Bench selection of Willemse
In the first instance I must apologize to all members for a mistake made by me on the issue of the games in which Willemse came from the bench, I did look at only two tests in which Willemse came from the bench - namely the away test against Argentina and the AB test. I should have looked at all three test matches he actually was on the bench. Since I did not look at the home test against Argentina I made a mistake which led to wrong discussion in my part.
So here is the corrected version:-
First Argentine test - cane from the bench at minute 63 = 17 minutes
Second Argentine test - came from the bench at minute 63 = 17 minutes
AB test - came from the bench at minute 66 = 14 minuites
So in essence Willemse played a role in 3 tests playing for 48 minutes in total.
Comments on Performance
There were a number of accusations made by Mozart, AO and Pakie
in order to make the matter clear and avoid any mistakes creeping in I am going to quote the basis for attack by the three members involved and deal with the merit of the accusations afterwards:-
Mozart
His comments started with the following:-
"3 Richies's penalty landed in field and luckily bounced into touch.....and if our fullback was in position the game should have ended right there."
"Here's the thing.....Willie was gone because of a head injury assessment. So we send on a rookie flyhalf, who apparently thinks his mission is to attack at all costs."
He then went on to start a new thread on the issue and made an all-out attack on Willemse for being out of position to handle the penalty kick when it was made by Mo'anga.
OA
"He had the jitters against Argentina, so nothing there. We already knew he can step, so his step against the All Blacks taught us nothing new. Is he a viable test flyhalf backup? We still don't know. Is he a viable fullback backup? We still don't know. We haven't seen him tested under the high ball. We haven't seen his feel for positional play. We know nothing."
Her went on making the same "jitters" statement a number of times based entirely on two cases a wild pass made by Wilemse in the first Argentine test and a kick directly into touch in the first game.
Pakie
He went further on the "wild pass" the "jitters" issues by posting a video clip on the resultant try.
Merit of the Attacks by the Three Members
There is no argument the incidents did happen - but what was the background of the incidents and was the atatcks on Willemse really justified.
The Mozart attack
What really did happen is that Willemse was coached to play the same way as Le Roux would play when the Springboks were attacking. When that happens Le Roux is always near the attacking line and not further back. Willemse was in exactly the same situation where Le Roux would have been under similar circumstances.
Roundabout minute 76 of the test on Saturday - the Springboks was on the attack in the AB's 22 and Willemse was in a position to join the backline attack. However, what then happened became a problem - it would have been so for any full back under such circumstances.
Instead of passing the ball to the backline - the pass was made to Mostert (I may be wrong here - it may have been another forward). Mostert (?) ended up hanging onto the ball and got penalized. Mo'anga saw all the backline players was part of the attacking line-up and kicked the ball downfield not really aiming for touch- but the ball ended up in touch through bouncing of the ball.
Was the attack on Willemse by Mozart justified? One can really question the issue as raised by Mozart as reason for an attack on Willemse. In the circumstances I think that what happened is in fact part and parcel of the standard full back usage by Erasmus and in the main the system works well for the Springboks in most cases.
If Le Roux was on the field of play at that stage - he was likely to be in the same area where Willemse was based on the game plan of Erasmus as to full back usage in attacking play.
Nobody in the team foresaw the penalty giveaway that happened and nobody would have been covering for a long kick downfield - so the attack on Willemse on the basis used by Mozart seems to be unjustified and to a large extent based on really questionable grounds.
The OA and Pakie "Jitters" attacks
The "jitters" attack is based on two incidents, namely -
* a wild and inaccurate pass made by Willemse to Van Staden; and
* a kick diretly into touch by Wilemse.
Was it a "wild" pass made or was it a "skip" pass attempt that went awry? Fact is looking at what happened in fact - it is clear that it was in fact an attempted skip pass - the pass was never aimed at Van Staden at all.
Skip passes are standard play by most players and is a normal attacking norm used by teams - but there is always a danger of intercepts when skip passes are made - but skip passes does not represent "jitters" - rather the opposite.
Then there was a kick directly into touch. The only such kick I can remember was when Willemse received the ball deep in the Springboks 22 and he made a relieving kick directly into touch. I think it was a mistake - but I believe that there was uncertainty on the part of Willemse as to whether the pass originated from play inside the Springbok 22 or not.
Based on the two incident mentioned one should ask what "jitters" in matches in fact means. In essence it means things like knocking on balls passed to players - on poor kicks going nowhere and causing serious problems for the team, etc.
The alleged mistakes were not showing "jitters" at all - fact is it may be the exact opposite.
Summary
It is unfortunate that attacks on players are often based on really dubious grounds and then build on career-defining situations. Personally -
* I did apologized for not looking at the first Argentine test; and
* I think that member should be careful by making unsubstantiated attacks on players based on incidents they misrepresented on site often enough based on prejudice rather than objective assessment.
What is equally undesirable is attacks on Erasmus which are also of a dubious nature.
