Will Bath renew their contract with Louw?

The following from News24:-

"English club Bath are reportedly considering whether they want to retain the services of Springbok flank Francois Louw.

The 33-year-old is Louw is entering the final year of his three-year contract with Bath and it appears that the club is uncertain whether it wants to extend his contract.

According to the Somerset Live website, Louw is one of the highest-paid members of the Bath squad and the club’s management must decide whether he continues to offer good value for money.

Bath will take his Test career and injury record into account when deciding on a possible new offer.

Louw is still actively involved with the Springboks and the most recent of his 62 Tests came in the narrow defeat to the All Blacks in Pretoria earlier this month.

When probed about the player’s future, Bath’s director of rugby Todd Blackadder said: "We haven't made a definitive decision, but we're certainly in discussions about that. There's quite a lot to weigh up."

Louw added: "This is my last year at the club and I'm not too sure what the future holds. It will be something we have to consider quite closely.”

Louw joined Bath in 2011, having represented Western Province and the Stormers between 2006 and 2011."

If his contract is being renewed it is likely to be on a year-to- year basis.  Louw will by next year be 34 years old and many clubs in Europe had a bitter experience of renewing contracts of older players and then found they have become unusable - Habana was one such a player. 

For Europe, he still has a few years left in the tank. They are factoring in that he will be playing for the Boks in a world cup year- and that is where his mental focus will lie

He had a decent game against the All Blacks- so that considered he must surely still be capable of playing pub club rugby in England...

Sounds like he had a cracking game against Toulouse. Even a video on Youtube about some of his breakdown work in that game.

Just a question - even the paper referred to some question mark s on the performance of Louw.  Fact is he was barely satisfactory - with a slightly better performance in the last test.

He may suffice in the slow NH fields - but he is not good enough for automatic selection. And his age will ensure that his performance ill deteriorate further = I do not know any 34 year old that performed well at WC's.

Definitely question marks, although he remains a very capable option . If he plays he should play openside. That's his position. Kolisi is the default there now, so Louw will be bench at best anyway.

He's a bit taller than and 1kg lighter than Pocock. 

Mozart

That was when he was 30 years old   In the tests this year he made one steal - that is just not good enough - and another year will cause a further slide in performances, 

I do not think Rassie was really interested to call him up for the Aussie and AB home tests.   It only happened because Whiteley was injured.   

We will have to see what happened iro the November squad.   I think Erasmus may rather think about the RWC 2019 and he may not like to carry on with Louw - after the November tests there will just be 3 or 4 tests left before the WC.      

I think the NZ Herald story was just before the AB away test and there was none further turnovers by Louw in that test.   I think that the problem remains - we need a fetcher but there is none in evidence.

He two poor games off the bench. He was good the rest of the time. He was very good against New Zealand at Loftus. I don't see why he should receive so much criticism when we have far lesser players in the team, Kolisi being one of them. 

AO

Putting your eggs all in a 34 year old basket for the 2019 WC is bound to fail.  The same happened with Alberts in the 2015 WC.

Your assessment of his performances is tainted,   Where he was un the starting line-up this year I think he was nothing better than 4 to 4,5/10 and in the cases of bench selection he could have been 5 to 5,5/10  

We all know Kolisi is a failure as a loosie but we cannot afford 2 failed loosies in the WC  starting line-ups or even playing from the bench.   One of Kolisi or Louw has to go and  I am afraid it  will have to be Louw.