Saffex - the Lone Ranger and Good Samaritan

I tried to get members to comment on some of the players to guage what they think about their performances over the past two weeks and the results were in the main as follows:-

Jantjies - were his performances good enough?

Yes  -    Saffex

No   -    Beeno, Mozart, Sharkbok, boklogic, Arthur John, KalaedFreddie, Denny, clevermike

Francois Steyn - was he the best center around this weekend?

Yes  -    Saffex

No    -    Mozart, Sharkbok, boklogic, KalaedFreddie, clevermike

Hougaard - was he up to standard

Yes   -   Saffex

No    -    Mozart, Sharkbok, boklogic, KalaedFreddie, clevermike

Questions

Is it really possible that the majority of the regular posters on this sight knows nothing of rugby and Saffex is the only participant that can identify player performances and put the correct interpretation on performances?

Is Saffex too generous insofar as performances are concerned and does he too easily use phrases like class act and good to describe averages with only generalized statements about how good they are without providing examples of actual cases - which led to nothing?

Does Saffex give undue credit to players he champions who were less than satisfactory and run down players he does not like - despite better performances by merely ignoring their actual contributios to games?

Is it possible for a player on the field for ten minutes to be elevated to Springbok selection based on one tackle he slipped?

Summary

I really think that Saffex should sit down and start looking at games objectively and then come up with reasonable assessment of performances.  That would make him a much more valuable member of this Board - who obviously can contrtibute much more to  positive discussions than he does at present,  

Eish Mike, this is gona get the man going. I think you have opened up a can of worms here.

If I am honest though, I have tried to help Saff understand the game but it seems I am getting nowhere. He just tells me that I could not possibly know more about the game than himself. Not just me though. All of us. He did make a statement afterall that went something along the lines of:

I will never lose a debate on a rugby matter. If there is one thing I know, it is rugby.

Was a bold statement considering I have known him (board wise) for a few months now and am still waiting for him to win a debate or make a point that at least 1 person agrees with ;-)

Mike, what have you done? You do realise that Saffex is going to call us ALL stupid sheep, that know nothing and so on, punctuated with his usual colourful language?

I am not sure I am ready for such an onslaught this early in the week.

Well Mike, for a start I dont respect the rugby views of the posters you mention and I dont mean that in any derogatory way at all. Lets face it Moz and I disagree on everything rugby, so I would expect him to tell me the Stormers centres were better than the Sharks, when clearly this was not the case.

It is laughable that anyone could conclude that Jean who did absolutely nothing all game could be elevated to a status above Frans. I am so wanting de Allende and Jordaan to make an impression but alas they have done nothing of note in two games now. Frans was the best of an average centre performance this weekend and was by some distance the best SA centre last week.

For the rest, I think you are extremley ignorant when it comes to rugby, with Beenkop on a par with you. Denny never has much to say about rugby and I am yet to see anything worthwile coming from Boklogic apart from his usual chest beating about what he knows about rugby. As for Sharkbok, who the hell is he?

As for Jantjies, I am not a huge Keo fan but go read his article on Jantjies, it is spot on and beats the hell out of your prejudicial crap. Lambie and Goosen were no better than Jantjies this weekend.

Hougaard has provided the best service of all the SA 9's and that is a fact. He has not shown his attacking skills but then again none of the SA 9's have. Hougaard is playing as well as he did last year and for some naive reason, poor coaches like Ludeke and Meyer are punishing him because he does not play their pathetic kicking games.

And Mike dont sit down and tell me what I should do to become a better contributor to this board, for that is insulting for as much as I like you as a person, you are not the brightest spark in the world and your rugby knowledge is poor.

Now, get this into your head. Frans is by far the best SA centre playing S15 rugby at the moment. Hougaard is the best 9 we have as none of the other 9's have todate shown anything better, especially in the distribution stakes. I know what Hougaard has to offer on attack and no other 9 in SA can begin to challenge that.

Jantjies struggled last week with his kicking, had a good all round game this weekend and showed some of those magic touches.

Lastly, get this into your head, i dont give a flying toss what other posters think about players, for I know I am right about my take on the players mentioned. It would be insulting to say that Jean for instance was better than Frans this weekend - anyone who concludes that is just speaking shit and exposing their ignorance. The same can be said of the week before.

So until you have some concrete evidence that there is a better 12 in SA than Frans, I suggest you shut the hell up for your ignorance is starting to irritate the shit out of me. You talk about Frans as if every other centre in SA was creating havoc every game - wake the hell up you bafoon

Wonder why Frans is in the team of the week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

15. Gareth Anscombe Popularity: 75%

• 14. Frank Halai Popularity: 50%
• 13. Tim Nanai-Williams Popularity: 50%
• 12. Francois Steyn Popularity: 50%
• 11. Julian Savea Popularity: 25%
• 10. Aaron Cruden Popularity: 25%
• 9. TJ Perenara Popularity: 50%
• 8. Pierre Spies Popularity: 25%
• 7. Liam Messam Popularity: 75%
• 6. Sam Cane Popularity: 50%
• 5. Brodie Retallick Popularity: 50%
• 4. Flip Van der Merwe Popularity: 50%
• 3. Werner Kruger Popularity: 25%
• 2. Craig Burden Popularity: 50%
• 1. Tendai Mtawarira Popularity: 50%

ou maaaik and boklogic do remember that jantjes has been rated sufficiently by a number of coaches so your take is not the only view on the matter. Certain rugby commentars still rate him. Lets keep a balanced perspective please.

Are we possibly making far to much re early season form?

Beeno

I am with you in this - as a Shark supporter he was really a player of stature in favour of us on Saturday.   I think he is bound to lose a coupe of matches for the Sormers asap.  So have him as your flyhalf.   If jantjies was so good in the eyes of his PRO machine (Keo and Rich) - how do you account for the -10 rating on both Foxposrt and Test Rugby.  That is the worst ratig of any starting line up for this year of any player.

Saffex

Bullshit about Steyn again.  Real stats indicate he was cmprehnsivly outplayed by De Allende - so even your prejudice does not really help.

Duncemike, who is the fans 12 of the week - answer the question and hey this team includes all the S15 sides, not just the SA ones.

Just provide the name of the 12 you stupid dunce

Saffex

How many times that you vote for Steyn?  50% is not really convincing is it - he has a broad support base with braindead supporters.

Mike, your answer exposes you for being a complete fool. If 50% of the fans vote for Frans at 12 out of all the 12's playing S15 rugby, that is pretty impressive.

So lets see, all these supporters are braindead, but you know what you are talking about. Wrong Mike, as I keep telling you, you know fuck all about rugby and the fans confirm that.

Frans is at 12, because for a start he was by far the best SA centre this weekend and more so last weekend. He WAS better than Jean, de Allende, Jordaan, Olivier and Mapoe - FACT and the fans agree - case closed

@Mike. Where are those real stats, and what make them real?

nero, on this message board, a "real" stat is any piece of rubbish you can suck out of your thumb to justify your point of view.

Seriously, there is at least one rugby noob on this board who can be seen after every game saying some ridiculous crap about player X making more average metres than player Y per times ball received divided by the square root of total knock-ons minus the number of eggs he had for breakfast . . . so therefore player X must be a better centre . . . or some such nonsense.

Fact is, only a moron or a complete noob would think that any two runs, tackles, steals, lineout takes or whatever you're measuring are the same and that a simple count of metres gained or tackles made determines which player performed better.

By way of example, ask yourself if you'd rather a player made a single tackle in the game if it was Joggie Jansen's celebrated tackle on Wayne Cottrell in 1970 or twenty "tackles" made by a nancy-boy scaredy-cat like Marius Joubert where he basically just flaps his arms and gets in the runner's way. In the same way, you can't just count the number of line breaks or runs as each one has a unique set of circumstances and consequences.

Only the loud-mouthed Blowhards who never played a minute of rugby (of which unfortunately we have a few on this board) would simply count the number of line breaks, tackles or metres gained and claim it made one player better than another.

@Rooinek. Mike said: "Bullshit about Steyn again.  Real stats indicate he was cmprehnsivly (sic) outplayed by De Allende - so even your prejudice does not really help."

I would just like to see those stats and understand what make them more real than other stats quoted. He seems to have been gunning for Steyn since the end of the Stormers/Sharks game, for some reason. Just another one of his pet hates?

Is it Camus.....no it's Santayana. Look Camus stick to stuff your pea brain can grasp. That doesn't include statistics.

"Denny never has much to say about rugby and I am yet to see anything worthwile coming from Boklogic apart from his usual chest beating about what he knows about rugby."

Haha haha just love that quibble from old Saff!! Saff, I think its you who chest beats about what you know about rugby with comments that you know your stuff, none of us know the game like you and so on. I have never proclaimed to know more than anyone else. I even asked you, where is your measuring tool for this. How do we assess that you know more than me and the rest of us..ha ha

So every other poster on this board has no credibility in your eyes. Ha ha this is laughable. Is it maybe not you that is the common denominator to knowing, as you say to Mike, "Fuck all!"

All I have said, and I will tell you again, based on comments in reply to our posts, its clear to see that you are away with the fairies and I am a much more respected poster. Your views are warped. You hate stats but when they are in your favour, you love them..

Wait saff, I think the best centre of the weekend should actually be that Bulls kid who got on for 10mins and slipped a "Force" tackle!! Ha ha I would love to be coached by you. I would make sure I do 1 good thing with my first touch of the ball and then I can be a total disaster but you will forever be a supporter of me!

Saff, I dont claim to know more than you. (If I knew the same as you or less, I would not be on a rugby board or speak about the game in public) What I will say though is I laugh at most your posts and like a lot of us, we simply log on just to see if you have posted on a topic because we know its going to be some warped crap! We are never disappointed.

Boklog, damn right I stand by my take on the game and in particular my selections. Hell it hardly takes a brain scientist to conclude that Jordaan and Jean had bog oridinary games and that Frans without doing much was better than both. Selecting Jean at 12 and Jordaan at 13 smacks of rugby ignorance after this weeks performances.

Its an easy art challenging selections given how piss poor the Bok coaches are at selecting. Until we start winning 80% of our matches, selectios that include Taute, Rhule, JJ, Serfontein, Frans, Lambie, Goosen, Hougaard at 9, Steph du Toit, Willemse, Kolisi, Elstadt, Arno Botha, Coetzee etc will be the order of my day.

 Saffex do you believe that your squad would win 80% of matches? .

.

Team Saffex- "Taute, Rhule, JJ, Serfontein, Frans, Lambie, Goosen, Hougaard at 9, Steph du Toit, Willemse, Kolisi, Elstadt, Arno Botha, Coetzee etc will be the order of my day"

I was the first to admit that none of those centres had a good game. They were all as good as each other. My issue is that Frans taking too much ball into contact and not getting it away. Jordaan looked good on the 2 or 3 occasions he had run the ball. The game just never opened up for him and Frans is not helping him either.

I am pro Frans Steyn. I know what he can do but the thing is he is not doing that at the moment and right now, I would prefer Whitehead if he was fit to play. Frans is trying to take on too much of a work horse type role and thats not what brought the Sharks success last year. Whitehead and Jordaan look to take the gap and free up space.

Just like you, I believe Hougaard is our future at 9 but he is not at the moment. He has a shit load to learn and sort out before he gets there. At the moment, we have others looking more the complete package. They do not have the x factor that Hougaard has though so if he can get up to their level as a 9, he would have my vote purely due to x factor as an added bonus.

Jean De Villiers, no matter what you say, was our best centre last year. We watched Frans. He was poor. De Villiers was the best. He may be long in the tooth now but he still remains our best option "AT THIS PRESENT TIME!" Maybe or rather hopefully not by the end of the Super rugby season but at this point, we have no one putting their hand up to knock him off his perch. Frans is not playing well at the moment. That is a fact. JDV poses a much greater threat with ball in hand. Frans is easy to defend against! Guaranteed with Jean at 12, Jordaan would have more space!

Kolisi, 2 games, not much to talk about in both games but he makes your side..No ways..If you are saying 95kg is nearly too light for a centre then Kolisi should be playing age group rugby considering his weight and position.

Coetzee was less effective than Deysel. Alberts is better than both of them. Steph Du Toit is a good player but why no credit to Bresler who keeps him out the team? I am starting to believe that Goosen has had more made of him than he actually deserves.

I am convinced that Ludik is a better player than Taute now too. Taute has not been dangerous in months now!

How can we have Rhule in the Bok team. He is not going to displace JP or Habana and he doesn't deserve too. What has he done to prove this wrong? I dont talk about 1 run they had or a flash in the pan brilliance. They need to be consistent and Taute, Rhule, JJ, Hougaard, Kolisi and Frans are simply not showing us anything other than being consistently average.

In fact, the Stormers vs Sharks was supposed to be game of the weekend. Its embarrassing compared to the entertainment the supporters get in a game involving the Kiwi teams. Our rugby simply sucks at the moment. Too many big names underperforming!!!

All good players with promise but are not where they need to be at the moment. Hell, put those okes out against the AB's and watch what happens to them!

No Twatbok, that is not my side.......one certainty is the side I would select, would certainly be better than the one Meyer selects and would certainly not employ the pathetic kick and chase tactic.

My side would not have Kirchner, Jean, Pienaar or Jandre Kruger in it for a start and certainly not the likes of CJ, Steenkamp, Morne, Cilliers, Heinke v/d Merwe, Liebenberg and J.Potgieter

The side would be something along the lines of:

15. Taute/Lambie 14. JP 13. Taute/JJ/Serfontein 12. Frans 11. Habana/Mvovo 10. Goosen/Lambie 9. Hougaard 1. Beast 2. Bismark 3. Jannie 4. Etzebeth 5. Bekker/ Steph du Toit 6. Brussouw/Kolisi 7. Elstadt/Louw/Coetzee/Louw/CJ.Stander 8. Vermeulen/A.Botha/Coetzee

This side should win 80% of its matches without a flinch

Boklog, lets deal with all your incorrect points.

For a start Frans has been the best SA centre in the competition to date, no questions asked. Replacing Frans with Whitehead is naive and about as stupid as Meyer selecting Steenkamp on the end of year tour. Whitehead really looked the part about a year ago and then lost his clout in a big way. Anyway, this is not about Whitehead, its about your obvious lack of observation skills. So now we have Frans just crashing it up when clearly last week he displayed the closest thing we have seen to SBW, when he took contact, broke the defence and offloaded perfectly to support players.

What really irritates me about your ill informed take on Frans is that one would swear that all the other SA centres were producing results that were far superior to Frans. Fact is, the other centres have been a huge disappointment, with Frans's first week display, being the only centre performance of note and you are naive enough to want to replace him with Whitehead - and you say you know your rugby????

Hougaard has nothing to learn, he has been playing 9 all his life and to date his performances have been good for the Bulls. His service has been the best of all the SA 9's hence the revival of Morne, with time on the ball. We have not seen Hougaard display his attacking skills, but that will come. Reinach and Groom have been solid but not shown anything special and certainly not meriting anything worthy of displacing Hougaard.

Complete and utter bullshit regarding Jean as our best centre last year. He was pathetic at 13, where he ran laterally giving his wings no space at all. He was a liability at 13. When he moved to 12, the best he had to offer was the crashball. He played 12 tests last year of which 3 were average to good, with the rest being poor. Frans was our best 12 at test level and Taute was our best 13. Jean is done and dusted and has been that for the last 2 years and shows the same lack of form right now in the S15. Sadly Meyer will be stupid enough to retain Jean and we will continue to have no attacking clout and we will continue with that 67% ratio.

Kolisi is playing in a losing Stormers side and in a pack that is being dominated. The man weighs 102kg, what is the issue with that as an openside flanker? Its the perfect size for an openside.

Crap Coetzee is a consistent performer, Deysel like Alberts, blows hot and cold. No way in hell is Alberts better than Coetzee. The only thing Alberts and Deysel have over Coetzee is size. Coetzee has the skill factor to make a difference, but then again I would not be playing Coetzee at 7, I'd be playing him at 8 ahead of Kankowski, with Alberts/Deysel at 7.

Steph du Toit should be playing 5 ahead of the average Franco v/d Merwe. Bresler would remain at 4. Steph du Toit is the best lock the Sharks have, hell he showed that in the 15 min he had on the field against the Cheetahs. Plum needs to dispence with this conservative approach and playing Franco for the sake of experience. I dont get what people see in Franco. The Sharks should start with Bresler and Steph du Toit, with the impressive Jandre Marais on the bench.

Your take on Goosen again shows your rugby ignorance, but I'll say no more on that for you will live to regret that comment.

I like Ludik, but the best he has to offer is solid. Solid is not good enough for test rugby. You need special players in your test side - Taute is a special player and given how damn poor our 13's have been in the S15 to date, maybe its time the Stormers played Taute at 13 to give then some clout. Jean at 13 for the Stormers is an insult - but we have to keep expecting the worst from Coetzee as a coach.......hell he has two class young 13's in his ranks in Pat Howard and JP du Plessis who are probably contemplating a move to the UK given Coetzee's record of overlooking quality players - look no further than Quinn Roux now lost to Ireland. Good old Coetzee overlooked this young talent in favour of the useless de Kock Steenkamp - its pathetic.

I am not selecting Rhule in my Bok side yet, he is damn close given how shit hot he was last year. But for now JP is there to stay for some years yet and the jury is out on Habana. Thus far Mvovo has been the pick of our wings this S15.

Our teams struggle given the coaches we have. Hell they dont get more conservative than Ludeke and Coetzee......with Ludeke, its kick the crap out of the ball, with Coetzee its all about defence. The Sharks are always slow starters and a Stormers v Sharks game at the beginning of the season was always going to be a close conservative affair

 Statistics are in most cases not worth the paper it is printed on nê my bru?  I find the comments and opinions very interesting indeed.  But to be brutally honest (like PW Botha was) not a single poster on here is a professional coach or selector for a country or even a union.  We are all just a lekka lot of amateurs who love the game so no one is an authority and we are all right in our own minds.  It is a good thing this country does not have to play with us lot here as the selectors because that will be a rightroyalkakspul nê ouens.

Something about SA teams kicking the leather off the ball. I would be the first to agree that this is not the best of ways to analise the situation, but it is at least something to start off. So these are the numbers of kicks (out of hand), per game, by SA teams after two rounds:

Bulls 26 Force 30
Sharks 37 Stormers 30
Chiefs 20 Cheetahs 12 (with almost 0% possession)
Bulls 30 Stormers 19
Cheetahs24 Sharks 28
Kings 25 Force 19 (only one game played)

These are the total number of kicks per team:

Bulls total 56 (played 2, won 2)
Sharks total 65 (played 2, won 2)
Stormers total 49 (played 2, lost 2)
Cheetahs 36 (played 2, lost 2)

I have not included the Kings because they have only played one, but in the game they played (and won) the kicked more than their opponents. That, to me in any case, means that the teams that won must have been more accurate with their tactical kicking.

Kicking the leather of the ball means just aimlessly kicking it away with no tactical purpose behind it, and in the process gaining nothing out of the kick.

Kicking it and gaining field position, or getting out of trouble in your own 22, etc, is not aimlessly kicking the leather off the ball, IMO.

Good post Nero. That is why to say, as ou maaaik did re Morne was kicking aimlessly is hogwash. Good tactical kicking is to be applauded.

The simple facts are that we need coaches with brains.  Able to compete against other top coaches in the world. We alas have ou allistair and Fleckie. Proudfoot looks to be okay.

Lets face it also we are loosing players at the rate of notts to overseas clubs. We have lost a number also  other SA sides. Saffex correctly laments the loss of Quinn Roux who will like Stander end up playing for ireland! Koster and Louw are gone. JJ, catrikillis and Sadie went and Tim Sweil will follow suite. Good players like Du Plessis and Howard are not seen. What happened to Kritzinger the young prop? Harris?

Why do we think 100kg hookers like Fourie and Scurra Ntubeni are the deal at Super15 level?  We know we need to sregthen our scrum. WP was know for its running rugby. How could we get so off course?

Frankly I have no confidence in most of the SA franchise coaches. The best to me are Drotske who battles against impossible odds -  the Cheetahs usually play pretty good rugby with very limited resources. Plum is reasonable.

One thing is required. Make merit the only criteria and get in the best coaches available wherever they can be found. Select palyers only on merit.

Beeno pretty gatvol of the continuing stupidity. I cannot accept that year after year we are not comparable in skills when compared to our top opponents. We get by on raw power and figthing spirit. Very little finesse.
All these comments refer mostly to the attacking side of the game and backline in particualar.