croadymeister
Academy Player
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2019
- Messages
- 27
Losing in big finals always brings the worst in terms of Self reflection as a nation. The fact is that it is bloody hard to win at sport at the highest level; so many things have to come together, not just mentality. Compare SA's record in other sports compared to Rugby and I am sure it doesn't look too great either.
The 2003 team was full of special players that came about at the same time, but it still took 6 years to build and win the ultimate prize after going through several hard breaking defeats in 6Ns over the years and getting a major shellacking down under in 1997.
The 2019 team is still full of young players who can be there in 4 years time. They just need to remember this hurt and channel it to get better and for Jones or whoever is managing in 4 years time to build on that and add even better players. Out with Dan Cole, Youngs and in with better quality replacements. France 2023 here we come. Yesterday's final was just the start of this journey for many who played Saturday's final.
England in football - well the pool of countries and players is a hell of a lot bigger than rugby. Yeah 1966 and all that and now the Premiership is akin to the Top 14 in France, which has no interest in serving the National team. But Until England can produce enough technical players who can keep and use the ball well enough, who are rested enough before a major tournament to be at their peak then England's success at international football will continue to be that of nearly men.
But not all bad news England/GB/NI have had a lot of sporting success this decade: Olympics 2012/2016 were pretty unparalleled in terms of number of gold medals won. It's not been all bad. Murray at Wimbledon in 2013 and 2016.
I will agree that there has been a definite improvement in our Olympic performances since Sydney in 2000 and you are bang on when you said that the England football team have to produce more technical players who can both keep and use the ball effectively. I think the likes of Foden & Maddison are positive steps in the right direction but we definitely lack that deep lying playmaker who can control the tempo in the middle.
There is no doubt the likes of Curry & Underhill will be around for a long time but like you say we do need to find quality replacements for the likes of Youngs & Cole in the next four years otherwise we will keep on coming up short when we face the likes of South Africa again.