Roelof Smit- Fetcher or Donkey

How effective is this guy at the breakdown? Is he the best fetcher we have to offer. I think I saw him play a few games in Super Rugby- but have not seen much
If anything we need to have all Super Rugby rugby teams with a specialist fetcher at 6. Even if we have no game plan- if we could just hold onto the ball through more phases, we would score tries.
The Springboks have been useless at the breakdown which creates less attacking opportunities and more defence issues.
Bismark and Vermeulen were effective at the ruck. Flouw can be good, and we also had Brussouw
Now we are useless at the rucks
-Mohoje is too clumsy for the rucks. He cants even tackle properly let alone reach for the ball without knocking someone out.
-Fat Albert is too slow to retain possession- and no longer an effective at hitting the ruck backwards
-Strauss- another that may not be able to touch his toes, let alone compete at the breakdown. 
-Beast- a spent force
-Koch. A passenger at the ruck. -Whitely has been of no effect at the breakdown. Heis small and should also be good on the ground- given he offers little in contact.

Kriel- so far he has been a myth at the breakdown. 

With Kriel now out of the tour, could we be starting with Roelof at 6?
Kriel has injured himself in Japan. While the All Blacks manage the workload of their players- ours are in the Curry Cup and then Japan.--

Cape Town - The Springboks have suffered a significant blow with the news that flank Jaco Kriel is out of their year-end European tour with a knee injury.

Kriel sustained a grade two tear of his left MCL playing club rugby in Japan at the weekend.

The 27-year-old has returned to Johannesburg for treatment and will be out of action for approximately four weeks.

Kriel was playing for the Kubota Spears and was scheduled to join the Springbok squad after their match against the Barbarians in London on November 5.

The Boks are yet to name a replacement for Kriel.

After the match against Barbarians, the Boks will face England (London, November 12), Italy (Florence, November 19) and Wales (Cardiff, November 26).

South Africa squad v Barbarians:

Forwards (17)

Lourens Adriaanse, Nizaam Carr, Uzair Cassiem, Eben Etzebeth, Lizo Gqoboka, Lood de Jager, Malcolm Marx, Bongi Mbonambi, Oupa Mohoje, Tendai Mtawarira, Trevor Nyakane, Jean-Luc du Preez, Roelof Smit, RG Snyman, Adriaan Strauss (captain), Pieter-Steph du Toit, Thomas du Toit

Backs (13)

Damian de Allende, Ruan Combrinck, Faf de Klerk, Cheslin Kolbe, Jesse Kriel, Patrick Lambie, Rudy Paige, Sergeal Petersen, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Tian Schoeman, Jamba Ulengo, Francois Venter, Piet van Zyl

Note: No foreign-based players available for Barbarians match

Looks like young Quacky should please create a video compilation starring Roelof Smit, who apparently is our solitary opensider on the EOYT.

Btw. this bullsh!t of a whistle-stop contract in Japan before the EOYT is bollocks ........ who else went East ? Damian, Eben, Elton etc .

AC & the Qobokke, don't stand a chance . More doom & gloom beckons

Wikipedia has him a 90KG- and The Bulls site as 115KG. Either way we are going to get killed at the breakdown. 

Unbelievable.....the Kriel myth needs to be tested and the Poms were the team to do that. So far all I have seen is good open field tackling and complete ineffectiveness in the forward exchanges. This means Kriel will continue to muddy up the waters.

 Mozart
There is no Kriel myth - but constant Mozart BS on the issue.   You are the one who says ball protection and recovery by loosies like Alberts, Louw and even  Burger are not important and then discover it as a problem in the case of Kriel.
The day you write sensible contributions on this site is the day when people would start looking seriously at your contributions - at present they are squirming and total bollocks.  

Louw has been our most effective breakdown option in tough tests for at least 4 years. Kriel hasn't been effective at all....he is not physical enough and even if he gets over the ball is easily disposed of by bigger men.

 Sad to hear of the injury to our best openside flank.
He would no doubt have made his mark and cemented his spot as the Bok run on 6.
To think that 'we had to endure the useless Louw for all these years when we had guys like Brussow and Jaco Kriel. 
When will this madness end.

Heinrich Brussow should have had close to a hundred Springbok caps, instead he had to watch from the sidelines as the useless donkey Francois Louw racked up 50 Springbok caps.

One of the biggest wastes of talent I can think of.

Brussouw couldnt stay healthy long enough to tie his shoe-laces. And while he was terrific over the ball, he was completely outplayed by bigger loosies like Poc.ock in the RWC11QF. It's the Luke Watson, Brussouw, Kriel lesson.....the small guys are fine when play is open, get to a tight WC or RC game and the pack consumes them. Louw showed his mettle in the WC semi where he was rated our best forward......do try to learn these simple things. From ESPN player ratings Francois Louw - 8 - Was everywhere in the first half as South Africa ensured that New Zealand failed to get a foothold at the breakdown.

Louw is reasonable when the breakdowns is near enough for the pace-deficient player he is can get to breakdown points,   He is also a player who are regularly penalized at breakdowns because he arrives late at breakdown points.
Alberts does not know the meaning of the words breakdown ball protection and recovery.  
Those are the type of loosies that you thrive on pace-deficient loosies with low tackle counts and is useless at breakdowns and recovery,  

And they are totally useless when it comes to attacking play - So they are quasi locks and props which reduce the value of loosies to near to zero.
Do you really know anything about rugby?           

Oh sure lets pick Liggies, the great new thing.....how old is he now OOm almost a 'geriatric' according to your views hey? Funny stuff from the old Goat.

 Mozart
Your BS  is always the same since you do not know the game of rugby.  For years now Labuschagne had the record of being the best ball protection and recoverer in SA.   And this Liggie story is absolute BS.   He was always much quicker to ball breakdowns because he is a ball sense player.
Your Liggies is BS - the player weighs in at 108 kgs - that is on par with what loosies nowadays normally weighs. 
You really must really be the most ignorant and m ost prejudiced member of rugby on this site.  
  

And HM and Coetzee just have something against Liggies. Give me a break.

 Both cases have been proven as being poor player identification - Meyer with his oldies and Coetzee just a nut case as well.  

Now lets see......which young player never got a chance because of those factors. Coetzee, du Preez, Kriel, Kolisi, Arno Botha, Whiteley, Mohoje, Roelof-Smit? Nah this bias was only directed at poor Lappies, the answer to all our problems......if only somebody asked the question. LAMAOFY!

Your normal simpleton statement shave no bearing on the issue,   If you stated that Mohoje was a few games used when Labuschagne was injured while he was on contract with the Cheetahs - and dropped afterwards on the return of Labuschagne, but plucked out of obscurity of BEE - then it would have made some sense.
Let me remind you that you criticized Labuschane before you saw him playing in a single game - because he was clearly an obstacle to your simple-minded support of the Alberts dummy.   So you sang praise songs of Mohoje as well when he was initially selected because he was according to you better than  Labuschagne.
When you read what you write about players you must bear in mind persistent prejudice - nothing really related to performance.   When Du Toit became a threat to Matfield you tried desperately to discredit him and that process has been continued ever since.  The same applied to other players  threatening the useless elderly you supported on the basis of what you regard as reputation.  
Your comments about players in the main has no bearing on performance and lately your whole campaign has been that the younger players are not producing the goods.  In some cases this is indeed so - but in the majority of cases they were not at all as bad as they at made out by you = especially compared to the duds you consistently supported in the past.   .        

Your normal simpleton statement shave no bearing on the issue,   If you stated that Mohoje was a few games used when Labuschagne was injured while he was on contract with the Cheetahs - and dropped afterwards on the return of Labuschagne, but plucked out of obscurity of BEE - then it would have made some sense.
Let me remind you that you criticized Labuschane before you saw him playing in a single game - because he was clearly an obstacle to your simple-minded support of the Alberts dummy.   So you sang praise songs of Mohoje as well when he was initially selected because he was according to you better than  Labuschagne.
When you read what you write about players you must bear in mind persistent prejudice - nothing really related to performance.   When Du Toit became a threat to Matfield you tried desperately to discredit him and that process has been continued ever since.  The same applied to other players  threatening the useless elderly you supported on the basis of what you regard as reputation.  
Your comments about players in the main has no bearing on performance and lately your whole campaign has been that the younger players are not producing the goods.  In some cases this is indeed so - but in the majority of cases they were not at all as bad as they at made out by you = especially compared to the duds you consistently supported in the past.   .        

Still avoiding the usual Poofter pivot, Labuschagne wont be the answer to the Bok issues....in fact he wont be a Bok at all. Because he is a nice provincial player, nothing more.

 You should at least be honest and admit that you criticized Labuschagne before you ever saw him in a match and that you are the dud who claims that players not performing on provincial level are worthy Springboks.    Every one of those has failed in 2014 and 2015 amd that include your precious Matfield and Alberts.     
  

Nonsense. Stop lying man.....it's truly pathetic.

 Franscois Louw - if only he had the necessary skill set.
If only he had enough pace to get to the breakdown in time. That would have been a definite plus in his favour ... but sadly that's been lacking these last 5 or so years ... and even if he did manage to get to the breakdown to compete ... it would only last the first 15 or so minutes before he collapsed exhausted.  
How many more times must we witness him running out of steam ... fading from play? 
If only he had the necessary hand strength to strip and poach the ball. He lacks upper body strength and is hopelessly deficient in both hands to be of any threat.
Once in awhile he gets given the ball and all hale him as a fetcher god ... but the truth remains for all to see ... he's simply not suited to the role ... as playing on the open side doesn't come natural to him. We've seen him forget his role in mid stride ... which has cost us big time against Scotland, Japan and many others.
I know to some he's our saving grace but in truth he's just another piece of deadwood we should have done away with ages ago.
In short ... had he not been too 
1. OLD
2. SLOW
3. UNFIT
4. WEAK OF HAND
5. UNSKILLED IN THE ROLE AT 6
he would probably have made a great fetcher. 
Now I ask you ... having cleared it all up for you so nicely with a short and simple summary ... why on earth would we want this highly unsuitable entity anywhere near the Boks??

One would have to be simpleminded to even consider it.

Let's just take one of your unsubstantiated assertions and provide a counter example. Who offloaded brilliantly in open field to release Habana for a try in that wild home AB test in 2013? Yep Francois Louw. My definition of dead wood is a player who can never compete physically against the bigger loosies who populate opposition packs.....two names come to mind after ample proof, Kriel and Whiteley. These are dead end selections.

 Your interpretation backfires against yourself when it comes to Willem Alberts.  Fat he is and heavy he is - but he cannot tackle and makes NO contribution to loosie play.  It backfires when you back midgets like Juan de Jongh and duds like Fat Fransie and Morne Steyn. Get it?      

 Well, Mozart ... even a blind squirrel finds an acorn from time to time.
I saw Earl Rose do some amazing things on the field. Did he also deserve to be a Bok?
It's all very nice pulling out single bits from random matches to promote a player. You do the same thing with Fats. You have no other choice but to exaggerate mere moments as "proof" of their supposed greatness.  
I can follow it up with a few good moments from Earl Rose. I shan't of course show any of his blunders cause that would be defeating the purpose.
Isn't that so, Mozart?

 Mozart
Labushagne came to the fore seriously in the Cheetahs game against the Chiefs and against the Highlanders in 2013.   After it was pointed out by the commentators that Labuschagne had a top class performance in those two tests - you went on the rampage and when queried you admitted you did not see the matches in question.
However, you have a habit to comment on matches you never saw and sometimes used newspaper reports to substantiate your statements and mostly quoted paragraphs and not the whole article to support your twisted comments.
That is your record on this site - a record that includes lies when it fits your book.
In four years  you found one example of Louw doing an off-load.   How many tests did he play in and was there any other case where it happened.   As far as I can remember in that game it happened that Morne passed the ball once to Louw and once to Vermeulen  - in both cases ultimately let to tries scored by Habana.   So Morne was praised to high heaven - despite an atrocious defensive record and three tries
This kind of nonsens e on your part is so numerous one has to really question your knowledge of the game of rugby..  

The Chiefs and the Highlanders don't play in tests Tokkie, get with it. As for me commenting on a game I haven't seen. Never. I have certainly quoted other views on games I haven't seen....but made it clear I was doing so. How else would you even know I hadn't seen the game? Your repetitive bleating about lies, twisted views etc is pretty pathetic. Particularly in the context of your twisted and biased views. And unlike you I provide real examples. Here's one....you remember every detail of Albert's missed tackle on Reid in the 2013 home AB test. But you cant remember Louw's brilliant offload to Habana .....for the record, Louw out in the 13 position burst inside Reid's tackle and offloaded one handed round Reid to send Habana off for a try. It was the offload of the season in matches I watched.. Twisting and lying is your province.....as I have shown time and time again.....not with unsubstantiated accusations, but with Quotes.

"Reid"?
Anyone know w ho Moffie is banging on about here?

 Mozart goes om and on about games he has not seen and then when questioned had to admit he has not seen the game.    He never indicated it originally.   In what he wrote in such cases is normally in total contrast with what is in the newspapers or match reports. 
He supports failed players on Super Rugby level all out on the basis that by some miracle they would perform in tests and if they don't he tries to cover it up.       

 Mozart goes om and on about games he has not seen and then when questioned had to admit he has not seen the game.    He never indicated it originally.   In what he wrote in such cases is normally in total contrast with what is in the newspapers or match reports. 
He supports failed players on Super Rugby level all out on the basis that by some miracle they would perform in tests and if they don't he tries to cover it up.       

 Comment on the Louw offload....stop with the hot air.

 It was a good pass - but that was the only case it happened in a test match over the last 4 years and that is not good enough to justify a player's existence in the squad.  

 It was a good pass - but that was the only case it happened in a test match over the last 4 years and that is not good enough to justify a player's existence in the squad.  

 At least Earl Rose produced a few brilliant moments in his career. Moments that had some claim him to be the "Tiger Woods" of rugby.
With Louw one has to search high and low for a single moment. A career spanning many years and one can't even fill a hand with moments of brilliance.
Pitiful!!

 
POSITIONFlankPROVINCEBath, EnglandTRIES27CONVERSIONS0PENALTIES0DROP GOALS0TOTAL POINTS135 SPRINGBOK CAREERCAPS52TRIES8CONVERSIONS0PENALTIES0DROP GOALS0TOTAL POINTS40

He had a good game and looks the real deal . I just saw a report today that he is sent home due to injury. Carr may play at 6.