Mike
For someone that battles to even spell their name properly, you've done really well here.
Good read.
Waiting for your take on Stormers and Lions.
Mike
For someone that battles to even spell their name properly, you've done really well here.
Good read.
Waiting for your take on Stormers and Lions.
it yake longer than I expected and I will finish the issue of the Stormers and Lions. Later on.
yake as yong as you need my friend.
I think you forgot that Rassie and SARU put a salary cap on how many and how much Franchises can pay on player wage. All wages has to be paid by the franchises. The Cap was R65m, but I think SARU has now increased it. There are some unions that get around it for big names, but the whole goal was that these franchises just had so many players on their books and that just never got developed.
SARU now has a Ponzi or pony up scheme where they allow players of national interest to have their wages topped up by SARU. That is why the likes of Jake wanted to push players like Johan Goosen to be in the bok squad so that he can pay him more. If you look at the wage bill, then SA is way behind. But I know in England they also have a cap, except for France. Ireland doesn't disclose their caps.
It is tricky to keep talent at home when they have big money offers from abroad that can pay them double or triple what they get home.
I now hope that SARU should get a full slice of the pie now that they have become full member of the European cup as well as the URC. They had to pay a lot of money to participate and they couldn't host knock out games or even the final. They also now have access to TV rights money which they didn't have before. So we should each union getting a cash injection and more competition next year in the Euro Cup.
As for the Lions, they are the most frustrating team but then again, they are not spending any money and keep getting players from their youth teams.
One thing I can say is that they are better off not having the Hendriks brothers around. However, it would have been amazing if they brought back former lions players like Kwagga, Marx, Mostert, JVD to name a few. Just have five world class players or at international level would really boost their chances.
However, as we saw with the Bools and iShaka that getting these big names in doesn't always buy you success.
I really care more about what they are doing. Can they develop a winning team that can go on to create a legacy. The lions was there, but then the whole thing collapsed after Ackerman left.
The Stormers is the only team that is producing home grown talent but they are not quite there yet.
Meyer at the bulls did that really well. I got kids from school level, craven week and recruited them to the bools. We then had th likes of Matfield, Botha, Strauss, Spies, Pollard, Steyn, Rossouw, Fourie Du Preez, Habana, Krichners, van Der Westhuizen to name a few all in the same bulls team and won 3 super rugby titles.
The Stormers were the next best, but they end up providing a lot of the World Cup winning boks. Kitshoff, Malherbe, Etzebeth, Pieter Steph, Kolisi, Ver Meulen (Vrystaat), Kolbe, Dud, Pollard (WP boy) Bongi, Louw, Jantjies.
If you just look at those two teams, all home grown, the bulls back in 2007 until 2014 and then the Stormers took over. However, not all at once.
Even the iShaka had some amazing players in their successful teams. Beast, Smit, Du Pleasis, Bismark, Pietersen etc.
We really need our franchise teams to keep following this model.
My only concern is that Dobbo now has declared project 2030 where he is looking to build the next gen players and only targeting players that will be there in 2030. That is why he is not asking Kolisi to come back. His goal is to get players in the group that will be together for the next five years.
But I have really seen any real breakout of a group of young players playing in the same age group. Willemse, Libbok and SFM are all different ages. I don't see great locks or Loose forwards other than Roos. No real centres to speak of even though Dave will disagree and say Willemse is a 12, he is 27 or 28 already and I don't see 10 age group players coming through and knocking teams over.
All of the above mentioned team built a fantastic age group team that won all the provincial cups and then brought them into the franchise teams and made sure they went all the way to boks and kept them together.
You were a great fan of Plumtree Mike, even spoke of him as a possible Bok coach. ….I trust you will mention that and tell us what went wrong.
I was but not anymore.
55,274 posts
The coaching and especially team selection in all four SA teams paticipating in the URC has been poor to messy this year and I expected that some changes are possible. So lets look at the four coaches involved:-
The Bulls
The key ownership o the Bulls are as follows:-
The funding of new player cintracts are virtually limitless and they cana fford to choose the best players and the two majority shareholders appointed Brits in dealing wth their rugby interests
White has had 3 years in coaching the Bulls team and trophy wise it produced nothing to the franchise, The Bulls were involved in three finals and lost all three with unbelievably poor performances in all three series, . So why should that have been the case:-
So will the two majority shareholders be happy with White and give him a fourth chance to embark on the same old story. for another year, I myself doubt it vey much. White is a typical old -type forwad usage coach - but ih no development and usage of attacking backline play.
So who will be in line or selection of replacements should White;s contract ends with the Bulls, To my mind there are two potential candidates - namely Ackerman and Nienaber,or a combination of Ackerman and Nienaber or such a combination inolving Swys as well, Swys has medical (blood pressure) problems and dtress cause it to be come dangerous. But at least as assistant he does not ahve the same stress levels as he would have as Head Coach,
The Sharks ,
The ownership structure are as follows:-
From a funding perspective - Rupert also has a huge Shareholder in Supersport through National Press - so both fanchises has adequate money available for player contracting: But this is where there is a prolem insofar as coaching is concerned, Rupert as an intenational business operator will also have influence and in this case also close ties to MVM Holdings - so that alliance will also not be happy with the present scenario.
Pumtree played for the Sharks and married an SA woman in he 1990's and has a long assciation with the Sharks both as a player and as a coach. It was insofar as coaching is concerned sometimes up and sometimes down. At the moment it is down and very much so, What is present in the case of the Sharks is totally deficient backline play - surprising in fact because as a New Zealander one would expect othewise from him. In 2012 the Sharks reaqched the finals in Superrugby - but in 2013 the Sharks had massive injury problems and it was so bad they had to borrow players from the Lions to get enough players to have 23 palyers in match squads. So the Sharks fired Plumtree and in 2014 they appointed White as Sharks coach. The latter was effecvely fired by Sharks at the end of the 2014 season. Plumtree came back as Sharks coach - but was never really succesful n Supersport level. amd now on URC and Champions Cup level.
This year the Sharks backline performance on URC level was a disaster. The Sharks needed a functionong flyhalf and this year that was part of the disaster, They also as an inside center in Estehuizen - a slow and deficient player when it comes to ball skills and match reading - basically a crashballer.
My personal opinion is that Plumtree is as bad a coach as White is - but have no idea whether he would be replaced and if so by whom.
The Stormers
.Ownership Structure
Disa Investments 74%
Franchise 26%
The Stormers was the worst-administered franchise and was effectively run by SARU and only a few months ago, Disa Investments took over the funding of the Stormers especailly insofar as reruitng of players ise oncerned, As to Diza Investments they have three enttities involved and although theyare obviously successful entites the Question is would they have the ability to provide at least a R100 million a year to fund the Stormers? While the S tromers franchise was administered by SARU, they used a payment system paying competitive salaries to a few players - while the rest got uncompetitve salaries,
That leaves Dobson in a messy situation where the team as a whole does not have the player resouces available to the Bulls and the Sharks, It left Dobson with a squad of players who are not a good situation to be in. But Dobson is also a poor selector of playing teams. The case of Sacha Feinberg-Ngomezulu is sn example of deficient selection strategy.
While the Bulls and Sharks has very little reason to account for their deficient performnces - the same cannot be said of the Stormers The Stormers need a better forward pack insofar as props are conrned - but theya re Ok in the loosie Department, while with Sacha and Wilemse they top class playes as well - but I am never happy wth their defense, When S acha and or willenmse are not available they have a big void in their backline play.
I not sure who is the Stormers defense coach and if Donson is to rermain as .coach - the defense component will have to be upped, A positive is that in the past the Stomers neglected the recruitig of school players and this year they stopped that by recuiting youngstes from schools, For many years the main exprt item of not of te ormers were shool-leaving rugby players recruited by other franchies from Western Cape schools.
The Lions
Ownership
Altmann Allers 74,9%
Lions franchise 25,1%
Altman Allers is also the Chairman of the Lions Board and there sis not much information about the actual net ork of the comapnies he own as well as his financial conribution to the Lions, In a recent newsoaper article he was criticized ir nit investing in the Lions and that is the reason why hey loe top players and rely totally on using youngstes fom schools to be recruited and nobody virually no real top class players are in eh squad and the few they hav regualrly leaving he franchise.
In my opinion in the present nvironment where the owner without a rugby background being the Board Chaorman can also be a negative,
In that environmment one cannot really blame the coach for the underwhelming perforrmances of te Franchise. If he had a stronger squad the team will inevitably perform better - but the present negatives no coach can ovecome, ,