Oops....Ruhan Nel will be playing for WP on Saturday

The sad thing is that Damian would have started again had he been fit. Don't out too much faith in Rassie just yet. He still shows signs of Twakkie as far as some selections go. 

I don't mind a bit of Twakkie, especially not the 2009 vintage.

That was Plum and Gold. The only but of good Gold had to give. Lasted 3 months. 

AO

I am nor sure whether Esterhuizen will not contribute to his fourth test loss out of five games.   He has so many deficiencies that he could on his own cause a loss in a match the Springboks should win;

I do not know what is going on with Willemse - he should play on Saturday.    

Frankly I would rathe r see Nkosi playing on Saturday than Kolbe.

I'm going to make you eat those words. 

Certainly, Esterhuizen increases our odds, as we have another functional chess piece to use. 

Certainly Esterhuizen has more deficiencies than De Allende  and you are apparently unable to be objective in this case.

His defense especially is problematic and his total contribution in four tests played  was 2 good ball carries, but then both carries did not cost the opposition any points and the carries in fact ended up in nothing.

I am afraid Esterhuizen if he increases anything would increase our chance of losing.    

What I was afraid of was another opportunity for Jantjies to play and foul up.   Frankly I would rather see Pollard at 10 and Willemse at 12 in the game on Saturday.

What is even more worrying is a rumour that Whiteley is injured and may not be able to play,  Since Rassie did not replace the useless F Louw in the squad, we will have a serious loosie problem even worse than usual on Saturday,  

My choice would in such a case be to move Du Toit to 8 - start Van Staden at 7 - call up Schickerling to cover the lock bench position and Mostert to cover the loosie bench position.            

Esterhuizen has a nice fluid, mechanically sound passing motion that consistently produces a nice catchable ball at varying lengths. His strength is considerably greater than that of Damian. Damian is big in size, but punches well below his weight class. Damian is a technically flawed defender. His body position and footwork being particular issues. He struggles to read the game. He has an erratic offload, on the occasion we do see it. As a carrier, he lacks punch in his carries. Rassie gave him clean runs, with quick ball, against a passive Aussie defence and his carries were tame. You blamed Faf for this! Shameful. No. Damian gives us no advantage over Esterhuizen. I am busy putting together a video that will show the truth of the matter. You will weep, there will be gnashing of teeth. You will yet again be proven wrong. Ende. 

I have read this drivel repeatedly about De Allende and the praise song on Esterhuizen.    The end result of it proved that De Allende make a better contribution to the team - especially the winning games than Esterhuizen did.  

Practicality has zero to do with all your pipe dreams of Esterhuizen having so many praiseworthy qualities - since there is near to zero proof that there is execution of what you say he is capable of.   I am afraid that lack of execution is where the Springboks will become unstuck on Saturday.

Another loss - standing at 3 losses out of 4 played will make it 4 losses out of 5,  That maybe will wake you op from your dream-world but will be bad for the image of SA Rugby,   Mozart and you  will scream like stuck pigs - but will obviously blame Erasmus and your normal pet hates for any loss.  You cannot be  relied on ever to come up with realistic analysis on what happened.

Toomua is likely to be the inside center of the AB's and will run past Esterhuizen as if he is not there.     

Cite once instance that Damian sparked anything. Just one. 

Ok - you quote me one case where Esterhuizen sparked anything at all.   Even his 2 line breaks sparked zero.  Matter in fact it ended up in ball possession turnovers with zip benefit.  

My problem relates to the defense deficiencies shown by Esterhuizen in all games played and his losing record of 3 tests lost out of 4 played.   

I suppose Erasmus is also a fool compared to you - he left Esterhuizen safely at home for the Australasia tour based entirely on Esterhuizen's  performance record in tests this year.    So dream on - with Esterhuizen around we will be on a rough ride in both upcoming tests.

Well Esterhuizen had better use this chance as he has been dismal at test level so far.

Ou Maaai kie Nkosi looks a better bet than Kolbe as you suggest. Kolbe at best is an impact player and high risk. He can score a try and let one in just as easily.

The Organhuffer continues his absurd crusade against Allende - talk about bias.

As for Nel very glad we have him for game against Sharks!

I'll be finished the video by next week. I want to wait for the Aussie test before posting. Damian has yet to play to the level of Esterhuizen. That much will be made clear. Even a bad game against Australia won't detract from that fact. 

Moz, you can reduce his try contribution to minus numbers, for all those tries he has leaked. How many tests has he made a game winning contribution to relative to those he has lost? Great players don't turn up for all the wrong reasons. Before Frans ended his first year of senior rugby, he already had epic moments to his name. For all the hype, what does Damian have?

Edit: I just had to check that test count. I couldn't believe it was true! He actually has 32 tests. If he ever makes it to 63 tests playing like this, I'll need to prescribe myself every benzodiazep ine available!  

Mozart

As per normal you were lying and then corrected by your own minion.   Why don't you go vicious on him like you normally do?

Now we have the real BS exposed lets get to the real situation.   You have maligned so many players and exalted yourself  to the level of top rugby analyst in the world.   I suppose you wish you never came up with that BS in a posting.   

I must admire the level to which you have raised BS - I cannot believe that anybody but you could ever raise a mountain of BS like you did through the years,   Congratulations with that achievement.   

There's a difference between lying and making an honest mistake. The latter happens to us all. No, lying would be something quite different. Like omitting missed tackles from a data set to "prove" that Super rugby doesn't have a problem with quality of defence. That's a lie with the intention of deceiving the entire forum. When corrected? Yes, the personal attacks. How about lying about the time stamps for the Dunedin test of 2012? When corrected? More personal attacks. Everyone implored you to stop making a fool of yourself. I could go on and on for days on end. Its best you don't try to pick the microscopic spec from someone else's eye when you have a cedar tree in yours! 

How can one double a figure and claim it was an honest mistake?

How can someone omit 18 rounds of tackle data when discussing tackle efficiency and not be lying? That's 127 games worth of information you decided nobody needed to know. 

Do you know what gives a liar away? Their reaction when the are exposed. Keep trying, but you'll need to try much harder than this. 

Mozart

You are a habitual liar and if AO did not point out the misrepresentation  and I did - all you would have done is to change the number in your posting and claim that I was writing BS,   You have done it a number of times in the past and that is why you can ever be relied on to live off lies, 

Mozart

The Board means preciously little to me -  my only interest is to try and keep the discussions honest - hence my continuous differences with you.     Aside from that I like the competitions discussed on the board in which most members participate and shunted by you and your minions because participation would show up how really poor analysts yo and your mates really are.      

Esterhuizen and Serfontein should have been our stock of 12s. It's quite alarming that a coach can't pick up on these errors by Damian. Even more alarming are the adjustments to give him more ball than Esterhuizen. What kind of analytics are being done behind the scenes? Very alarming. Why aren't they picking up on Steph's repeated errors defending around the fringes? Game after game.

Esterhuizen is a very good player with room for even more improvement. He has a higher ceiling than Damian. Am has been very good. Both can read play. Serfontein can read play and be a key decision maker. He has better skills than Damian. He is much closer to Jean than the other centres available. We keep wasting time by retracing old ground which has always led to failure. 

AB De Villiers is available.....