Mozart - there are three threads here in respect of which your comments

will be appreciated, Those are - * Mtichell's comments on the issue of cheating by the All Blacks at breakdowns and breakdown call recoveryn as posted by Sharkbok * Tomas/s comments when he discussed the issue as part of hid discussion of the game on Saturday under the heading of mission impossible; and * My summary on the issue under the heading breakdown ball recovery. Do you think the present approach of Meyer is correct or not? Please also motivate your replay. *;

Mike I have responded on this topic before, pointing out the Boks won less rucks and mauls than Argentina.....but only because they carried the ball less into rucks and mauls. Our winning percentage was considerably higher. You then argued we got slower ball, which is hard to disprove.

 

The fact is we were not very energetic in that game.....energy is a big component. I'm inclined to think we will reverse that. Which still leaves the ball carriers, the fetchers and counter rucking. If we have ball carriers that penetrate close to the breakdown, the big guys get there and counter rucking dominates fetching. Go further out and a fetcher like George Smith sets himself up as second in. The Boks have had tests against Smith where he dominated and tests where he was blown away. A young chap like Serfontein stepping inside is a fetcher's dream.

 

To me you go with your talent. If we had a great fetcher like Brussouw, I'd play him. But I certainly wouldn't play lightweights like Coetzee and Labuschagne who can't fetch or impact physically.

 

Right now a power loosie trio is our only viable option, combined with limited second channel ball and massive counter rucking.

Mozart Crap - Labuschagne is heavier than McCaw's normal weight and also heavier than Arno Botha - what makes him a light weight in your book? That is where you go absolutely wrong because you are totally biased. Who said Labuschagne for instance cannot fetch - he has better fetching figures than virtually all loosies in Super 15 - so he is a lightweight who cannot fetch. Mozart - you should check the stats before you come up with wild statements based on your personal animosity against players. I can tell you that although Brussow was the opensider and should have done better - he won in average 2 turnovers per game as against Labuschagne's average of 4 per game. In the final analysis you want to play the heaviies - who are inadequate in ball carrying, relatively immobile and arriving at breakdown points when the other teams are already at the second breakdown point - with very low tackle stats because they are "physical? Physical must also entail performance and when they are inadequate - as is pointed out by not only me = but others as well - then they are really of no value to the team - whether you like it or not. Last question - what makes the power lose trio "our option" when the general belief is that they do not deliver the quality performances required? Why is it that Meyer harps all the time on efficient ball retention at breakdown points - when Mitchell and Tomas says there are physical problems that prevent the players to be effective at breakdown points? What brings the massive counter-rucking to the fore if there are effectively no ball turnovers?. I think it is vry clear that although you may think the heavies produce the goods - they in fact do not do so. While that is the case game losses against speedier loosies from New Zealand and Australia are virtually assured - and by a slight change in counter-measures we came very near to losing against Argentina as well. As long as there are no strong ball carrying - which is in fact as Tomas point out an impossibility, ineffective defence and totally poor breakdown play - we are indeed in the twang. If you can disprove that in the tests last year and even this year by statistical means - there may be some logic in that argument - but in crucial tests the SA back row just deliver near to Zero. Just check the Soweto test last year as an example. The position is that we are not succeeding with the methods Meyer clings to and whatsoever he tried to improve the situation - we will remain to be poor in that Department of the game. We must therefore accept that we will lose more games than we will against Australasian teams - end of story. If you want us to keep on being unsuccessful - lets retain the status quo - like you obviously prefer. Just one thing more - looking at the number of ball turnovers affected by both Vermeulen and Alberts per game in Super 15 was ZERO - so how effective was their massive "counter-rucking"?

Well you have one view, I have another...so one can only go to the results. The Boks won 95.6 % of their rucks in the internationals this year. Their lowest number was against the Bargies at 93.9% and their highest number was against the Bargies at 98.6% in the first match. - By contrast the Cheetahs since the international break average more than 2% below the Bok low point at 91.5%. In the Brumbies match, they lost more than one in ten rucks at 89.2%. - So much for your vaunted lightweights....game over. - The real issue with our loosies is whether they can provide adequate defence against a skilled running team....not their body positions in traffic. In that regard I do have concerns. We have been punished in the past eg the RWC03QF, when NZ ran an immobile loose trio ragged. - That said our winning loose trio in RWC07 of Danie, Juan Smith and Schalk were hardly the fastest around the park...probably less mobile than our current trio. But that potential lack of pace was never a factor, because we had good defensive patterns and controlled the ball well. Which is exactly what we will aim to do again.

Mozart Sorry - you are missing the point COMPLETELY. Rucks are not the argument - it is winning of breakdowns and ball recovery from that. Your ruck issue is dead rugby - you win rucks normally - or you give away penalties in the process. In any event rucks are virtually never the basis for scoring tries and is normally highly unsuccessful in that process. What happens at rucks - most with very slow ball delivery. Another ruck follows three meters out and the issue is repeated. Breakdown recovery is something entirely different and I think most rugby thinkers know the difference. Efficient and quick breakdown recovery is the starting point of most points in rugby - Meyer realises it - but the players he selected are not physically competent to achieve it. But then Mozart lives in the 19th century rugby thinking style and anything that changed since 2000 is of zero importance to him. Must admit I expected this reply - hence my request for comments. However, what really is disappointed is that experts oppose the present scenario - but you stick to it like glue.

OOm Maaaik if the ruck is not important....how can the counter ruck be important? But more importantly you have missed the whole 20th century, I quote: - "But then Mozart lives in the 19th century rugby thinking style and anything that changed since 2000 is of zero importance to him". - The strong inference is that in the year 2000 we changed from the 19th century....bwaaaaaaaahahahahaha.....you ignorant dope.

Mozart Wake up to the facts of life please. Nobody said rucks is not important - but they happen about 10% of the times compared to breakdown ball recovery. You still do not get it - now do you. How blind and unthinking a person in a mould can become and how dreadful it I not to keep up to date with developments - also in world rugby. At this stage we are at least 10 years out of date - some say it may even be 20. But then after the next two tests you will still persist in your thinking or lack of it - so what is really new?

Ja but given I can leap from the year 1900 to the year 2000 in the blink of an eye, 20 years is nothing! - But you say rucks aren't important. Well there were 13 mauls in the Mendoza game, 15 scrums, 19 lineouts and 119 rucks. Not important? The ball was run 168 times, so way more than half those times ended in rucks where the defending team had about a 7% chance of turning over possession. If all the other cases were clean breakdowns that would be 49 breakdowns.....and given we had 8 ruck possession reversals....10 times would mean 80 breakdown reversals. Hard to do if there were max 49 breakdowns that never became rucks? Hey? - What planet are you from OOm. Oops I forgot, the planet that skips from 1899 to 2000.....waaahahahaha!

Mozart You talk about 119 rucks - how many are actually rucks and not breakdown ball recoveries. Mitchell said 92 were breakldown ball recoveries - the rest could perhaps be classified as rucks - the rucks were caused by our atrocious game styles and that is a fact. Frankly Mozart - I would rather believe Mitchell to your out-dated thinking - when dealing with this issue. Hell I am wrong - you have solidified in thinking since many years ago and nothing new has entered over the last 20 years in your obsessed thinking.

Not my thinking OOM....it comes straight from the stat source you always quote. And according to the data in that source you are talking mega rubbish.

Stats are onviously rather limited. If Mitchell says that 90 breakdown recovers occurred - it meant that he made a study of the game.itself. The stats at times combine things and sometimes they can be out of contrxt as well. However, I am still saying that Soweto lest year and last Saturday proved how poor our back row comination performed. They are just not in the game at all and they will not be in the away tests.. If you selectively put out stats - why not look as well at the stats of last years Soweto game? Nice to ignore - it hits you like a fist. You have a case of productivity below 5% of what is expected and that is a fact. Whether you like it or not - it is easy to identify the real weaknesses in the Springbok team - the worst is the defective back row combination - the second the half back pair. Take counter-measures to optimise the two defects (that is in fact very easy) and you have beaten the Springboks with ease. That is exactly what is going to happen over the next two weeks. The best we can hope for is loss margins of less than 20 points - wins are totally out of the window. .

OOM all this rubbish wasn't about the Soweto test. It was about the test in Mendoza....those are the stats I produced. If that's your idea of being selective, I'm happy to live with it. - But you show me one test where the breakdown turnovers, however you define them, were 10 times as important as the ruck reversals....and I'll say you were right that the 20th century never existed.

Mozart Just look at all the tests under Meyer - they all showed major deficiencies in the breakdown ball recovery process - that is why Meyer is always shouting and screaming about it. . You actually run into serious problems by turning every breakdown into a ruck. Quick ball recovery at breakdowns allows for continuation of attacks - rucks allow for nothing of the kind. Rucks stop attacks in its tracks - breakdown ball recoveries do not. Meyer is aware of the problem - so are people lie Tomas and Mitchell. Unlike Meyer and even you - they have looked not at the theory only - they have looked at the practical implementation - and that is where our slow and ineffective loosies come short. Just look at the test last Saturday - while the Pumas ball recovery allows for continuation of attack - ours leads to nothing of the sort. Just the next crashball - and the next crashball and the next crashabbll - often enough behind the advantage line - because our so-called strong ball carriers are nothing of the sort.