Nope. I am just not hell bent on pinning the outcome of the test on one player alone. I take the entire game into context. The yellow card against Habana. That was as stupid as Matfield's offence. The time of Habana's charge on Carter's kick. Had he times that right, he could have been OK and Carter could have missed the kick. That is another two points right there. Then I am not even touching on a lot of other daft mistakes by other players that cost us that game. One little thing that went different could have changed that game in total.
Be honest for once. Are you 100% sure that we would have won that game, had VM not made that illegal tackle. You see, Dave, this is the issue here. Unlike you, I am not claiming to be pencil in the packet when it comes to rugby but the one thing that I do know is that I very seldom try to pin the outcome of a game on one particular incident. That is you and your mate Tokkie's speciality.You have decided, well before the start of the RWC that the culprit for failure was going to Matfield, come hell or high water. That, and that alone is the reason why you keep on p!ssing about that penalty.
In addition, it gives you an escape route out of the crap play by some of your blue-eyed boys. Pollard has proven that he is, at this stage, nothing but an average flyhalf. Nothing special. Willie Hop Skip and Jump Le Roux has done nothing spectacular and had a crap semi-final. Lood was absent. De Allende was OK'ish in the semi-final. Need I go on?
PS. Of course your sugar daddy, ou Tokkie, will jump in and attack what I have said about the players in the above paragraph in an attempt to get the spotlight on Matfield again and away from his boytjies. Those are not the only culprits in that game, mate. They were only a few examples. All in all it comes down to what I have been saying for ages. SA Rugby is in the dwang from top to bottom. Our showing in the RWC is not an indication that our national side was not up to scratch. The performance of our national side is one of the symptoms of how crap rugby in SA is, in total.
It is going to take one hell of an effort and a very long time to fix it. Bringing in Ackerman and Swys is not going to change rugby in South Africa. They can bring in any national coach they like but in less than four years everybody is going to shout for him to be fired. That is the reality.
- Our first coach post '92 was John Williams. In less than two years they wanted his blood.
- He was succeeded by Ian Mac who was fired prematurely by Louis Luyt, who brought in Kicth Christie, who rode Ian Mac's wave and won the world cup.
- He was unfortunately ill and had to pull out. I would put money on it that his head would have rolled the first time that he showed signs of loosing.
- He was succeeded by Markgraaf who was going to be the Messiah. He was fired due to players setting him up for a fall and he was quickly replaced by Carel Du Plessis.
- Dup was fired the moment that he got it right only to be replaced by loud mouth Mallett who said that the SA rugby supporters -that is you, me, Mike, Moz, and everybody else around here - knows feck all about rugby and should keep quite.
- He was fired at the first misstep, i.e. criticising SARU over ticket prices. He, himself made a balls-up of his RWC campaign but he is still the flavour of the month because of his 16 (not 17) consecutive wins.
- He was succeeded by Harry Viljoen. Another Messiah. He was going to run the Boks like a business. Need I say more? He pulled out prematurely before he could be fired.
- The next tool was Streauli. Another Messiah. He was selected on the back of his "massive" sudden success with the Sharks, a bit like Ackeman's sudden success with the Lions. He was going to bring back strict discipline, etc. He was fired.
- Jake White, after him, was fired despite winning the RWC. PDV, our first "black coach" took over. He won the TN and he beat the B & IL. He was effectively fired.
- Then came HM. If he does get fired as well, it will just be a repeat of the pattern.
- HM's successor, if he is fired, will in all probability not last beyond 2019.
All the while we are treating the symptoms, i.e. by firing the national coach, while we should be treating the causes, i.e. fixing the useless SA rugby set-up.
