I'll be honest. In 2018, during the Puma second test, I was not impressed by Mostert. I thought it was a mistake to drop Steph from lock for him. However, he really upped his game, and by the Wellington test, he completely reversed my opinion of him. If we look at defence stats, Mostert and Whiteley were the best defenders in the 2018 season. He is simply a much better player than Steph. Steph is a hardly a beast of a man in terms of physicality either and spends a good deal of his time falling on top of players. Niet, Mostert at 7 and RG at 5. We don't need Steph in the squad. We have better locks and better flanks.
Funny peculiar - not funny Ha-ha. T his is because funny peculiar is produced by liars and AO is an expert in that, ,
Duplication
Dave
The prove of the pudding was in the line out situation. In the RC game in 2019 Mostert was twice outjumped by Reid and Whitelock - with the result that in the subsequent test against Argentina Mostert was never used for line-out jumping. He normally was taking up the position where the no 7 stood in line-ups with Du Toit in front where the no 4 normally jumped and Etzebeth in the middle of the line -outs or vice versa.
The Springboks were in the same situation in the WC test against the AB's. What is evident that the line-out situation was a major reason for the relegation of Mostert to the bench - the other being Mostert's total inability to make open field tackles, He missed two of those in the 2018 RC match against the AB's in Pretoria and missed one in the RC test against Argentina and one in the AB test in the WC - both ending up in tries for the opposition, In both cases Mozart and AO tried to blame Du Toit for the poor tackle attempts by Mostert - but Erasmus saw what really happened and took action in the subsequent matches.
As to playing Mostert at 7 - Erasmus asked the Lions in 2019 to try Mostert at 7 to see whether he was usable there - he did a similar request to the Stormers iro of Du Toit, In the three games Mostert played at 7 it was open field tackles that became seriously problematic and after only three games at 7 the Lions move him back to lock. Erasmus never once - even when coming off the bench used Mostert at 7 - but both Mozart and AO said he should play at 7 ahead of Du Toit,
Real rugby idiots at work in their case, Mozart lied about the three line-out steals by Mostert - n ot one of the three steals were against the Welsh - all three steals were against Namibia and Canada - where he played as starting lock.
