SA rugby, the next 4 years

[Sker]

So guys, what do you think is going to happen, what are you hoping will happen?

With the eye on the next 4 years (that's if we are free of political interference), I think this is what I'd like to see:

1. T Nyakane
2. A. Strauss / ?? I haven't watched enough CC / Super rugby to know who the up and coming hooker is
3. F. Malherbe / V. Koch

4. E. Etzebeth
5. L. de Jager

6. J. Kriel / F. Louw (will he have another 4 years? If so maybe Captain)
7. M. Coetzee / S. Kollisi
8. Thormeulen / W. Whitely (Once again, not too sure who the up and coming number 8 is)

9. C. Reinach / F. du Plessis
10. J. Goosen (bring Goose back, we miss a huge boot to get us out of trouble and someone to scare the opposition with 50m + drops and penalties) / P. Lambie / H. Pollard

11. ???
12. D. de Allende / J. Serfontein
13. J. Kriel / ??
14. ???
15. W. le Roux / F. Steyn / J. Kriel / M. Boshoff

That's kinda what I'm thinking. Reason for Francois Steyn again is we are missing that big boot to get us out of our 22, and he's not too bad at kicking for touch.

If HM isn't coach, I'm hoping for Johann Ackermann. (might be a bit naive thinking he can coach international rugby, but damn that guy took the lions far)

 

[TRF_heineken]

I think you pretty much named the frontrunners for those positions yeah, but here's a number of guys I think will be added to the mix in the coming year(s).

1. Thomas Du Toit, Stephen Kitshoff
2. Malcolm Marx, Robbie Coetzee
3. Dayan van der Westhuizen
4. Jonathan Jenkins, Franco Mostert
5. Marvin Orie, RG Snyman, Jean Kleyn
6. Notshe
7. Jean-Luc Du Preez, Kwagga Smith, Boom Prinsloo
8. Arno Botha

9. Pretty much settled here with Reinach, Hougaard, De Klerk and Paige
10. Pollard, Lambie, Goosen. Maybe an outside chance for Marnitz Boshoff, Tiaan Schoeman and Robert Du Preez (even though he choked on Saturday)
11. Jamba Ulengo, Seabelo Senatla, Raymond Rhule
12. Burger Odendaal, Stefan Watermeyer, Francois Venter
13. Dries Swanepoel, Paul Jordaan, William Small-Smith
14. Sergeal Pietersen, Roscoe Specman, Cornal Hendricks
15. Warwick Gelant, Robbie Coetzee, Cheslin Kolbe

These are mostly players younger than 26 years old. It's a good base to work from, and depending on how they feature in the Super Rugby next year, good definitely get a chance.

 

[TheOvalBall]

What about Juan de Jongh ? He is only 27.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

I have a lot of hope for the future of SA rugby and in the same breath I have a lot of fear. But let me start with the fun part;

1 Steven Kitshoff (23y/o) - our best loosie and he wasn't included only due to ill timed injury
2 Adriaan Strauss (29) - we've had something of a golden generation at hooker (Brits' lack of caps is a testament to this) and we'll have to wait for the younguns to come through for a year or two
3 Frans Malherbe (24) - still coming back from injury and I'm sure he'll get better with age as most props do. 2019 should see his best rugby
4 Eben Etzebeth (23) - the lad is 23 and already on 43 caps. We'll probably go into 2019 with a stupid amount of caps if things don't go awry (50% quotas etc)
5 Lood de Jager (22) - I expect a lot of competition for this jersey though so Lood'll have to keep sharp.
6 Jaco Kriel (26) - our best forward and only De Allende was competition for best player overall in CC 2014, SR 2015 and he stands alone CC 2015. An absolute disgrace he didn't get in due to quotas. I also like the fact he and Coetzee play a very similar game equally adept at pilfering and carrying though I have Kriel ahead in both departments on current form.
7 Marcell Coetzee (24) - another young player getting better all the time but already quite experienced
8 Duane Vermeulen (29) - because he is still playing some damn good rugby, we need some old heads in the team and the back-ups still need to prove themselves at lower levels. Him and Strauss to be (c) and (vc) for the next year or two depending on what traspires.
9 Whichever of Faf de Klerk (24), Cobus Reinach (25) or Francois Hougaard (27) are in the best form. I'll say it again, we have quality scrumhalves but are playing away from their strengths. Allow our new generation of 10's to take the greater responsibility for decision making and allow our 9's to play their own game which is less box kicks and primary decision making and more sniping runs and quicker ball (if allowed to think on their feet and for themselves).
10 Handre Pollard (21) - the lad is 21 and has a tremendously high ceiling. I'd continue backing him but I'd also want him to have greater freedom.
11 Jamba Jumbo Ulengo (25) - still young enough to make an impact
12 Damian de Allende (23)
13 Jesse Kriel (21) - though I am looking to see whre the Bulls play him. I do agree with Mayer that he most dangerous at 13 (if we use him that is)
14 Ruan Combrinck / Willie le Roux /
15 Wille le Roux / Warrick Gelant

16 Robbie Coetzee / Malcolm Marx
17 Thomas du Toit / Trevor Nyakane
18 Vincent Koch / Dayan van der Westhuizen
19 Pieter-Steph du Toit / Franco Mostert
20 Arno Botha / Siya Kolisi / Jean-Luc du Preez / Nizaam Carr
21 see 9
22 Lambie / Goosen / Jantjies
23 Serfontein / Vorster / Mpaoe / Mnisi / Steyn - I'd add another center seeing as we have a bunch of good ones and Lambie and Goosen (and Boshoff, Du Preez and Schoeman) can cover 15.


I think our only problem areas are the back three and the game plan needs to be looked at. ITO the game plan we need to use our dangerous runners and with our younger 9's they all bring a dangerous running and off loading game which should see Pollard have more space. Kriel has been doing great work out wide and I've felt our wingers were on form but they just never got the ball; Kriel for instance got the ball 1 time against NZ and managed a clean break and 22 meters off of it. Against Wales (now I hope my memory serves) he only got the ball 4 times and managed 1 clean break, 2 defenedrs beaten and I forget the exact amount but good meters. We need to bring him into play. When it comes to our problem area at the back I want to clarify I felt Habana and JPP were in good form but I can't see either carrying over. Le Roux has had enough chances now. He needs to be replaced but here the problem is we don't have a long list of guys putting pressure on him for the jersey. Unless Kolbe gets to Jason Robinson / Christian Cullen levels of strength for his size I can't see him playing test rugby. Coetzee or Combrinck? Marais? Nah. My hope is on Gelant developing quickly at the Bulls but will the Bulls opt for playing Jesse Kriel at 15 again seeing as they have Serfontein in the centers along with Odendaal and Small-Smith who have both gone rather well there while the former 2 were with the Bokke.

That's just players. Heynecke looks set to get another 4 years. My feelings on this are complex. In some ways I feel he deserves another go but my stone cold heart just can't forgive some of the selections he had made in the run up to the tournament (2014 to middle of the pool stages) and I felt he almost got lucky with injuries forcing him into picking form players and I feel his use of the bench and a few tactical aspects have been naive.

Then there is the *big* hurdle for SA rugby; tarnsformation. Supposedly we need it. Are we set on the 50% Mbalula spoke of for after 2015? That could become a massive hurdle. The Super Rugby sides we pick our Bokke from just aren't running those types of numbers. Despite the SA population being 90% black, was it 2% of black boys playing rugby at schools level? I can't remember the released figures out of hand. Its just unreasonable expecting that we are going to get black players out of nowhere if they just aren't interested in the sport. Even if we manage 50% starting what happens when the inevitable injuries start occuring; lets say Nyakane starts at 1 and gets injured. Now Kitshoff comes in but he is white so we have to exclude another white player elsewhere to make room for a black player to make the 50%. We'll be needing squads of 40 players + to cover that sort of senario and we wuld be artificially doubling the impact on our continuity of selection. Meyer has already had to compromise to get to half that. I expect going to 50% won't be doubly more difficult to manage but exponencially so. But lets keep our hope.

 

[mdaclarke]

As an English/Welshman (one of each parent!!) I keep reading about Transformation. I find it strange that this is an issue at all. Just pick the best players be they white black or Indian. You only need to look to Zimbabwe cricket to see what happens when politics takes over. How did severely damaging Zimbabwe cricket help the day to day life of the average Zimbabwean. You have a brilliant team with brilliant young players. Why does it matter what race they are. Pollard, Kriel, De Jager, De Allende, Etzebeth, Malherbe, Lambee, La Roux together with older players like Vermulen, Strauss and Louw will win you the world cup in 2019.

How will picking weaker players and forcing other players to play abroad and causing the national team to perform poorly help South Africa. How will it help Black South African’s in their day to day lives?

I also wonder what the IRB would do if a quota was imposed and the team started to lose? I'm not sure they would tolerate it too long as South African Rugby is one of their big money earners

I get transformation and targets at school level and age grade rugby. I can also see an argument for transformation for Currie Cup Squads but once you get to that level, and from then on, all the players have the same facilities and opportunities. Therefore Currie Cup match day teams, Super Rugby Squads and Teams and the National Team Squads and Teams must be picked on merit and merit alone.

It is dishonest to expect people to pay their hard earned money to watch players that are not picked on merit. I would be very upset if when the South Africans come to Twickenham and I pay upwards of £100 to see them play, they are not the best 15 South African players. I don’t care if they are all black or all white or all Indian. All I expect is that they are the best and picked on merit.

 

[Peat]

Are we set on the 50% Mbalula spoke of for after 2015?

Wait, what? I've missed something big here. Fill me in please?

 

[Durbanite]

We were playing some good rugby, heading in the right direction. Then the loss to Arg came and Meyer obviously blamed running rugby, we wen't into our shells and won the second Arg test with a conservative gameplan. I'm pretty sure HM was going to add some flair to our RWC gameplan, then came the Japan loss (which was just a pure surprise as we just didn't get a chance to adapt) and it all went to **** and we tried to play even more conservative. I had no problems with that tbh, untill we reached the playoffs. The backline was barely an afterthought and the players had little freedom to play the way they wanted. I remember the interview after the QF with Duane Vermulen about how HM forbade him to offload, WHY?! because that's conservative rugby, apparently, and i am almost certain others got this directive, Schalk probably the most obvious. I believe Meyer is set in stone as our head coach for next camp, and that's okay! provided that we revamp our structures and get assistant coaches in that have the ability to install a varied, expansive game, and can challenge Meyer's decisions when it matters. All in all (barring politics) we have an exciting rugby future ahead of us, the U/19/20/21 guys are some dangerous, exciting rugby players as always, and ofc the CC and SR brings out the best. It's my hope that this "conservative" nonsense was just a glitch in the bokke matrix and Meyer will begin re-fostering that running rugby we love so much. It just makes sense, why would he carry on with this gameplan? The media and fans chew him up when he does. Heck, when we lost to NZ and OZ everyone was going crazy over the quality of the rugby and the losses were afterthought. Only way we can advance under these structures is give our players the freedom to use their skills and deviate slightly from the gameplan.

 

[GregRugby]

Can any of you think of a viable 31 man squad which ticks the 50% box?

We massively need to raise the profile of rugby in the non rugby playing schools but it will take ages. All the structures in the top schools have been built up over many decades.

https://johanfourie.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/wanted-black-springboks/

 

[BakkiesBokke]

9. C. Reinach / F. du Plessis

I agree - we need Faf du Plessis and why not AB de Villiers too? They would have made awesome backs those two!

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Wait, what? I've missed something big here. Fill me in please?

http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SARU-50-blacks-merely-a-target-20150225
http://www.sarugbymag.co.za/blog/details/boks-must-be-50-black-by-2019

The preceding anouncements (can't find links) called for a hard-and-fast quota of 50% non-white players post 2015. Whether that is rounded up or down for matchday squads of 23 isn't stated. For this RWC the quota was 30% and some of the noisier and more bitter threw their toys out of the cot because the actual squad came in at 29%. Do not believe this was the strongest SA team we could've put forward. Steven Kitshoff for example is our best loose head but he didn't get a look in to accommodate Mtawarira and Nyakane. TBF both those players are good and Mtawaria has experience on his side but the thing is they aren't our best in the opinion of most pundits. Don't ven get me started on scrumhalf and in the loose forwards though. Sure it wasn't effecting our starting team overly much other than that it severly limited our options and made Fourie du Preez, Francois Louw and Schalk Burger irreplacable out of the RWC squad because we left actual alternatives at home. So we had no option than going ahead with those guys in those positions.

Can any of you think of a viable 31 man squad which ticks the 50% box?

We massively need to raise the profile of rugby in the non rugby playing schools but it will take ages. All the structures in the top schools have been built up over many decades.

I was thinking about that myself. I think we can come up with a 50% (rounded down) matchday 23 that could be decent but what is 'viable'? I don't think we'll be in top 3 ranking regions for long when inevitable injury strike our better black players and we aren't allowed exemption. My 50% non-white (11 if rounded down with 7 having to be 'African black'*) matchday 23 for 2016 onwards:

1 Trevor Nyakane* / Tendai Mtawarira (*)
2 Adriaan Strauss / Scarra Ntubeni*
3 Frans Malherbe / Vincent Koch
4 Eben Etzebeth
5 Lood de Jager / Oupa Mohoje*
6 Marcell Coetzee
7 Siya Kolisi*
8 Duane Vermeulen / Nizaam Carr
9 Faf de Klerk / Rudi Paige
10 Handre Pollard / Pat Lambie
11 Jamba Ulengo*
12 Damian de Allende
13 Jesse Kriel / Lionel Mapoe* (or Howard Mnisi*)
14 JP Petersen
15 Warrick Gelant


TBH my actual prefered 23 wouldn't be too dissimilar. I'd just have Serfontein in ahead of Mapoe, Kitshoff in ahead of Mtawarira who is on his way to being passed it IMO, Jaco Kriel and PSdT in the mix in the pack as well.

 

[mdaclarke]

I'm pretty sure they are targets rather than quotas as explicit quotas are banned by the IRB. It will quite interesting to see what the IRB would do if a transformed South African team started to play poorly when it is obvious to everyone that better players are not being picked.

 

[GregRugby]

Do you guys think Senatla and Kolbe have Bok potential?

 

[Sker]

I agree - we need Faf du Plessis and why not AB de Villiers too? They would have made awesome backs those two!

Hahahahahahhahaha!

Oops.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Do you guys think Senatla and Kolbe have Bok potential?

Both of them have great potential. Both of them have even attended Springbok training camps in the past. But I think Senatla has a better chance of actually making it than Kolbe.

 

[Durbanite]

http://m.news24.com/Sport24/Rugby/WorldCup/Meyer-Boks-have-no-skills-20151103 This article makes me sad

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

I'm pretty sure they are targets rather than quotas as explicit quotas are banned by the IRB. It will quite interesting to see what the IRB would do if a transformed South African team started to play poorly when it is obvious to everyone that better players are not being picked.

Make no mistake its hard-up quotas. They even officially said so and then had to backpeddle in the media afterwards.

The fact that Meyer stays on is part of an 'understanding'.

Never forget the ANC governement is just a stones throw away from a terrorist organization; a leopard doesn't change its spots. The fact they have a fantastic propogande machine and polished front barely conceales the corruption and their communist, racist, totalitarian ideals.

Do you guys think Senatla and Kolbe have Bok potential?

Seantla maybe but he is away on 7s duty and won't et a real chance to show his worth in the 15 man code till after Rio 2016. Kolbe I have a lot of time for but then either the test team needs to adapt the way it plays or Kolbe needs to improve his effectiveness in contact because there will be a lot less space at test level.

 

[mdaclarke]

Make no mistake its hard-up quotas. They even officially said so and then had to backpeddle in the media afterwards.

The fact that Meyer stays on is part of an 'understanding'.

Never forget the ANC governement is just a stones throw away from a terrorist organization; a leopard doesn't change its spots. The fact they have a fantastic propogande machine and polished front barely conceales the corruption and their communist, racist, totalitarian ideals.

But that is a clear breach of the IRB rules and Olympic rules. I only wish there was a word for picking or not picking someone due to the colour of their skin? As I said before I wonder what would happen if the Springboks started to get heavily defeated time and time again if they were playing quota players. Surely the IRB and IOC would do something? Especially the IRB as a Strong Springboks is one of their strongest assets?

 

[TRF_heineken]

But that is a clear breach of the IRB rules and Olympic rules. I only wish there was a word for picking or not picking someone due to the colour of their skin? As I said before I wonder what would happen if the Springboks started to get heavily defeated time and time again if they were playing quota players. Surely the IRB and IOC would do something? Especially the IRB as a Strong Springboks is one of their strongest assets?

I hope that World Rugby does something about it before it gets enforced. Our Government has a tendency to delay things when they get ticked over their fingers for doing something they're not supposed to...

 

[mdaclarke]

I hope that World Rugby does something about it before it gets enforced. Our Government has a tendency to delay things when they get ticked over their fingers for doing something they're not supposed to...

If the ANC are as corrupt as people say, then I expect them to pay lip service to transformation, whilst the cheques keep rolling in from a winning Springboks side. They must know that the big sponsor money and television contracts are only a result of the springboks winning.

 

[saulan]

I hope that World Rugby does something about it before it gets enforced. Our Government has a tendency to delay things when they get ticked over their fingers for doing something they're not supposed to...

They can't enforce it. That I think is the problem otherwise I am sure they would have done it by now. But even prior to that, they haven't put in any quota for even the currie cup sides so I really don't see the 2019 target as anything more than a target that I am 90% sure will not be met. Everyone says it, but the problem is in grassroots level. I took a look at the Varsity Cup finalists and (granted I was only basing it on the names of players) it didn't look like both teams were very 'representative'.

Resources need to get through to schools and clubs trying to grow rugby in their areas. The top rugby schools are all former model c or private, which are not the cheapest. At many of the poorer schools rugby isn't even offered as a sport.