I stopped reading from there, as your knowledge of the Boks is too poor for further reading. 

Jake was close to being fired because he wasn’t choosing the lousy runt Watson....who was totally out of his depth at the test level. And the Bools joined the Watsonistas because they thought they could wrest control of Bok rugby.

It had zero to do with Jake’s coaching, it was political....but it did effect team morale and Jake was forced to fly back to RSA to defend himself hurting preparation.

Jones contributed some nuances to our backline play which showed up in the pool games....in the knockouts we played disciplined Bok rugby.

And Aug is totally right....Erasmus simply fell back on our traditional game while Coetzee tried to be expansive, which all our foolish fans like Biltongbek, Mike and the media were clamoring for....then when he failed they never believed that.

Funny, hypocritical stuff.

Saffex.....you hardly thumped England in the Final ! That was at the last WC  

We were very poor but battled on. 

Some of the ideas Jones wanted to implement wouldn't be viable until the ELVs. His Wallabies were often penalised for obstruction because of their layered attack. We saw some movement which utilised this against minor opponents, occasionally. Mostly against Namibia in our first warm up. To say Jones rebuilt our blueprint is a lie and rather embarrassing exaggeration. We won with the Jake model. There is no way Jake would persevere for four years and then backtrack for the final hurdle. As Os said, the Boks were already running many of the Brumbies moves etc, but having someone who installed some of those elements on the team filled the players with a bit more confidence. That was, in the words of Os, his greatest contribution. Later, before the Lions series, Jones would say that he didn't contribute a great deal. He never did specify what he did exactly.

As for Rassie. There is no evidence in all his years of senior coaching that he has any ideas, or is even on a par with the lastest advancements in the game. His greatest contribution is Nienaber, his defensive guru. Without that, you have teams who consistently languish at the bottom of every statistical category for attack, be that test level or super rugby level, even with loaded teams . There is no tangible evidence that Rassie is anything more than a man manager and opportunist. He likes positive speak. It doesn't always work. Rassie is afterall 1/2 in WCs. You said the loss to Australia was because of garbage coaching, that there was no plan. That was Rassie and Nienaber's first bite at the apple. You always embarrass yourself Saffy. 

Yes, and all because of a man you and Lügnerin said should be dropped. Stop throwing cream pies at your own face Saffy 

Saffex.....we all know scores don’t always accurately represent matches. 

I agree, you well and truly beat us, but it wasn’t a thrashing  

Saffex...if you couldn’t have beaten a rag taggle bunch of old men, crippled players and youngsters, then you really need to have a think about that !!

Actually if England got over the line in the 6 or so minutes of the great goal line stand they would have had a good chance of winning the game. That goal line stand was  key to building belief in the Boks and doubt in the Poms....and at that time the score was only 6/3 to the Boks

Fortunately brilliant tackling by Mostert,  Marx and even Malherbe stopped them a few times where it seemed a certainty they would score.  I believe that was like deuce at 5 all in the 5th set of a tennis match.  Whoever won those  6 minutes would win the game. Here’s the commentary:

Oh Jesus Sadsex, Jake set out a 18 month conditioning plan to deliberately leave the likes of Du Preez at home from the end of year tours so that they can get rest and conditioning. 

The all blacks tried the same by letting their players start later in the super rugby, that all backfired and their players were a bit under cook. 

Yes, whites team had a massive dip in the middle and that was his own fault. 

The fact remain, he deliberately left his best players at home

https://www.allblacks.com/news/jake-white-leaves-stars-at-home/

FACT and schooled 

8 of the 2007 World Cup winning Boks got left behind

The players that got left behind

Among those who will be left behind are: Fourie du Preez, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Percy Montgomery, Os du Randt, Schalk Burger, Joe van Niekerk and wing Bryan Habana.

The team that he took 

The team is: (Forwards): Johan Ackermann, BJ Botha, Gary Botha, Deon Carstens, Jacques Cronje, Hilton Lobberts, Johann Muller, Chiliboy Ralepelle, Danie Rossouw, Lawrence Sephaka, John Smit (Captain), Juan Smith, Pierre Spies, Albert Van Den Berg, CJ Van Der Linde, Pedrie Wannenberg; (Backs): Jean De Villiers, Bevan Fortuin, Jaque Fourie, Butch James, Enrico Januarie, Akona Ndungane, Wynand Olivier, Ruan Pienaar, JP Pietersen, Andre Pretorius, Jaco Pretorius, Francois Steyn.

But he also took some dead weight with him too. 

But even though that was a poor tour you can see the names that had a break out season.

Players of the game: Beast (MOM), Mostert, Mapimpi, Kolbi, Willie, Frans, Faf, Pollard, Vermeulen.

How many of those did fans attack in the buildup to the WC? Add in Louw, who saved our bacon so we had a final to contest!

The class acts were a no show. In the end, no Beast, no WC victory. That was the decisive contribution that put England on the backfoot, something NZ couldn't do. 

So what I'm picking up on this thread is that although we are ecstatic to be world champions, be it unconvincingly given that we did not beat NZ in any of our games in 2019. 

The fact that England blew NZ out of the water in the Semi's and somewhat came in underdone. 

But also, I think the Boks might have had a good chance in Finals against NZ. 

I think the next 4 years will tell whether we have finally found a coaching structure that allows SA to stay on top of the world or are going to continue to yoyo only to resurface as world champions 12 years later. 

95 / 07 / 19 

our results in world cups has also been sporadic. 

So lets hope we can carry on and finally put that to bed and stay on top of the world. 

Rassie is very clever and will find another way to develop the Boks. 

Hopefully we'll see more of the type of players like Kolbe that can we can unleash some attacking potential