Coach57,555 posts
23 Jul 2013, 10:37
#1
23 Jul 2013, 10:37#1
I am going to make some more people disliking me - but want to state that I love to see comments on this Board and see how they interpret the situation. They are important to me aand I am going to state that where I offend people - I hope they will not take it that seriously.
Saffex
He remains one of the best members on the site mainly because he never sees anything of value in players older than 25 - except some of his favourites - and can see value in youngsters on Under 23 level-whom he then punted as the players to replace older ones forthwith. He is absolutely addicted to size and weight to the extent that it becomes ridiculous. A player of a certain size becomes good irrespective of how he performs. If the size argument is not being borne up by facts - he would add kilos to the weight of players and subtract It from other players and then said he believes in what he sees of players. So a player weighing 118 kilos is suddenly not that weight - but 108 kgs - and a player of 103 kgs suddenly turns to weigh 109 kgs in his book.
He has one deficiency and that is if he identifies a player - that player is put on a pedestal and the poor site member who dares to say anything about that player making mistakes in games is damned as an idiot who does not know anything about rugby.
However, his foremost attribute is no doubt his ability to identify potential younger players - a really valuable contributor to the Board. The negative part of his contributions are that he constantly refused to see anything positive in players he dislikes and downplay their role in games - because it frustrate his own forecast as to team selection. The pedestal players are not removed by their performances - they can only be displaced by other youngsters who come through.
His main dislikes are Jean de Villiers, Morne Steyn, Francois Louw, Wayne Kirchner, Bjorn Basson and Kruger at lock. His main likes are Jaco Taute, JJ Engelbrecht, Jan Serfontein, Francois Hougaard, Arno Botha, Kolisi, Etzebeth and Du Toit. Somewhere in between is Habana (whom he wrote off a year ago), and the remainder of the players in the Springbok team.
Mozart
I love reading Mozart's comments and am always amused by his obvious dislike of certain players. When he sees an incident and then he based his player career on those incident and then try and discover incidents on which he can based his arguments. The incidents he uses can be quite comical like faces and gestures - but also grossly unfair like basing his arguments on illegalities.
On the other hand he can discover things that never happened and then make comments on those. His best efforts are often enough based on ESPN stats - but there he will ignore stats or use them only partially when it does not suit him or find fault with the stats he uses in other cases.
The best one is where he absolutely refuse to see the performances of a player he dislikes during games and then come up with assessments that is totally contrary to facts.
The main players he constantly punt are Juan de Jongh, Morne Steyn, Willem Alberts, Etzebeth ( after being highly critical of him and seeing nothing in him a year ago) Kruger at lock, Francois Louw, Steenkamp at prop and Strauss - with Bismarck Du Plessis also a favourite. The mere fact that they were Springboks in the past is good enough for them being Springboks forever. In their cases stats means nothing at all and if stats go strongly and continuously against what he sees - he is vey inventive as to why stats are not applicable at all.
His pet hates are also many - he dislikes intensely players like Kirchner, Engelbrecht, Spies, Labuschagne.
Beeno
He loves to invent reasons to irk members from New Zealand active on the site. He has some real provincial and franchise preferences - players of the Stormers and WP are normally above criticism. Most of the players he praise constantly are from WP and the Stormers.
Problem is Beeno has major inconsistencies in what he says. At times he is practical and straightforward - at other times he is ridiculous and really a source of great mirth.
Myself
I may have the same problem insofar as some players are concerned - but try not to use single incidents as a basis for assessment of players. When looking at stats I normally look at stats over a period of games or series to try and determine a trend - since stats on one game can be misleading. When players constantly shows the same tendencies over a series and during the course of a year is when I get worried about those tendencies.
There are two players in the Springbok squad that I constantly criticize and a number of others I have reservations about. The two I criticize and I think there are ample reasons for those and try to prove it is De Jongh and Alberts. Those that I have reservations about are Engelbrecht and Morne Steyn, There are other players I dislike and still others I feel positive about.
However, for debate purposes I over-emphasize things often enough. There is no doubt that Alberts is not the most mobile loosie in the game - but is he as slow as a slow prop? Not very likely. De Jongh is a reasonable defender - but I emphasize his defence deficiencies perhaps? Engelbrecht has defence problems - Saffex would kill me for saying so - but I do not believe he is weaker in defence than De Jongh is. On the other hand he is definitely a better attacker than De Jongh. Here Mozart would have a fit.
Morne Steyn is a Board favourite - and I do make fun of that. Deep inside I have some reservations about Morne. He is very near to a one-dimensional player with very slight deviations in play and is easily read by opponents. When under pressure things go bad and he produces (like last year) very poor performances.
The other posters mainly put provincial and franchise support before anything else and beware anybody writing anything to the detriment of their perceived player preferences. In the case of New Zealand supporters on the Board - just dare to say anything to the detriment of any New Zealand players (or referees for that matter) and everybody is up in arms and attacks follow automatically. Sasue absolutely adore players like Retallick and Nonu - but all the All Black players can never be faulted and McCaw is a heavenly being insofar as he and others are concerned.
All the above make the Board a very interesting place - but it would be dull if all of use sings he same song according to the same tune. So I apologize if I a offended anyone and will try not to make personal attacks on posters.
