Problem with SA teams is the average age of the players

Just been catching up on my daily reads and noticed that the agents have come under attack for persuading players to go abroad but I believe that we have a bigger problem in that we will never have a strong core of experience players in all of our teams. Firstly the system is skewed in that it only reward springboks Second, we are obsessed with young talent and happy to push guys out hoping for the next great. Imagine if Jan Serfontein wasn't rushed and road the wood for 3 to 4 years at the Bulls before he became a starter how much better his impact would have been. All of the new Zealand team have a core of seasoned players and more than happy to bide there time. Some of these guys may never be boks but where are provincial legends. Now players debut at 19 and by 23 24 after 4 seasons of slogging away the mad super rugby format and playing meaningless Currie cup games. To be honest, the lions is proof that if you can keep your experience players together and go through highs and lows that you will grow. When the lions got relegated they had Jantjies, Coetzee, whiteley de klerk, mapoe, Skosana, mosterd and they are still together after 4 years.

 Kingcorn
The problem is that players should not be rushed into international rugby without proper preparation.   You refer to the AB's - but they were not phasing out players because of age.   They selected individual players to come from the bench initially and then started to give them game time.
What we have now is a catastrophe.   Meyer is largely to blame for the rot.   He did not have a phasing in programme for younger players and the problem was made worst by the need to rush in a few players into positions created as a result of an emergency/injury  and then drop them completely from the squad.   Matter of fact instead of building up a squad of regular back -up players he was forced to select youngsters and threw them into the deep end - playing a totally non-plus game plan to boot.
We now have a desperate situation where some youngsters will succeed despite lacking the essential experience that would add value to their performances - and then having coaches that showed inability in their profession.  A coach like Rennie would know exactly what to do - a coach like Coetzee without a proper game plan would fail. 
I said this before - the ideal top performance period of international players are between the ages of 25 and 30 years - thereafter they go into decline.   That means that most young players should be in the squad and used as bench players or get starting places on a basis allowing for phasing them in over a period.n  And they should get coached properly.
Anyway some of the youngsters will fail even if they get proper coaching.


        

Corn to me it's more about the team ....our 2007 WC winning team was in fact quite young...and even younger when they won the TN in 2004. Sure Os, Smit, Butch and Monty provided some experience....but guys like Steyn, JdV, Habana, Pietersen ....Schalk were only in their early to mid twenties. ... That's why in 2007 everybody thought we were in for a golden period.....which was delayed in 2008 because of Snor bringing in PC picks like Puke. But 2009 was probably out best year since readmission. ... And we were solid picks for the 2011 WC....until we lost a game agaist Oz, a bent ref and fate. I still believe Jean's pass to Lambie was absolutely legitimate. ... Moving forward towards 2015, clearly the team was aging, but still intact. And remained so, largely because the many players who were given a chance....Kirchner, Basson, Taute, JJ, Stepfontein, Goosen, Jantjies, Coenie, Strauss, Stephanie, Coetzee etc simply didn't measure up when given opportunities. So keeping the team together was the sensible choice and we were the only team who gave NZ a run for their money. .. But in 2016 the old campaigners were done.....the team disappeared and a new team was formed. They failed disastrously and the names kept changing, so after a year we are nowhere. .. After the initial flops I suggested the Lions would be better than no team....and we may find ourself in the same place in June......where our best chance of success is simply to pick the Lions team and only change it when you clearly have a significantly better player. Locks would change for example, but much of the backline might stay. Not that this is a competitive international team, but our talent is poor and it's better than a bunch of bumbling untalented individuals. Better an untalented team than an only marginally more talented group of indoviduals.

 Mozart
There are some problems that you did not take note of.   You mentioned that the 2007 WC was fairly young - there were two young ones Frans  Steyn and Pietersen,   The rest was in the main in the 25 -30 year age group.   But then you to my mind go wrong,    There was no real squad development playing a constructive game plan and most of the younger players was used once of twice and then sent packing.   That does not result in what would be constructive team building.     Keep the players in the squad and phase them in over a period.    Take for example Cane who replaced McCaw,   By the time the latter retired Cane already played in 16 tests.
Take for instance De Allende - he played out of position in 2 tests in 2014 and then only came in the team again in June 2015 tests.    Problem was his center partner had no tests to his credit.   So by the time of the  WC came around the new center combination had only three tests to their credit.    
    

Our young WC winners in 2007, many of these chaps were in the team that won the TN three years before. Now that's young talent.... a young player by today's standards like Marcell Coetzee is 26. . Fourie du Preez 25 . Frans Steyn 20 . JP Peterson 21 . Bryan Habana 24 . .Juan Smith 26 . Schalk Burger 24

Average Age/experience is "one" of the problems. A decent coach would have got better results, even with this barren cabinet of talent. 
The worst wings of the professional era- perhaps ever. The worst loose forwards ever- with limited pace, power, skill and ability at the ruck. Still a dam sight better than the useless Italy team that beat the Boks.

 Once again Toetsie was outsmarted by Brendan Venter. (Sharks and now Italy). 

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Well by the time we played Italy Smith was coaching the backline.....more a case of Venter outsmarting Smith....a sort of rumble of the bumblers.

 Mozart
Smith had zero input in the squad and tea selection and it is a fact that he could not instill a real game plan in a concoction of players not being coached as a team.   It is really weird that Smith could be blamed for the Italian loss,   He was not the backline coach and was merely there as a Consultant,     

Oh for heaven sake. Here is your logic Mike: 1 The players are talented and it's all Coetzee's fault. . 2 Smith is a much better coach than Coetzee. . 3 But Smith can't succeed because he never selected the players. . Can you spot the problem?

As for Smith not being the backline coach...the moment he arrived, he was the guy talking to the press. We even had guys like Venter propelled into the Bok team. He was the change agent, unbelievably change for the worse.

 Meanwhile Kaino 34, who incidentally is out for 4-6 weeks having surgery for a knee injury, said in a recent interview that he hasn't ruled out playing at RWC '19 .

Lomp shakes in his boots!

 Well there are indeed other lunatics who want to be the penalty turnaround player at the 2019 WC.   Lucky he is from NZ this time around.  
In any event the story about Smith and Venter is highly questionable.   Any coach handed a team in which he had no inputs is doomed to fail and this happened in the case of Ackerman in June last year as well.
Then we have the exonerating of Coetzee and blaming of Smith and Venter for the problems in coaching.
I never ever said and used the term talented.   I said that selection should be based on proven  performance and that reputation selection is not acceptable.   I also said that there will be failures in the case of team building.   Some players are thinking players - others are not.   The thinking players are more useful and less likely to fail. 

Mozart, I don't agree that Jake team was that inexperienced. There were a lot of players like van Niekerk, de wet Barry, Jacqui fourie, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Daniel Rossouw that played in the destrauli horror show of 2003. These guys were hurting. Jake came in got the guys to play and enjoy themselves. Also remember it was only 4 games back then and that team lost 2 of the four games but were competitive and won because of bonus points. He was also there under 21 coach and remained in the book setup. So we had a lot of players in the system. Guys like Jean and Jaque were both playing wing but because of quotas could not get any more games. Fast forward to a couple of years later when dealing wet Barry and Marius Joubert were no longer playing that we'll Jake had to guys chomping at the bit. The rest is history. My point being, young players have to earn their right and keep the more senior players on their toes.

I never said inexperienced in 2007, I said young. From a test perspective the team was somewhat inexperienced in 2004....but youngsters like Habana and De Villiers were terrific. The really special players like Carter, O Driscoll, Habana etc don't need all this nurturing....they are competitors from the start. .. Where we are now is exactly where we were with Destroyli, without a team. It all starts with a team of incu.mbents who are kept together, and only replaced when young players make a strong case they can improve the team's performance.

 Mozart
That is exactly where Meyer went wrong.   The AB's gradually phased in players for the future and when the aged players retired the replacements were already there as proven performers.   Fact is  the 2016 AB tam was an improvement on the 2015 team.  
Meyer only made emergency changes in the case of injuries and then moved on to the next emergency.   In the end he was  in 2015 in such a bad situation that we did not win a single game in the Rugby Championship.  
When the retirees had to be replaced there was no groomed successors and there was no game plan either.  
 There is no player in the world who does not need coaching, a proven game plan and a team integration process.   I do not think that nurturing is even remotely applicable.   I would say skills development is what is necessary in every player and that happened in the case of Habana and  De Villiers as well.   There is no way that they came onto the scene as finished products and they gained experience that made them polished players.
The players that did not retire after the 2015 WC were in the main poor in the team in 2016 and no core to build a team around.   We ended up with about 4 reasonably adequate performers from the Meyer era and that was not a good enough start to build a team around.