@Mike, I find it amusing that you decide when it is time to be civil and when not. Even when you decide to be civil, you start off by calling me Cera
dunce. Unbelievable.
Be that as it may, I am prepared to try out the "being civil" thing. I was after all the civil one, until the first time that I corrected you on one of your facts, way back when.
You are actually the one missing the point, not me. You are saying that nobody has a problem with the selection of players from any franchise, yet you specifically mention the Bulls and then even highlight the "......players that he is familiar with....." issue.
The "performance not up to standard...." factor is your own opinion, and nothing more. You keep on saying that you judge players and then use stats to confirm "your observation", yet your first port of call is always your little string of stats. No exceptions to the rule. Always your little string of stats. To make matters even worse, it is always only certain little strings of stats. I have tried giving you stats from the exact same source that contradicts every shred of "evidence" about how poor Morne Steyn was in the infamous Ellis Park test. You never know which way with the argument, the moment that I do that. You used too rave about Johan Goosen, and I did exactly what you did. I selectively picked out stats to "prove" to you how kak he is, but you still do not smell the roses. In your book, Morne Steyn has always been crap and always will be. No matter what.
Against this background, you go on and criticise HM's selections. There are perfectly plausible reasons why he fell back onto the likes of Matfield and Botha, but you just refuse to even consider any of that. You just carry on regardless. You were on about Gurthro moving too France and then getting fatter and fatter. Do you recall the pictures that I posted of Gurthro while playing for Toulouse, compared to pictures taken during the 2011RWC? In fact, he looked fatter in 2011 than at Toulouse. You were bitching about his inclusion in the June tests, and then he scrummed the crap out of Adam Jones. You wanted Coenie in his place. I have been telling you since last year that Coenie was suspect. How many times have I mentioned that he scrums with a bent back. Go watch Gurthro's positioning in that scrum against Jones of Wales, before Jones gave in and left the field. His back was as straight as you want it and he scrummed straight forward and through Jones. And guess who was behind him? Pap Victor Matfield.
Look at these two images:
At the Bulls, before leaving for Toulouse:
At Toulouse:
You maintain that Bakkies is this bad and that bad because of stats. You fail to look at his contributions that cannot be quantified. How do you quantify his role in a ruck or a driving maul? Just tell me that. Your problem is that you can only comment on the stuff that you can judge according to a few figures on a stats sheet. The day that ESPN stop publishing their stats, you will be stuffed.
Even worse, the day that you could get hold of a comprehensive set of stats, will also be the day that you will be stuffed. I have told you before that I had access to the complete sets of Opta raw data and stats for Super Rugby, and it was a revelation, compared to the dribs and drabs that is published on ESPN. It actually gives you an analysis of each and every kick, pass, etc.
As far as 2012 is concerned, you keep on ignoring the one thing that HM said when he started his tenure, and you do it deliberately, such is your dislike for HM. Let me remind you.
He was never in the running when PDV's contract was not renewed, and he even "declined" teh job at some stage. SARU made it clear that they were going to head-hunt for a coach. Their first choice was actually Gert Small. Early in January, when it became clear that they were not going to get Gert, they turned their focus to HM. Remember that at that stage he was not focussed on the Boks at all. It was full-steam ahead with his job at the Bulls. All the previous Bok coaches were, at this stage of their tenures, already settled in in their positions, with assistant coaches in place the works. HM was appointed in the last week of Jan 2012.
He was appointed and that was the sum total of the entire Bok management set-up at that time. He then had to get a management team together. Apart from that, the very first question, from the media, that he had to face was: "Who is going to be your captain". Of course the media and the entire "Cape, south of the Orange" have of course already crowned Schalk Burger, and it was expected that HM's logical answer would be Schalk Burger. When he said that the captain was not that high on his priorities, the provincialism immediately started to surface. The general flavour was: "Watch, he is going to appoint Pierre Spoes". That was a term used on this very same forum as well.
The next question that he faced was:"When are you going to announce the Bok team". His reply then led to start of the hate campaign. He said that he did not have time to start with an immediate identifying process. He first had too get his support staff sorted out and has to get in touch with the different coaches of the franchises and also have discussions with the players before he could even think about squad selections. Remember that at that stage the S15 had not yet started. His view was obviously still from a Bulls perspective.
In any case, the next part of his reply was that he had no plans to jump in with changes all over the show. He would stick with what was available, and he would fill in the gaps with what is familiar to him. He would then decide on a captain and the captain would initially be an interim appointment. He was going to start shaping the squad after the series against England as his first priority was to win the series. I can still remember that the general consensus was that we would probably win the series 2-1. He did better. He won it 2-0 with the draw. Immediately the "whole" of the Bok supporters base, who actually expected at least one loss in the series, was on his case about his "Bulls Bok" team.
Back to the events preceding the June series against England. When the Bok management team was announced the roars went up, especially from "the Cape south of the Orange". Why has he not even considered Jacques Nienaber, or any of the Cape coaches? He could have defended himself immediately but it was only months later that they truth came out. His first offers went out to Rassie and Coetzee and they declined. The WP refused Nienaber. In addition, he was crucified because of his entire Bulls Bok management team. The reality was that it was only van Graan, Loubscher, Cassrils and McFarland. The rest were from all over.
Johann van Graan - forward's coach
Ricardo Loubscher - backline coach
John McFarland - defence coach
Basil Carzis - conditioning coach
Others (TBC)
Niel du Plessis - Toyota Cheetahs conditioning coach ,
Louis Koen - former Springbok flyhalf and Paarl Gymnasium Director of Sport
Ian Schwartz - High performance manager of the Blues Bulls
Springboks medical team (reappointments)
Dr Craig Roberts (team doctor)
Vivian Verwant (physiotherapist)
Daliah Hurwitz (masseuse)
Springboks management team
Charles Wessels (Operational Head)
Annelee Murray (PR and Admin Manager)
JJ Fredericks (Logistics)
Albé Visser (Technical Analyst)
De Jongh Borchardt (Communications Manager).
The above was only confirmed on 12 April 2012, less than two months prior to the first test against England. By this time both the other two major "rookie" coaches were miles ahead of HM. Steve Hansen just slipped up from asst AB coach to head coach. Lancaster already had a game or two under his belt. HM has done fokol yet.
All he had was a basic idea of how he was going to play the game and, like he said he was going to do, used what was available and what was familiar. He was never going to re-invent the wheel like Twakkies tried to do. He said, in those earlier interviews that he was going to make sure that he win the series and then, from there on slowly bring in the changes. That was exactly what he did. In the process he put together probably one of the best balanced squads, as for as experience and youth is concerned, that we have had in many years - if not the best balanced squad ever. He has experience and youth in virtually every single position. He has probably introduced more youngsters into the Bok squad than both Jake and PDV at the same stage of their tenures. And then everybody bitches that he is only using older players. Yes, his teams against the WorldXV and the Wales tests did have mainly the older players but that was the only way that he could "take stock" for the rest of this season. Many of the "older ones" would not have been available for the Scotland test, and the Scotland test was the ideal opportunity to "bring in" the youngsters".
In my opinion, he played it perfectly. You might not agree, but that does not make me a cunt like you always call me.
