Rassie interview blows up a few loony theories

As per normal Mozart missed out on a few names by ignoring the following sentence:-

"Anyone who is playing over there, who is in form and who fits will come into consideration." 

Now that cuts out the following:  

Louw, Frans Steyn, Bismarck du Plessis, Lambie

Coming in based on form:-

Coetzee, Van der Merwe.  

As per normal Mozart missed out on a few names by ignoring the following sentence:-

"Anyone who is playing over there, who is in form and who fits will come into consideration." 

Now that cuts out the following:  

Louw, Frans Steyn, Bismarck du Plessis, Lambie

Coming in based on form:-

Coetzee, Van der Merwe.  

Some interesting ideas. Bissie would be a logical consideration, of he is anywhere near what he was when he left. I haven't seen him since the World Cup.

I have seen Lambie three times. One solid game, two with the same old problems. 

I haven't seen Reinach up north. I've been told he has improved, as much as I doubt this, I can't refute it.

Serfontein and Frans have been the best of the foreign players mentioned. Easily.

Either way, these players would take the team away from the Kindergarten Bok model Mike envisions. 

AO

And into a mess similar like the one Meyer made.

Bismarck is not a regular starter for Montpellier anymore and his WC performance was questionable as well.   He has been on the slide the last three years.   

Lanbie is out injured till February 2019 and not available.

Fat Fransie was always useless as a center and is even worse now.  That from what I have seen this season.. In your dreams he was a good player for the Sharks - but in reality he was a serious flop.   Erasmus does not need a player that will disrupt the whole backline as a center.  Fatso's last game for Montpellier was on 22 September and in that game he was his normal - piss poor,   I do not know whether he is injured - but chances are he was dropped since his performances were what I said.   Obviously you would claim that his performances over the last month were excellent. 

Serfontein has been very good in the last few Montpellier games. 

Bismarck played very well against Wales. He wasn't one of those who let us down against New Zealand. He concede some stupid penalties against Japan, that's the extent of his errors. If you want World Cup failures, look to Lambie, Damian, Kriel, Lood, Steph, Malherbe, Willie. These are prime culprits who let the Boks down when it truly mattered. Some doing nothing good at all. 

You've got to love this, Rassie has a fondness for a 36 and 37 year old, but Mike claims this is different from Meyer. They aren't geriatrics, they are mentors. Such desperation. 

Now Rassie brings Frans (31), Bissie (34) into conversation. Rassie bemoans a lack of experience. Rassie making more of a mockery of Mike's devotion. 

Lets look at the latest contributions by Lunatic Inc and see how their statements match up with reality as to performance:-

Erasmus said he would look at performances of players and Mozart nd AO lost it all in their mad rush to idiocy:-

*    Fatso has not played for over a month - either he is injured or his piss poor performances before that caused him to be dropped from the team altogether.   But Erasmus and his assistants would know that he was excellent recently.   

*    Bismarck du Plessis was excellent in the Scotland test in the WC. He was a serious problem in the Japan test and as punishment he did not play against Samoa.  He tried to make amends and di d well in the Scotland test - but was average to poor against Wales and New Zealand.   But AO said he was good in the Wales test - what a lark.   He did not play for Montpellier this past weekend - but in the precious three weeks his performance was mediocre to poor.   How would you two know about the contrary - you would not have seen the matches and grabbed something out of the air,   Since you obviously did not see the matches - I saw two of those - anther idea would be for you two to have a look at his stats .

*     Rassie himself said that Brits is in the squad as a mentor so AO thinks he is not.   Such stupidity is unbelievable.

Now why don't you two wait to see what happens when the squad is announced and then start looking at things.    You miss out on everything in rugby knowledge and love to preach BS on site,           

Bismarck was punished because of his performance in the Japan test? Care to provide some evidence? 

AO

Aside from breaking every rule in the game and giving away 4 penalties Bimarck was substandard in all aspects in the Japan test.

He was left out completely in the Samoa test - even Brits was on the bench.  He was not injured at all and in the media reported that he was left out in the test because of his poor performance in the Japan test.   Any logical person would see that as punishment for bad performance.    

Mozart

At least I indicate some things correctly.   One will have to look at actual team selection in the coming weeks.  The chances of Mostert remaining is near to zero .  Schickerling  is both physically stronger than Mostert and taller as well, 

As to Vermeulen unless he performed consistently well in Super Rugby he will also be out.    In any event even in  June he could not play three good games in a row, so will that change?  His  aches and pains moaning after the second test indicates fitness problems anyway. 

One wonders whether in fact Vermeulen played any rugby since June?  If so his Wikipedia .profile has not been updated.  The Japan club season started on 31 August - so for more than two months he was off rugby.   There progeramme since the start of the season was as follows:-

31 August 2018      -  against Wild Knights

8  September 2018  - against Jamaha Jubilo

15  September 2018 -  against Canon Eagles

22  September 2018 -  against Honda Heat

6  October 2018       -   against Black Rams

13 October 2018      -   against  Toshiba Brave  Lupus 

20  October 2018    -   against Red Sparks 

28  October 2018    -   against Shining A

There is no matches played in November and the play-offs will start on 1 December 2018.   It is clear that the format of the programme has been changed and they new the round robin stage is finished and the teams have to play in the play-offs which used to start end of January shortened and the one game every two weeks system has been changed,

Now back to Vermeulen - the last game his club has to play was on 28 October 2018 and thereafter his next game could be for his club is in December.   Vermeulen's playing programme means he - 

*   played no matches between the last English test in June 2018 and 31August 2018; and

*   could potentially have played in 8 games in September - October - but I watched the highlights package of his team in their games in Ocotober and he was definitely not playing in those three.

In the media they said he is coming back from injury and the above indicates that he did not play in October 2018.   In the circumstances he potentially could have played in 5 matches in four months.   Even if he  is back  - how fit is he going to be? 

Vermeulen had a very soft year rugby wise this year,   He was in -

*    9 matches for Toulon ending in Mid-march 2018 

*    3 tests in June 2018

*    5 matches in Japan

Long breaks like that cause fitness problems - so will he be fit?   

It was normal for Meyer to rotate them. Who did Meyer start Bissie against Scotland, Wales, USA, New Zealand and Argentina? He obviously regarded him highly. The word "punishment" is too much. Besides there were players who played significantly worse. 

I agree with you though, Bismarck was inaccurate and conceded 4 penalties. I have pointed this out at least 6 times already. That said, in terms of the overall game, he was not why we lost. He did produce some strong contributions.

I find it interesting though, that you berate Victor for being a weak player. Yet he outplayed Steph in the Japan game. Steph was our blindside flank. When I bemoaned our lack of a power carrier, you disagreed. Yet it's all there.

When all is said and done, we lost because of the game we played. Attack. Play Japan at their own game. I have always disagreed with that. I based my prediction of a win on the Boks going the opposite direction and exploiting obvious Japanese weaknesses. Certain players really weren't capable of playing that game. Ruan had a quick service, but didn't offer much else. Lambie was totally outplayed, aside from one good run early on. Steph failed to generate any momentum. Some stupid penalties ruined the flow of our game, and conceded some points. It's the same names that pop up time and again.

I never regarded Bismarck as highly as most people, but he went on to have a strong campaign the rest of the competition. The same cannot be said for the chaff you support and defend like a wounded honey badger.

Obviously you missed 90% of what happened in the Japan test in 2015 - but that is where things went wrong.   Your take on Du Toit was a farce.   First thing Alberts was selected to start in that game,  but he had a fat strain and a day before the game Du Toit was brought in to play at 7 - the first such loosie selection for him in more than 3 years.   He was not cached in any way to play there.

The Meyer game plan allows in the case of the Japan test to pass the ball to Burger who knocked on ball after ball and that neutralized the backline and give possession handovers to the Japanese.   So lets look at reality for a change:

*   Pienaar passed  the ball 79 times - of those 37 went to Burger (just under half).

*   Lambie received 34 balls from Pienaar - and of those he passed 22 balls - 18 of which to De Villiers, 7 of which the latter passed to Kriel.  Habana and ietersen virtually never saw the ball. 

So your assertion that the Springboks balls tried to play a wide game in that test nearly never happened.  Burger passed the ball 15 times - most of which went to other forwards. He carried the ball 22 times making 37 meters - ie an average of less than 1,7 meters per carry.   The 4 balls he knocked on was not in those carries.

In the case of Matfield he was a farce as well.   He did well in line-outs and bugger d up all else.   His ball carries was poor - very poor in fact.    The exact opposite was De Jager  - who made very good carries and scored a try.  There is no way Matfield was better than De Jager in that game as claimed by you.

The fact is that Matfield was vice-captain and the forwards game was a total shambles.   There were near to no rolling mauls   and the forwards played the game largely amongst themselves and messed it up royally,   Fact is Du Toit was rarely involved in the mess that was the forwards game.   It was in fact all over the media that Matfield did not follow Meyer's instructions on he way the game should be played amongst the forwards.

Whether you like it or not the real problem was -

*    Burger at 8 was a disaster

*     Bismarck was bizarrely poor

*     Matfield played a major role in the mess.

*     Jannie du Plessis showed his normal helplessness in defense,

If only they played the game I wish they did it would not have been the shambles  the forward play  turned out to be.   Another lie on your part was about Malherbe - he did not feature in the Japan disaster and that was followed by two games  from the bench where he was very good in one and above average in the other.  He started in three tests and again was vey good in two and above average in another.   Fact is the failure in the WC was NOT Malherbe. it was Jannie du Plessis.

The game plan was a mess - but above all the forward play was worse.    The above is why I always wonder what games you are watching - definitely not the mess actually played by the players you always support.