Read about it. My thoughts. I need to go to 2015, post world cup. We had a pretty good world cup, young team, and even before the world cup the coaching staff said the goal was 2019 and not 2015. We were going to join super rugby the coming year and many, MANY, thought at the time that they might have created a monster by allowing the jags to join SR. First, we were putting all our best resources in one team while the rest of the countires needed to split theirs. Second, our players would play among each other more, much more, than any other team in the planet. Third, both our feeding team and our national team would have congruent strategies. Example: the lions, the bulls and the sharks approach the game quite differently. When u take their players and put them together in the springboks they not only have to adjust to new players but a new plan too. Jaguares/Pumas didn't have that problem. In fact, they turned that problem into an asset.
So, long story short, end of 2015, many though myself included, that the future for the Pumas/Jaguares couldn't be brighter.
I didnt see the likes of kearns and ella complaining about us back in 2016 or 2017, and i dont see them complaining about the sunwolves now, which strongly suggest the problem is not provincial vs national teams, but rather that their team lost. Hypocrites.
To be fair, I still think those advantages i mentioned above exist, are quite important and i think we are still working on how to exploit those advantages. Despite having players consistently playing together week in week out, we have the weakest scrum in the competition for arguably 3 years on a row.
I think we also we overlooked several things back then: new team, new coach, new competition, a LOT of travelling. The learning curve was steeper than we thought it'd be.
Additionally, and this is important, we probably have the most tired players. We dont have the depth RSA, NZ and Aus have. All the teams have a handfull of All blacks, springboks, wallabies and just need to rest every now and then for the sake of their national team. Most teams can afford to do that without dismanteling their performance. We cant do that. Our entire franchise team is pretty much our national team. I think we overlooked the toll this would take on our players.
The same team, starters and subs, will play the most travel-intensive competition in the planet (SR), plus TRC, plus world cup in the same year. I think it's doable but i also think it requires very careful management.
After watching the list of players for the national team, i m quite ok with the selection. My main concern for the world cup is players getting there tired/injured.