boklogic
I am sorry - but I disagree with you about De Jongh. I have been following De Jongh's performances for two years and I do not easily say a player is useless - like I did in this case. Like was the case of Francois Steyn I studied him carefully in the tests last year and in the games this year and I came to the conclusion after looking in detail what the player was up to. I believe I ultimately came to the right conclusion on that case and I am sure I am also correct in this case.
When I study a player in detail I not only look at my own visual perceptions - but also his stats, looking at both his defensive and attacking capacity and his physicality he can bring to a team. I also do not use one-off incidents that rarely gives a reliable perspective of a player ove a prolonged period.
You will have to admit that in the Steyn case I was diappointed by what Steyn produced - in the case of De Jongh I was horrified by what I saw in a player that has played internationally and develop a scrappy image. Mozart goes on and on about the try scored by De Jongh in the CC final - but that is a typical one-off incident and was totally unexpected since it was something completely different from what De Jongh produced throughout the last two years.
Let me start off by giving the only really positive point of De Jongh - he definitely tackle effctively for a player of his physique - he is not a strong tackler that would tackle an opponent back and he definitely will not cause the ball to die in a tackle situations or to be delayed in being recovered by the opposing players - he just is not physically strong enough for that. In essence he makes his tackles - but the tackles itself is not as effective as would be the tackles of a strong defender.
However, it is in attack that De Jongh is really a major problem. In essence there is one requirement that smaller players must have and that is guile to overcome their physical deficiencies. Over two years that element has been completely absent from De Jongh's performances. In some cases - like in the Twckenham test last year - he was absent from the game for 90% of the game - he always was found in positions where it was virtually impossible for the ball to go to in both his own teams case and that of the opposititon. This was particularly noticeable in the case of where the ball went to the Spingbok side after mauls and was passed by Lambie. the ball would go to De Villiers and from him to Kirchner - who normally died with it - whilst DeJongh was nowhere to be seen standing around on the other side of the field of play. Lets look at the stats of De Jongh and see whether my statement is in fact wrong:-
de Jongh
0/0
0
0/1/0
0
0
0
0
0
3/0
0/0
The above confirm that I am 100% correct - his contribution was in fact only noticeable extremely rarely and the Springboks might as well have played with 14 players if what he actually produced is taken into account. He did one cover kick - never handled the ball othrwise and made three tackles throughout the whole game - all other aspects showed a zero contribution.
What really is wrong in the case of the contribution De Jongh made in games insfoar as attacking play is concerned? The answer can be found in a number of regular features of his displays in games:-
* De Jongh is not really a good ball player - he tend to knock on balls at crucail stages in attacking play and he rarely pass balls to other players - resulting in attacks being blunted by him.
* As a result of his small built he is easily tackled by the opposing players - problem is that he is tackled back all the time and he is incapable of releasing balls quickly after being tackled. The fact that he is tackled back means that his team is put on the back foot and cannot carry the attack further - even if the ballis recovered through a maul situation. The problem is that the opposition find it relatively easy to affect turnovers in possession in such circumstances.
* De Jongh has an even more serious problem in tackle situations. Beause of being easily tackled backwards - he tends to hang onto balls and in the process give penalties away to the opposition. Fact is he gives away more penalties than the rest of the backline players of the Stormers combined - even in the CC final (which Mozart raves about all the time) De Jongh gave away two penalties that was converted by Lambie and one that was not converted. That is just too many for comfort.
In his initial performances for the Springboks, the Stormers and WP - he did some attractive things and that is where his favourable image came from. That image was never really destroyed because he did some flashy things occassionally - like scoring the CC final try - but in reality we are dealing here with a player that has produced very little of real use over a two year period because he was "found out" by the opposition and they know exactly what he would try to do and counter it efficiently and to the advantage of their team.
This guy really is bad news - he definitely is a worse performer than Steyn ever was.
