This was a disgrace - Argentina should have wion.

I am bitterly disappointed in what happened today.   The follwing made a determined bit to lose the match for us:-

*   Jannie du Plessis

*   Gurthro Steenkamp

*   Juan Smith 

The first two was a disaster - especially Mozart Natiobnal Treasure was disgusting in scrumming.  Juan Smith was totally invisible - another French Club failure.  The backline got hopeless balls and Pienaar was int he main absolutely useless.   And Morne Steyn - what was that klast kick directly into toufch was about?   

At least with Malhrbe and Beat coming on we did win two scrums and now Malherbe  was injured - where are we going to find decent tighthead.  

I think we better start looking at players like Thomas du Toit and the Lions Tighthead - the suggestions of Mozart as to props are serious jokes - especially the National Treasure did squat positive.

Bakkies Botha came on and the first thing he did was to give away a penalty.   For the rest he as worthless as well.   The whole issue is we are wrong to stick with some of the geriatrics - time to clean house        

I love reading the posts after the boks played a game of rugga. Well, if you can call this rugby..

First things first, a win is a win. We could have lost the game so there is one positive.

Second, not one player had a good game, okay maybe 2 or 3. The first thing after every game i ask myself is, who stood out from the crowd? In a good game of rugby there are always 3-6 names of player who stood out. Yet last night i couldn't name one. 

From no 1 to no 23 was poor. Except for 2 or 3 guys.

Yet week in and week out a guy like not so clevermike is telling us it is only a selective few that is the problem. 

Clevermike. Where to begin with all the rubbish you are posting? I will give it a go anyway.

You mention that the first thing bakkies did when he came onto the field was give away a penalty. Well done on the observation 10/10. It was for offside. 

The very 1st thing De Allende did was flipping a guy over 10m away from the ball. Good thing the tmo was missing in action at that moment. Was it bakkies doing the exact same thing not so clevermike would be all over it.

You mention that Juan was invisible. Well done on the observation 10/10. 

Unless we watched 2 different games the following guys were also invisible- 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,12,13,14. Why don't you mention them?

Thanks Ceradyne for asking the scrum question. Against the world XV and Wales it was Victor and Bakkies not scrumming. Now we have Lood and Eben at lock so by God, it must be the props not scrumming!! 

Now i am gonging to use clevermike logic to solve the problem we have come scrum time.

Lood made 6 tackles and then missed 6. He took 5 lineout balls and gave away 1 penalty. That is not even close to good enough for test level. Eben made 9 tackles (only second to Louw) and missed none. Very good. He lost the ball twice in contact. He stole 2 lineout balls, good. The stat that worries me is he carried the ball 8 times for a total of 9 meters. That is more or less 1 meter gain every time he had the ball. 

Seeing that you recieve the ball anything from 1-4 meter behind the gain line that would suggest that he didn't make the advantage line once. Or got over it once or twice and the other 6 times got stopped in his tracks or tackled backwards. Why all the useless info?

Few moths back not so clevermike went on about a no 4 lock that doesn't carry the ball is not a lock. So using that logic i have solved the scrumming dilemma. We are only using one lock in the scrums, the no 5. Someone get this info to the coaching staff asap.

Back to point. The guys currently playing are the best we have. 

Jannie and beast useless but no one to replace them.

du plessis the best we have, but yesterday strauss was better the time he was on

eben the best 4 in the country

lood will move to the bench with matfield in next game.

louw best we have

vermeulen the best we have

give juan another chance. If he doesn't perform replace him. Coetzee did very good when he came on

Never been a Ruan fan. Didn't play bad. Fourie still way better.

Pollard not the man for 10. Or not right now. Steyn best we have, and is shocking.

Habana best we have.

Jean captain so will stay till next year. Not that anyone is pushing for a place.

De Allende had two games and two fails. But with the other options being fourie and pieterson i will stick with De Allende for now.

Hendricks good enough, just need more ball.

Willie best we have. SA papers not doing him any favoures. After 2 good games against minnows calling him the best in the world. He is no 3 after Aus and NZ fullbacks.

Clevermike

If the guys you don't like play bad, bad mouth them. But if the good players according to you have a bad game, treat them the same. 

Both the locks had at best poor games. Yet you single out bakkies for being offside.

So no one else was offside the rest of the game?

At least 10 player were invisible, yet you single out Juan. So the other 14 guys were in your face the entire match? 

Get your head out of your behind, just like the tight 5 had to do after every scrum and start being objective. 

You have a little bit of rugby knowledge, but your dislike of some players is denting your credibility.

sometimes ironically just as bad as him so it is hypocrisy or the pot calling the kettle black.

I think Mike is basically a good guy and does know his rugby but does vent his feelings in extreme forms sometimes but so do others and none of us to be honest are fool proof experts, not even the coach who despite his vast knowledge of the game appears so stuck with loyalty and sentimentally to certain players...a trend common amongst the rugby family. In John Smit's book, Barney diplomatically reveals this...when you are in the top of the rugby player elite, there are many factors that prevent the ordinary man in the street from knowing the real truth. Players themselves are especially frustrated as they are bound by silence...they can see the mistakes and foibles of coaches and other administrators, managers etc. but are bound to keep quiet, first of all by fear of losing favour and jeopardising their chances in the future and often by simple humility and loyalty.

I think HM is a good coach at provincial and franchise levels but lacks something as a national coach.

National coaches MUST never have favourites, be conservative and have loyalties to individuals but in the same token have absolute INTEGRITY and HONESTY to do the deserving and right thing.

To demonstrate this lets take Dr Danie Craven, an extremely conservative Afrikaner who adored rugby especially in his beloved Stellenbosch and Western Province but never let his biased and favourites over rule the deserving.

Ol Doc had his adversary in the cauldron but was strong, stubborn, tough as nails and at times very dogmatic but had two MAJOR qualities that are needed;

1) He was about all things, extremely HONEST...i.e. Keith Oxlee "was net 'n piesang boer speler " but he was the best number 10 in the country then and knew the game very well and was very creative...so despite this he got the job. Similarly Tommy Bedford was an outspoken "liberal and Engels man van Natal"...but was an outstanding and intelligent number 8...he got the job and captaincy to crown it.

2) Craven understood and knew the game better than any other in SA if not the world. Many a great All Black, English man and Frenchman will tell you that.

I don't believe HM has these qualities, at least not in the degree that Craven had.

To come back to Ol Mike...he said this

"I think that we need to realize that the worst under-performers yesterday was not the new players - but rather some of  the experienced players.   New players can improve with experience - but under-performing experienced players are hardly going to improve and will cost us dealy in future. "      

This is correct and shows indeed some insight into part of the problem.

But to me this is the coach, no disrespect but very simply just not quite the right person for the job.

sometimes ironically just as bad as him so it is hypocrisy or the pot calling the kettle black.