South Africa
15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Aphiwe Dyantyi, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Faf de Klerk, 8 Francois Louw, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Franco Mostert, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Steven Kitshoff
Substitutes: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Tendai Mtawarira, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Sikhumbuzo Notshe, 21 Embrose Papier, 22 Elton Jantjies, 23 Damian Willemse
As expected....
Willemse and Jantjies. Interesting.
Looks like a lightweight pack to me, I guess they will make up for that with skilled ball handling
So lets look at the team as announced:-
* I am very worried about the defense of Kolbe - he is just not up to standard physically
* De Allende is the better player compared to Esterhuizen and he has done vastly better against SBW in the SR series this year
* Louw at 8 is to be replaced asap by a hardworking player with some pace. Would like to see Augustus of the WP coming into the position asap.
* Beast at 33 year of age is really showing his age in recent matches and I think a replacement will have to find for him as loosehead scrummager.
* I am not really surprised by Koch replacing Louw on the bench - the latter was not good enough in the Super Rugby series and tests he played in this year and one wonders whether he is not fit enough to compete
I hope that Willemse get some game time.
SB
You will see a lot of Nkosi soon.
The truth of the matter is that Damian has done nothing of note all year. Billy will be happy to run over him again. Damian is a Currie Cup wing masquerading as a centre.
I've watched that game again. Notshe did a little more than I credited him for. However, he really didn't provide what we needed. His work rate and physicality are not good enough for this level of the game. I hope for a good game from Louw. He needs one to quell the doubters. I know it isn't at 6, but the number on the back is less important than how they are used around the field. Fielding Louw and Kolisi does affect our lineout. We have been using Whiteley as a jumper alot. Usually Louw or Kolisi will be outside the lineout as a designated receiver. I wonder how Rassie will use them together, how might this affect New Zealand's killer maul?
I am afraid both Louw and Kolisi are not really up to standard as loosies.
I think at 33 Louw is declining on performance level and I hope that for the EOYT Erasmus looks beyond him for loosies, Louw is nowadays too pace-deficient to be used effectively around the field.
There is a line-out problem and Mostert will have to be ore effective than he was recently. I still believe he is physically too light to be an effective lock. The sooner De Jager gets back playing the better our lock combination would be.
The guy we have to watch out for from a physicality perspective is in fact Juarno Augustus of the WP. Read the following article about him and watch out for him sooner rather than later:-
"Unlike most rugby players, Juarno had a slow start to his rugby playing career. He only started playing rugby at the age of 12 but that did not stop the now 19 year old Juarno from being named the World Rugby Under 20 Championship Player of the Tournament. He had crossed the tryline in each of the team’s five championship matches and scored the most tries to finish the tournament with a grand total of seven tries.
Born in the Northern Cape (Alexander Bay) and raised mostly in the Western Cape, the No8 started playing for a local Eersterivier club called Whistling Wheels, and at junior level he made the Western Province Under 12 team. His highest achievement before being selected for the SA U20’s was playing in the Under-18 Coca-Cola Academy Week after which he was invited to play for the Western Province Rugby Institute. It is important to note that he was overlooked for a spot on the sought after under-18 Craven Week team last year, only to become one of the world’s most sought after players, both domestically and internationally. He is however currently contracted to the Western Province until the end of next year.
Not only is Juarno built like a truck, but he is also a naturally gifted athlete and tactical thinker. When in play, his opponents have difficulty stopping him due to his powerful physique and his ability to bust through their tackles.
His specialty strength is “taking the ball into contact”, which requires power and is mostly about running into your opponents and driving them back with the ball in hand. However, he is versatile in that he is also strong in stopping the opposition from scoring (defense). He says that he worked really hard at defense because people didn’t think that he was a good defender.
Juarno says that that he is very thankful for the support he had received from his team mates, coaches and the rugby supporting public. Most importantly, he was grateful for the “unwavering support” he had received from his family throughout his career. He says the moment that he will never forget and almost had in tears, was singing the national anthem for the first time in an international tournament.
I have no problem of having Louw on the field but I have a massive problem with Kwotalisi. Nachos did actually more than Kolisi and had a better reading of the game. Kwotalisi stats look good in terms of meters, but on both occasions he butchered two tries by not passing in the first run and then throwing poor pass to Marx.
Louw is good in the tight exchanges, but not sure if the game gets expansive whether he is the right guy. Where are our specialist 8's?
I know of a good one playing for Montpellier. Is Dan Du Perez done as a bok, if Nachos is the 3rd best after Vermeulen and Whiteley, why not pick him.
Louw nor Kolisi are 8's.
We are still thin in some key positions.
Then the backs subs are a joke. So you have 2 Flyhalves and a scrummy and none of them got a run last week.
Why not have a player like Nkosi that can have an impact or start with Nkosi and bring Cheslin on later.
Papier, promising player but he has proven nothing yet.
I think it is clear to see that Rassie is playing the quota numbers, which means that his merit players will have to carry the burden yet again. We'll be lucky if they can stay in one piece until the world cup.
Sounds like there's a few good prospects in the pipeline, Michael Botha from the Kings is another .
Kolisi pops up every so often and the commentators are quick to praise him for everything. I've never seen a Bok captain receive such lavish praise. Even when it's for something someone else did!
He has improved the past few games, but still isn't a key player. He isn't even a good captain. Eben is the natural leader of the team. He is best from broken play in space. He isn't very physical and has limited fetching skills. I'd have him as an impact to player from the bench.
KC
If you missed it - Augustus is an out-and-out 8. Watch his progress in future - likely to be on the WC plane .
He is a quota player in the making before everything else.
I was very disappointed with Marco. He did look much better in the second half against Los Pumas for what it's worth. Maybe just a bad game.
I do not expect anything much from Kolisi, Louw and Mostert and am worried about Kolbe being physically too small to contest with the big NZ wings.
The bench is likely to be problematic when it comes to backline replacements.
Mostert was our best defender in the Wellington test. It's very harsh to say you expect nothing from him.
Not physically strong enough in Tight 5 play
Good team, weak bench with Beast and Snyman not too bad.
I think Rassie does not want to create expectations at 8 which he reserves for Vermeulen.
Good point Blikkies. Rassie has always been a Vermeulen man, not that I fault him for it. Thor is still our best 8.
Moz, I think you meant he knew recalling Louw would be unpopular?
It would be SUPER if the Boks can pull this off, but I can't see it. We will need lots of luck to win this....A b rainfart by the reff or a NZ player. Red Card in the first half...not hoping for it, but I don't see the Boks beating NZ two in a row on equal footing. Better odds winning the LOTTO.
Our defence can be good, but at times fall apart. We bleed ground on turnovers and down the blindside. We had significant trouble when Los Puma got the offload game going. Maybe Hansen is looking to repeat that game, which means a lot more directness to lay the foundation. I definitely see that happening.
Mozart
With whom is Louw popular? I think his substandard performances in test matches this year have cost him a lot of support. He was not better under Coetzee. He is not an 8's backside - he always was a 7 even though picked at 6 by Meyer.
I do not think he can improve beyond what he was this year and by next year he will even be worse. You have never yet admitted that from the age of 30 player performances started to deteriorate and Louw is 33 already. Another year will mean he will be declining further than he has already done over the last three years,
Blikkies
There is a problem with Vermeuelen and that will be watched carefully by Erasmus. Vermeulen has played extremely well in the first two tests in June and then went backwards in the third test. He then went to Japan opting out of the RC tests.
He will reportedly back in the EOYT this year - but what will happen in those tests will be a sign of whether Vermeulen can in fact last through three tests without weakening in the third like happened in the June series.
There are 2 aspects which I believe is important, namely -
* Vermeulen is already 33 years of age and it is a fact that player performances started to decline once they have reached he age of 30 and as the years go by declining pace increases; and
* playing in Japan - where players only plays 1 game every 14 days has never been advantageous from a fitness perspective.
One will have to see whether the latter two aspects have an effect on his performances in the November tests.
It has also been reported that Vermeulen may play Super Rugby next year and if that happens it may be an indication whether he would in fact make it through the series and whether there are declining performances on his part.
Personally I doubt whether he will make it to the WC next year. So he may be a certainty this year or he may fail in the upcoming nine months - which will certainly be watched by Erasmus. Unlike Meyer he will not select players based on reputation - some selected players had virtually no rugby for up to 18 months before the start of the 2015 WC.
I think as per normal Mozart missed the plot totally here, If Louw was indeed a choice why did he send him packing and not called for his return after last weeks game?
He preferred Whiteley and when it became clear he was injured he still did not think that Louw was needed. However, after that situation and the Whiteley replacement did not meet requirements he had to call back a player that was involved in the camp of the Springboks previously. Any other player would be totally illogical.
I hope against odds Louw brings something positive to his farewell game to Springbok rugby.
Thanks, that's what I thought you meant. I wasn't trying to correct you. I agree that Louw is an unpopular but wise choice. I'm fine with trying new options, but not against NZ.
PS, glad to see you rating Rassie as a shrewd coach now.
I disagree that Duane went backwards in the third test. It was played in very poor conditions where a naturally scrappy game ensued. Both sides went to the boot, and there were some errors. Both sides struggled to really get going. To say that Duane "went backwards" and/or has "problems" is inaccurate.
@Mozart: The hero worship of Rassie has begun, and the groupies are already stepping over their own toes. At least I was honest about Meyer's selections and openly disagreed with his numerous mistakes. They will deny that Rassie ever did anything wrong. Just like the Twakkie apologists denied he did anything wrong, and blamed all of his problems on Jake. This time it's even worse: They are blaming any problems we have on a coach who hasn't overseen a Bok test in nearly three years. What was the word they used for this? Was it hate?
As it is, Louw has the potential to be a key figure. Clearly Rassie agrees. Now, this will be interesting. If we lose, and Louw has a poor game, will they blame Rassie or the player? During Meyer's time, they'd attack the coach but exonerate the player. I think we could see just how treacherous and dishonest the Rassie groupies are.
AO
I was flabbergasted by your latest posting. The topics raised by you are totally devoid of logic and based on what at best can be only twisted illogic.
So lets cover the issues raised by you:-
Vermeulen
It is clear that you tried to find an excuse for the worsening of the performance by Vermeulen in the third English test and then claim that the poor wet playing conditions was the reason for the down-turn in performance, This was a very poor effort at finding an excuse,
It is factual that wet playing conditions bring in forwards into the game more than backline players, Those conditions should have favoured Vermeulen and resulted in a better display by him than he did in the fast-moving two first tests, Fact is that his performance was worse in the third test than it was in the first two tests.
Vermeulen gave the real reasons for the decline in his performance as early as his MOM iteview after the second test.
The Meyer issue
You raised the Meyer selections issue and again you did not realize what happened between Meyers coaching start – it subsequent progress and the collapse in his final year as a coach.
Lets start and look at what happened with the selection situation between Meyer and Erasmus to get the full picture in perspective. When Meyer became coach he inherited from his predecessors players with very extensive test experience - when Erasmus tookl over he inherited test players as well, but the test experience of players was much less.
Meyer was constantly on the hunt for retired players he tried to lure back into te test squad, That was because in his own words he “knows what they are capable of”. The retired returnees turned out to be flops or at best average in performance. It may those selections which in the end was so poor that it led to disaster in his last year as coach.
However, let us know which players were involved in your criticism of Meyer’s selections. I have a very good idea which selections you criticized – but would like to get it straight from the horses mouth.
Erasmus
Who are part of the groupies referred to by you? I can only speak for site members – I have noticed two groups on site, namely -
* a group or better still gang of members who even before he was appointed started attacking him; and
* the realists who credit him for his efforts to start virtually from a very low bar as to test experience and acknowledged that he did well despite the serious quota system imposed by SARU.
Erasmus did well enough – his first match away against the AB's was won by his team. Meyer never once coached a team who achieved that, In the main I believe some optimism was the result of achievements by a rather inexperienced squad he assembled. However, in his case members were critical of some selections based on what they regard as inadequate players. So there are no groupies on site and fact is there are mostly objective members who after years of low expectations are feeling better about Springbok rugby.
Louw
I gave a a full explabation what happened in the case of Louw , which I am not going to repeat here, Please find it and read it. Maybe you will learn something about logic in dealing with issues.
Mozart
I am not sure what you mean the game plan of Meyer was - all I really was convinced is that it was basically ten man rugby with very little backline usage, Sure Habana scored tries, but I rather think it was individual brilliance rather than team efforts,
This was confirmed by Meyer's own remark that SA backline players do not have the ball skills to play a ball-in-hand game. So what was the backline shape - bearing his own remarks in mind?
Meyer had a problem - his game plan (if indeed there was one) - was based entirely on what the elderly and more experienced players in his team could do, because they were unable to learn and implement anything new. That was proved by the fact that that in 2015 - when the Lions was by far the best Super Rugby team in SA - Meyer would not include a single Lions player in his WC squad. He could not because the style of rugby he really used could not accommodate players with different skills and his senior players could not adjust their rugby abilities to anything new,
I see a huge difference between the game plan (?) of Meyer and the one of Erasmus. The latter plan allows for -
* playing of a 15 man game involving all aspects of the game - be it in attack or defense - hence the much higher number of tries scored by the Erasmus teams in comparison with the Meyer teams thus far; and
* the 15 man defensive effort with a huge number of tackles by both the forwards and the backs - there was in no game in 2012 even remotely near to the tackles made by the present 2018 team.
So really - if you cannot see the shape of the game Erasmus supports you must really be so prejudiced you refuse to see the real situation.
Can one off the regulars please kick off the ball-by-ball match threat.
