Jaque Fourie retires from international rugby

Will also not be available for the Sharks in the S15 as he has decided to focus on his career in Japan.

It is always sad when a player that has served South Africa well decides to retire, Jacques Fourie was a great player, but there comes a time when you have to pull the plug on an illustrious career, for me he was one of the best finishers in midfield, scored nearly a try every second match.

It is the honourable thing to do when you realise you can no longer benefit your team, he is making good money in Japan, and I thank him for his service.

Few players from France are up to scratch as well.

Bakkies Botha, Bryan Habana, Frans Steyn, MOrne Steyn, they become less than the sum of their parts. 

No you twat, he knows that he is not good enough for test rugby anymore...speaks volumes for useless Meyer who cant see it......hell the players themselves know like Bakkies and Fourie, but our idiot coach is away with the fairies.

Sharktwat, catch a wake up you ignorant man........do you know anything about rugby?  

I would like to add this after reading Brendon Nel's article on Su per sport. 

Over the past two years I often voiced my displeasure in regards to the fact that SARU has a policy in place of selecting overseas players.

Often I have been criticised for my stance in this regard, many suggesting that players leave for various reasons and they should not be punished for leaving when they want to make a better living for themselves.

I have always argued that a player who leaves have other priorities in mind and representing his country was not one of them, it was just a “nice to have option”

Heyeneke Meyer has digressed in my view as his reliance on retired and overseas players have become a mainstay of his plan to conquer the rugby world in next year’s edition of the Rugby World Cup.

He has held firm in his belief that players such as Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Ruan Pienaar, Fourie du Preez, Frans Steyn, Jacque Fourie, Bryan Habana, JP PIetersen and Morne Steyn had the required experience to benefit the Springboks in their lead up to the World Cup and also during it.

Truth be told, none of these players have been able to show the form of when they were in their prime, and many of them has become older, slower and have regressed in regards to their performances.

The best example of a player regressing and Heyeneke stubbornly holding on was Morne Steyn who could not even hold down the starting position at his French Club Stade Francais. It had come down to yet another poor performance in the Rugby Championship before Meyer reluctantly realised he could no longer hold onto his Metronome as Morne Steyn was simply no longer good enough, no matter how badly he wanted him to be.

Not sure whether I am even allowed to suggest I am pissed off about the newest revelations, but here goes.

Heyneke Meyer planned that Jacque Fourie would be the midfield partner for Jean de Villiers going into 2015. He put so much belief in the fact that Jacque Fourie would return, that he failed to develop a midfield combination that could be considered world class.

There is nothing wrong with the quality of Jan Serfontein, in fact he has done remarkably well considering he has been playing at 13, Jean de Villiers had a solid 2013, but as the years go by, players age and they lose pace and form.

Although the combination of Jean de Villiers and Jan Serfontein was mostly successful in defence, as an attacking combination they have not been very successful, they are two very similar players, and neither are very good distributors.

So now Jacque Fourie is gone, he has decided to retire from International rugby, and have negated any plans Meyer has had. Effectively leaving Meyer in a hole, as the midfield combination as it stands now, have failed to impress on attack, and when you add Jean de Villiers’ tendency to break the defensive line, it should be a concern to any Springbok supporter.

Meyer has now plucked the fruits of his labour, his reliance on players plying their trade overseas has once again bitten him in the arse.

When will SARU learn that the reality of the situation is once a player leaves, the negative outweighs any positives.

We are talking Japan you idiot.....one would swear they knew what they were doing when it comes to rugby?

One only needed to see Fourie this time last year for the Boks where he gained all of 13 metres in 4 tests and never beat a single defender or made a clean break  

Rubbish we have 13's to burn. JJ should never have been discarded in the first place. de Allende was our best centre all S15 and has had virtually no test exposure to make a name for himself. Meyer pathetically threw in the towel on the lad so early on.

Other good options are Stokkies Hanekom of the Lions, Pat Howard and Taute  of WP, Sithole and Tyler Fisher of the Sharks.

Not to mention Kobus v/Wyk of WP who is being wasted on the wing having played all his age group rugby at centre......he looks like another JJ clone.....plenty of pace and a great step.

We have more than enough material to work with but sadly we are stuck with an unimaginative coach stuck in a time warm and with 'conservative' as his second name. 

What utter bullshit that JJ was outplayed in every S15 game - that is a lie. He was never outplayed at all. The guy was receiving on average 5 balls a game, its the Bulls way. If the Bulls don't play it wide, there is very little a 13 can do.

Reality is, none of the SA centres stood tall this S15......the best of the lot was de Allende.

JJ had the best defensive stats of all the SA centres in this S15....so much for him having an issue there.