Most underrated/ Most overrated Boks…by position.

Dimwit

White had never any idea about backline coaching and in that respect was totally technically inadequate.   Meyer was a total failure in coaching and that was proved by his firing by Stade Francais and departure from coaching after that.   Whereas White concentrated only on forward play his backline selections were always deficient and that is still the case with his selection of players of the Bulls at present.   Meyer was only selecting players from the past who by 2015 were abject failures.

White was definitely a better coach than Meyer - but that was still below real Springbok coaches - who had an impact on the initial successes achieved by their successors.    The one issue where both White and Meyer failed badly is the limitation of coaching to 10-man rugby and usage of backline players for defense only.  That is why the scoring of tries was always the result of individual players like Habana and even Jean de Villiers.

White and Meyer are the only two Bok coaches to add sophistication to the Bok game. Meyer was actually several years ahead of the trend in the structures he implemented. There is no evidence of Erasputin doing anything other than dragging down the attack of every team he has coached. 

Harrassmiss has simply taken us back to traditional Bok rugby. I shouldn’t be unhappy because while Clever was calling for seuntjies running gloriously through open space, I steadfastly called for us to rediscover our rugby roots.

Harrassmiss with massive help from Nienaber did that. But what I didn’t expect was he would abandon all forms of attacking backline play other than the counter attack. I also didn’t expect his attack on the officials which has lowered our standing in the rugby world.

I have been watching the older tests in the late 90s and early 00s... we are not much better than the 2003 side under Straeuli. The thing that strikes me is how discipline has regressed. Petulance on the field has increased again, and sloppiness too. I recall Jake dropping Schalk for persistent yellow cards; he said "we are not going to be a team of sorrys". Erasputin seems to have stirred up the South African victim complex to distract from the actual job at hand. He is creating so many distractions to keep the players entrenched in his message and avoid confronting and dealing with the flaws and problems with the coaching. Who can we honestly say has gotten better under Erasputin? Pollard? Am? Mapimpi? Watch a few of the 2018 RC tests, look at the team since... they are less fit, less sharp, much less potent. Am looked set to blow everyone away at 13. Statistically, he has regressed to the point where Kriel has bettered him. Even Eben has not looked his best this season. Erasputin is not bringing out the best in anybody. It's a different method of accomplishing the same thing as Straeuli. The repercussions of that lived long after Straeuli was gone, what will future coaches have to deal with because of the selfishness of Erasputin? 

"Harrassmiss has simply taken us back to traditional Bok rugby."

Not quite...he plays the statistics way better than anyone before him.

Does he? How so? Exactly what does Erasputin do that is better than any coach before him? This team is mediocre in every possible way. He has taken traditional strengths, such as defence and the maul and regressed them. We are going into a World Cup year with a very suspect foundation. 

Well is the "good"statistics game going to pull us thru?? Not so sure about that as we are in a position where we can't beat the top inform teams like Ireland and France.....England,s win is overampt, as Eng was not even close to there full potential.....but the 2 wins ( Italy & ENG) was especially hyped to keep up this false sense of Security.....Rassie,s Gameplan and Playing style, is not the sure winner anymore.....and he is failing Miserably @ implementing better team Selection and new Attack/ Defence Structures.....but most people buy into this hype of Success, but in actual fact on paper,  percentage calculated, we just above average.....we are not the best team in the World.

Erasputin's plan from the beginning was to control the movement of the ball with a strict song sheet, and play in the oppositions half no matter what. Hope that the 50/50 calls go your way. So far, the refs have been heavily stacked in the Bok's corner. Even with that, the Boks look very mediocre. It won't last forever. The next coach is going to have a massive job on his hands. I predict the knives will be out for him in a matter of months. 

Except the only YE games we won Nienaber was flying solo. The worst coaching set up is Nienaber being undermined by Harrassmiss. Actually I was told recently than Nienaber was excited to bring in the twins and stopped by Harrassmis.

Then maybe the same can be said about quite a few of the Bok players Fitting in that Category.....like Jesse, DDA,  Pieter, Orie...did they out Perform Mostert on productivity? 

Mostert’s  try against Ireland was pure class.

Mostert is one of those thin lines that keeps some semblance of competitiveness. Remove the likes of Mostert and Kwagga, and this team falls off a cliff.

Physically deficient Mostert being competitive - LMAO - ask the players who runs through his tackles about that - they will do the same as I.   

Back to Mozart's topic - the most overrated player since 1992 was Morne Steyn - in reality he as a clueless flyhalf with zero ability bar kicking of balls.   For the rest his basic skill was to destroy backline play - never attacking the gain line, slow in decision-making causing him to stand too deep in the pocket making hospital passes to beneficiaries with defenders all over the recipients, since they ignore him totally and went for potential recipients.   I cannot think of a single other flyhalf who personally caused more test match l osses than Morne.               

Pieter steph is not the same player he used to be....maybe he will reach his good level again but who knows after all those horrific injuries....anycase there is worst then him like lost Jesse, orie etc...R&N have not created enough player Depth for this years WC....Fact....they still have some time left but most probably they will bring back the likes of Vermeulen and Fransie.

mp

I remember that was the same story written in early 2019 - because people lose sight of the fact that there were replacement problems in certain position that needs to be tested to determine whether they are fit to play for the Springboks.   Some did well others did not or were not even used.   However, by now the Springboks are in a much better state than people thought it was in January 2019.

Promising players are coming through and that is why I am more optimistic now than I was in January 2019.   

Mozart

Getting a ball with no defenders involved and an open tryline beckoning the try could have been scored by a school kid.        

Mostert is a fine team player ...more than fine...great, but no better than PSDT and even a fit Lood is a better option at 5...but you need Mostert in the match day squad...

Lomp is a 10 minute player at best and very likely to be injured before the finals in a WC. Dud Toit is beloved by the Toifosi, but his influence on the game is minimal. When Schalk Burger got injured in 2006, the Boks plummeted. When Dud Toit got injured in the Lions series we had lost the first test and were down in the second, from that moment we started to win.

Lomp was missing for most of the WC final, Dud was missing for the Lions win…..they are not contributors to the Boks winning.

Mostert is….and bs on nobody in front of him for the Irish try. He had to stretch and place the ball. Why, because there was nobody to tackle him.

Stop lying Saaiman

I also hope that RG gets fit but regardless of that,  Mostert is the man to rely on....and will not be dropped by Rassie.

"Stop lying Saaiman"

"Lomp is a 10 minute player at best "

Stop fooling yourself Moz.

Actually I was referring to Clever’s comment that Mostert scored his try without any opposition. As for Lomp he is one of those infuriating players who players harder when his position is up for grabs. Pity Snyman has had such a horrible string of injuries.

Lood very commonly struggles to start games strongly. You'll often see kick-off lapses, struggling to follow the pace of the game from the whistle as he lumbers about missing runners or failing to exert pressure as support, carrying etc. He can have the odd moment, but overall, his game is littered with ineffective contributions. Why is this still being debated when ample evidence has been produced to confirm these assertions? The likes of Damian, Steph, Lood, Kolisi et al have accumulated a very large body of work proving they are not good enough for test level. 

The Toifosi and Allendistas are locked in….Dud Allende makes a horrible mental mistake which loses the Pom game in 2021, it’s there for all to see, they simply deny it. Logic has no grip on these  groupies,

Nit-pick-nonsense.

Lood, Steph, Damian, Kolisi, Faf, Willemse et al make the game harder for their teammates. They are not players who give us any kind of edge. In fact, we see the same problems game after game after game...

Okay Draad, let’s test your honesty….did Dud Allende not come inside on an already marked man leaving his channel wide open for the Pom wing he was lined up on , or did he not? Was the winning try scored from that break or not? Let’s see if you can get off the draad.

I can go through every game and show Damian et al making the same defensive lapses. We have too many passive participants, and they tend to accumulate the glut of possession and occupy key defensive duties. 

That's only because Erasputin is a dumb coach, l ike Straeuli. 

What Erasmus has disregarded because it was useless - Meyer hang onto because he was totally rugby ignorant.      Erasmus was the Coach of the Year in 2017 in the Guinness  Series when he coached Munster,  Meyer was fired by Stade Francais because he was totally incompetent in respect of all aspects of coaching and team management.   That is the difference between the two coaches.

We know that everything you write as to rugby shows total lack of rugby intelligence equal to that of Meyer.           

Why are you harping on about Meyer? Besides, he put together very the core of the players that Erasputin has used ever since, the rest mostly from Coetzee. 

Meyer did more damage to players than used them.    He damaged the career of Pollard by playing ping pong with him - now in the team - the next match out.   He used  De Allende and Kriel as a center combination in the WC after they played together in 3 matches as centers before the WC.   He used Du Toit in the Japan disaster at 7 when he did not play in that position for 3 years.   He used players that buggered up royally in team selection on a constant basis.       

Coetzee continued destruction of the Springbok team after Meyer started it and whoever was left of the squad was further demoralized by Coetzee.    When Erasmus took over the Coetzee team even lost to Italy.   Even though some players came from the Meyer destructive coaching by 2018 they had no chance to beat anything because they were totally demoralized.                

So lets get back to players.   We have Morne Steyn - a top class kicker at goal and for the rest a flyhalf disaster who -

*    stood so deep in the pocket standing still when getting the ball resulting in him being unable to  the backline going in any form of backline attacking rugby;

*    never attacked the gain-line with the result that the defenders ignored him and went for the potential recipients of the Morne hospital passes;

*   was incapable of making strategic kicks and often criticized by experts as making aimless kicks; and

*    was substandard in defense due to reluctance to make physical contact with players - he was a rarity never out of teams due to injury,  

Even at the best of times in 2012 to 2015 he was in and out of the Springbok teams due to incompetence in major aspects of the game of flyhalfs.   He was contracted by Stade Francais as a foreign player and ended up as their bench player rarely used because he had a tendency to bugger up games.  

He was hugely over-rated as a player based entirely on his goal-kicking ability.    As far as I am concerned bar for kicking at goal, he was a substandard flyhalf/        

Morné never threw one hospital pass in his entire test career. He also never stood too deep. He varied his depth, but the general setup for Meyer's Boks was a flatter and wider alignment of the backs utilising those long passes off Morné and Du Preez. Morné was highly adept at manipulating the defence. He wasn't a donkey looking for contact. In the end, that was something that contributed to our demise in the 2015 SF: Pollard being a battering ram and the lack of an aerial game to win the territorial battle. That, and Lood and Damian's defensive lapses foe tries. 

When people refused to see what they do not want to see - they are worse than really blind people.  That is what l'Grande Merde specialize in.    He cannot explain why in the Meyer years Morne went in and out of the Springbok team regularly and why Stade Francais refused to p lay Morne as starting flyhalf after a few matches proved that he was substandard flyhalf.