You like the ELV’s don’t you. Let me tell you something, there was nothing wrong with rugby, why try and fix what ain’t broken. The only economy that can’t cope is OZ. Some of the rules don’t help the game at all, and how the hell can rugby leage be entertainment, it is so bloody boring!!!!

The same is happening with the boks and i don`t think a different coach would have helped. They will get it right sooner or later and they may even become better with it than other teams.

****, boring games – with such a negative attitude by all sides. (Not withstanding the final result – which apparently quite a few of you enjoyed .

But – in you heart of hearts – did you actually enjoy the games? Be honest now…. were they the best games of rugby that you’ve ever seen????

Now let me remember – who’s paying him his 30 pieces of silver today??

Oh, that’s right – an English Rugby Club.

Eddie is nothing, if not flexible!

The AB’s don’t really care what rules they play, because they still win. Apart from the Ausies nobody seems to like the ELV’s.

Given the nuclear fallout following the Springboks’ recent defeats, we can safely conclude that something in the team’s set-up has got to give this weekend, and next week the team will emerge the better for it.

If ever there was powder keg about to explode it is the Springbok camp where on centre stage is a passionate but misguided coach who doggedly refuses to concede that he has got it wrong; you have players who are privately seething and on the point of rebellion; you have fuming former players pointing out the error of the coach’s ways in the media; and we have the brains trust of the Rugby World Cup triumph, Jake White and Eddie Jones, breaking their silence and expressing their disappointment at the needless destruction of their team.

You can bet, too, that there has been earnest discussion in the boardrooms of the sponsors, in particular Sasol, who have been the best benefactors the Springboks have ever had and as reward have become the butt of the inevitable e-mail humour that does the round after emotional defeats (the letters of Sasol on the Springbok jersey have been rearranged to say Assol).

Disillusioned rugby fans who have sworn themselves off the team would do well to join the rest of us in observing just what transpires when the drama is played out at Coca-Cola Park on Saturday afternoon.

Will De Villiers finally give in and allow his team to play a game that makes sense, and is not “nonsense”, as Jones eloquently put it? Will we have the same tripe that we saw in Durban and Cape Town?

If so, then the coach simply has to go, for we will not only have incontrovertible evidence that he is out of his depth but also proof that he is not willing to learn from his mistakes. While De Villiers himself has said that “Rome was not built in a day”, it should be pointed out that it was reduced to rubble very quickly.

It is sad but interesting to hear some fans expressing the hope that their team lose to the Wallabies this week, because three home defeats on consecutive weekends would bring the matter to a head; there hopefully would then be a changing of the guard and the Boks could move forward once more.

A scrambled win over the injury-hit Wallabies would buy the coach time and paper over the cracks.

Fans who saw the stone-faced Boks board their bus at the Absa Stadium last Saturday night will know these guys are fed up with being led on a wild goose chase.

It has been reported that Victor Matfield was given three different game plans by the three coaches in the set-up. No wonder he looks as if he is on the point of throttling somebody and how he must be cursing Brad Thorne for injuring John Smit.

Smit, you see, is the one character who could have kept it all together. Smit could have smiled at the “nonsense” and then taken the team on to the field and said: “Right, guys, this is how we are really going to play.”

Again, maybe it is not a bad thing that Smit is not there because in his absence the problems in the camp have been swiftly exposed to the public.

Jake White, who until this week has refused to comment on his successor, has said that he does not understand why the forwards are no longer doing what they are supposed to do.

“There are too many forwards standing around in the backline,” he said. “They try to do half of what we did, and half of their own thing. Half of everything leaves you with nothing,” White said.

“Schalk Burger was, until recently, the best player in the world. Now he is replaced during a match by Luke Watson. I don’t understand that.”

Jones has been much more scathing.

“The Springboks will get worse if they continue in this way,” he said. “No one in world rugby is playing the way their coach is talking about; not successfully anyway.

“Everyone has discipline, policies and a procedure in their game. The way he is talking is nonsense. You can’t just play an expansive, wide game.”

“The hard thing for Peter is that he has never coached professionally and this is one of the most difficult teams to coach. He has to change his philosophy because it doesn’t suit these players.

“Peter’s big test now is to learn. If he learns, he can turn it around. But if he continues to be stubborn, he won’t last long because his tactics won’t work.”

And in that sentence lies the rub. If De Villiers refuses to budge on his game plan, sacrificing the Springboks on the altar of his ego, then he must go.

This article was originally published on page 26 of The Mercury on August 28, 2008

What was shocking about Butch on Sat.

Yeah his time is coming. I have thought long and hard about his replacement and I have to concede that maybe it’s time to give Frans an extended run. His charge downs can be fixed with some good coaching