SANZAR warriors squad announced,,,

was thinking about the british lions and was wondering what kind of a SANZAR squad/team we as coach could come up with using the TriNat countries only.
naturally like gatland being pro welsh, there would be expected biasdness towards ones nations, but success of players respective teams should be objectively taken into accout, :o)

so my squad of 37 players for the SANZAR warriors (same number of players in the lions),,,

props
owen franks, connie oosthuizen, beast, james slipper, ben afeaki

hookers
bismarck du plesiss, adriann strauss, stephen moore

locks
sam whitelock, eban ezebeth, anderis bekker, james horwill, luke romano

loosies
Richie McCaw, kerean read, marcel coetzee, michael hooper, liam gill, duane vermeulen

halfbacks
will genia, francois hougaard, piri weepu

flyhalves
dan carter, quade cooper, patrick lambie

centers
will tapuaii, conrad smith, jan serfontein, AAC, maa nonu

wings
bryan habana, jp pieterson, digby ioane, hosea gear

fullbacks
israel dagg, james bieber, ben smith,

SANZAR WARRIORS XV
1 c oosthuizen, 2 b du plesiss, 3 o franks, 4 e ezebeth, 5 s whitelock, 6 Richie McCaw (c), 7 liam gill, 8 kerean read, 9 will genia, 10 dan carter, 11 digby ioane, 12 j bieber, 13 conrad smith, 14 jp pieterson, 15 i dagg
16 a strauss, 17 j slipper, 18 j horwill, 19 m coetzee, 20 p weeepu, 21 quade cooper, 22 AAC

pretty mean squad/team.

saSUE your loose trio is far, far  to pap. Do you want to win or not? Put in Duanne at 8 at the very least. Bekker in for whitelock - no contest. Mcaaaaw!!!! You have to be joking.

Also for Pete's sake why is Conrad Smith there - the guy is a carthorse!  Habana for Digby also. 

Coetzee doesnt warrant a spot. Weepooo neither. J Bieber?

Sorry is this a fantasy rugby side?  

 That side would put 30 over the Lions.....its a tough call selecting 37. I agree with most your calls.

Beenkop, Habana for Digby, you must be kidding

Beeno

You missed out - Bieber is the nickname of James O'Connor.   Insofar as the team is concerned - I would rather have Labuschagne around instead of Coetzee and Arno Botha ahead of Hooper.   Weepu was one of the best performers in Super rugby this year and he warrants a spot in the squad mentioned by Sasue.  Owen Franks really is also a joke.    

The above has nothing to do with fantasy selections.   Some of the players have had no games this year and others under-performed from a fantasy rugby perspetive. 

 Owen Franks is probably the best tighthead in the game

@beeno1 aka storminged,

no doubt u have forgotten the lesson that whitelock taught bekker with thier last encounter aye??? lolz Boks tallest players ever had 6 lineout throws stolen from him, -_o

vermeulen, no way hosea, i prefer a loose forward whose at least faster then a prop and a bit more mobile, its important that loosies have the ability to link up with backline plays, prob a kiwi thing though and that part of vermeulens game is very weak.
coetzee has huge potential IMO, but i will say hes underpreforming, but who in the sharks isnt???

this agree with mikey about owen franks, hes been good this year, a very strong scrummager and is a tireless worker in the breakdowns, an important attribute in my tight 5 players.

as for McCaw, here is an example of 3 time IRB player of the year McCaws abilities.
do u remember that dunedin test that so many saffas for some reason think they won (LMAO), look at thr numbers McCaw racked up compared to the Boks loose forward trio of francois louw, wilhelm alberts and duane slowpoke vermeulen,,,

dunedin All Blacks v Bok test,,,

meters made with ball in hand
McCaw
47mtrs
louw/alberts/vermeulen
28mtrs

linebreaks
McCaw
1
louw/alberts/vermeulen
0

tacklebreaks
McCaw
1
louw/alberts/vermeulen
0

tackles made/missed
McCaw
10
louw/alberts/vermeulen
17/2

why would u not want McCaw in ur team, can u name one other person ever to have wonn over 100 test matches???

long live the king, :o)

Saffex

Like you do in most cases - where one incident during one game makes the whole career of a player straightforward in your opinion - Owen Frank's performance last week against the Stormers led to my remark on him.  He was constantly under pressure and was lucky to escape a yelow card - leave alone a red card possibility as well.

In the Crusaders - Hurricanes game Owen outplayed his brother and that leaves a question mark about his brother as well.   His brother was not much better last week - even against the understrength Rebels and the rest of the games this year was not a house on fire either.

That leaves a question mark over your statement about the best tighthead in the game, but I do accept that he just average performances in games may not be in line with his normal performances.

DomMike, what the f are you talking about? Franks has been playing for years and my judgement of him is based on all those years. If he is not the best tighthead in the game, he is damn close to being. I think he is the best.

Your pathetic comment saying his selection in Sas's team is a joke, speaks volumes for your usual rugby ignorance......man you really do know stuff all

@mikey,

that was ben franks ur talking about, owen franks older brother.

easiest way to remember them is owen is the incumbent All Black, ben franks is a some time All Black bench player.

Sasue

Sorry - I mixed up the two Franks brothers.   So Owen was the one that got tolled over in Dunedin last year.   I do not in paritcular rte any of the two brothers as special and differ from you in their cases.   The one playing for the Hurricanes is bad - his brother slightly better.   However - you are obviously at liberty to recommend the elder brother.  

Please update the Sharks team.

@mikey,
nothing to apologise for, easy to get them mixed up if ur not a NZ fauthful. another way to easily tell them apart is ben franks always shaves his hair, while owen normally lets his hair grow, :o)

i rate owen alot, u only need to watch the crusaders rebels game to know just how much of a scrummaging powerhouse he is, alo-emile was absolutely destroyed by him.
my favourite owen franks moment though was the crusaders v sharks in twickenham. will be hard for a sharks fan such as urself to watch that game again, but it was the most dominant one sided scrummaging display ive ever seen as the crusaders led by owen franks destroyed the sharks scrum of smit, bismarck and jannie. and even when beast came on for smit, the fortunes stayed the same.
i remeber a saffa commentator saying later on that week that he has never in his life seen such a onesided onslaught against any saffa super rugby team.
as for getting tolled over, not too sure what u mean, cos the All blacks won all their scrums in dunedin, but the Boks didnt, lolz, :oP

i dont rate ben franks, but he can be useful although the last few gamesdefinately dont reflect that.

Yeah and the knowledgeable Mike does not rate Owen.........that in a nutshell sums Mike up - ignorant and clueless

I see no Argetinian Players there. Do they qualify? Sasue?

Well we cannot really veryfy current form so i will base their form on the 4 Nations of last year.

I would add Eusebio Guinazu instead of Stephen moore at Hooker.

I would add Juan Martin Fernadez Lobbe instead of Coetzee.

I won't play Nonu, He a bot long in the tooth. I'll pcik Santiago Fernandez in the Squad.

Jus a thought.

 Who would the team play? 

It would just be an embarrasment to the Lions, and finish them off as a fixture

Ha ha Sasue, what you up to bro?? SA has an abundance of top quality loosies and you cant find 1 place for us in the run on team?? Our only representation in Coetzee on the bench who is not even our best loosie??

No man. At 15, you have Israel Dagg? Dagg, I believed was the best 15 in the world up until about 2 months ago. I cant help but notice how many tackles he misses and how weak he is on defence. He gets bumped off at least twice a game. It has also been months since he showed any attacking nouse. He is fast becoming a liability actually. Charles Piutau of the Blues is a better option at the moment.

Digby Ioane is great with ball in hand but how many does he drop? Its madness to leave Habana out based on all round game. He is the most complete wing in the world but if you are going to leave Habana out, please let it be for the awesome Cory Jane. Not butter fingers Ioane.

At 12, I would probably consider Ryan Crotty very strongly. He is probably, along with JDV, one of the best 12's on show. Dont know if O' Connor is better than those 2. At 13, I think Conrad is a spent force. I would be keen to let Ranger and Fruean go 12 rounds to see who gets the spot.

McCaw probably makes the team just because of the leadership role and he does lead by example but lets get some of the Saffa boys in there to add a bit of "gees" so he is not completely bullied ;-)

 We need Mccaw in the team to lie on the ball and play the ball from an offside position in case our forwards get dominated by the Lions.

dom snapster you have no clue. Habana is still the worlds premier left wing. Like Jean you were writing him of some seasons ago and got it all wrong.  Meyer though didnt.

Sharkbok ou macaaaw is living it up these days - they are spinning it as a sabbatical - lieing on a rugby ball is not his game right now.

habana is class, but thats one eyed at its best if u dont realise the work that digby does and rate habana over him.
each to their own though, :o)

@boklogic,
how many balls does digby drop??? u tell me, but how many meters does digby make for the wallabies??? how many linebreaks and tackle breaks does he make???
in the last three years hes been in the top three for all those stats in the TriNats. hes was also in the top 5 for those stats in the spXV.

crottys not proven, quality super rugby player, dont think he will make the cut in international.

i prefer loosies of a more mobile nature, it also dosent diminsih the workload they do, just look at kerean read v vermeulen in dunedin when read smashed him on his ass and forced the knock on, vermeulen got up and seriously looked sad, not mad or frustrated, but sad.
mobile tough lossies is my preference, and the ability to link up with the backs, something that only deon fourie and marcel coetsee and also lappies seem to be able to do.

@sharkbok,
u need only look at the above stats which everyone seems to have conviently ignored to know McCaws real worth, i mean 3 Bok loosies get outwroekd by king richie??? o_O

i thank the Lord every day for blessing us with king richie, the greatest rugby player to ever grace the world and unify the nonNZ world with boohoos, :o)