Ja, Fassi has dropped completely out of favour at the moment. Think injury and form was his biggest concern.
What I did notice was that France and Ireland had a lot of first class rugby players in their under 20 team at the recent junior World Cup. Some players have already played 20 first class games before the age of 20, that is insane. I definitely think we are missing a trick and having players in Varsity Cup and Currie Cup doesn't give them the exposure what it is like playing against a professional outfit.
Look at the A tour last year, complete disaster. Most of that team wasn't close to being a bok. Why did they cap Muchunu when he is not even starting for the Sharks.
I think the Stormers are on the right track in terms of giving a lot of players exposure, I think they had something like 50+ players that they brought through. Bulls aren't far behind, but unfortunately some of these players are still very green or you have 35+ year olds take up space. They need a core of players who are between 25 and 32 that have at least 50 first class games under their belt. Then bring the youngster through.
I almost believe that SA need to arrange tours like Ireland and New Zealand, not as an A team SA 15. Go on a 3 week tour of UK or even New Zealand / Australia, playing against those kiwi team. I think they go in Feb / March when the URC is quiet and the Super Rugby season hasn't started. Players could be any age but predominantly the young ones and maybe some veterans just to guide the youngsters.
I would also recommend that we bring back A games during the championship and the tour up north. These are players that are not in the match day 23 but a player like Jantjies could try regain form and exposure.
Imagine if we had an A game the weekend before or even on a Tuesday in New Zealand. We would have quickly identified what shape Kriel, Kwagga, Dud etc are in even well before the New Zealand game kicked off. But that would mean sending a squad of 25. To my mind it is worth the investment, but if players are based at some foreign club and they could only be released during a certain period then that would not work.
But like Ireland and New Zealand which selects from within their local teams. We could easily identify these guys, put some good coaching around them. There is no reason who Rassie and Nienaber could not take these guys on SA 15 tour given that they only really need to start their job in June. Rather than have that hapless Bafana and Stick who both fucked up the Junior boks and A games.
So ja, all these names are great, but if they don't get exposure or part of a winning team, then we will have to scrape the bottom of the barrel and we'll continue to select the Duanes and Fouries of the world
