One more chance and they'll come good

Every year we go through this tedious ritual, the SuperRugby rehabilitation of players who have patently failed in tests. Here are a few candidates the media are pushing: Combrink, too slow.......way too ordinary, but a candidate for wing or fullback. Kriel....condemned two weeks ago for his standard outside gap miss on Willemse. He is back in the media's favour after beating a hooker for a try. Tractor de Allende....in great form according to some, but where are the tries he created. Kriel and the Tractor in combination...the answer according to Houwig, can one whince on the internet. Lomp.....a new player under Mitchell according to some, but how can he be so much better when these same mopes thought he was so good in the WC, admittedly prior to Messum using him as a doormat. Stephanie....the phoenix's phoenix....is he a flank, is he a lock, is it a left wing. Who knows. The du Preez twins.....vastly benefitted by there being two of them, which doubles the perceived work rate. Hands of stone. See ya Kolisi.....the opposite case. After supposedly a great test season according to reporters who presumably never watched the All Black test, See Ya has cratered in Super Rugby. But with a bit of test action, she'll be right mate, and a respected captain nogal. There are other candidates like Jantjies, Rhule, Venter, Coetzee, Nyakane and even Malherbe, who don't have any Super credentials, but may appear again in Bok colours. Sadly there are no newbies of proven consequence, just the usual bolters that so often can't bolt. The June tests are typically good for the Boks. But it's hard to discern any progress in core talent for the RC and the WC beyond.

Well WD if we can't beat a depleted Pom team in a June series at home we are in real trouble. But rest assured none of the players mentioned above would make a tinker's damn bit of difference.

Yes Mike but didn’t those “over the hill” players get to within 2 points of the ABs in the RWC Semi? They wouldn’t have deserved to win given the ABs domination but playing traditional Bok rugby got them within a whisker!

Have to agree with Moz re Kriel. Hasn’t lived up to the hype. I still remember the huge gap he was put into in the first minute or so of that semi but all he managed to do was run straight into Ben Smith and a glorious chance to get the Boks off to a flyer with a 7 pointer died right there! No attempt to sidestep and who knows what might have happened then with the Boks’ tail up!

No upside....Kriel fades against decent opposition.