The Wallabies - A brave coach

In watching the games yesterday  - there was one outstanding issue that was very pertinent.   The Wallabies over the past two years were not a leading team and they for instance lost badly in 2012 against the French and was very poor - especially in the third test - against the Lions.

McKenxie realized that the rather poor to average performances are not leading the Wallabies anywhere but down.   He then went for a new approach and made some what appears to be some weird selections - eg Toomua and Kuridrani as the center combination and also looked carefully at the forwards - changing the captaincy and leaving out Genia.

He apparently realized that some player have gone stale and that major change was necessary to bring about an advance in Aussie rugby.   Coming from the Reds he first off all tinkered around with Reds players and for the latest test he forgot his previous Reds mantle and started afresh.

The result was the most attractive and most efficient performance of the Aussies over the past two years.

The differences with Hansen and Meyer's approach was in evidence and produced very good results.   McKenxie loked at the performances over the Super Series thus far and realized that he could not continue to select players based on experience and reputation only and that made for a huge improcvment.

Hansen picked his team based on those two principles and brought in virtually no new players - he had really only Fekitoa as a new face in the line up.  With all due respect the team looked frail and their win against the English team without some key players absent as a result of the Aviva Final - was unconvincing and really not up to standard.  New Zealand really need to look at the experienced players and also forget about reputation - some players are really not what they used to be.

In the case of Meyer he went for the so-called reputation experienced players and brought in only one new player - moving Pietersen from wing to center.  For the rest he went for the over 30's in a big way and his preference for Bue Bulls and ex-Blue Bulls players were in evidence.  The Springboks played against a team comprising of mostly club players and with rare exceptions (like O'Connor and Ranger) players that would not make an international side for a major test-playing country in future.   Even though the Springboks won - it was more due to the lack of co-ordination in the so00called World 15 team and the outstanding individual performances by about half of the team members.

The Springbok scrumming was a scandalous disaster for a country that always prided themselves on their scrumming and tight 5 prowess.   The problem was obvious, namely -

*   at least one of the starting props (Du Plessis) and one of the bench props (Steenkamp) was in crude terms Piss-poor; and

*   the locks obviously did not provide support in the scrums.

The center combination showed nothing of real value and was non-descript to say the least - no penetration at all.   Neyer;s favourite flyhalf (Morne Steyn) was poor and it became clear why his club would not have him as their starting flyhalf.

That brings me to a conclusion that -

*   McKenzie was brave and enhanced his team performances by selections based on performance and not experience and reputation only;

*   Hansen stagnated and made minimal changes to the team that appeared to be stale with too much emphasis on experience and reputation and a certain degree of disregard for present performances; and

*   Meyer went backwards in selecting players only on experience and reputation with no regard to performances and n the process selected players that failed SA in 2010 ans 2011.  In respect of building up a team for the WC next year - 

*   Mckenzie made serious progress;

*   Hansen was stagnant; and

*   Meyer went backwards seriously.   

Shark is right....when the prop drops his bind or the tighthead is kinked inside, its his scrumming at fault. When you see heavy wheeling....which we did not on Saturday, you can look to the locks and flanks as well.

Let me put it plainly....Bakkies and Victor both had fine games. Their critics are latching onto the scrums because they are embarrassed in their prediction that our locks would fail. Dishonest sour grapes.

Who blamed the lock for a prop not binding properly?

The consensus in modern rugby is that you need young athletic locks with grunt......locks that weigh at least 115kg plus at test level......ie not Matfield......it does not take a brain scientist to work out that the Bok scrum struggled as a unit against a World side that has hardly played together........the Bok frontrow is the dominating Sharks frontrow.......I read elsewhere that the Brumbies dominated the Sharks scrum - what utter rubbish.

The issue with the Bok scrum is the lack of grunt provided by Matfield........in his youth he bulked up to a respectable 113kg, was very athletic and the Bok scrum benefited from the Bakkies/Matfield combo......gone is the bulk and youth and with it comes a liability in the engine room.

To say Matfield and Bakkies had good games on Sat is laughable.......Matfield was awol for much of the game and Bakkies scored a simple try.......hardly the measure of a lock.

Fact is these old farts are past it and youngsters like Etzebeth, PSDT, Lood, Lewies, du Plessis and Willemse add twice the value.....there is no way in hell these old timers could live with the youngsters in every aspect of play.......the law of nature dictates as much.

You have to be one ignorant rugby follower if you think these old farts are the answer.........but confirmation will be provided over the next few months.

If Meyer retains his current side, the Boks will lose more tests than they will win this year. Oz and NZ will beat them home and away and I cant for the life of me see them getting past Wales if Wales are at full strength.......they will however struggle past Scotland