Heyneke Meyer picks 9 new players for the Boks

[Gena_ZA]

Happy in general with the team selections part from the following:

Jannie du Plessis - what a passenger, look at his stats - rucks hit, tackles completed, he is one lazy bugger and just now and then makes that perfect trip and throws a match; would pick Herbst ahead of him any day
3bar Jantjes - guess he is there cause HM will unearth & unleash his inner match winning abilities cause honestly I don't have a clue (but he has a hot sugar mommy I heard)
Scarecrow Kirchner - hopefully there to give a play maker like Le Roux some guidance, same for Habanna, bring the young guys through while on your way to Europe
Henirich Brussauw - All and sundry complains about him not being selected as they live in 2009 and the way he performed based on the laws of the game at them time - open invitation to compare the amount of balls stolen by him to other 6's in SA - simply put, does not do what a 6 should in the current interpretation of the game and it has nothing to do with his penalty count as is generally argued.
Ebersohn was not picked as he is not is the same league as Jan Serfontein and Jean de Villiers at 12, that is obvious to me
Agree with most that Piet van Zyl should have been there and not Pienaar, in my view snorting Hougaard is also only there on past reputation

Hope we see some enterprising rugby from the youngsters

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

South Africa sent a flat line of forward runners promoting themselves to receive the ball and a deep line of backs to get the ball behind the forwards.
Alberts and co standing off. Defense know they do just one thing. So they get gang tackled whole game

This made it too obvious which group was getting the ball, and allowed defenders to smash the forward runners or slide off on second-man plays to cut down backs or, at worst, end up pushing the outside backs to the sideline where the our wingers were always confronted with 2-3 Argentinian defenders.

International teams analyze the oppositions players to the finest detail. They know exactly what is going to happen with Alberts standing off or Botha or Fourie. They know exactly that Steyn stays deep and will blitz us and they know exactly he will pop it to the guy on his shoulder who is Spoes and they will nail him as well. In the end Habana is facing two or 3 defenders rather than one. Attacking should be a one on one contest. Playing with sledgehammers you are attacking and turning the contest into a 2 vs situation where the two fuys always going to win bringing you to ground. Your stats can say you made so xxx amount of meters but it doesn't say you were caught behind the advantage line 9 out of 10 times.

Other thing is NZ and Australia have a tactic where they drain our energy reserves first before they give us the ball. That is why you will alwyas see them running from set plays in their exit zone before launching their kick and chase team. We have bigger forwards and NZ and Australia know this. So they will take it up with set pieces first. That is why we run out of steam 90 percent of the time

Still not sure which Fourie you are talking about but in general I tend to agree with you that SA need to vary our game as any gameplan with limited variance will tend to become ineffective.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Still not sure which Fourie you are talking about but in general I tend to agree with you that SA need to vary our game as any gameplan with limited variance will tend to become ineffective.

I think the Cheetahs and Bulls have already shown the variance in their play. Keeping it tight when they want to and playing expansive when they can. Scoring a lot of tries in the process.

One thing is for sure, the other teams should watch out for the Mauls... Every SA side has made some major inroads in other teams with the mauls. this is one are where we will dominate.

 

[SomeOke]

Pretty much 100% happy with the team to be honest.

Ebersohn - To me he is a player that needs a little bit of space to get anything done, and I can see him being smothered in SR. All international teams favour a big centre who can consistently get over the gainline for a reason, Nonu, McCabe, Roberts, Tuilagi, and both JDV and Serfontein have been in good form this year. JJ Engelbrecht is a good player and a more reliable gainer of yards in a tight game, not to mention he is an outside, which we need and can cover wing.

Brussow - Possibly we could select him on being a "good Springbok" but this does seem like a form side to me, and honestly Deon Fourie has done more at 6 this season and I would never suggest using him at 6, do we have a another form fetcher other than Flow? Let's not forget he was one of our form players last year and I've heard nothing to suggest a lack of form.

Scrum Halves - Piet van Zyl should probably be there, but I don't think there's such a marked difference between Vermaak and Van Zyl that this is an issue and Vermaak is perhaps better at some vital aspects in international play. Pienaar is a must have, the form SA scrumhalf, no reason to not select him. Even if he's not great it's not like anyone has really stepped up and made it obvious that we "we now have a Springbok scrumhalf".

Morne Steyn - Form fly-half, as much as I like Catrakilis, I can't see an argument that he has offered anything that Steyn hasn't this year, and the stuff Steyn does he does very very effectively. Once again it's not like we've had an outstanding fly-half this year.

Bismark - We have Straus (who is one of the best Hookers in the world), Chiliboy and then who? Kyle Cooper is the closest, but not ready for a Springbok call-up and then why not Bismarck? He is the best hooker in the world when he isn't injured, are we seriously suggesting we should select a first season SR hooker over Bismarck du Plessis?

The general trend of some of the iffy players, Jantjies, Vermaak, Kirchner is really based on the fact that we have no one better in that position. Our half backs and fullbacks just haven't performed that well that year, even our full back cover are wings. I would probably have selected Visser or Viljoen over Kircher but that's quite a big call to make.

@sifplay, I'm not sure what you're getting at, I can see how using bashers might absorb space for the backline but cause them to be outnumbered? That doesn't even make sense, even if Spies get's tackled by one player that doesn't leave extra men to defend, and the whole point of bashing up the ball is that with a strong ball carrier, it takes more than one player to take him down, doing the opposite of what you're saying. Sometimes I think you have a bit of a naive attitude towards rugby, virtually every team in the world uses forward runners to suck in defenders before utilizing the backline. It's not a predictable runner when it could be anyone in our forwards - Beast, Strauss, Eben, PSD and all our loosies are potential ball carriers. That's 7/8 forwards and even Jannie has a go occasionally.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Pretty much 100% happy with the team to be honest.

Ebersohn - To me he is a player that needs a little bit of space to get anything done, and I can see him being smothered in SR. All international teams favour a big centre who can consistently get over the gainline for a reason, Nonu, McCabe, Roberts, Tuilagi, and both JDV and Serfontein have been in good form this year. JJ Engelbrecht is a good player and a more reliable gainer of yards in a tight game, not to mention he is an outside, which we need and can cover wing.

Brussow - Possibly we could select him on being a "good Springbok" but this does seem like a form side to me, and honestly Deon Fourie has done more at 6 this season and I would never suggest using him at 6, do we have a another form fetcher other than Flow? Let's not forget he was one of our form players last year and I've heard nothing to suggest a lack of form.

Scrum Halves - Piet van Zyl should probably be there, but I don't think there's such a marked difference between Vermaak and Van Zyl that this is an issue and Vermaak is perhaps better at some vital aspects in international play. Pienaar is a must have, the form SA scrumhalf, no reason to not select him. Even if he's not great it's not like anyone has really stepped up and made it obvious that we "we now have a Springbok scrumhalf".

Morne Steyn - Form fly-half, as much as I like Catrakilis, I can't see an argument that he has offered anything that Steyn hasn't this year, and the stuff Steyn does he does very very effectively. Once again it's not like we've had an outstanding fly-half this year.

Bismark - We have Straus (who is one of the best Hookers in the world), Chiliboy and then who? Kyle Cooper is the closest, but not ready for a Springbok call-up and then why not Bismarck? He is the best hooker in the world when he isn't injured, are we seriously suggesting we should select a first season SR hooker over Bismarck du Plessis?

The general trend of some of the iffy players, Jantjies, Vermaak, Kirchner is really based on the fact that we have no one better in that position. Our half backs and fullbacks just haven't performed that well that year, even our full back cover are wings. I would probably have selected Visser or Viljoen over Kircher but that's quite a big call to make.

@sifplay, I'm not sure what you're getting at, I can see how using bashers might absorb space for the backline but cause them to be outnumbered? That doesn't even make sense, even if Spies get's tackled by one player that doesn't leave extra men to defend, and the whole point of bashing up the ball is that with a strong ball carrier, it takes more than one player to take him down, doing the opposite of what you're saying. Sometimes I think you have a bit of a naive attitude towards rugby, virtually every team in the world uses forward runners to suck in defenders before utilizing the backline. It's not a predictable runner when it could be anyone in our forwards - Beast, Strauss, Eben, PSD and all our loosies are potential ball carriers. That's 7/8 forwards and even Jannie has a go occasionally.

Give Someoke a Bells! This is exactly what I am thinking and I think so many of the SA Rugby public!

We pride ourselves in big strong guys. This team has that. Then those big strong guys have some x-factor capabilities. Our forwards consist of guys that can tackle hard and drive people back, strong carries and with that they have pace, for instance how many times has a guy like chilliboy recieved the ball at pace from a ruck and broken through? Many many times! The scrummies all are snipers, something which has become a bit of a forgotten trademark. Both Lambie and Steyn are good goal kickers and have shown they can get their backs away. Steyn has played a lot more flatter than usual, and that shows by the tries the bulls score.

Jan and JDV are great distributors, strong carriers and has that little bit of flair we need at 12. At 13 JJ has improved tremendously, he reminds me of a young Tana Umaga, a good winger that became an even better Centre.

Out wide, we have great pace and awesome finishers.

As for Zane, well yes, he's our second best fullback in that squad. And I hope Willie le Roux gets the nod!

 

[Gena_ZA]

^^ what these gentlemen said

 

[Gena_ZA]

Robert Ebersohn called up for cover to the injured Juan de Jongh