The conservatism of the man is sick. We once again see the impressive Arno Botha relegated to the bench now that the average Stegman has recovered from injury. Unbelievable and we wonder why we lost the services of CJ Stander.
I would not be surprised to see Botha leave for greener pastures......if he cant make the starting line-up ahead of Stegman, Dewald Potgieter or Spies, then he might as well throw in the towel with the Bulls.
Last week he made S15 side of the week - wake the f up Ludeke
Saffex
The Ludeke selection is in line with his normal thinking. After all - he is in serious competition for being the worst coach in SA. At this stage Meyer has a clear lead as the worst one - but remember the second place is wide open - with Ludeke and Coetzee fighting a desperate battle to get the second spot in that disgraceful race.
Plumtree gets my vote for the worst. Game plan, player selections, player management.....awful.
Mozart
Plumtree always was a good coach with a very good seletion policy. However, this year he had a nightmare - firstly with a very bad situation at 12 that neutralized the whole Sharks backline and secondly with a huge number of injuries - especially to backline players. Given the nightmare he is facing with regard to the issues as outlined - he can be forgiven. There really is no mitigating circumstances in respect of the other three coaches (Meyer, Ludeke and Coetzee) - they just make shit selections and when it backfires on them - they do not understand the reasons for it.
The only decent coaches we have that use their limited player resources to bes advantage are Sexton and Drotsky.
South Africa has to be the country with the most miraculous rugby set-up in the world. We have absolutely not a single rugby coach of note. From the national coach right down to the under 7F coach of Koedoe Drol Primary School. Yet, we are the current Junior World Rugby Champions and we are ranked no 2 on the world rugby rankings. The exceptions, apparently is Drotsky who, less than a year ago, was also rated us a fvcking idiot. Plumtree probably had the number 1 spot after the Sharks comeback in the 2012 S15.
Reminds me of the song "Master Jack".
"It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.................."
Nope I think we have plenty of good coaches....but Plumtree, with arguably the best SA squad, has screwed up. Once he started blaming his players and dealing with their issues in public, he lost the plot.
Yeah, I can't say I rate a single SA coach right now, including the Bok coach. Drotske is the best of the lot as he has done plenty with less than the rest, but he is no world beater
Mozart
Absolute crap. Plumtree never blamed any player in public for anthing. If you refer to the Steyn saga you ar totally misrepresenting the facts and he never blamed Steyn for anything. He was under pressure from the interviewer - who asked him about publicly known circuamstnces and e gave him an honest answer. Rather than fibbing about th issue - he told them that there have been steps taken to correct the publicly-known dreficiencies.
What way do you want him to handle that situation? Lieing about it?
At leasst Plumtree always try to get deficiencies corrected - Meyer never does and he is known to select from all resources in SA consistently the poor performers and then slap the performing SA players in the face by making bad selections like Van der Linde and Steenkamp. And he went on with that aborsion called his training squad.
I dont rate Naka that much, in fact, I am convinced that the improved performance of the Cheetahs is lagely due to a fine effort from their backs who are coached this season (for the first time) by Hawies Fourie (Griquas coach). With Os the forwards coach, the two I believe could manage to gel the forwards and backline as one unit.
Under their leadership the following players has made great progress and many could be labelled as the find of the year:
Philip van der Walt - a highly under rated player, but performs extremely well in every game.
Lappies Labuschagne - a serious contender IMHO for a place in the Bok squad. (find of the year?)
Heinrich Brussow - well below par last year after his injury but is rapidly becomming the terror he used to be.
Trevor Nyakane - massive improvement overall this year.
Coenie - Is making huge inroads into the #3 position.
Adriaan Strauss - The best we have, and should be our Bok captain.
Willie le Roux - many rate him very high. (I do have a slight problem with his defence).
Raymond Rhule - same as for Willie
Riaan Smit - could lift Sias Ebersohn from the team and performed very well while Goosen was injured. Got injured and was replaced by Burton Francis whom I do not rate high.
I have seen no issue with Willie's defence this year
Ag ou Dave - It must be bad to suffer from tunnel vision. :)
Just answer the question Blockhead
Windpomp I have said for years Naka is a good coach. The Cheetahs have played great rugby for years with a very limited squad continually raided by richer unions.
This year I would be going full out for Plum and Coetzee but realise one cant go ballistic as we had 13 players out and Plum 17! You HAVE TO TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT. I still dont think either are really good coaches and lament the fact that guys like Mallet, Jake and Brendon Venter are not coaching and neither is Rassie. However I do know that had the Stormers and Sharks been at full Strength they would be significantly better off. Would there then be these criticisms.NO
The real issue is what you achieve with your squad - when the squad is decimated by injury the coach is in a sense off the hook. However good results with a superb squad should be critised but often are not.
That guy who used to coach the lions, Loffie Elof, wasnt bad but had little to work with.
Ludeke is building a young squad and not doing too badly. However not picking Arno Botha boggles the mind as he is easily their best loosie.
Blikkies cant fault what you say and agree in particualr re Willie and Rhule. They are young players and will hopefully work on their defence. Personally I think its a long hard road for brussouw getting back to the Boks. Louw for one is so much better.
@saffex,
very stupid of ludeke to bench botha, maybe he thinks the huuricanes and loftus means he dosent have to play his strongest team???
i dont agree with cj stander though, if cj had left the bulls that would be one thing, but to leave SA and then express a desire to play for another nation and not the Boks??? o_O
thats something that goes far beyond the incompetent selections of ludeke.
Sas we know Ludeke is stupid but he cant be that stupid to think that he does not have to play his best side against the Canes.
Ludeke is just a typically pathetic conservative coach, who will select experienced players ahead of the talented Botha.
I hear you on CJ, but why did he even comtemplate leaving the Bulls - he could not have been happy and given Ludeke, its hardly surprising.
The Bulls go off and sign all the young talent in the country and then can't provide them with game time. There are a number of youngsters like Frans Venter who have not signed their contracts because the pathetic Bulls expect him to take a cut in salary - what idiots
Oom Maaik I spent my career talking to the press. You don't lie. You simply don't answer questions you don't want to answer. You certainly don't blurt out a lot of stuff that should stay between yourself and a colleague.
Your bluntness, combined with your utter ignorance makes for tedious reading.
The biggest mystery is how the Bulls actually made the playoffs last year.
With so many bok retirments is a miracle with the likes of Dean Greyling, Werner Kruger and Donkey Potgieter in their midst.
Morne was out of form last year as were many others like Spies and co. I just dont understand how they made the playoffs.
Moaert
One thing is for certain - I have probably spoke to the press as much as you have and I have learned one thing - never, ever lie about things. If they know sonmething and queried me about it I have always given an HONEST answer. I also gave evidence to the Steyn Commission of Enquiry into the Media and was complimented on the quality of the comments made and submitted.
Everyone in KwaZulu-Natal knew about Steyn's weight issue. So what Plumtree said is that something is being done about it. You obviously did not know what was general knowledge here and Plumtree knew it was not a state secret. I fail to see how that could be blurting out information already generally known as you put it - it was merely an indication what is being done about it.
And as for your one-eyed views - that made for tedious reading as well.
Ou Beenbal, I have not said that Drotske is a great coach. I was trying to show how the coaches are rated by the public, according to the remarks in the media. I agree 100% with Blikkies about Hawies Fourie. He has long been one of those quiet great coaches who never finds himself in the limelight.
Imagine taking the view that one needs to answer the press honsetly.....bloody hell the obvious thing to do is say stuff all. Am with Moz on this, Plum should have kept his stupid trap shut.......he stuck his foot in it with Frans and Kankan.
The fool points fingers at these two but said nothing about how poor the likes of Jannie, Burden, Franco v/d Merwe, Daniel, Mc Leod, Bosman, Jordaan, Viljoen and Ndungane have been.
The man has lost the plot
Saffex
Accordoing to you = Plumtree lost the plot. According to me - you never knew aany plot. Your constant way of discussing things are grossly inadequate. Viljoen nver played until he came on the bench. Burden played a few games and when it was evident he was buggering up - he was replaced. Jannie was - like Francois Steyn and Kankowski - far from matchcit and was given time to recover. McCleod rarely played and was constantly on the bench. As for the useless Frans Steyn - you, igmorant fool, wanted him to play when he was jepoardising the backline. He had no option but to bring in Meyer.
Your obsession with Francois Steyn is really a joke. He went bad (fat and unfit) in France and came back to SA. Since his return produced nothing of note for the teams he played in and even though you said he was good in the first Sharks gme this year - careful analysis indicated he was averge in that game and became progressively worse in subsequent games. The last one was slightly better - but he still always select the wrong optiona and made handling errors - even in that game. Unless he improves - he should just go and farm in the Free State. . .
And you are an ignorant twat. Moz sums your crap up perfectly 'Your bluntness, combined with your utter ignorance makes for tedious reading.'
Reading anything you write is tedious......I tend to read the first three lines and then start yawning and respond in kind.
You really do not know much about rugby and I am not just saying that for the sake of it - I honestly mean it. You dont know the basics and when its comes to subtleties - well there is more chance of me falling pregnant than you grasping the very workings of the game.
Oom Maaik, if you know something you give an honest answer? Why do you think terms like "not for attribution" or "for background only" came about? It's a delicate dance, but you certainly don't blurt out information nobody has a right to expect. It was a foolish interview.
Saffex
OK - I love the following statement:-
" You dont know the basics and when its comes to subtleties - well there is more chance of me falling pregnant than you grasping the very workings of the game:.
You may not fall pregnant - but if you mean that playing unfit and under-performing players are "subleties" - I frankly do not want to know the subleties. If you point out the player's wrong decisionmaking and poor play with exact examples - I do not want to know the subleties either. You really have a one-tracked mind - so one-tracked that it defies logic completely.
That is why your arguments on issues are spurious and you take such umbrage at for instance stats that floor your patheric views and arguments comprehensively.
Better to regard your contributions as comic relief and laugh at your pathetic attempted insults - that is what I generally do,
@sharkbok,
" The biggest mystery is how the Bulls actually made the playoffs last year."
no mystery at all. bulls had a team which were consdiered a tier 1.5 team. would beat most of the lower tier teams, but struggle aganst the top teams.
the cheetahs and lions were easy beats last year and this helped them accumulate some easy points.
OZ conference was a joke with their one and only finals team the reds making the finals, but only finished 3rd cos of the top 3 from every confernce gets automatic top 3 billing rule. reds should have been 6th on the ladder.
meanwhile the NZ conference in the comp were cannibalising each other with the play each team twice in their own conferce rule.
once the bulls made the finals, u saw just how out of their league they really were when the crusaders stomped their season into a coma which the loftus faithful were rather sadly forced to pull the plug on and whisper RIP bulls.
Windpomp the Cheetahs staff are to be complimented on their efforts. Not just this year but every year. They play a good style of rugby and often take discarded players and make them into contenders - on really cant ask more of a coaching team.
What one also appreciates is the wisdom of the Cheetahs Union in sticking with Naka. They do do because they take note of context and now Naka operates with limited resources. Other oaks looking at the scoreboard woud have fired him yeras ago.
I am with Mike on this one. I read Plums comments and never gave it a second thought as he seemed to be making a lot of sense. As Mike says the issues, for example, Steyn's weight were in the public domain.
Has Plums statments damaged the sjsharks. Are they demoralised. Defintely not. Their coming back like they did against the Chiefies was magnificent and showed huge spirit.
Furthermore Frans himslef had a better game.
Conclusion Plums media comments do NO harm whatsoever.
I noticed Steyn's weight was given t 116 kg! If true he needs still to shed about 6 kg. But there is reason to be hopeful he is coming right - attitude was better.
saSUE what you dont know is that last year the bulle team was mad up of bulle "ledgends in the making" only!! (Mean ou's inflated assessment of the bulle!! Hahahahahha)
One has to undertand the bulle at home are a proposition. Teams form Oz and nz pitch up at Loftus and have to beat the travel bogey AND altitude. This gives the bulle a useful edge. They are also the one SA sid who have had dubious realtions with refs such as Craig Joubert and Marius Bonkers. Who will forget the bulle refs demolishion of the crusties. Not to say of course the crusties didnt deserve it as they get away with murder match after match but for once they got thier own medicine back. Mcaaaws indignation was priceless.
Come to think of it why do so many sides appear to arrive in SA and play the bulle at altitude first. The wee canes will next feel the effects of the double whammy and will end the match like bent reeds!
