Comments on: Boks fitness fiasco

By: wespa531

wespa531 — Tue, 30 May 2006 11:08:09 +0000

To all the guys complaining about Keo’s site: If you don’t like it why don’t go surf somewhere else. I might not always agree with Keo but I enjoy his site very much and like reading the different opinions of the muppits.It’s free after all, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!

By: Jo

Jo — Tue, 30 May 2006 10:40:08 +0000

The injuries are partly due to the extended season and the amount of rugby, but I believe very much also because of the TYPE of rugby we play – bash, bash, bash – Duh! – of course we’re going to have more injuries.

Heyneke is a fantastic coach and good record, but his (typical SA coach) response after the Stromers beat the Crusaders , was that the Bulls were going to be even more physical than the Stormers! – we all know what happened when the Crusaders simply focussed on the ball….

By: cab

cab — Tue, 30 May 2006 08:40:47 +0000

in fairness to the pommerainens they seem to have done the right thing by sending a B squad down to oz, they’re probably going to get hammered in any case and if these artciles are correct about resting players, perhaps we should do the same at the end of our season, i.e. when we go on the NH tour choose a B team with forward power.

By: Redox

Redox — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:26:32 +0000

I think Coetzee may have a valid point.

jonny

Yes the english do play alot of rugby , but there is an agreement between the clubs and the english ru that that there will always be i think it may be 3 consecutive months per year of no rugby which would allow for conditioning and rest not sure of the exact no but its either 2 or 3 months , also the new zealanders rest their top players from the npc and they arent as cash hungry as our guys most years they only play 1-2 games on their eoyt and the majority of the time against smaller northern sides like italy and argentina allowing the coach to rest his top players. The one eoyt tour 2 years ago was not even an all black tour but rather a NZ A tour which takes the pressure off the coach to select his best players. And the ozzies have the s14 as their only high intensity rugby competition , other than that they just play a bit of club rugby and even so they dont tour every year with as many games or as often as we do which shows that they do allow conditioning and rest.

By: folanke

folanke — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:09:19 +0000

Not according to the stats they don’t !!
Or what are the stats then ?
If Jake initially – 2 years ago – made the right choices, why has he been forced into numerous changes already since then deviating from his so called untouchables ?
Simply because he has quite often made a hash of those initial selections, but sadly he is not willing to just say so !!
Now he is forced to carry all this deadwood with him, at the same time keeping better players out of the team !!
This is a high price to pay for ego, and has been the downfall of all the last 4 Bok coaches…their brittle little egos, to go with their equally brittle selections and game plans, all which led to SA Rugby going nowhere fast…
As far as Jake is concerned, he has already showed his hand, what he did was basically damage control, mind you SA rugby could hardly have gotten worse than it was 2 years ago, so he has had a free ride for the last two years, but now the heat is on, and he has to produce, and he simply doesn’t have the troops to go into the trenches, because he is simply too stubborn to say so !!
Just admit your dead wood, cut them out, and get the worthy players on asap !!
Otherwise the worldcup is lost ALREADY !!!

By: John_Psycho

John_Psycho — Tue, 30 May 2006 06:17:51 +0000

There are far more idiots on this site than I thought. Who wants to sacrafice winning for giving a youngster Test experience.. Jake has a preformance clause which means he can’t afford to lose to many games & do you really want to change coaches this close to the world cup?

Its been said so many times that regional coaches should help JW to rest players & share data, yet nobody listens…
Jake White is doing what he can to make the best out of this international season & of the World Cup.
Finally, South African players do play more games than NZ & Aus!

By: bokusa

bokusa — Tue, 30 May 2006 04:58:28 +0000

These articles are both boring and disingenious. The French, English and Kiwi national players all play as much if not more rugby than the Boks so the notion that our players play more rugby than anyone else is ridiculous. Perhaps the SA players should approach the game more professionally and spend more time in the gym getting in better shape. When you compare the French, English and Kiwi players it’s apparent that they are in better physical shape than the SA players. As said by other comments, Jake White has the opportunity to build a large squad and rotate his players. he chooses not too as we saw last December and I’m sure we’ll see this coming international season. England are resting plent of players for their tour down under and Henry has already built a true rotational squad of 35 or so. If jake White persists in playing the same team week after week then he only has himself to blame. we need to rest players as well as build depth in every position. the only way to do that is give younger players experience at international level and have a mixture of youth and experience on the field. Time for JW to walk the walk instead of talking the talk.

By: oink12

oink12 — Tue, 30 May 2006 04:40:42 +0000

well know we know why we have been playing bad rugga

By: oink12

oink12 — Tue, 30 May 2006 04:39:12 +0000

Wll thank you, now we know why the south african sides in S14 have been bad.

By: CSI:Rugby

CSI:Rugby — Tue, 30 May 2006 04:26:41 +0000

Jim Blair should be sent to SA to train the boks, he would seriously get them into top fitness in no time.

By: folanke

folanke — Tue, 30 May 2006 03:09:52 +0000

If the players are burning out so fast, and a lot of them don’t seem deserved of being there to begin with, why not follow the NZ route, and choose two teams equally capable ?
Or will someone tell me that after Jake has chosen his lame ducks, there will not be another capable team left in SA !!!
Methinks that after Jake has chosen his favourites, one can easily pick TWO other squads to match his…
I have no doubt that he is stumbling in the dark, just like last year, when the Ozzies hammered his team in the first game, forcing him to make numerous changes to his ‘untouchables’ and with luck it paid off – kinda…it is time he gets asked a few hard questions…

By: samglazer

samglazer — Mon, 29 May 2006 22:35:18 +0000

Hopefully we are heading towards a “right decision” to give the players four months of off-time each year. This is essential. The whispers turned to shouts long ago! Next come the screams, i.e. virtually no front-ranking players for the test matches.

By: samglazer

samglazer — Mon, 29 May 2006 22:34:36 +0000

Mark, it is important to compare apples with apples. Our players are on-the-road, across far time zones much longer than the NZ and Australian players. This is a significant stresser on the bodies and minds of our players, which should not be overlooked.

I agree with you about rotation of players. However, a backbone of regular players needs to be established first before they can be rotated. This backbone has only recently been achieveed. Now the rotation can begin.

By: jonny

jonny — Mon, 29 May 2006 21:44:40 +0000

superBul I get the feeling you think Gary Botha should be the 1st choice hooker ahead of the captain? Maak die Bulle almal Bokke?

By: superBul

superBul — Mon, 29 May 2006 19:54:23 +0000

Smit played all that matches because of Jake he couldnt take the chance of being exposed by truing Gary Botha. And all this comparing of stats , do you realy think the All Blacks will give JW the true numbers. No instead they put him on this wild goose chase and catch him with a softened Springbok team wrapped in cotton.

The guys shouting foul is just as guilty of overusage of players , nr 1 is John Smith , wilst there is another Jake favourite in Shimange available , a star player in Gary Botha and his other fav Danie Coetzee. If Jake can explain this to us. Dont come with the captaincy excuse , that he could have also addressed by some rotatation , but no he cant leave the team doing anything without his spy , and blue eye boy there to tell him of any decent. No never.

Every one at the top is so blind eyed about JW destruction of SA rugby , but the majority of us sees trough him , look at the polls. Jake is gambling with our rugby

By: reggy

reggy — Mon, 29 May 2006 19:37:49 +0000

these SA players must stop drinking milk,they should drink beer!

By: keo

keo — Mon, 29 May 2006 19:29:02 +0000

We play no more or no less than any of the top New Zealand players.

Jake has failed in his rotation of players. New Zealand’s top players were played into the ground in Super 14.

Example: Collins, So’ialo (one match ban excepted), Nonu, Toeva, Weepu, Eaton, Hore etc played in every Hurricanes match.

McCaw was rested for two matches out of 15 … Macdonald missed 40 minutes out of 15 … Carter was rested for 40 minutes out of 15 …

Jack was rested for two matches out of 15 etc etc

The Chiefs and Blues played their All Blacks whenever fit … Mealamu played every game …

Jack last year played 33 matches and Smit was our player with the most at 33 … the All Blacks and Bok squads averaged 28 matches each.

By: wls

wls — Mon, 29 May 2006 18:49:06 +0000

I have to ask, how many more matches do our players play over the Poms, New Zealanders and Aussies? Can we have stats for this?

By: jonny

jonny — Mon, 29 May 2006 18:48:49 +0000

The top English players are being flogged by a 30 game season in the Premiership. The only rest they get from club rugby is before the Autumn (Spring) tests and the 6N so I can’t see the reasoning there. The Aussie players on the udder hand don’t actually have a top class provincial tournament to speak of so after the S14 the can all relax and recuperate for the warmup tests against totally shot NH oppo then ramp up the intensity for the 3N. The AB’s have a forward-thinking union who have actually take steps to ensure that the top players don’t participate in the NPC at all and thereby they get the rest their bodies deserve and the No. 1 ranking their union craves. Is it so much rocket-science? Can you seriously tell me that there is so much more talent in NZ than in SA? They simply manage the situation a lot better.

By: sjb

sjb — Mon, 29 May 2006 18:17:57 +0000

rockspider, you are so totally out of fashion!! Please grow up, this irritating dragon thing is old news. But then, all one read on this site is copy and paste news so I suppose the site will get what it deserves?