Moz's extra strong, live Pom match notes

Mozart

Thanks - but no thanks - the first few descriptions were more or less accurate - but then comes the BS at minute 10:30.  That is total BS as to an aimless kick - it was not.   May was under tremendous pressure and went over the sideline - which make the kick anything but aimless.

Thereafter the descriptions started to go the Mozart way - partisan BS.

Mozart

Do you know the difference between a good kick a nd an aimless kick?  Your description of the situation is total BS.   May never had control of the ball at all.  

That was where I stopped reading the rest of the thread.   It is not worth reading because your descriptions became skewed as per normal. 

Substitutes: 

16 Bongi Mbonambi, 0

17 Thomas du Toit, 2

18 Wilco Louw, 0

19 RG Snyman, 0

20 Lood de Jager, 2

21 Embrose Papier, 0

22 Elton Jantjies, 0

23 André Esterhuizen. 4

Well done BB.   Prejudice should have nothing  to do with player performance  evaluation  and Mozart  had been campaigning for years against Du Toit and De Allende.    He is the most prejudiced member I have ever seen and his prejudice shines through in near to every posting he makes.

Point taken BB.

Allow me to add to it...

Here are players mentioned by Moz that do not often get mentioned in the Mike vs Mos back and forth...I think they have similar feelings towards those players. I might be wrong.

Marx

Whitely

Pollard

De Allende got a lot of mentions. Rightly so too since he got a lot of ball and did some good and some bad with it.

And I agree. Apart from hitting the line and making some ground a few times, he was again more of a liability than anything else.

Remember we had 78% possession in the first 40. And a lot of it was front football that got handed to De Allende. You'd hope that after four years as  Bok, under those conditions, the guy would make a bit of ground. And that's what he did. But that's all he did. 

Put JSVR, Kwagga or even Pollard at 12 and see how much they manage with that much momentum and ball. For me, that's the issue. Allende has no smarts/guile and the last time he did anything special was when he scored the winning try against Ireland...after tractoring over someone. IE a missed tackle allowed him to have the moment. No special skill.

Kriel didn't feature because did almost nothing.

PSDT also got numerous mentions. Do you think the assessment of his game was unfair?

I thought he had a cracking game. For me our best forward and worthy of the most mentions. Moz's only failure here was possibly not mentioning a few tackles and some runs.

Aside from that, which I think was was for reasons of expediency rather than deception...I can see anything wrong with the assessment.

If you wanna split hairs you could say that he blames PSDT for calling a throw which Marx then misses. So Marx is probably more to blame.

Still, there's no glaring bias.

Would any of you other guys fancy giving by your summary of key moment?

For me, I tend to be slightly biased towards the person that has put in the effort. 

He has made his claim and it's up to us to refute it. Simply saying it's biased means nothing. Even if it's 100% biased, it might still be true.

Just my two cents.

I'll give you my assesement of Van Zyl...

Papier should have started

After a few games now where Pollard has been at 12 and Jantjies at 10 for a while...my belief is that Faf, Jantjies, Pollard and (Anyone but Kriel)...is out best 9,10,12 combo.

Rassie has missed a trick here.

He saw that we had a lot of go forward ball on Saturday. It was embarrasing actually how much ball we got and how easily we moved up the field with it.

Jantjies thrives in those situations. It was clear when he came on, just how much pressure he could put on England under those conditions. It was clear that Van Zyl kicking was not paying dividends either and that De Allende was bog standard.

A wise move would have been to bring Jantjies on at half time, move Pollard to 12 and bring Papier on instead of Van Zyl.

Pollard is a good 10. Our best in many situations. But when it comes to playing of the front foot, Jantjies is in another league. No other 10 in SA comes close on that front.

If you are gonna have Jantjies on the bench and after 15 minutes on Saturday it was already clear that he was much better suited to the situation than Pollard...why not use him?

Maybe that's my bias speaking

Plum

Thanks - but I do not go beyond what is generally regarded as performance norms.   I always give what is normally reasons for criticizing players and not based on  whether I like or dislike players.   For example earlier this year I went in a big way against De Allende and suggested he should not be in the Springbok team.   Since then his performances suggested otherwise.

Now lets look at the players mentioned and see where I stand on them:-

*    Marx - I criticized his lineout throw-ins  - nothing else.   I still believe it is a problem that can be corrected.   Maybe there is a problem with hand-eye co-ordination - but even that  can be corrected.

*    Whiteley  -  in 2015 I was unhappy that he was not in the WC squad and has generally supported his selection.    But I m beginning to have doubts about his suitability since h has not really had a number of top-class games to justify his selection - I think he may not be physical enough to justify his selection.   I would much rather have him in the squad than Kolisi. 

*    Pollard    -    I said earlier this year that he will have to prove himself again - since his long absence from rugby is problematic.   I have since mentioned nothing really serious - bar perhaps his defense deficiency - but has not been a lone voice in that regard.

Mozart on the other hand makes allusions - like the "aimless" kick by De Allende and then give a false account of the result of the kick.   He has a tendency to do so in all his match reports.   

I agree with  BB - one cannot evaluate player performances objectively if there is bias at play.   I will defend any player when unfairly attacked on false reasons.  I have my own problems with a  player like De Allende - but when he becomes the object of a biased campaign often based on deception against him - I will always defend him all out.

Guys, i think Moz was trying to assess momentum shifts and/or bif moments in the game.

Sure he could have given a full right up but it would have made the post a lot longer.

Getting a new sign for my office door today. It says...

Devil's Advocate

Sbu Nkosi AGREE

Pieter-Steph du Toit AGREE (Here Moz made some strong positive comments and some the other way.)

Damian de Allende STRONGLY DISAGREE (I struggle to see any mistakes though i did only watch the game once. For me, a fair assesement. But i dont rate hime either so.)

People always esitimate in ther own favor Rooi.

My worker arrives late. When i recount it...they were half an hour late. When they recount it, 10 minutes. The CCTV shows it was 20. That's humans bro.

Anyway, if you have time, motivation. Please give us your version.

I wanna give the game a second watch and will be nice to do it with some more notes from you guys.

"Some of us know exactly why Moffie has done such a U turn on this player. It's all due to childish and spiteful one-upmanship in his never-ending quest to try and belittle ou Maaik."

..or it could just be that De Allende has been so poor for so long that we'd even prefer second rate players in his position. That's certainly what's happened to me.

Don't get me wrong Plum, I'm not a fan of de Allende and never have been. I also don't think Esterhuizen is second rate and I've rated him a lot longer than Moffie has. My comments are less about who the best 12 is and more about Moffie's bias and why he likes or dislikes certain players.

If I was picking a Bok side to play for my life this coming weekend I'd have Handre Pollard at 12 and Damian Willemse at 10. 

plum

Maybe you are right about players not performing and we become biased against them.   However, it is not wise to use personal bias as a norm for performance evaluation.  

Take for instance the De Allende story - he started of showing defense deficiencies - but this year he has shown virtually none - but the barrage about defense must be maintained at all costs and for that purpose some really false stories of the past must be maintained. 

I know that members have other preferences for certain positions - but I am afraid what we prefer may not be the best way to go.   

"However, it is not wise to use personal bias as a norm for performance evaluation."

Mike...how about your opinon on Mostert?

Guy has been our best SR lock for three years in both set piece and open play yet you still take every opportunity to lament his missing 5-10kg.

You've pinned lesser maul dominance squarely on his shoulders...despite the Lions mauling Kiwi SR teams that are better than most international teams to dust. Same at scrum time.

You refuse to comment on his stellar lineout record in both own ball and steals and i dont think i've ever seen you give him credit for his open field play. Both for the Lions and the Boks.

In your mind he is 5-10kg too small and nothing else matters. He's not Lood, he's not Etsebeth and he's not PSDT so he's not a bok.

In reality, that bit of size difference make not the tiniest bit of difference at maul time. It's firstly a clean take, then the timing of the push and then the direction of the maul. The extra ten 10ks isn't gonna do jack shit for you if any one of those three isn't correct. And nothing at all matter sif you make the wrong call to start with.

So, just to press the point home. What on earth has Lood done to even deserve a call up, let alone be included in a starting lineup? Nothing. Zero. He was born and plays rugby, thats all. There have been no position challenging performances, not MOM awards, no game changing plays and not even any consistency to speak of. He's simply big enough. That's the be all and end all.

Please, give me a break.

So, personal biased?

I dunno Mike, you tell me.

Damian has shown issues in every game. He was even run over against England. He allowed the England 15 to run across the face of him outside the edge of the defence and break into space. He was turned inside out by a dummy when applying passive drifting outside leverage, England broke into our 22 for a very large gain. The problem is you never pick up any of these issues. He also failed to connect on several attacking sequences which would have gotten us into space. He fared better in space himself. Which is exactly what I have been saying all along. He hasn't been a quality 12 in any test this year. Against a severely depleted England side Damian did nothing constructive and he became anonymous when England started moving the ball.

Another game spliced and added to the collection. Just a few weeks away from the unveiling of his entire season's body of work. 

Bump

plum

Personally I have no problem with Mostert - but for the fact that there must be an explanation why on test level the rolling mauls after line-outs were not functioning in SA on test level anymore,    The worst part of the problem was that other teams used rolling mauls more and more successfully against SA teams.

I worried me exceedingly because what used to be a strong point iro SA Rugby started to go absent with time.   It actually was not a problem in 2013 and then became a problem.   There was no major changes in the period in the team - other than bringing in  Matfield at no 5 lock in 2014  when rolling mauls became virtually non-existent.

So what went wrong and why,    Unlike what Mozart and co claim - there are some elements of importance in mauls and those are -

*    throw-ins have to be deeper and not near the front of the line-outs - since the end result is easier defense by forcing the mauls to go sideways over the sideline - I have recently not seen a single opposing team using mauls making throw-ins to the front of the line-outs; and

*    The catching jumper has a key role in forming and co-ordinating the direction fo the drive - the catcher does not form a major driving force - but still need the necessary physicality needed.

So what went wrong since 2014?  Virtually the only team change then was Matfield at no 5 in the Tight 5.  Even in the rare occurrence that a maul was formed - he was pushed out to the side of the maul and there was no co-ordination in mauls.

The problem remains that the ball catcher ending up forming and co-ordinating mauls is of paramount  importance in the effective functioning of mauls.

So what happened  in 2016 and 2017?   Mauls nearly never happened and the same was the case in tests in June and in the RC.   There were very few  fairly successful mauls and the question arises as to why it happened.  

There were some points identified as reasons for the present deficiency  and it were in the main the following:-

*    The few successful mauls were always when Du Toit was at 5 and he caught the ball and organized the forming and co-ordinating of the mauls;

*    There were virtually no attempts to form rolling mauls when Mostert was the no 5 jumping for the ball.

*    When looking at a reason why that happened it came out that where Mostert landed is slightly behind the line of players who should be part of the forming of the mauls - where he landed made it impossible to form mauls.

You can look at replays of line-outs and you will notice that problem as well.   On the whole it is to my mind clear that Mostert (like Matfield in 2014 and subsequently)  lacks the physicality on test level to be a leading figure in forming and co-ordinating mauls.

I have nothing against Mostert otherwise - but would rather see him not being involved than abandoning the rolling maul as an attacking mechanism as was the case as outlined,   

Why concentrating on Du Toit and De Allende in the way you did if there was any intention of objectivity at all? 

Balls as per normal - you obviously do not know anything about forming and co-ordinating rolling mauls.   Otherwise you would not blame Du Toit for Marx's balls ups.   

Funny.

I don't rate the same players that Moz does. It's about a fifty fifty split and yet I didn't find this post to be biased either way.

Clearly I just never read it enough times. 

Now...Would somebody else man up and do their own notes?

When someone tells you you are wrong, but can't tell you why. There is a problem on their end. 

I have consistently found that those who are our critics can't answer basic questions. You press for details and they have nothing. They are also the same people who launch personal attacks. All emotion. 

Moz, I know PSDT is supposed to be the one calling the LO's, but in this instance I'm blaming the captain and the team leadership too. This was a collective decision...as were their choice to not take the easy points from penalties. I can understand why they didn't,  but it backfired badly. Hopefully they learned from their mistakes...this is still a young team. In 2 years time they will win these kind of close matches...they should be doing so already,  but the previous 2 years set us back more than we know.