This is again the type of BS that raised its head in the past, Age has nothing to do with ultimate success in any series - players must be judged on performance not age.
Much is being made of the 2015 WC and the 2019 one. so lets look at the issue of performance insofar as the two squads were concerned, In the 2015 squad the fact was that the squad ended up with 8 unplayable players who played in total less than 100 minutes of actual rugby in the series of 6 matches played - I leave out the bronze play-off which really had no relevance at all,
So what happened as a result? Especially after the disaster of the 2015 Rugby Championship series - in which the Springboks lost all matches played there were serious reservations about team selection for the WC, The fact is that Meyer said at the time that he knew what the selected players were capable of - but he failed to say when they were capable of what he credited them with, Some of the players selected played virtually no rugby in the preceding 18 months and some came off serious injuries that kept them out of the game,
After the Japan disaster in the first game of the 2015 WC Meyer panicked with the result that he started to pick the same players in all the remaining games, By the time the team played in the semi the players had zero rest games at all after the Japan game, The players were dead on their feet in that game and the end result was that the team malfunctioned in the crucial semi against the All Blacks.
On the other hand the 2015 team ended up with some real problems, In the series take the center combination as an example, The two players that played in all games after the Japan idiocy had three tests together as a partnership prior to the WC series, Other players had no played for the Springboks at all prior to the WC,
So from a performance perspective the team selection for 2015 was a disaster, Much was said about the age of players at the time they played in the WC and very little was said about the fact that the players were selected on the basis of reputation - rather than on the basis of performance. It inevitable let to a disastrous series to be expected, From an age perspective 13 of the players were over the age of 13 and of those 13 six players were in the unplayable category,
Om the other hand the situation was that in 2019 the section was based entirely on performance, with the possible exception of one player - Brits whom Erasmus used for inspirational purposes in the squad as a whole. There was also a realization that the team would have the real dirt trackers who would start in games against the minor games against the minions.in the pool games of whom some would not even in the teams in the play-offs, In the tests in the RC tests the Springboks developed the famous "bomb squad" - the key group of replacement players that would come of the bench in games. Basically the team remained the same in key games, There was only one significant change of the basic set-up - an that was that Mostert was moved from starting after the AB game to the "bomb squad".
Mozart has made a lot about two players in what he wrote above and those were Louw and Vermeulen. Louw was never the starting player in the WC series - he was always in the "bomb squad" in important games, As such Louw was important in the squad - but not comparable to to the real frontline players who were the key to the success of the WC as a whole.
Most players other than Am had only two games in the pool games and two rest games. By the time the play-offs took place he key team selection was in place and consistently used. Erasmus also developed a newish concept of using 6 forwards and 2 backline players on the bench - which allowed for the key players to be replaced relatively early. In the final two of the key players ere injured rather early and that let to Marx and Mostert coming on rather early in the game. The two props - highly successful in the first half - were also replaced rather early in the second half.
On the whole the situation was that the 2015 squad selection was more based on reputation rather than on performance, while the 2019 squad was based on performance rather than anything else. That basically resulted in the 2015 series being regarded as extremely problematic - while the 2019 squad produced the best performance of any SA team in the WC finals compared to the 1995 and 2007 finals. In the 1995 game the Springboks won by 3 points and in 2007 by 9 points - in neither of the two finals there were any tries scored by either of the teams involved. The 2019 Springboks won by 20 points and scored 2 tries - while not allowing the opposition to score any.
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