No divine right to victory

You can read the age old codswallop on the Board. In brief it goes thusly,  we have so much talent, it's only the stupidity of our coaches that prevents us from dominating the planet. Dont get me wrong, we have had some real idiots as coaches, even some coaches like Viljoen who didn't want the job. Nope that's not my problem.

My real issue is with this notion that we have disproportionate talent. A few successes but mostly failures in age group competition, the 7s, Super Rugby and the TN.....make the opposite point. In truth we have some talent, not more than NZ and not more than Oz at the top level. Oz has a huge population, if not a huge rugby playing population.....but the honour of playing for country extracts enough talent out of a sporting nation to be very competitive internationally.

And when we hit an air pocket in the supply system as we did after the RWC, things go down hill. It's pointless blaming Meyer for poor results. At the minute no coach will acheive success with the current talent. But a modern, technically smart coach could do better. For example by limiting the number of false positives on players like JJ, like Jantjies, like Mvovo......guys who will never succeed at test level.

To satisfy me Meyer has to form a new permanent team, with the minimum of inefficient failures. And he has to forge a post Jake, post PdV playing style which deals with a world in which we dont have forward domination. My beef with Heyneke is that we seem to be doing neither of these things. Instead we seem to be chasing short term success with a style which was decoded successfully in the NH tours of 2009.

Having just watched the game again I have to disagree that we are not able to physically dominate any side. That aspect of our game must remain as the physical advantage we over other nations is significant. Rather, we must make better use of that power. It was disappointing see how much play we direct through our forwards. Morne gets blamed, but he hardly ever touches the ball, in fact, our backs are hardly in the game at all. Right now we are playing 9 man rugby. On minute 33 Morne gets it and blasts through the Aussie defence knocking a poor sod on his backside. What might have been had Pienaar used his backs more? The better side by far lost. By directing so much through our forwards we are becoming predictable. Always a stupid pass to a static pillar who just runs into you. What if we combined our heavy ball carriers with more deception and in tandem with our backs, like New Zealand do? Imagine how devastating an Alberts would be then. Creating those opportunities to really smash through the defence that cannot simply line up and knock you back, that's how it should be. That said, Meyer does have a problem. You talk of technical ability as coach, Meyer lacks nothing on that front, which is why he is not stupid enough to be over ellaborate ball in hand. Afterall, we have all seen this 51% Deans Aussie side struggle to generate attacking play because they firstly lack the playform up front, and they cannot penetrate good defences - Aussies attack is actually incredibly poor, has been since 2008; watched Cooper kick all that ball away last Satuday, and did stuff all of note throughout. I do however think Meyer should loosen the reigns at least a little. It may not achieve the great results Saffers expect, but it would add a little more variation.

As per the 2009 EOYT, that campaign was the result of overplaying our main players - Smit, Bakkies, Du Preez (carrying a year long injury) et al were simply running on empty. That coupled with very poor selections and use of the bench cost us. Adi was a massive liability against France, despite that we did dominate them in the first half. Italy, again Adi was being torn apart, it allowed the Italians to get the penetration that makes them so lethal. Brussow, as he did against France, kept them off us until Olivier scored the killer try. The Ireland loss was a huge tactical gaff by Peter, shuffling our front row at the most crucial point in the game when our scrum had the Irish on the ropes. It killed that game. So here I completely disagree with your assessment of that season.
 

Moz I ahve t oagree with requiescat. Its no use picking the like sof  afalt, no fir beast, An average jannie, a flank at lock (Kruger) and expect to dominate. Also remeber young Etzebeth is far from hitting his straps at 20!.

 Our tight five is not up to it becasue we have injured players out - Coenie, Bissie and Bekker and Schalk whic collrectively wouldmake a big difference.

Our forwards do have an edge and we have some very good backs but poor strtategy re backline play.
We are predictable and Meyer needs after getting his basic structures in place get some variety and a bit of creativity going. I dont not think Oz are more creative than us at the moment. abs are more and are pusing boundaries of legality re forard passes and obstruction by mccheat and co.

What is also essential is to get good go forward ball. How does not get good at that with two props who are hopeless on the drive? Props are especially well built for this facit of play. Hence the need for Coenie and WP Nel. Also as I have said - bring back bakkies if he is fit - buy time for Du Toit, Elstadt etc.

I do hope we see some youngsters on the year end tour. I am thinking of Jordaan, Elstadt etc. Not so much the under 21 crowd just yet. Goosen as an exception.

@ moz once again your words are on the money as allways

in a post amateur world were international teams are all pretty much on the same level strength and condition wise the age of boks players "running over" there opposing teams are well and truly gone. we have never in our proud history ever been so obessed with forward play like we have been in the recent 20 - 30 years. going back years fromt he likes of doc craven dawie de villiers and co we have always had a great balance between hard strong big forwards and quick skill full running backs. only since the age of post naas botha and starting in and around the last 90's has our approach changed towards the game. the days of running at trying to score with skill full play has been replaced with this limp penile approach of bashing less skillfull players.

pre elv's those type of game pattern was a winning formula. the game has changed but we are still indoctrinated into this way of thinking. the teams that are playing and winning the most are the teams that approach it like wales and ab. with a high ball possession attacking mentality with the shift towards creating skillfull players.

it does not matter who we are putting on the pitch the choaching approach and technical aspects/attention to detail is not where it should be. i am seeing the same errors week in and week out.

the forwards main job is to give quick ball for the backline on the front foot. having a attacking coach that is a forwards coach by trade just proves the point that we are on the wrong path. if HM does not change his approach i assure you he will go down with this ship

Muncher, I think back to the first test I saw in person.....the ABs vs Boks in 1960. The ABs with Don Clark were picked to win, but we beat them with our backline. Two brilliant incisions by Mike Antelme from the offside wing released Hennie van Zyl for two long strike tries.

In the years after that Mannetjies Roux, John Gainsford and Jannie Engelbrecht were the equal of any backs playing the game. Later yet, Gerber, Mordt, Carel du Plessis and Germishuys were also among trhe very best.

We played complete rugby. This rubbish we are playing now is not traditional Springbok rugby....it's the game we have evolved in the professional era. Even our best coach, Jake White was guilty of going this "safe" route until he saw the light and brought in Eddie Jones.

You are so right Muncher.....this isn't Springbok rugby.

Muncher, I think back to the first test I saw in person.....the ABs vs Boks in 1960. The ABs with Don Clark were picked to win, but we beat them with our backline. Two brilliant incisions by Mike Antelme from the offside wing released Hennie van Zyl for two long strike tries.

In the years after that Mannetjies Roux, John Gainsford and Jannie Engelbrecht were the equal of any backs playing the game. Later yet, Gerber, Mordt, Carel du Plessis and Germishuys were also among trhe very best.

We played complete rugby. This rubbish we are playing now is not traditional Springbok rugby....it's the game we have evolved in the professional era. Even our best coach, Jake White was guilty of going this "safe" route until he saw the light and brought in Eddie Jones.

You are so right Muncher.....this isn't Springbok rugby.

Well Said Moz. This Forward crash ball game is something that started in the later years, this is not traditional Bok rugby.  Yes Jake was very much one of the guilty one's here as well. This type of rugby started to develop when Naas played for Northern Transvaal, we had such a good flyhalf in him that it seems after that we have forgotten how to play with the rest of the team.

i must admit moz i was not around that time to watch those types of players in action i do have loads of archive footage of those players....amazingly gifted runners skill full and light years ahead of anyone in the world on there day. that is a proven fact. nobody can deny them. they were part of the system that allowed them to play like that. they went out there to play. the bok team of the rebels tours ext were by far the best in the jumpers across the board in the world. carel du plessis side stepped duck and weaved his way to score a try. i heard amazing legends of the likes of don clark and how he once kicked a penalty from his 22 over the goal line. these players were all round players. every aspect of there game was great. those players you mentioned made and played a brand of rugby that made the boks the best. the records speak for themselves. somewhere along the way we lost it badly

that is true bok rugby and forms more part of our tradition than any thing else. i cant help but laugh at certain posters here when they say our traditional strengh is our forwards when i know for a fact that is just meant to be one part of a total dominant team that the boks can put out and play that total rugby what is a world beater type brand of rugby.

our true tradition is running rugby not this rubbish we are seeing. the younger players coming through the system is much more agile and skill full so the relevant coaches playing this type of game wont be winning coaches. the only coaches that seem to really approach the game with the view of creating total rugby seems are nz born coaches by the looks of it. that really makes me worry even more.

winning rugby is total rugby not defense kicking rugby.

This is all rubbish! Since 1992 the Boks only had 2 flyhalfs who ran the ball and that was honiball and Butch. All the others were kicking flyhalfs trying to copy Naas and that kicking mentality has now become the Bok style.

Naas, stranski, jannie de beer, Koen, Van Straten, D hougard, Pretoruis, M Steyn; were all kicking flyhalfs and thats the style that all Bok coaches (xept Mallet) used. So Wiggie yr talking crap and u know nothing of Bok rgby histry!

yes and on both occasions we were the best in the world. honiball with our 18 wins and butch with our rwc in 2007....food for thought hey....in goosen i see the tide changing and we might once again set the pace for the rest to follow. mix of our strong brute force upfront coupled with strong quick skillfull backs....we will dominate the world like we use to in the early 60's onwards