Problems with Boks

Tighthead. Louw is a lump of Lard. Drop him from the squad. Malherbe showed he is a better scrummager and better forward all round. Put Koch on the bench we need to see what his scumming is like. Great mobility.

Mostert lacks grunt. Give Snyman a shot.

Loose forward fetching skills are lacking in loose forward trio

Van Staden didn't show much but too early to judge.

Notche not quite up to scratch but early days. Lacks physicality but has some pace and running skills.

Back three too small collectively. Kolbe remains a risky player. Bring back Nkosi.

Faf is a tremendous player but thought he kicked to much ball away.

Esterhuizen defence well but not much else. Allende to come back when fit.

Too many injuries 

Beenz, Louw is the kind of solid you can take to the bank. Malherbe surprised me the last couple of matches, but there is no reason to discard Louw ATM. Keep your powder dry for the time being.

Draad

Something has g one wrong with Louw.   He is not the solid prop he seemed to have been last year.   This has been noticeable in Super Rugby and the tests thus far this year.   When he came on today the first scrum penalty against the Springboks followed.  The scrumming with the replacement props was sub-standard.

Since I am a family friend of the Malherbe's I am very careful to make sure that my assessment is not affected and that I have to asses him on merit only.

In essence I always  defended him against the lies Mozart spout on site.  It started years ago because  Malherbe became a threat to Jannie du Plessis and had nothing to do with actual performance.   I never had problems with his solidity in tests and I am always impressed by his high work rate outside of scrumming.

I still have a problem with Kolbe - he is just physically too small to play on the wing.  I think they should rather use Nkosi to start next week.  

The other problem selection today was Esterhuizen.  His only  asset was making tackles, but it all too often did not prevent the passing of the balls by the tackled players - so the tackles in the main was relatively ineffective.  As to the rest of his game was way below par.   I hope that De Allende comes back soon.  I saw him watching the WP game today and his arm is not in a sling - so hopefully he will be back soon.  We really need reasonable back-up in the center department and Esterhuizen is not the answer.

For the rest I was pleasantly surprised by the two breakdown ball turnovers Du Toit made today.  Both were critical and stopped Aussie attacks.

Mozart in dream world again.  No use arguing  against him about his  p et hate players.  

Don't change the subject - I did not say a word about Beast above neither did Draad.  What was discussed relates to other players and your comments on them is strangely missing.  

My worry were confirmed in the first two scrums where Beast went down and was lucky not to be penalized.   Thereafter he improved - but was only solid - nothing better,   

Beast is now certainly not our best starting loosehead. Kitshoff has over taken him. Hence one saw Beast being subbed early - at 42 minutes.

Cant help but notice the anti Rassie brigade very silent 

There is no anti-Rassie brigade, just objective minds. Lügnerin did say Beats would struggle, he did say that Esterhuizen would be exposed on defence. He got almost everything wrong! At least he could admit that André had a good game, but rates him the lowest of all the Boks! Is that not bias, prejudice, hatred?

:Herr Sitzsack: Exactly what is Damian going to do when fit? His Gangnam Style dance before tamely going into contact? Or his open highway defence? 

OK - AO

Lets go back a few weeks when Mozart went on a totally false story about Erasmus and was then supported ardently by you and Ceradunce - with you writing streams of your ordinary BS about how bad a coach Erasmus is compared to Meyer.  

Talking about getting everything wrong about Esterhuizen was NOT ME - no amount of BS written by you would take away from the fact that he was not up to standard.

Well rating him the lowest represents what he really achieved - I l eave hatred and prejudice entirely to Mozart, you and co.   

I never said bad. I said Meyer was better. I also questioned if Rassie could handle the pressure of being a head coach. He has no track record of this. Furthermore, when a coach publicly turns on his players, the team is in treacherous waters. Read the signs, not your feelings. You are invested in Rassie the same way racists were invested in Peter. For all the wrong reasons. 

AO

Meyer was better in what respects?   He was the most clueless coach of the past decade and you could not even understand his deficiencies,    I rate him just about the sane as Coetzee - although Meyer was the only SA coach ever that did not win a single test in the RC ever in a year followed by the Japan disaster.   

You supported the lie about Erasmus spun by Mozart and Ceradunce and even have the audacity to repeat the BS  spread by those two in your latest comments above.  Do you really understand the crap you are writing? 

Must be the weirdest guy on site - keep it up, it has entertainment value. 

It's not that I could not understand his deficiencies, you could not understand what he was doing. I mean, you spent how long trying to convince everyone that Schalk was playing flyhalf? 

What happened with Burger being the recipient in most cases and cutting out Pollard at flyhalf - was stating that fact as proof of what really happened wrong?   It was utter BS and stemmed from Meyer's 2004 game plan he used when coaching the Bulls.

I also quoted Meyer's own response about backline play to prove there was really ZERO game plan relating to backline players.   No   amount of shouting and screaming from you in trying to bring forth an imaginary game plan that never existed - will c hange those two facts.    

What happened with Burger being the recipient in most cases and cutting out Pollard at flyhalf - was stating that fact as proof of what really happened wrong?   It was utter BS and stemmed from Meyer's 2004 game plan he used when coaching the Bulls.

I also quoted Meyer's own response about backline play to prove there was really ZERO game plan relating to backline players.   No   amount of shouting and screaming from you in trying to bring forth an imaginary game plan that never existed - will change those tw o facts.    

In 2004, the Bulls didn't have 3 man PODs with a playmaker behind them. The game you are talking about didn't exist in 2004. Try again. 

I saw the games the Bulls played in 2004 and clearly remember their style of play.   There was no difference between what the Bulls did in 2004 and what they did in the 2015 WC.   There were two common key factors in that - Meyer as coach and Du P reez at scrumhalf.

Mozart

The remarks as to Louw scrumming above made me look at all the scrums he was going back slightly until he fell face down in a scrum he was penalized.

He started at 3 against the Welsh - he failed in that test as well.

The other curious remark is that the situation should be borne in mind against the NH teams.   Malherbe was solid in the England tests - so why should it be different in the case of NH teams?   You have NO PROOF of it -  but may serve of the next phase of your next BS campaign.   

The anti-Bull guppies never did know the Bulls game. They supposedly kicked constantly, yet ranked top or second best for linebreaks. Morné, the kicking flyhalf setup over 50% of those linebreaks. The media knew nothing, the plastics knew nothing. They couldn't even discern the trued Damian gave up! How easy is that? Very. However they perceive themselves to be master tacticians and analysts. South Africa ranks among the lowest in the world for analytics. Those who fall into the same group as you always form those ranks. 

AO

You dream about things that never happened on the field of play and then write it as factual.  Try again - I did not mention Morne above at all and you completely missed out on what Meyer hmself said abut the fact that ball skills were beyond the SA backline players.    .  

What rugby did you watch?  I watched the Bulls for years and Morne did not p lay for them in 2004 - neither in the 2015 for the Springboks in the WC - he really only got 15 minutes playing time in the WC and for the rest enjoyed his free holiday in England.

Anybody who saw Morne initiating line breaks since 2012 must live in cloud cuckoo land -  how did he initiate line breaks without attacking the gain line.   Did he initiate something from what?

I was never an anti-Bulls guppy - I always was a realist and that means I saw what Morne's real contributions were.   He always was a kicking flyhalf and those out-of-hand-kicks were described by commentators over the air as BS,   His only asset was that he could kick goal kicks with only a 20% missed ratio on average.

I once saw him score a try against Samoa and the commentator said it was an extremely rare occurrence,    Remember how Morne destroyed the 2012 test against England when he was boo-ed by the crowd in PE - it had nothing to do with his Bulls background and everything to do with his piss-poor performances in the Springbok jersey that year.  

I have heard enough BS from you about Morne to cover the whole Drakensberg.   and as to rugby in general to cover the whole of SA.   You dream about things that never happened on the field of play and then write it as factual.   .           

It's only your interpretation that Morné never attacked the gainline or played closer to it. It's pure fiction. The game of rugby, as it was in 2004 is remarkable different to that of 2008 onwards. You strain very hard to make association's only so you can justify your vitriolic loathing of Meyer. The game you say Meyer played never existed. You can't even identify the shape of the Bok attack in any era. You claimed Schalk was playing flyhalf. This is an outlandish claim, one which you should be very embarrassed of. It shows a lack of understanding of how the forwards and backs are used and how they interact in the modern game. If you cannot understand these things, you cannot understand anything else that you see.

I find it a curious thing that you boast of how much rugby you have watched, yet there are never any references. The few that you do make are always fallacious (a lie) or horrendously misinterpreted.

What we can conclude is that you are overly emotional, often fall for the media narrative, you form hyper-sensitive ideas that cannot stand up to scrutiny. You become irrationally offensive when these ideas are challenged. You can ever form a reasonable, logical or coherent defence of these ideas. 

Duplicate

AO

I think you are the emotional one.   

Whenever Morne played in Super Rugby since 2012 - there were two commo factors on display.   He stood way to deep in the pocket and he never caught a passed ball in movement - he stood dead still when receiving the ball from the scrummie.   That made it totally impossible to attack the gain line or even play close to the gain line. It also put the while backline in jeopardy when he did pass he ball.  

In essence there were persistent suggestions in the past as to why Fat Fransie and him - which were very noticeable.  Fat Fransie ultimately failed at flyhaf because he was a slow decision-maker and it had serious detrimental consequences for both the Springboks and the Sharks.   Morne had the same problem when it came to decision-making.   That is why Morne's passing and out-of-hand kicking game was so deplorably poor.

I agree with you about the changes in the game between 2004 and 2015.  It always amazed me that Meyer did not realize that the changes require a different approach.     He consistently selected  players who were totally unable to make changes in their performance in order to adjust to the new rules on rugby,   He persisted with the 2004 Bulls game plan as well.      

This is incorrect. Answer me this: How flat can a 10 stand to the gainline when the forwards are the first layer of the attack? 

Think very carefully. 

Not ten meters behind the scrums and line-outs and not standing end still until he received the ball,   And the forwards being the first layer of the attack is what Meyer wanted - hence you admit what I wrote is correct.   

The forwards are NOT the first layer of attack when comprehensive rugby is played - they are complementing partners in the attacking force.  Anybody saying the forwards are the first layer of attack are really nuts.  

Forwards as the first layer is what all teams do. New Zealand do it, Australia do it, all the NH sides, everyone. You see, you don't understand how the game is played today. You are a relic who can only understand dinosaur rugby. This amuses me greatly. 

I completely disagree with that. This notion that he stood too deep was a myth. So too the kicking. He was the best of that era of all our 10s. If you want to see deep, watch Lambie's 2011 Aussie test. The one he was praised for. The one with two charge downs, zero tackles, a blown try after an Aplon break and 20 phases where he was never touched the ball once - yet was praised for sparking the Bok attack. All of this bluster is mythology and perpetuated by journalists with agendas.

Well - you are welcome to have your own misguided believes about Morne Steyn - but very few people actually will be with you in what you saw.   Even though you may claim them to be plastic fans most people have realized for years his serious deficiencies.  Even Meyer realized it after the Perth disaster where Morne on his own caused  the Springboks to lose the test.     

I'm fine with that. I don't need to have everyone agree with me. 

The problem with SA team: players are SA playing SA rugby style.

It starts and ends there.