We aren't as good as we think we are

Maybe so Moz, but then Meyer is not as good as I thought he would be, given that all coaches have teething problems at an international level, who would have believed the well credentialled Meyer would splutter?

moz he is partly to blame for losing those players to the north so he is sleeping int he bed that he has made himself. if there was some structural issues with our rugby then surely he should have identified it a long time ago and tried to implement so solutions...what have we seen thus far ? nothing apart from him running to all the overseas based players that creates the enviroment for our juniors to leave.

his public statements in regards to game types ext just once again shows he blatant ignorance and i for one wont pity anyone that starts his reign as bok coach like he did sorry to say. he made his point very clear in the past about his views and feelings so he alienated himself from the start

your argument about the backline players not being as great might be in a sense true but have anyone ever in the past couple of years played a game pattern that is condusive to that type of rugby ????? nobody is saying lets just chuck the ball around but having props and flanks running at first receiver on quick ball with space on the outside is the type of cancer that is killing our creative backs. you will never see in the ab team nor the wallie team see such game patterns is very much the south african or english way of playing and not even the english are playing this type of rugby as they have seen that it bring them nowhere. old jungle jiver coetzee is the kingpin of this prehistoric art of boring the pants of the opposing teams while the wp has the ball in hand.

its a mentality of self imposed greatness and a huge amount of naivity that is the real stumble blocks for the boks to success. it all starts at the game pattern from there the player selections and all the other rugby related issues sorts themselves out but the meyer template of rugby will only end up in us bowing out in either the QF's os SF's if were are lucky come RWC 2015

 Meyers biggest flaw so far has been at the breakdown.

He needs to have a specialist fetcher on the bench so if and when the Boks are not dominating the breakdown, we can bring on the specialist fetcher.

Francois Louw was effective last year at the breakdown, but not so much this year. He could start with Louw, or put Louw at 7 in the place of Alberts. 

Minnie from the Lions seems the most suitable player.

Test level rugby is not SuperXV rugby which is influenced largely by South African referees. 

Test Rugby is influenced by Northern Hemishpere referees who like to be inconsistent with each other, and the breakdown can become an inconsistent shambles where players get away with murder. When this happens we need 2 fetchers on the pitch. 

Personally I don't think there is one new player, not in the match 23, who will add anything to Bok performance.....not Mvovo, not Rhule, not Ebersohn, not van Zyl or Reinach, not Malherbe, not Kitshoff, not Lood, not Labuscagne, not van der Walt. Goosen, andPieter Stephanie might, but they have been injured. The rest aren't a step up....in many ceases they are a step down. For heaven sake, many of these guys are in their mid twenties.....they are never going to be star international players.

Fetchers breakdown what the fuck you all talking about? Have you considered we make about half the rucks that the Aussies and Kiwi makes? Why do we need a fetcher who steals on avg 1 ball every 2 games 

 Spooney, a fetcher like Hooper does not make that many turnovers, but what he does do is help retain possesion for his own team.

That is the primary responsibility for an opensider under the current laws- retention and quick recycling, rather than turnovers.

If he can also spoil opposition turnovers that is great as well.

Although I do agree that is it not just the opensiders, or the looseforwards- all of the forwards must assue some of the responsibility. 

Em your ruck cleaners and referee decides how slow your ball will be.  

 Quite right Moz - expectations are totally unrealistic and lead to unreasonable calls like the thread asking for Meyers immediate resignation. Forget the 8 game win streak. As if that would really solve anything? just like firing the coach has never really solved anything in the past, its just ushered in another coach that eventually faces the same lack of support and ridicule.

Nothing less than total world domination seems acceptable and there is no basis for that expectation

Time to wake up and face the facts - NZ has better athletes and depth than we do in many positions, cutting edge coaching, a lack of incessant distractions and poaching of players by overseas clubs, no political interference and they have an organizational structure that makes SARU look like pretenders. 

What our boys (and coaches) have no lack of is heart and commitment to the jersey they wear and thats what I see them giving every time they go out there. Win or lose that has never changed for Springbok players. It is brutal to see them subjected to the disrespectful scorn that is levelled at them sometimes.  Not saying criticism isn't a part of being a fan, but there is right and a wrong way to go about it.

Time to catch a reality check.

oi-matey what a load of garbage. This is the professional era and players are gettimg paid handsomely by the rugby supporters with SA Rugby contributing by far the most amount of revenue in the RC.

Probably the most galling point here is that after our young guns winning the JWC and some of them putting in some astonishing performances in the S15 for thier unions, only two players have got a brief look in. Serfontein and Goosen.

The clear message to the young guns is go to Europe. The money is better and you will still be considered for the Boks. If not you will still earn a pile of cash and may qualify for another country.

It is still harder for some of our 'senior' players to get out of the team than in it.

Common knowlege rugby practice is to build to the next World Cup. Clear out the old wood or those who cannot help the younger talent win the World Cup for you next time around or at least try.

Firstly, last year what did Spies offer other than blocking someone elses path he was also nowhere near our best 8. But going to our current squad please let me know what Flip, Juandre, Alberts, Jannie, Ruan, Morne, Kirshner, Basson and on the border Jean have to offer the future of Bok rugby. That is 8 or 9 so closer to 60% of a team that offer nothing and are just blocking the path of the excellent young talent we have at our disposal. This is an utter disgrace.

Rugganut, since 2008 there have been six Junior WCs. Four have been won by NZ. One by England and one by SA at home. All the NZ wins were away from home. So explain to me again why we should be playing all these youngsters who are so obviously inferior to the NZ youngsters, let alone an All Black team?

Moz fair point but there is more to this. May i ask the following : At which point do you think that the following players should be in their careers. I have listed a few whom have been blocked and why. Talk about developing players and blooding them.

Lambie/ SP Marais/  - Mone has held him up. More has no chance of going to the next WC.

Lappies (Minnie, Elstadt) - Not even in the squad. Has the best stats in S15. Alberts a better solution for the WC. He will be barely walking by then.

De Jager - Juandre and Flip a better prospect for the WC ?

Van der Walt - Storming player and worth a lot of developement effort. Prefer Spies or shift a slow flanker out of position who had grandad 'experience'.

Reinach/ van Zyl/ Schreuder - Prefer Ruan 'dont know what position to play' useless at both Pienaar and if that does not work bring back Fourie who we have not seen for two years.

Serfontein/ Howard/ De Allende - Jean is holding the team together as captain but not much else as much as i like him.

Rule/ Mvovo/ Volmink/ SP Marais - being held back by Basson, please.

This just gives you a minor flavour. I could go on all day.

 Spoony you have not said much but hit the nail on the head.

Oimatey you make some good points and a monumental blunder:

Time to wake up and face the facts - NZ has better athletes and depth than we do in many positions, cutting edge coaching, a lack of incessant distractions and poaching of players by overseas clubs, no political interference and they have an organizational structure that makes SARU look like pretenders. 

Better athletes my foot! We have had better forwards than them consistently. We also produce some very good backs. Our depth is second to none although now being stretched to the limit.(WP alone are missing - Blauw, Bekker, Quin Roux, Louw, Koster, Big Joe, Brits, Jaque Fourie, Du Plessis, Habana, Van Der Heever is going - and I am not mentioning local  exports like JJ , Sadie, Morne, Hougard, etc etc etc it is too ludicrous for words)

Barring departures to other countries we could very easily have 6  very strong super 15 sides particulary if we had a central  franchising system.

The facts are we make a mess of putting it together. We have a non merit race based quota system in place, 14 unions, very poor self serving leadership, no central contracting system in place, our best coaches dont coach etc etc etc. It is in fact a miracle that with all this amateurish bungling we remain competitive. But we do simply because of superb talent.

Dr Moz's idea that the super 15 results show we dont have depth of players is wrong for the reason already mentioned re departures overseas due to the very weak rand. It is also wrong because the two best SA sides the Stormers and Sharks had horrendous injury problems. Given a normal run of injuries they both would have definitely made the playoffs and been higher on the log than the bulle. 4 of the top 7 sides on that basis were SA sides! And that with the Sharks and Stormers being robbed blind by nz refs.

Rugganutter seems for some weird reason to think everything must be geared towards the world cup. Personally I would rather occupy the number 1 ranking (fairly that is) than win the world cup.The world champs (if there fairly) are the number 1 ranked side NOT the world cup holders - that doesnt take a rocket scientist to workout.

We face huge problems and can only only hope the rugby player producing factory that is South Africa can continue to both meet overseas demand and survive itself. The fight against race based selctions must be fought and demands made by the public that the system is reformed in a manner to ensure the best outcome for the Boks and Super 15 teams. A huge ask given the race based policies of the country and the massive self interest of the 14 unions. For the present we battle on with one hand tied behind our backs.

However all that said those maniac depressive writng off the Boks need to catch a wake up call. The ideas that we cant win against the Wobblies or ABS must be dismissed with contempt.

It is pathetic and embarrassing to see this defeatest attitude. Even my good friend saSUE  has better expectations of us!

 pssssssssst Beeno and Mike ssshhhhhhhh not so loud - I'll let you in on a little secret! The All Blacks are cloned and made in the lab and then shipped out to Foster Parents early! The process is on-going under Mount Taranaki! Take Carter for example - he appeared from nowhere - all of a sudden he was there! The ABs are not coached - that's all pretense - they basically have slots where information chips are inserted - take Carter again for instance, his is on his left forehead - when he is about to take a penalty, he strokes his left forehead to target the sticks and he deliberately misses some to give the impression that he is just a normal kid! 

We've had some defective batches go out lately, hence Jerry Collin's violent outbursts (the real Collins is in hibernation under Mount Taranaki waiting to be unleashed again in the 3 centuries time) and Bryce Lawrence in the 2011 RWC - the Boks were not supposed to get that close to the Wallabies - that was close!

 Beeno / CM  ---- I said NZ has the best players in many positions, didn't say most, and not all. I certainly think we have the athletes and players to compete with them but the expecations that we are man-for-man so much better, should be world dominators and handily beating every comer with ease is unrealistic and sets impossible expectations for any coach or team to live up to.

Positions where I think NZ has established players for which SA has no consistent equal:

#15 - Dagg

#14/#11 - one of the wings, Habana cancels out the other. JP is not as good as Savea or Smith

#10 - Carter or Cruden better than anyone we have. Goosen might get there one day but needs to get off the gurny first

#9 - Aaron Smith - FDP may be the answer, but way too early to make that call and he would not be long term solution

#8 - Read

#7 - McCaw

@spooney yes we dont have the same ruck counts as the AB and wallies and how is that mate ? how to you figure that happens ? does marry fucking poppins bestow us with her magical powers and bless us with some ball to play with ? dont you find it odd that the teams that play a pattern that is based on possession style rugby play towards the contact point aka the breakdown with proper opensiders ? more rucks means you play more and defend less hey doesnt ? infact if you have more rucks it means you run witht he ball more hey ? seems like your another armchair critic that played abit in high school but in fact you know fuckall about the game if you make such idiotic utterings on this forum. a ruck is a system and a open siders forms part of the system. so if you have 70 odd rucks in a game dont you think it wont be wise to have player that is a specialist in that field ?

you only look at the average amount of steals a game but it seems from that comment you are also one of the stat harpies that dont seem to understand if you slow down a attacking teams ruck's ball recycling you save yourself not only on defence in terms of that vital split second to organise but can break a team momentum. a 10 second delay in a ruck means at least a couple of meters you gain in defence. on attack the opposite is true.

that is why the AB and wallies play toward the ball and the ruck and that is why they have the best open siders int he world as it forms part of the rugby template. its not a fluke they have been the most consistent rugby team in terms of wins and rankings the past 20 odd years.

@mike i agree with you 100%

we are lacking in a number of player areas...namly the decision making positions like 8th man, 10 and 12...our wingers generally are not on the same level that of NZ but that is pard and parcel due to our coaching structures and selectors that generally dont pick players based on skills but on size...its more mental issue. being so fortunate enough to attend murry mexteds rugby school in NZ i have seen first hand the real issues what we are facing. the nz biggest strength is not there rugby players but there managements vision and technical mindset and they generally have a attitiude based on excellence and hardwork. they understand what they have in players resources and they pick there teams according to a template. you will never see a NZ team that has 3 ball carrier heavy flanks.....never why is that they can see this and our coaches seem to be much more know it all.....is it pride or just plain stupidity

one thing we can do is to start the following

we used to pick our teams at junior levels accoring to weight ranges back in the 60's and 70's to make sure there is not a massive difference in size. that had 2 effects one being players develop differently and that make the playing field level so skills was at the core of development. there was less injuries and the interst in the game from the juniors was higher as well. you wont see the big guy running into a player blindly but seeing everyone was around the same size that tactic was very ineffective and you never saw that at all. so coached back in the day played a different brand. the amount of juniors i see here at maties that cant pass left or right 100% or cant even decide to take a quick ball up or pass it is shocking.

there players are better because there system breeds it......if given half a chance our players can be as good or even better in my view. but development needs to work in a triangle and is no culture of excellance from our schoolboy level to national level. from the age 16 onwards there is a big dark hole of skills development that we need to address