Veteransgate...a storm in a tea cup.

From the Telegraph  we have the RWC winning team ages. Swop Etzebeth  for either Matfield or  Bakkies and we have a team that is the age of two of the last four RWC winners. And by next year everybody will be a year older, but some older players will drop out of the mix. You only have to lose one thirty plus player for a twenty plus player to pick up half a year. Here's the Telegraph

 Studying the last four World Cup winners the RFU calculated average team ages of 27, 28, 27 and 28. The number of caps held by Australia (1999), England (2003), South Africa (2007) and New Zealand (2011) was 622, 638, 668 and 709 for Graham Henry’s All Blacks, the most experienced of the quartet.

World Cups are won by seasoned veterans and a smattering of highly talented new players.

Once more...let me help. The S15 has never proven a good predictor of test success....think Luke Watson, think, Mvovo, think Coetzee. We have had a far higher hit rate playing older test players who have confirmed their candidacy by playing well at provincial level. I guarantee you Faf, Marnitz, Sadie, Boom ....all chaps doing well at S15 will struggle to step up in tests. That's picking on merit.

Posters have a model in their minds that each year we are looking for young players performing at S15 level.....we are.....but only if they have unusual capacity. Etzebeth, Willie, maybe de Allende ....although he will have a rough test start, Willemse and Pollard look the type. Goosen did as well, but there are serious concerns about his ability to survive if he plays a full hearted game....which he has done once so far in the S15.

It's not pick on some vague notion of merit....you can't line players up against each other and get a real competition. The team is the team....new players have to challe nge for their places and prove again and again that they deserve to be promoted. That's how you get team spirit and raise the bar.

Nonsense!!!! Keeping a bunch of outdated players in the team just cause your too afraid the younger talent doesn’t make it, isn’t a valid enough reason to go fetch additional pensioners.

Give me a break!!

Bakkies is past it. Whether you like it or not. He cannot compete against Willemse or any other younger, stronger lock in the country. De Jager will rip him a new one.

That I’m afraid is the law of nature. He’s only there cause he’s a Bull and a good friend of the coach. Merit had nothing to do with it.    

Guthro is another one who cannot compete with anyone any more … never mind the likes of Nyakane or Mellet of even Kitshoff … and saying he can, shows your complete desperation to hang on to the aged, to prove their worth, cause you yourself are an “aged”.

Listen Faggot, your feeble attempt to justify Meyer’s stupidity is foolhardy at best.

We both know what this is all about. Your trying to convince yourself that the old still have something to contribute.

It's rather laughable that you've chosen the tough physicality of rugby as your platform to argue from ... all in the attempt to make you feel a little better about yourself ... to fool yourself into thinking you are still of value to society.

I’m afraid, Faggot, that the clock keeps on ticking and while it does so your value to society disappears. Right now the only thing you should be thinking of is your next bowel movement.

Sorry to say but your innings has come and gone ... and so has that of the pensioners in the Bok team.

Accept it.