Tri Nations 1998

Man I miss this era. The demise of a strong Australia in the modern game is just tragic.

Greatest Springbok side since Hennie Muller's 1951/2 Grand Slam winning Springboks.

The current side isn't half bad either.

...but we do need a good dominant 4Nations to top it off.

That era, that comp was like winning the World Cup if you look at the quality of those team. The northern hemisphere teams couldn't put together any decent teams. 

Australia won the World Cup in 99. The year after after knocking the boks out of the World Cup with wobble drop kick from Larkham. France knocked NZ out with pure champagne rugby. 

Mallet also over played his players and did really look after them, he then dropped his captain for Bobby etc. Mallet was under a lot of pressure back then. Still one of my favourite coaches and always enjoy listening to him. 

Nice to see Erasmus taking over his mantle. Just hope Rassie can take a page from Mallets book and go past 17 games unbeaten. 

Mallet was assisted by Carel's foundation for the team...man did Dup get a raw deal.

I've been reading Rassie's book. Interesting to read his insights into that era. According to him the Mallett side started fracturing along provincial lines and because of the type of communication between coach and players back in that era (lack of openness about the motivation for decisions, etc.) it just went from bad to worse. The outside pressure also got to Mallett which made him force changes to the Boks playing style. The Teichmann/Skinstad thing was just the tip of the iceberg.

Part of Rassie's role as "Director of Rugby" is to shield the coach (Nienaber) from dealing with outside pressures like press and politics so that he can just focus on coaching.

Mallet was assisted by Carel's foundation for the team...man did Dup get a raw deal.

Rassie says in that 61-22 win over Aus the players finally grasped what Carel had been trying to teach them and how he saw the game. Then he got booted. Very raw deal.

Look at those shoulder pads 

Aren't they spectacular, Becs?