Lets hope Meyer's poor experiment is over

Fourie was always going to flop at 13, that was a given.......I can't say I thought JP would be so out of sorts as well, given it was not that long ago that we lost him to Japan.

Lets hope Meyer wakes up against Scotland and we return to a merit Bok side.....well as merit as possible given the squad.

Fourie was rubbish and has to go, JP is not fit enough but our options are limited so he will just need to dig deep. Time to give Kolisi a start and I would have pushed for Steph du Toit to start but given how good Flip was, he deserves to stay in the starting side.

The side to play Scotland should be:

15. Willie 14. JP 13. JJ 12. Jean 11. Habana 10. Lambie 9. du Preez 1. Beast 2. Bismark 3. Malherbe 4. Etzebeth 5. Flip 6. Kolisi 7. Alberts 8. Vermeulen

16. Strauss 17. Adriaanse 18. Coenie 19. Steph du Toit 20. Coetzee 21. Schrauder 22. Goosen 23. Serfontein

JJ would never have created that try Fury did in a 100 tests. He had a typical 10 minutes on the park:

How can a test 13 not gain a metre? I dunno, I never rated the guy. But he is better than JJ. Why? Because he can operate in tight spaces. JJ needs space and he will rarely get it in test rugby. Which is why we will see him occasionaly pull off a run and use his pace to beat a few defenders.....but generally he will be shackled in tight space, with his weak defence being his definining feature.

You are onto a loser here Dave....best bet is he plays wing.

Mozart

One thing became clear to me yesterday and that is that Fourie is not the answer at 13.   He is way too slow in pace to make a constructive contribution.  The only thing that he did well yesterday - his ball recovery and pass to Du Preez - would never have been occurred if he was onside and two meters back from where he was before Du Preez's kick.  You cannot assess that kind of thing as a positive in the hope that a referee would let off-side play go unpunished. 

For the rest he contributed nothing to defence and allowed Davies to run past him without even attempting to make a tackle on a number of occasions and he contributed nothing to attack as well.  

By the way that 10 minutes stats of Engelbrecht yesterday reminded me strangely enough of the stats of De Jongh - when he was on the field of play for 80 minutes in the Twickenham test last year both had zero's aplenty.    

Based on his performance yesterday I do not think Fourie is the answer at 13.   I do not think that Engelbrecht is not necessarily either - even though in a way as a result of his speed advantage he is better than Fourie.   The only thing one can hope for that the Super 15 next year will show us the way forward insofar as selection of a 13 is concerned.

Your opinion on the matter - please.     

Saffex

You cannot judge a player on only one test or any given other match - and not based on one incident only during such a match.   Engelbrcht was good in some games - not so good in others.   

Where I agree with you is that he is a better option than Fourie and De Jongh  - but every 13 in the Suoer 15 franchise teams  is, so  that is not a real reason for his selection.   I still have some doubts whether he is necessarily the only option at 13, but Super 15 next year will provide greater clarity on the issue. 

Saffex

I do not read much into Meyer's praise singing in this case - he knew he was queried about his selection of the Japanese club players and wanted to dig himself out of a hole by referring to that incident in the game yesterday as justification for his selection.  

His subsequent selections is likely not to be in line with his utterances yesterday.   I think he experimented with Fourie and JP and came short in those cases    He would probably look at their actual performances and based his future selections on the reality of the situation and not utterances done to protect his own image.  

He is keeping on with Morne in the faint hope that Morne will somehow show something in future - but he is onto a dead duck as well in his case.   Morne will always be Morne - a serious flop at flyhalf as Sasue pointed out earlier.  One-dimensional and a poor ball player with no ball sense. 

 Saffex

Three things - so lets deal with those.

He may play Fourie and JP again - but they will fail again and again - so ultimately he would be forced to forget about them.   I think the Japanese Club game environment does not promote anything near to test level physical fitness at all.   There is still some hope that Pietersen will realize that he is onto a bad thing - he is young enough to still make a recovery, but I think the case of Fourie is hopeless - he is way past it to make any recovery at all.    Pietersen will play in some Super 15 games for the Sharks next year and e shall see then whether he can recover from the Japanese club deficiencies.

Meyer is likely to find out his mistake in dealing with the Japanese club players - like he found out about his mistake in calling up Steenkamo and retaining Kirchner and Kruger for way too long in the Springbok squad.   Bloody-mindedless does not pay and he will be bitten by that sooner rather than later.

Mozart has attacked Engelbrecht about lack of performance yesterday as if he came on as a 13 - but he is conveniently or deliberately hiding  the fact that Engelbrecht came onto the field as a wing replacement - and not in the no 13 position  and he never saw the ball for the 10 minutes he actually played.

Dave I hate to remind you of this but you were the big no space for centres guy. If there is no space...and I think that's fairly close to the truth....you need a guy who can keep his feet and offload. Or a guy like Jean who regularly steps through tackles. Not a guy like JJ who tries to beat Nonu, gets taken down and then stripped by Read, leading to the crucial NZ try.

JJ is a poor runner in traffic...he is a wing.

15. Willie 14. JP 13. JJ 12. Jean 11. Habana 10. Lambie 9. du Preez 1. Beast 2. Bismark 3. Malherbe 4. Marcell 7. Louw 8. Vermeulen. Who to play at lock?

16. Strauss 17. Adriaanse 18. Coenie 19. lock?. Alberts 21. Pienaar 22. Goosen 23. Serfontein

One needs to see what Bakkies has? Etzebeth can have a break to keep him fresh? Kolisi is not anyhwere near test class right now and neither is Schreuder - rediculous that these two are on tour.

15. Willie 14. JP 13. JJ 12. Jean 11. Habana 10. Lambie 9. du Preez 1. Beast 2. Bismark 3. Malherbe 4. Marcell 7. Louw 8. Vermeulen. Who to play at lock?

16. Strauss 17. Adriaanse 18. Coenie 19. lock?. Alberts 21. Pienaar 22. Goosen 23. Serfontein

One needs to see what Bakkies has? Etzebeth can have a break to keep him fresh? Kolisi is not anyhwere near test class right now and neither is Schreuder - rediculous that these two are on tour.

 Beeno

I have a couple of problems with your above team.   As you rightly pointed out Fourie showed nothing on Saturday and to be quite frank neither did JP either.  The Japanese club environment had a serious negative impact on their performances.

However, it is not entirely fair to judge players on one game only - both were not test ready and both suffered from lack of realistic mobility.  Bearing in mind the above and also that Scotland is not a strong team - I think they should give the two players concerned another chance this coming weekend.  If they fail again - Meyer should forget about them while they are playing touch rugby in Japan.  They can have a look again at Pietersen in Super 15 next year when he will play for the Sharks - but if he is in the same shocking condition as he was on Saturday - he was very much like Francois Steyn on his return from France - he may yet see an early end to his illustrious career and will be well-advised to train more and use the gym more to get into and stay in shape.   Against France those two in the form they displayed on Saturday will be a disaster.

I have no other problem with the backline you propose.  Insofar as the forwards are concerned I think that since Meyer wants to experiment with Bakkies - he should play Bakkies at lock on Saturday and would seriously consider partnering him with Du Tout - giving Etzebeth a rest (he was a bit tired-looking on Saturday and can do with a rest) and put Van der Merwe on the bench.   Either that or start with Van der Merwe and Du Toit and put the rugby geriatric on the bench.  Forty minutes by Bakkies will be enough to see whether he would still be a feasible proposition something I have serious reservations about.   After all the elderly (Steenkamp  and  Fourie) have shown that they are not up to it - so why should Bakkeies show any f=difference in the trend.  

So my team would be-

15 Willie,  14  JP,  13 Fourie,  12  Jean,  11. Habana,   10  Lambie,  9  Du Preez,   8. Vermeulen,  7 Marcell,  6   Louw.   5  Van der Merwe, 4.  Du Toit,   3. Malherbe, 2 Strauss, 1  Beast 

Replacements

16. Bismmarck,   17  Adriaanse,  18  Coenie,   19 Botha, 20 Kolisi, 21 Pienaar,  22 Goosen,  23 Serfontein

Kolisi for BEE purposes.

If Fourie and JP fails again - then against France bring in JJ at 13 and put Serfontein on the bench.      

JJ is not the complete 13 just yet but he sure is better than Jacque Fourie at the moment. The only time I notice that Jacque Fourie was on the field was when he missed a crucial tackle at the beginning and the pass off a lucky bounce from Du Preez kick. He was nowhere for the rest of the game.

The only backline players making a difference for the boks at the moment are Jean de Villiers and Habana. Habana showed once more what a threat he is in space and with 5 defenders in front of him he managed to pick the slowest defender and beat him and North who is no slouch, not to mention his perfect offload to Bismark with Jean in Support.

I expected Fourie to smash holes through the welsh defence.

Test rugby is no place to play players into form. It is really grinding on me that we have these expats playing for us when they are out of shape. Jean has done great for us this year but he is hanging in there by a thread. Against the Kiwis he managed to get a brilliant try but then conceded a try 5 min later because he just didn't have the fitness to recover enough and make a crucial tackle

Pick your best and fittest team, if Meyer wants to play these guys then he should play them off the bench. Create competition within the squad and let these guys earn their way back.

Players such as Jean, Habana, Fourie Du Preez needs to be managed in the same why Mccaw and Carter are managed by the all blacks. We simply do not have enough quality 9’s, wingers or centers around. De Allende and Serfontein are work in progress and probably a season or two away from test rugby. Then we have a real lack out wide, Mvovo has pace but he has no x-factor. Rhule has gone off the boil, so I don’t see any other young wingers putting up their hands.

I really like van der heever and thought that when he was at the bulls that he would play for the boks but being at WP really damaged his development.

Taute has potential but if you look at what we have available with all the injuries, I’m really worried that we just don’t seem to have enough depth in key positions and that we have a lot of potential but no players ready for test rugby.

So what should we do, I say give the youngsters a crack. No point in wasting their development time with former players that have had their time or journeyman that has no long term prospects.

Pick Senior Players that will be around for at least 2 years and a core group of players that we can invest in over the next 4 years.

Against Scotland I would play

1 Coenie (Beast)
2 Bismark (Strauss)
3 Malherbe (Adriaanse)
4 Estebeth (Flip)
5 PSDT
6 Coetzee
7 Kolisi (Alberts)
8 Vermeulen
9 Fourie Du Preez (Pienaar)
10 Lambie – (Goosen)
11 Habana
12 Serfontein (De Villiers)
13 JJ
14 JP (Best of the worst)
15 Willie

 'Jean has done great for us this year but he is hanging in there by a thread. Against the Kiwis he managed to get a brilliant try but then conceded a try 5 min later because he just didn't have the fitness to recover enough and make a crucial tackle"

Rubbish Corn, absolute Tommy Rot. Jean rushed up to try and pin Barrett behind the advantage line....it was an offensive tackle attempt to reverse field advantage. Barrett eluded him coming forward, it had zero to do with fitness, speed or any other capacity.

 Mozart

I just saw that you posted another pig photo.  I always sympathize with sick people - but more se with you and your pigshit on the brain disease.   Hope they find a remedy for that one soon.   I wish you well and look forward to recovery on your part.  

Clean Cut

OK - I grant you the fact that I am long-winded in too many cases - but facts are basically always distorted by some posters - Mozart being one - and it makes me very mad to have to repeat everything over and over again to prove how wrong they are. 

There is one thing I am not and that is negative.  I see some minor merits in for instance Engelbrecht's case - but recognise the more serious negatives as well.   Where I am negative is where I cannot find any positives in player performance and they still are in the Springbok team.   That is where my main differences with you and other posters are - I look and recognise the positives and the same with the negatives and weigh them up against each other - before expressing an opinion.  

I do not fabricate lies and take note of every occurrence on the field of play and note the negatives and the positives.   If need be I checked the stats on matches after I have written comments on players to confirm or deny my personal impressions  in  cases of serious counter-arguments.  Often enough the negatives of a player in games are ignored totally and a cloud 9 picture of benevolent performances are given as the only side of the player performance.  Anyway I often enough accept that my impressions are wrong and in that I am not pig-headed as Mozart implies.

I mostly do not get carried away by my likes or dislikes of players - bar perhaps my dislike for Alberts  - but I always remain steadfast in what I think the issues are.   OK - I know we differ on some players - and markedly so - but I am always surprised in how many cases we actually are in agreement.

I will never put Alberts in my fantasy sport selections and thank heavens Morne will not be involved in future - every time I put him in - the bugger flopped and I ended up poorly.  Rathe r Labuschagne for me in the next Super 15 - he is my back row banker.           

The OOM spotting more young talent

 Mozart

Have you lost your senses completely?   Posting of the pig photos are childish and totally senseless.   It give an impression that you are besotted with pigs and it really is a bad reflection on your ability to debate anything on a rational basis,   There is no reasonable grounds that support some of you statements and when caught out - you become totally irrational.

You are apparently delusional and believe your pig photos are clever and funny - but I doubt whether any rational member would find in them anything other than rank stupidity on your part.

Please - if people diff er with you and give examples - remain logical in debate and don't become childish.