Stormers sensation now a Bull
8 Jul 2011
The Bulls have signed promising Stormers centre Johann Sadie on a two-year deal.
Bulls spokesman Ian Schwartz confirmed to keo.co.za that the Bulls have secured his services until the end of 2013. Sadie was excellent in the limited opportunities he received in the Stormers’ campaign, and his loss is significant for the Cape franchise, who keo.co.za understands had dragged their heels in securing his future.
Bulls director of rugby Heyneke Meyer expressed his admiration of the 22-year-old in a recent interview with keo.co.za, and Sadie is sure to thrive under his tutelage. It also bolsters a problem position for the Bulls, who have been in search of an outside centre for some time.
In addition, they also announced the signing of WP wing JJ Engelbrecht.
194 Comments
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8 Jul 2011, 23:02 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl(Brigadier Van Zyl)-148:
To be fair Brig….the Stormers did not make a semi when Rassie was coach. It was only after AC took over as coach .
8 Jul 2011, 23:08 pm
Who am I supposed to shoot?
8 Jul 2011, 23:29 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-131:
What? Kirchner also helped the Bulls to two SR titles, Kuun too, Pedrie too, etc. That doesn’t count for much to weigh in on the point.
I’m going to enjoy rubbing this in people’s faces here in the near future.
8 Jul 2011, 23:42 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-152:
You supposed to shoot Rassie the clown for allowing Meyer to steal not 1 but 3 young Stormers protege’s from under his nose while he’s chasing after has beens at top dollar prices.
8 Jul 2011, 23:47 pm
Wow. The Sharks desperately need centres… I wonder why Sadie didn’t choose a bigger and better team like the Sharks?
8 Jul 2011, 23:47 pm
@Agile T*t-Tyrant(Anairetes agilis)-153:
How do you rate Kirchner and Kuun?
8 Jul 2011, 23:56 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-152:
Shoot the Sheriff, but please don’t shoot his depE.T.
9 Jul 2011, 00:12 am
@wooden spoon(wooden spoon)-155: Don’t think he chose any team. It is the franchise that is chasing him with the best offer that will probably get him……
Sharks should have been sharper with their buying of players for next season.
9 Jul 2011, 00:14 am
@ET.(ET.)-112:
“It is BECOME and certainly NOT “became”.”
Like; ‘When did you ‘become’ a doos?
9 Jul 2011, 00:19 am
@PissAnt(PissAnt)-159: Mate your feeling who will win the Super15 tomorrow?
Heck have different feelings the whole time. Think Saders forwards are superior to Reds then the tired factor? Aussies as well have this do or die factor of never giving up. Reds with more rest even not the better team as Saders could take the win tomorrow.
Have to put my picks in now for bru. Think I might just go with Reds by 2 or something like that.
9 Jul 2011, 00:19 am
@Puma(Puma)-158: TBH the Sharks haven’t really been able to attract the big name or up and coming players for a while now. For some strange, bizarre unknown reason.
Dolfie Straueli? Isn’t recruitment his function?
9 Jul 2011, 00:25 am
I don’t actually mind this as a Stormers supporter. If it means he’ll get some sustained game time at the Bulls and a chance to develop then I’m all for it. Rassie and his boys will hopefully learn from this type of thing.
9 Jul 2011, 00:26 am
Who can the Sharks have then?
9 Jul 2011, 00:29 am
@Puma(Puma)-160:
As unpredictable as this game is – Saders all the way in my books – and I hate agreeing with Keo and his crew!
9 Jul 2011, 00:29 am
I take at all plans to convert Kirchner to a centre have now been abandoned by the Bulls?
9 Jul 2011, 00:30 am
Till then though, I am out – night gents.
9 Jul 2011, 00:32 am
@Yetirat(Yetirat)-162: Would be good if we could hit back and secure Juandre Kruger though…
9 Jul 2011, 00:33 am
@wooden spoon(wooden spoon)-161: Agree. We should have been really looking out to buy quality centers.
Though we have Jordaan and Sithole coming through at the Sharks. Let see what our youngsters do in the cc.
9 Jul 2011, 00:36 am
@Puma(Puma)-168: “Sithole”? Are you serious?
9 Jul 2011, 00:39 am
@PissAnt(PissAnt)-164: My mind says so too. But have a sneaky feeling about that the Reds that they could pull off a win tomorrow. I could be wrong though. Saders look in a class of their own right now.
Cheers Morne. I am too off to bed.. Been long night after catching up with our best friends…..
Catch up tomorrow.
9 Jul 2011, 00:41 am
@Yetirat(Yetirat)-169: Yes he played supberb for the 7′s this year.
Watch him in the cc mate.
Cheers out of here now.
9 Jul 2011, 00:42 am
@Puma(Puma)-171: typo. should read – superb
9 Jul 2011, 00:44 am
@Puma(Puma)-171: Shame, poor bugger’s cursed with a name like that though!
9 Jul 2011, 00:56 am
@Yetirat(Yetirat)-173: A name is a name. What difference is if you are Van der Merwe or Sithole? Only a name mate.
Why take a name serious? As long as the player produces the goods. Who cares
Just look at the island boys names? I can’t even prounounce some of them. DON’T think a name makes any diffence at all as long as the player is playing great rugby.
Cheers. Catch up tomorrow.
9 Jul 2011, 01:17 am
@nama1(nama1)-156:
Neither fit for the Boks considering the talent we have in SA.
Zane was the biggest disappointment this year.
If you want to be hard, then you could say that Zane cost us the match against WForce, when we had it in the bag. With that result the Bulls would have probably progressed into the play-offs.
Kuun reminds me of Baywatch. He is seen as a leader in the Bulls team, and quite vocal on the field too.
Why do you ask? What does it matter?
Kuun is on the way out this year. The Bulls have Stegmann, Potties, CJ Stander, Okkie, and Arno and Marnus on the way up.
At the back we have GvdH very able at 15 and Sadie and JJ on the way.
So Kirchner better get his act together. He was just shocking in some cases.
Poor defender, they step him miles off, and he shows time and time again that he doesn’t trust his teammates.
Have Lambie and F Steyn be fullbacks, or Gio Aplon. If Zane takes what he’s been dishing up all season to the Boks, then obviously he can do to them what he did to the Bulls.
You are only as strong as your weakest link.
9 Jul 2011, 01:27 am
I think it a good move for Sa Rugby. I have been a Stormers fan all my life, but some of the choices around managing their youngsters is simply pathetic. We can’t have a situation where the the Stormers have 6 good centres and the Bulls none. Same goes for our props. Personally I would have let Jacques, Jean and Brian go at the end of this season. Stormers were in a rarely lucky position to have JJ, Juan and Johann to take over from the old men and save thye club a stack of cash and set them up for the future. But, holding onto old men is a Cape thing. Next they’ll be buying JS to bolster their prop stocks, watch this space.
9 Jul 2011, 01:29 am
@Agile T*t-Tyrant(Anairetes agilis)-175:
Just to remind you and Tac that even average players can boast about winning
2 x S14 titles and x-amount of CC titles. Winning these titles, whilst playing in a very good team, does not necessarily mean that you are up there as a player.
Who do you have as favourites for the final tomorrow?
I think/hope the Crusaders will take it. Not for any other reason but the fact that they played all there matches away from their home ground. It would be a great rugby story if they do manage to win it.
On a par with Invictus (the movie), not the real Boks of ’95, I think.
9 Jul 2011, 01:40 am
@garth(garth)-176:
“Next they’ll be buying JS to bolster their prop stocks, watch this space.”
You wanna give G10 a heart attack?
9 Jul 2011, 02:56 am
@nama1(nama1)-177:
That was exactly my bloody point.
But Stegmann is not average, and the evidence that a player is average or not doesn’t necessarily lie in how much silverware he has or not.
Kuun is average depending on your “classification scheme”. Kuun was basically already a senior player and leader-figure in the Bulls when Stegmann came in and displaced him immediately in the team as a 21-year-old kid.
And there is no player in the country that is able to challenge Stegmann for that spot in the Bulls team. Not reasonably. The Bulls wouldn’t put Brussow there even if he came free. Neither Burger nor Louw etc.
In other words Stegmann is the best player in the country for the position of openside flank at the Bulls.
The Bulls have some average players, some good, some world class. But their synergy, their team work is extraordinary, and some players are a catalyst for this rhythm more so than others. Some players play a support role, some players play reactively, and some proactive.
The roles are so neatly delineated, and rehearsed, and that is why the Bulls can switch into rampage mode and stamp out points very quickly, even if they have a huge deficit against them.
Over the past few years we’ve seen this. You can’t change a role and adapt to the game too far before you need to change the names that make up your squad.
It is Meyer-, Ludeke-, and Pienaar’s duty to ensure that this element of the Bulls’ style continues, and that a culture can be built around it.
Rugby is a tough sport, you cannot easily judge a player individually as in track and field. So what do you need to do when transferring one player from one team to the next?
Look for similar players?
Or adapt the team’s approach?
Or both?
The players will constantly adapt, because they play under different refs, under different physical conditions, during different seasons, they mature and gain good and bad habits, form and fitness fluctuates, and faces are chaing all around them constantly.
One change to one position in a team could mean the difference between streamlined coherence and chaotic disunity.
Considering all these things, I agree with Victor Matfield who is of the opinion that Stegmann is most similar to Brussow in what he offers the team. Victor never intimated that one is behind the other in line for the job. But I can guarantee that Matfield would rather have Stegmann flank his scrum than Brussow, and that is taking nothing away from Brussow, but there is absolutely nothing Heinz can do that Deon can’t do just as well, and thousands of silly fans have blown the legend of Brussow way out of proportion.
It is sad, because, like Jon Cardinelli, they would rather use their platform to disparage our talent- and then have the hubris to turn right around and boast about the country’s endless talent in the position of loose forward. But they are constantly trying to find the single, defining player, often directly at the cost of another and his reputation to their minds.
It is very difficult to talk about these things on a forum for obvious reason, and perhaps most frustratingly: there are few willing to consider, listen to and able to comprehend or accept a different viewpoint of an anonymous blogger that they do not repsect.
I can tell you that the Bulls’ MPVs are Matfield and Fourie and Steyn. Obviously. A captain, and kicker (most points) and an organizer (most handlecounts per match). But taking direction, respecting and relying on a teammate are all different things. But how do you point out a MVP? A good tighhead is a rare thing to find. And I could go on.
Every player at some point or another will be his team’s MVP. People refuse to see this.
I am not surprized that people in general can be such hateful and ignorant “supporters”. It’s to be expected. But it still astounds me that people at the very least cannot respect players that show guts and determination.
They are not just playing for fun. They are not just battling fatique, a ref and 15 angry and very capable men. They are battling for their careers.
On top of that these are young men that may be maestros on the field, but sheer idiots at living life. I am not surprized to see an IRB player of the year fall from grace within a season considering all these things.
I place a high premium on recruiting individuals that have mental and emotional toughness and stability.
Anyway, you know my position. That post above was my repsonse to Tacitus.
While his post at 131 was more concerned with contrasting Meyer- and Rassies’ management styles, he carelessly insulted a major cog in the Bulls Machine which he then purports to be proud of that Meyer built. Ironic.
9 Jul 2011, 07:52 am
well some good news for awakening sharks fans….
You got Riaan Viljoen for the next 2 years post the CC
9 Jul 2011, 08:26 am
Nope, time doesn’t help. It’s Saturday and I’m still f.cking livid.
9 Jul 2011, 08:34 am
You know why this happened right under Rassie’s nose? I read a quote from him on the subject just before Sadie made his decision and Rassie’s ace up his sleeve was that because Sadie had been involved with all the WP systems and played for WP in all the age groups from such a young age that familiarity with the club should be enough to keep him at WP going forward. I mean talk about resting on your laurels. All Meyer probably had to do was promise him a bit of game time and that probably would have been enough to get his siganture.
9 Jul 2011, 08:43 am
this after apparently Riaan Viljoen was also being courted by WP!
9 Jul 2011, 08:45 am
@Agile T*t-Tyrant(Anairetes agilis)-179:
Remind me where exactly I insulted Stegmann?
9 Jul 2011, 08:51 am
@grant10(grant10)-183:
Morning grant. Did the Merlot do its work?
9 Jul 2011, 08:58 am
@Yetirat(Yetirat)-182:
I can’t blame any young player wanting to leave WP. It seems like unless you are in the front row, you will be in a queue for a starting berth depending on salary and past glories.
What a complete and utter shocker. It speaks volumes of AC and Rassies mindset and highlights perfectly their short term planning which is going to leave WP in a mess. This thinking is costing us on the park now, and they are presently taking care of the future for us.
Heads should roll for this. I’m still f.cking livid.
9 Jul 2011, 12:00 pm
Guys. what a lot of people forget is that no player is bigger than the team. What Heyeneke has consistently got right is to keep his focus on building and cultivating a team. It is a time-consuming thing. He started way back with what he inherited and he began by drafting the senior guys now leaving as his backbone.
We have seen a steady flux in and out of eg. props because that is where it all starts. Each guy in his time brought in and left behind his own mark. We’ve seen Calldo, Os, Bands, Roux, Theart, Gerber, Engels, Gurthro and a host of others all flourish and move through the system, and Werner Kruger and Dean Greyling and a guys like Rossouw de Klerk, not discounting their obvious raw talent, are probably the first echelon of ‘ complete’ props that have been grown through the Bulls system after school.
Meyer had the luxury of VM and BB and DR as bankers in the middle of the engine as anchors to build around.
Another example is the loosies. When Meyer converted Spies to 8 he probably knew that he would never be the real deal as a classic 8, but there was a definite advantage to be gleaned for the team provided he could get the ball into his hands as a runner.
So what Spies lacked had to be brought into the team in another way, so he began a process of contracting youngsters like Jacques Cronje, Kuun, Stegman, Potgieter, van Velze, CJ Stander and Arno Botha who are all SA Schools 8′s with strong basics, versatility and leadership qualities to bring the basic 8 skills Spies lacks into the team.
And he has exposed this line of succession as it has developed to the benefits to be gleaned from playing as understudies to guys like Pedri Wannenburg, Wikus van Heerden, Warren Brosnihan and the like, who are more flankers with specific attributes and strengths than 8 ‘s, thus allowing the youngsters to ‘hybridize’ loosie play based on the standard 8 skillsets they all already have, but adding specific aspects to their game required by the team to become more complete via having a more complete loose trio.
Steggies worked on his fetching and groundplay utilizing his build and low centre of gravity, Potgieter used his defensive capabilities, vision and hand-eyeskills to develop a specific type of 7 flank package and both these guys will pass what they have learnt on to the next echelon to refine further. Bear in mind that they always had a guy like Danie Rossouw to rope in for size and physicality in games and at times when that was required in the mix.
All a guy like Potgieter has to do now is spend some time in the gym to bulk up another few kgs and he will be the natural heir to Juan Smith’s Bok jersey in time. His promise has already been recognized. Steggies is already in the Bok mix at 6 and Pierre Spies is suddenly the guy who needs to do the major work on his game to progress, as opposition have learnt how to neutralize his effectivity. I am sure HM is aware of this as well.
Point is, as a trio, from a team perspective, they are the most complete and polished unit in SA although there might be other individuals in their respective positions who might be better in specific aspects of play. It must also be remebered that this development of a complete trio does not happen in a linear, parallel fashion. It is addressed over time as new needs become apparent, like a puppy grows in stages, first in the head, then the torso, then the legs etc untill it is fully developed.
So Meyer is working his plan. The props, the locks, the hookers, the loosies, the scrummies and the same will happen to our midfield game, which is set to be the next point of focus.
Who can fault that? I believe that Sadie has made a very wise decision, as the team is reaching a stage in its development where they have to move to the next level which is to move on from their hitherto forwarddominance-based well-executed kicking game by adding a definite sting out wide. Exciting times lie ahead.
9 Jul 2011, 14:28 pm
Sadie went with the decision to get good game time, stormers in previous seasons have struggled of centres when Gcobani Bobo and Sireli Nquelevuki partnered Jean De Villiers. However Stormers have always had springbok centres on their books, De Wet Barry, Braam Van Straaten, Marius Joubert, Jean De Villiers, Juan De Jongh, Jaque Fourie, Gcobani Bobo, Robbie Fleck etc…
My team I would like to see in the super rugby season next year would be:
15 Gio Aplon
14 Jean De Villiers
13 Jaque Fourie
12 Juan De Jongh
11 Bryan Habana
10 Peter Grant
9 Francois Hougaard (signing)
8 Duane Vermeulen
7 Schalk Burger
6 Heinrich Brussouw (signing)
5 Andries Bekker
4 Rynhard Elstadt
3 CJ Van Der Linde
2 Tiaan Liebenberg
1 Heinke Van Der Merwe (signing)
16 Deon Fourie
17 Frans Marlherbe / Steven Kitshoff
18 De Kock Steenkamp (must come into his own next season)
19 James Haskell (signing)
20 Dewaldt Duvenhage
21 Gary Van Aswegen
22 Jaco Taute (signing)
23 Ethienne Reyncke (signing)
24 JC Kritzinger
25 Nick Koster
26 Pieter Louw
27 Louis Schroeder
28 Kurt Coleman
29 Paul Bosch
30 Conrad Jantjes
31 Wickus Blaauw
32 S Ntubeni
33 Brok Harris
34 Hilton Lobberts
35 Yaya Hartzenberg
36 Nic Groom
37 Earl Rose?
38 Lionel Cronje
39 Danie Poolman
40 Tiger Bax
Now that Sadie, Engelbrecht etc have gone.. (although not quite sure why Engelbrecht has gone due to the fact he will be behind Bjorn Basson, Akona Ndungane, Gerrard Van Den Heever etc.. in the wing department?) The stormers have to make plenty of signings before next season. Maybe the Du Plessis brothers and maybe Michael Killian also.
9 Jul 2011, 15:31 pm
I don’t see Nizaam Carr’s name there and I think he is the most exciting prospect you guys have.
9 Jul 2011, 15:44 pm
@PissAnt(PissAnt)-159:
The time being what it was for your post must mean you had to be ‘Broederbond dronk’ at the bewitching hour of your night.
I sincerely hope your venture into the English language of #111 is as a result of your maudlin sentimentality after night of uncontrolled imbibing.
Why not ask one of your ‘Stellies’ Prof. Roux how I corrected his poor English as he asked a question during a post-graduate oral exam. at UCT Med.School?
As for your anatomical reference, it is a gender impossibility. Want to come and check? You might be asked to do more.
On second thought, no I won’t as I am not interested in a herpes type I or II viral infection.
9 Jul 2011, 15:52 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-185: no….just woke up hung over and sommer more the moer in…
9 Jul 2011, 16:01 pm
Afternoon G10. Nothing like an ice cold frosty followed by a Tomato Cocktail for that.
9 Jul 2011, 21:04 pm
is Rassie smoking pot?
Sadie is a future super star !!
Well done Bulls!
11 Jul 2011, 06:59 am
No surprises considering the idiots who run SA rugby and in particular WP rugby.
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