Schalk calls SA to move North

There is nothing biased. What I have put down is a fact. It's not an opinion. It comes from analysing game footage, not looking at poorly collected numbers. My idea of the game is to improve the quality of running lines. I want flatter attack and not this multi layered game where the attack has to depend on runners from so deep to create deception. The game is too uniform. Teams are playing more and more alike. That's boring to me. Kicking will always be important, and in some cases it's worse than before, as far as volume. The game has seen a dramatic increase of ball in forwards hands. That's a massive contradiction to the "give it to the backs" crowd. You don't understand the game you say you want and you definitely don't know how the game is actually played today. You call first receiver the fly half position. Saying the 10 is the only player who can receive ball from first receiver. That's so tactically inflexible and stunted. You refused to acknowledge how New Zealand pl ay. They use their forwards more than anyone to create numerical advantages. They have done that for too long for me to give you a number. They have forwards taking ball at first phase. Are they stupid too? Are they backward? The entire concept of building a play to suit a team's strength are well beyond you. You don't even get stuck on a theoretical principle with poor implementation, you don't even know the very basic nucleus of forming an atttack! But you are lecturing me on the game! What a joke. 

Yes Mike

You are missing a paragraph on sponsorship deals.

If our best teams are playing in Europe and doing well then players and teams will be exposed to a much more lucrative market and can expect to have a much larger chunk of income covered by sponsorship.

Sky sports also dwarfs MNET/DSTV. I'd love to see SKY outbid DSTV and possibly enter the SA market. DSTV is nothing short of a bloody rip off. Not sure how it works but it'd be great If that could happen.

Then there is quotas. Raising awareness in Europe of it might help to end it.

Same goes for the Boks in the Seven Nations.

Lurker

Why does it feel like anyone who shows any sign of logical thinking based in fact is by default Mike's enemy.

It's almost comical.

2009 ? If I remember correctly the Boks did just fine under those rules ,same for 2007.Your just sad and pissed cause your chaps havent won anything in a while although 3rd place in the RWC is still better than any NH team did.

What your advocating is a nice slow easy paced game so SA can use its traditional lumpen forwards backed by long range snipers kicking for goal and territory .Backs ? who needs those guys eh ?Which is what the new rules foisted upon us by the NH is trying to achieve where the ball is uncontested at the breakdown and set piece reigns over free flowing rugby .Think I would rather our style of rugby over endless pick and go and scrums thanks all the same.

I have to say Lurker, I don't agree with you regarding the game after ELV's. I think their inclusion has improved the game. We have just been slightly behind the curve since their implementation. I strongly suspect that if SA rugby had enjoyed more success since their implementation your view would be different. I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this from a fundamental point of view, so I am not going to try and convince you, but I do enjoy the higher pace of the game. And while some of the traditional aspects of rugby may have fallen by the wayside, I still think the game is largely still in tact.   

Super rugby was created to entertain, a fast paced game with plenty of tries would drag in crowds even those who didn't follow the game. A bonus point system was put in place to encourage the scoring of tries.  The logic continues that with more people going through the turnstiles more money would be made taking into account players salaries in the new professional era. Everyone knows that super rugby has no impact on test rugby....we say this every year prior to the start of the RC.

Unfortunately SAFFA rugby was ill equipped to adapt to this new era with it's Dinosaur kicking brand of rugby, Dinosaur coaches and Dinosaur administrators. Both Australia and NZ were way ahead in meeting the professional era in all departments and the results over the years bears testimony to that fact. Those two countries understood the gameplan…..score tries.

South Africa hung onto a kicking game for dear life and suffered incompetent coaches for much to long and of course suffer the penalty for doing so. To blame anyone other than themselves does nothing to repair the inherent problems within SAFFA rugby...….hey one can even blame NZ for killing the comp because their teams win all the time. I'll admit travel is a problem and I speak of experience having done the trip many times but to head north because of the inability to win is a cop out. Whatever the problems within SAFFA rugby will follow it north.

Denny, it's not that we have bad coaches. 

We have some very good coaches. The problem is that that, like Mike, most Saffa fans and administrators couldn't spot a good coach if he kicked them between the eyes. 

Look no further than Mike's views on Jake White for confirmation of this typically South African problem. Literally calling WC and Tri Nations winning coach useless. Where in your life would you ever find such ignorance? Seriously? It baffles to the point of having to rely on mental illness as an explanation. And all of this despite evidence in black and white...and gold!!!

Why are Mallet, White and Akkerman not coaching in SA? 

Lets assume the good coaches get their dues and we had something like the following...

Stormers - Mallet

Sharks - Akkerman

Bulls - Jake White

Lions - Cois

Boks - Rassie

Suddenly it's a totally different landscape. Right?

I'm certainly no fan of Meyer and his style but he might be able to do a job at the Cheetahs or Kings. 

Instead we have had Nobbis, Fleck, Coetzee, Gold and others who are obviously not a shadow of the guys mentioned above. 

How do these guys get jobs? And more, how do they keep their jobs? 

We should probably change the "Rand" to "Bullshit" because there so much of it in circulation in SA that we triple our GDP if we made it official 

Buddy, you've lost me on this one, maybe it's my fault. Let me be specific, I'm saying that the powers that be hung onto certain Super Rugby coaches for longer than they should have when it was clear that those teams had poor skills and a seriously flawed gameplan. Sure coaching is not a push button exercise but to regurgitate the same rubbish year after year with no hope insight is enough reason to get rid of the coach and the clowns who appointed him and hung onto him for too long.

My second point was about our gameplan...….when it was obvious that Super Rugby encouraged the scoring of tries our lot decided to kick the air out of the ball. They played the most basic of rugby because they lacked the skill set and a brain to play anything different. The coaches of those teams were culpable for their teams performances.

A good coach to me is one who can take a group of ordinary players and turn them  into a coordinated unit. A coordinated unit is identifiable by it's shape......the only SAFFA coach to have done that is Jake. A team without shape is a boat without a rudder.

Nah, we're on the same page Denny.

At least...i think we are haha  

I'm in full agreement that we don't pick the best coaches and that we hang on too failed coaches for too long. And then also that we seem to get rid of our best coaches. SA is an intellectual bla ck hole of note.

Naturally a shyte coach is not going to be able to adapt his game plan to keep up with the times OR strengthen his present game pan so as to fend off changes that others make to the way they play.

The Crusaders vs Sharks game past weekend kinda says it all.....so there, been through the whole competition and they're now at the business end of it,  how on earth can they get to a quarterfinal and still fail to do the most basic of basic and that is to hold onto the ball!? That's another thing, perhaps we delude ourselves into believing that we produce better talent than any other rugby nation so that when  ultimately we find someone like Jantjies who can pass the ball then we call him a "class act"

Hell, ever wonder why our blokes crashball instead of passing....it's because they don't know how to pass. Bakkies, Matfield and a plethora of our top players were all guilty of the same sin.

Denny

Meyer said at one stage SA does not have the players with ball skills to play comprehensive rugby.  there are two problems  with that BS statement -

*    first of all who picked the unskilled players for the Springbok team in the first instance; and

*    who did zero to overcome the problem in the second instance?

I have a problem with Matfield - other than line-outs where his low weight helped in jumping - he was a stand-in center 90% of the time and frustrated the whole backline as his passing game bordered on the non-existent, but he could tackle well - especially iro of the slower backline players,    

This might shock a few but I've actually been to games back in the day when the Bulls played the 'Tahs…….Matfield and his sidekick Bakkies parked themselves in the backline, other than that Matfield would stand at the back of the scrum barking instructions. I didn't notice it until a friend of mine who was on a visit over here pointed it out to me. 

Meyer I'm afraid was correct in saying that our players regardless of who was picked lacked ball skills.

The coaches don't know how to coach....fullstop.

Jaques Potgieter asked if he had learnt anything while playing for the 'Tahs…….yes I did, the players came up to me and told me I had to pass the ball in the tackle, not to crashball and die with it ….

Potgieter as we know had already been a Bok..

It's funny, because it's the kicking game that South Africa has been lagging in for nearly a decade. And that's where New Zealand has continually hurt us most. As far as attack, South Africa is trying to be too one dimensional, they are trying to imitate NZ without knowing what NZ actually do, but Saffers repeat the nonsense over and over again thoughtlessly. It's all about the backs (but fail to see how they are used),  ignore all the elements which make NZ distinctive. I remember that it was said that Lood was a step in the right direction to being like NZ, even though his is a lock with hands of stone. Steph was great but was too much like a wing. But NZ use their locks as potential ball carriers and distributors. Matfield was bashed by those who said they don't want dinosaur rugby, but he was the one player who gave the Boks an All Black like quality. There is some much contradiction in what most of you are demanding. Meyer got bashed for dinosaur rugby and kicking, but his team kicked less than NZ and he actually implemented patterns and plays very, very similar to what NZ where doing. There's so much ignorance among so called South Africa fans. Demand one thing, but hate it when you get it, then call for something but fail at all to see any of the components of what makes that game up. It's unbelievable.

Wardad, comprehension, comprehension, comprehension. This is not a question of how ZA has adapted to laws, but how the laws themselves have affected the game. ZA have had problems both sides of the ELVs. My point is that the ELVs have failed. It has not achieved what it claimed to be striving for. However, it was all about getting closer to league. There have been many discussions about this over the years. Getting rid of the breakdown was another point. How to make the game shallow and superficial. That's essentially the name of the game. Defences are inferior, the quality of attack is inferior. It's more passive and reactive, and contrary to the "ZA is the kickers of that world" crowd, its encourage more and more frantic and passive running. That's it. But a distain for basic fundamentals and building a platform for possession has seen our forward stocks deteriorate. We have actually adapted to the game, way too much for my liking. The types of players we are producing is radically different from what it used to be. How they are used is radically different. ZA is too enamoured with feely rugby. The same problem as before the ELVs. You really haven't dealt wit any of my key points. You aren't getting any of this. 

Incredible skill displayed in this thread, telling oneself tales reached a new level.

Lately, a SA player tried to break his contract out illegally. Reason: despite being payed lavishly by an upper club, he received a better offer from another club.

Guy could not even wait for the end of the season, he had to go immediately (instant gratification) he let his teammates down, he let his president down, he let his supporters down. This was against rugby values because rugby values reliability and faithfulness. It was another SA smearing the rugby game.

Story shows that even for top clubs, it is hard to cling to their players.

Clubs belonging to the same league does not mean they can retain players.

Despite the obvious, SA on this board try to sell the version telling their clubs will be able to keep to their players once in the NH.

The SA clubs will manage to do what NH top clubs do not manage to do. Speaking of hubris... Coming from a country where the purchasing power of supporters is something like one tenth of NH club supporters.

Not only SA clubs will lose their best players to the other NH clubs faster once in the NH, but they will also have to make room for players from elsewhere, from the other NH leagues or PI

Ended the times when players in SA clubs were SA, less room for them.

Best players lost to other clubs, fewer positions for SA players.

Digging their graves. SA people are also good at digging.

If an SA team can play most of the game in the opposition half, their is a chance of winning even if the game plan is so basic.

Wishful thinking. How many times have we seen that basic plan diffused? 

Sharkbok, you're one of the better rugby thinkers around these parts......so tell me, how hard would it be for the opposition to strategise against such a game plan?

Falou feeds off that sort of predictable rubbish....the Kiwis prepare their back three as bomb diffusers.

How many more times do we have to witness the Boks in the red zone being demoralized because they don't know how to score tries?

A good kicking game should only be part of a broader strategy.

Den, to add to what you are saying. We have been suffering lately because of a lack of ability to recover the ball. Our lack of a specialist fetcher has made it even more risky for our teams when wayward kicks land up in the hands of player like Folou and the other high level backs from Aus and NZ. It is one thing being able to defend the counter attack, but it is a completely different kettle of fish trying to recover the ball. Yes we have Marx and Vermeulen, but we still lack an out and out No.6 fetcher.  Also, kicking certainly has its place in the modern game...as indicated by the fact that the AB's and NZ franchises often kick more than our boys do, the difference is the decision making on which those kicks are based, and the accuracy of the kick execution.