There are various site members with a varying degree of disappointments suffered this year according to their postings on site an I will try and deal with same according to different codes of sport and also Beeno's Trumpet.
Cricket
I do not think there was any member on site that did not criticize SA Cricket for the farce they turned cricket to - but here were obvious differences in what board members think about what caused the problems and why things went askew, The general feeling was that the cause of the problem remains the Board - that being the reason for the departure of Standard Bank as their main sponsor.
Based on the media storm the Board exonerated themselves from any responsibility for the mess and the CEO was effectively fired and total blame for the debacle at the door of that individual, As a sob to ease public criticism the Board then appointed a new CEO in a temporary basis, a new Acting Director of Cricket (Graeme Smith) and a new Head Coach (Mark Boucher),
Will it work out and the situation improve in 2020? The answer is an emphatic NO. Boucher refers to the change Erasmus brought to rugby, and hope for similar improvement iro cricket, It just will not happen, The incompetent SARU Board gave Erasmus a large degree of freedom to decide on issues and it worked - the SAC Board gave nothing of the kind to Smith and Boucher. They will not have a similar level of decision-making - for instance the selection committee - of which they are not members - select the squad and then expected from Smith and Boucher to make something positive out of the squad. That to start with is putting the cart before the horses.
The other talking point was normal on site - what is to be done to correct the situation is not the issue - what is the constant vilification of some players and the pining about the experienced players who left the scene. De Villiers left because of an open secret - he would not take kindly to the actions of SAC and to get him back to play test cricket will be very difficult. When he made an offer to come back to play in the WC - some members were opposed to the idea but most would have liked to see him in the squad. The other player under discussion was Amla. Some members saw deficiencies in his performance over the last 18 months or so - during which period his ranking as a player slipped form the top 3 to below the no 10 ranking. Amla decided to call it a day - but that did not stop some pining for his return by at least one member,
Beeno's Trumpet
This became an unholy mess on site to say the least. There were basically two issues discussed - namely religion and politics with at times a mix of the two issues, I think that the religious issue should not be dealt with on site - it is wrong for people to use a divisive issue on the basis it is dealt with on site, Personally I believe that religion is what is within individual people and how they consequently react to it in the social environment we live in. I hope that in future discussions on this nature relates to religion is in fact discouraged and limited to issues when it affects for instance Rugby - like happened in the Folau case.
Insofar as politics are concerned - there are in fact extremes in viewpoints on site, There are -
* the SA scenario;
* the issue of globalism as against a more nationalist point of view; and
* the USA scenario centering on President Trump
Insofar as the SA issue is concerned there is not a single member who defends the insane Government scenario - from electricity blackouts to the disastrous economic performance. Massive incompetence and looting under Zuma was not discontinued under Ramaphosa - it still is clear as daylight. There are some extreme views on that score and some more practical ones. When it comes to sport there is some agreement on the issue of quotas in sport - but then the interpretation as to quota selections are the real issue - some identify players as quota selections irrespective of how they perform and that to my mind is illogical - performance should be the norm and should not be based on race.
Then we have the globalist issue. There are basically a trend to deal with the issue on the economic part of the problem and ignore the real problems. There is the fact that people in favour of the EU are what is becoming clear in many countries. The globalist issue is multi-faceted - but basically ignore the situation affecting the ordinary workers and people in countries. In the end there are the fears of some members that the end result would be a globalist socialist dictatorship emerging from for instance the EU and UN scenario - while other seems to fear the rise of nationalism in countries, Both are seriously problematic nut since the media seems in general advocating the socialist approach there are efforts to brainwash people to believe an ideal that seems to be unachievable.
Then there is the Trump issue. Fact is a lot of members dislike Trump - but recognize his achievements as President, while others hate him and try constantly to belittle him basing their arguments on leftist media attacks, There seems to be no middle ground in discussions. Trump is accused of things nobody can prove - all based on what is in the USA media, What is clear that the corruption under the presidents since 1992 is not dealt with logically - all that is done is to go for discrediting of Trump. There is no real solution to this issue.
Rugby
So at last we get to the major discussion topic on site, Here there were two issues discussed - namely the issue of coaching and then team selection and performances. However, the main topics were the winning by SA of the RC and WC by SA, It was obviously a disappointment for our NZ members - but they were gracious on the part of their congratulations. The same cannot be said of some of the part of SA members - they barely congratulated the Springboks and then went on the attack based on their own conception as to what happened, ,
The Erasmus Issue
From the date of his appointment some members went on the offensive against him and started off criticizing him for what they perceived as him letting the teams he coached down and then the idea that he is not a good enough coach anyway. The attacks started off with the actual position to which Erasmus was appointed - namely as the Director of Rugby and not the Head Coach,
At the end of 2018 the attacks on Erasmus went into overdrive by some members, The said members claimed he had no real game plan and his team selection was defective, As the year went on the stance continued and even worsened. The winning of the RC brought along a flood of disinformation trying to prove that the team losing all RC matches in 2015 with a negative point count of 23 performed better than the 2019 team that lost no matches in 2019 with a positive point difference of 51, Erasmus was considered by at least three members as incompetent compared to Meyer.
That was followed by the WC and some continued attacks on the game plan of the Springboks. Wild and unsubstantiated nonsense became the norm. After the semi against Wales Erasmus was criticized endlessly by one member and after the final the sane member made wild claims about why the game plan differed from what it was against Wales and a "media storm" was invented as a reason for the change,
However, after the WC the next form of attack on Erasmus took on a new angle. Now according to one member he did not deserve his selection as World Coach of 2019 - but the angle now reverted to his appointment as Director of Rugby and the filling of the vacant Head Coach position, The issue became more twisted into the last month, There was an outcry against Erasmus not being the Head Coach and consequently Erasmus tried to calm fears on the issue by stating that he would snot quit the scene completely - so the next attack was that he is going to be the "puppet master".
As to the appointment to the Head Coach position - the same members who criticized Erasmus in the past went on the rampage, The fact that Erasmus will identify the person to be appointed as the coach was rubbished and when Nienaber was mentioned he was given the sole credit for the WC win and Erasmus role was totally ignored. The real attacks on Erasmus remained clearly evident from the negating of that award and said Erasmus should not have been rewarded in that way,
Team Selection
It is to be expected that there would be differences as to who should be in the WC squad - bi there were specifically vicious attacks on Du Toit, De Allende and De Jager, There have been no changes in the approach of at least three of our members - who claimed the three mentioned players should not have been in the squad. During the matches played the three was always under attack even for imagined shortcomings.
The fact that Du Toit was selected by 8 ex-test players was the basis for another campaign against Du Toit, who according to them was worthless and based on hype.
The fact that De Allende played a key role in the Springbok backline during the WC campaign was another disappointment for at least three site members.
So where are we now - we can now accept that amongst a small number of members we have the three main Erasmus haters and the same three make up the Du Toit, De Allende and De Jager haters o n site. That has been ongoing for years.
The great rugby disappointments for 2019 are the three members who are continuing on Erasmus and the three players mentioned above,
