The Meyer Game Plan

No, I haven't seen effective off-loading, but then again I have also mentioned that there is a lack of off-loading skills all over the South African show, didn't I? And that was exactly my point. The lack of certain skills by our "top players"  when they arrive at the Bok camp. One of them being the off-loading skills that the AB's have,

IMO, there should not even be a kicking coach. The players who are the "known kickers" should be in the team because they can kick, and if they go off the boil, they should go back to the basics and work on it. As I have said, I do not believe that HM was perfect in everything, but at one stage, he and JDV said that they discussed Morne's kicking in during half time and they decided that he should keep on taking the kicks. What kind of captain is JDV? why did he not make an on-field decision to cahnge the kickers? Many other captains would have done that and lived with their decisions. Jphn Smit and Victor Matfield would have. Naas Botha even relieved himself of the licking duties in a game and handed the ball to Johan Heunis.

The butchered tries because of poor passing between JDV and Habana, and a few others............ was that due to HM's poor coaching? For Goodness sakes both of them have been playing at the top level for longer than five years.

What rot Vlug....now it's JdVs captaincy because he never overturned the coach's kicking preference. Do you seriously think in modern rugby if Meyer wanted to make that decision during the half he had no way of communicating it? You should rather be thanking JdV for Habana's try in that game that he created with a piece of brilliant handling....or thanking him for his brave captaincy against Ireland.

We have all this Meyer bashing by posters with no alternative ideas, and you substitute Jean bashing as an offset. What utter rot. These Boards really flag up(no pun intended) some silly stuff.

 The Sharks game plan is better than the Boks game plan. It is more expansive, as is the Cheetas game plan

The Sharks are also the best team at offloading in the tackle than any other team in South Africa at present.

The Stormers have the best defensive game plan.

Although I do agree in general that our inside backs skill levels are not up to scratch in general.

To many crash ball specialist and not enough creators.

Nonu and Sunny Bill Williams, along with Carter on their inside offers much more variation to the game plan that is possibale. So is is a 50/50 situation.

Our inside backs lack the skills of New Zealand and often Australia.

The passing by some of the backline players of the All Blacks in the Soweto test was sublime.

Some of the passes were probably longer than most of our players could throw a ball.

The skills of our inside backs is not great. Meyer has made an interesting observation- that many tries are scored from offloads, not just turnovers.

Offloads usually break the defence from structured phase play, other than the typical counter attacks from broken play.

This seems to be true. Bobby Skinstad was the best offloader in the tackle, but some of the current crop of players can still do this. Lambie can do this, Goosen is very good at this. Frans Steyn is actually very good at doing this when he is not hogging  the ball. Cotzee is good at offloading in the tackle in the loose forwards. Habana also has a good offload in the tackle. 

So we do have skills shortgages, especially within the inside backs who sometimes resemble looseforwards trying to crash over the gain line more than backs. However I would still question the game plan when we can create anything- like having a blind side wing run onto the ball, or the fullback cutting the backline, etc

Ceradyne

There are two comments made by you -

  *    that off-loading is an art practised by schoolboys - by implication they an do it, but most of the present players gave completely forgotten how to do it;

  *    that the Springboks arrived at the training campp totally unprepared to ball handling skills.

The first point I support based on what i saw in the Under 20WC - some of the players were still in chool and ohers barely out of it  - yet they knew perfectly well how to off-load.   The two best examples was Jordaan and Du Toit.   Probably the best one was the off-load of Jordaan that led to the bonus point try getting us into the semis.   Based on the Super 15 games and the CC Fames - Jordaan still retains his capacity in that regard.

Yes - the ball handling skills are often enough sub-standard and they need special attention by the Springfboks backline coach - not the ninny at present used as backline coach.

There is one missing element in both our arguments on the issue and that iis the support play of other players in the bacjline in particular and the issue of clever play in general.   The more intelligent players are proficient in ball handling and off-loading,         

Yes - the ball handling skills are often enough sub-standard and they need special attention by the Springfboks backline coach - not the ninny at present used as backline coach.

So, we agree about it, The one thing that we seem to disagree about is the role of the present back-line coach in all this. I do not agree that he has to be saddled with it. OK, yes, he is the one to fix it if it is not up to scratch, but the point is that they should be up to scratch and it should not be necessary for him to have to waste important time with it. He has a fraction if the time with these guys, compared to the franchises.  In addition, we are talking about flippin international standard players. I think the fact about the sub-standard skills should be a slap in the faces of the different coaches at provincial rugby. WTF are the guys at the franchises doing then?

Silence

To me we have seen very good attacking rugby from the Lions, Cheetahs, Sharks and WP in the Currie Cup. We saw great attacking play at the loftus test against Oz.

I have been saying like you windpomp that Meyer has been badly hamstrung by injuries and departures etc and quite possibly this accounts for much of the shortfalls we are seeing. However he has blundered in not getting in a top backline coach - that is qualified by a question mark regarding an enforced quota requirement - how in the world does an inexperienced vodacom backline coach leapfrog the best backline coaches available in the world.

It is a muddied picture and hence the debate. Meyer knows the value of offloads and so should the franchise coaches where it appears it is being done to some extent.

I give Meyer the benefit of the doubt and look to 2013 for tangible improvement and 2014 where we should be hitting our straps. Of course patience in not part of a typical Bok fans makeup. How anyone can expect great performances with the departure of those 17 players mentioned baffles me. Yet dispite all this had Morne kicked as well as he normally does we would have won the Rugby Championship. The Boks had two great games - at Dunedin and Loftus.

Do you know for a fact that no other back-line coaches were approached? We do know that the first one that he did approach was Allister Coetzee, who turned him down. How do we know that there were not others as well? Who are the backline coaches who are available? No-tries Fleckie?

Ceradyne

Why only look at SA coaches for the purpose of backline development? Why not find one from New Zealand preferably and even Australia.   Their backline coaches are miles ahead of SA - with the potential exception of the Sharks and the Cheetahs.    Coetzee would also have been a bad backline coach - maybe better than Louscher - but still bad..

That is quite a noble idea, but you seem to forget that Meyer was appointed on 27 January, when all the Franchises have already had their coaching staff in place, those in NZ and Aus as well. The NH rugby was in mid-season, and things had to get going. How and when was there going Meyer supposed to have started searching for assistants abroad. That does not even begin to address that outcyr by the supporters, and the comrades in govt for that matter, against Meyer ignoring local coaches, if he did just that. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I have actually come accross a note that I made on Outlook. It reads:

"27 Januarie 2012. Almal juig. Heyneke Meyer is uiteindelik amptelik aangestel as die nuwe Springbokafrigter. Ek wonder hoe lank dit gaan vat voor hy die kakste afrigter is wat nog ooit aangestel is........"

clevermike

Status: Rugby Legend
Posts: 2163 RE: The Meyer Game Plan
November 12, 2012, 18:08:57

Ceradyne

In the first place - I did check on the replacement issue and found you were correct about it.  Thanks for the info and many apologies. 

Hahahaha ou Maaikie, looks like you have been caught out again. Hehehehahahaha. As if it was not enough that I caught you out on the accuracy on these novels that you keep on writing, another fella rocks up and exposes you as well.