Of his list of 42 - a third of them Bulls - there were some real clangers this weekend. Kirchner was poor undr the high ball and worse in defence. Basson was fine - but meisiejind was useless. Steyn had a fine kicking game - but a very poor flyhalf game. Hougaard was really poor this game around - but the loose forwards supposed to protect him were worse. Spies remains a show pony - end of story. The Bulls tight forwards were disastrous. The roll;ing mauls became a set of plays where the Bulls got penalized, lost possession of knock on balls. of the 14 Bulls I would say only 1 was really good - the rest was average.
Now for the Lions - they were disastrous all year long and this weekend was no different. There is no players in that crowd that is of any use and even their best player - Taute was injured early. That takes care of five of Meyer's 42.
The Cheetahs - played well, but Oosthuizen - their best chance for selection did not do well in scrummaging. However he did well in the rest of this play and he and Strauss generally had a very good game. Brussouw for the first time this year showed some improvement . At leat three of the players in meyer's group did well.
The Sharks - Lambie was good - but the man who made the game was Michalak. Jordaan remains to my mind a contender for higher honours - especially since the remaining contenders are not really that sttrong. Alberts played a better game than expected - but butter-fingers let him down - too many handling errors. Coetzee was top class. The Sharks front row did not really convince - but they were better than expected against the youngsters. Five good playerscould make it into the Springbok team.
The Stormers - lets start with the players included. Habana was average - Aplon was very - very good. De Villiers was on the whole average - he made mistakes - but also tried to initiate good plays. Grant was good in all aspects of the game. Etzebeth was good and Bekker average. Of the players not invited - Elstadt competed with Alberts in teh butter-fingers competition and Malherbe disappointed.
I think that Meyer has a problem and he is forced into picking players who are under-performing. That is not a good start as a coach of SA.
