The Bok Defensive System

 Is John Mcfarland (ex Bulls defence coach) being phased out of the boks setup? 

I see that the Bok task force now includes Jaques Nienaber, but not sure if he is on the coaching team as well.

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The boks defence at times was very poor last year, but got stronger on the end of the year tour where it looked more like the Stormers defense system.

England nevered looked like scoring a try, even when their forwards took complete control in the 2nd half.

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John Mcfarland appears to be a Bulls Quota selection as was the other character that is the backline coach. (ex bulls under21 backline coach).

The Bulls defence has not been good for the last few years, even when they were at their peak.

Johan Sadie took the blame for this last year, but he seemed fine in the Stormers setup on defence.

The Boks defence against the All Blacks was a Shambles.

In the first 3 tests against England it was also very poor, with England breaking the line all to easily. The games were much closer than what they should have been.

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As for the boks backline attack last year, apart for when Goosen was on the pitch - it was a shambles for the rest of the time.

It was pure oppertunism from the likes of Habana and JP, along with the usual crash ball tactics from the midfield.

Morne Steyn was at his worst, and Lambie was transformed into a clone of "the good old days of Morne Steyn".

Sharkbok

As per  normal your comments are spot on.   The backline coach - Loubscher - is clueless about proper backline play and I think Meyer's tendency to have kick and charge and crashballing tied in with what you wrote.   It seems to me that Goosen in th Australia test was not properly instructed on what was expected from him - or he basically didnot follow instructions - hence his nervousness (as Mozart put it) in the Soweto test.   Lambie was obviously told what to do as well - and as you said became a Morne Steyn Clone.  However, when he was told to play his natural game against the English - he tried to do just that, but De Jongh went AWOL and the effectiveness of the backline was largely eliminated as a result.

I was delighted when SARU started off with a programme to appoint experts to advise the franchise coaches about enhanceement of play - and then to my dismay found that they did not appoint backline experts - but plenty of others - inclusive of Nienaber.   It was in backline play that most things went awry in 2012 - but nothing is apparently done about it - other thn th standard Bulls tactics under Meyer - when he coached them.

I am really getting despondent about the issue.   However - there is a slight opening for improvement as a result of the appointment of Carlos Spencer by the Sharks.    He may yet knock some snece into Francois Steyn - to my mind one of my worst disappointments in 2012 - and he has a number of other players in Lambie, Jordaan and Pietersen -- who are already Springboks or in the case of Jordaan a strong candidate for Springbok selection    I am afraid though that Meyer will ignore the qualities of Jordaan and persist with the donkey backline players he seems to favour because of their sizes.

Can things improve?  I think it can - but it will require a change in mindset on the part of Meyer and his Sary bosses.    There are vey competent younger players around that can help out if the older ones have become trapped in the present style of play and cannot change - but will they ever be used or are we going to keep the kicking and crashballing idiocy?

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