Meltdown in Mendoza
26 Aug 2012
MARK KEOHANE writes South Africa’s lack of leadership in the forwards was exposed in Mendoza, as was the naivety of a pack that is unfortunately a shadow of the beasts who have worn the jersey in the past five years.
Individuals will get blamed and given the South African way it will be provincial specific, but this is not a performance of individual blame but of collective calamity in that the newbies to Test rugby were not equipped to deal with an Argentinean side that scrapped, clawed and fought for a historic first draw against the Springboks.
The lack of a specialist opensider was obvious in that there was no counter to the Pumas love for a group gathering around the ball on the floor. Heyneke Meyer said any player can fail once but there isn’t place for a second failure at Test level. His words will be put to the test because certain players are not up to Test standard and when the occasion called for heroes to emerge all we got were imposters in a green jersey.
Perspective is necessary to appreciate the vulnerability of the Bok pack, in terms of experience, impact and influence. Bismarck du Plessis is colossal and Adriaan Strauss will need grander efforts to offer an impersonation. Andries Bekker, forever the next Victor Matfield, has neither the confidence nor the brilliance to match the Bok legend, Jacques Potgieter is no Schalk Burger, Willem Alberts looked out of sorts in that selected loose-trio and for the days of a back five of Bakkies Botha, Matfield, Burger, Smith and Danie Rossouw.
There was no calmness in a frenetic opening 30 in which the Pumas were going to deliver the passion of a nation’s rugby history, given the occasion. The limitations of the Pumas meant they could only lead by 10 points at half-time despite the majority of the ball, the rub of the green and the home ground advantage.
The Boks did not deserve anything from this match, but they got plenty when it comes to a reality check. I will never understand the nonsense about not selecting foreign based players because they are not playing Super Rugby or in a development Currie Cup competition.
This match cried out for the experience of a Botha, a Joe van Niekerk and a few more who on a weekly basis star in Europe.
The pack were intimidated, they were out of their depth and they were bullied. It was embarrassing.
Still the Boks should have sneaked it when Morne Steyn missed a penalty with a few minutes to go. It was England in Port Elizabeth all over again and Steyn obviously will be the target of abuse. His job is to kick goals and when he doesn’t he stands to be judged.
Young players will be wiser and tougher for the experience but I don’t buy an argument that suggests you go to Argentina for a learning experience. Too many kids were grouped with too many provincial players in the guise of a Bok Test pack – and the results were a humiliation.
Meyer picked the side and he takes the pains, as he does the plaudits when it goes right.
The backs can only ever threaten when the Bok forwards rule and the lack of potency made for an ugly 80 minute viewing experience. Too lateral, too isolated and with no momentum. These backs were not going to find any glory in Mendoza.
Frans Steyn, individually, was strong but he was the exception to a performance that is a reminder of the quality of Springboks that went to the World Cup compared to the mediocrity of what was produced in Argentina.
The hosts have beaten Australia previously, beaten France and in recent years been a minute away from beating the All Blacks. The shorter and narrower pitch did not help, but it did expose a team that failed to adapt to the intensity and mongrel of the hosts.
It was a humbling experience for those of us who watched, but it will forever be a humiliating one for those who played. Not so the boys from Argentina.
987 Comments
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26 Aug 2012, 14:53 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-593:
So, some of the problems that Meyer has:
1. Game plan
2. Team selection
3. Failure to adapt
4. Excecution of the plan
5. Leadership on the field
So, what is the possible solutions to these problems?
26 Aug 2012, 14:57 pm
@nama1-601: Have to agree again.
JDV should not be Captain because he is not the best 13… quite simple.
Bekker does not step up at this level, I think his back really is farked.
MSteyn plays the game he knows, this is not his fault, there are any number of 10s in SA, from Lambie on the bench through Elton etc etc etc.
He has the wrong 9, again there are loads of them.
Gameplan is very very very poor.
26 Aug 2012, 15:04 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-591:
it would never be a case of the other side playing better, only you playing badly or the ref cheating unfounded arrogance my friend you dont have the side for that kind of attitude
26 Aug 2012, 15:05 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-494: Meyer has made poor use of his NH players, Bakkies was in good form yesterday.
26 Aug 2012, 15:07 pm
The boks got 2 weeks to sort out their game plan before the Aus test, because IMO we don’t have one. I hope Rassie gets involved! We also need a proper backline coach!
26 Aug 2012, 15:09 pm
@RainbowBanana-605: you do have a gameplan but it is from 1963
26 Aug 2012, 15:11 pm
@nama1-601:
1. yes, vary the game plan a bit (succesfully though, as this what they try to do i’m sure).
2. perhaps 1 or 2 bold selection changes (such as goosen or fouche at 10 or maybe new winger of midfielder as i think the pack really just needs to front thats all).
3. adaptation is factored in at number 1.
4. execution, execution, execution, execution in all its aspects whether it be a plan or a pass. coaches need to drill the shitt out of the guys this week and next.
5. leadership, we can agree was poor so its just about talknig situations through and stressing to jean the need to think and act more measured. declining the kick at posts and opting for the lineout was one telling moment for me, and that was jeans fault.
26 Aug 2012, 15:14 pm
Gyg2
the greatest cheat that has ever played the game – only barenesey is quick enough to ping him. And look what tge AB faithful did to villify the poor young man’s career..
26 Aug 2012, 15:15 pm
@nama1-601:
…add to the problems:
6. Defense (1st time tackling was poor last night)
7. Break downs (if Arg can win our ball so easily, think what will happen against Aus/NZ)
@goyougoodthing2-602:
Who else is there with the leadership capabilities as well as being the best in his position. We have a clear lack of leadership at the moment.
It seems as if HM is grooming Bissie to captain the Boks next year. With him you may find that his rugby nous is not up to scratch but that is still in the future, I guess.
26 Aug 2012, 15:15 pm
@nama1-601:
i think the biggest shortcoming which hampers the boks is not getting the squad together for longer periods of time ahead of tests.
we need to pull them out of their unions and super/cc comp if heynenke deems it necessary and put them into camp.
26 Aug 2012, 15:17 pm
Are arses!
And you say you are the supporters of the national team? You appear to be more like the stage performers of a Jerry Springer show as is the coach and his pale assistants.
Just visualise this street-girl bitchingpalooza go well into the first week into September and by the 8th Sept. the very first Rugby Championship will all but have its first owner already.
By Sept. 15 that new ownership of the first RC Cup will be confirmed emphatically and the tourney will be dead as a rugby spectacle.
26 Aug 2012, 15:18 pm
I’m hearing noises from keo and kie on here that suggest meyer is going to revert back to bakkies and gurthro – who are both great players and would strengthen the squad but we need to be developing the next no 4 lock like elstadt – so I hope he don’t smack the panic button just yet and if he does pick these players they are used off the bench in a supporting role
26 Aug 2012, 15:21 pm
@Big Hit-606: No way! The boks use to run with the ball in the 60’s!
26 Aug 2012, 15:21 pm
@NZINCHINA-603:
no, in this instance its just a case of stating the truth.
you team is dirty but this isn’t my fault, i’m only stating it.
deal with it.
@Big Hit-604:
yip agreed.
he played a full 80
and did you notice they have a gunther playing at 6 haha
26 Aug 2012, 15:23 pm
Only arses where on display in the game yesterday. We sure saw our own arses – how many players tge argies got?
Meyer then made an arse by criticing his own players, the very ones he selected, it’s pretty much the cardinal sin.
Nope that was horrific.
26 Aug 2012, 15:25 pm
@nama1-609:
breakdowns are a mess
blame the refs and the kiwis
26 Aug 2012, 15:26 pm
@cab-615:
the boks got told off nicely imo.
i hope he was much uglier in the change rooms.
26 Aug 2012, 15:27 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-617:
boks got told off nicely = bok got told off too nicely
26 Aug 2012, 15:27 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-614:
yip and your team just isnt good enough but that was pretty obvious after the England series, if the Aussies take you in Perth Meyer will be probably be axed, who’s next Mallet?
26 Aug 2012, 15:29 pm
@cab-608: they tried cabs, but Barnesy is made of sterner stuff than kiwis and remains on the elite ref panel. Bryce by contrast is gone from test rugby and is said by Lyndon Bray to be unlikely to ever return (hallelujah!)
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-614: lol yeah, he looks like the french tarzan
26 Aug 2012, 15:29 pm
Not the players fault, it’s his – he picked them – they win and lose as a team – the buck stops with him – that’s why he gets the bigbucks with the whole entourage of assistants that do not take the field.
He has to suck it up – blame the players at your peril.
26 Aug 2012, 15:32 pm
620 good for him BH – withstood enormous pressure in that 1/4 final in Wales – 3 cheers 4 barnesey.
26 Aug 2012, 15:33 pm
@NZINCHINA-619:
glad you agree on your team being dirty. it makes you look stupid when you argue against the point.
boks are not good enough by a long shot. however, meyer will not be axed, he is on a 4 year contract (with clauses i’m sure) but i trust he will improve and if not he will get the first year at least before the big heads come down on him harder.
i was never against mallet coaching the boks again and i think he should be gotten involved in some backroom capacity perhaps.
26 Aug 2012, 15:33 pm
@nama1-601:
And perhaps a magic from Fran Styen twice in a Test would help too?
26 Aug 2012, 15:33 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-607:
See, rugby not such a science after all. Easy to see the problems and come up with possible solutions. Even from your the comfort of your couch. The challenge is to put it into practice of course.
The problem of course is that in HM we have somebody who will want to prove to the rugby public that he in fact is right and the rest of us are wrong. He will therefor continue on his path of self destruction and despair.
He will not be unique in doing that though:
Carel Dup refused to listen when he was told we need a goal kicker.
Mallet had the Bob/Teichman issue
JW had De Wet Barry and Marius Joubert
PdV had John Smit.
So, one can only hope that HM has learned from the mistakes of these coaches and changes his thinking before it is too late?
26 Aug 2012, 15:34 pm
@Big Hit-620:
as long as he doesnt ref us at the next WC no problem, he should never have been allowed to ref NZ with NZ seeded to play England in the semi’s, he was hard on the sauce back in those days perhaps he’s given that up now
26 Aug 2012, 15:39 pm
@nama1-625:
agreed more or less.
i think we can also agree that we have very different perceptions of heyneke meyer as a person.
26 Aug 2012, 15:41 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-623:
we play hard but fair Houston, Meyer won’t see out his 4 years they’ll be calling for his head in a few weeks time its started already
26 Aug 2012, 15:42 pm
@Hondo-624:
Last night was more a case of a big mistake by the Argie full back than “magic” by Fat Frans. He sure was lucky.
Give me your objective rating of his game last night.
@nama1-625:
Jake White at least listened and changed course culminating in a RWC title.
26 Aug 2012, 15:43 pm
@nama1-625:
You forget that Marius scored his hatrick for the Boks. Sure, he lost form by being overplayed but there was more to it than that I reckon. When Jake dropped the two of them he said that “they’d let him down”. I think that they couldn’t (wouldn’t) buy into his defensive backline emphasis.
26 Aug 2012, 15:44 pm
Meyer looks v nervous and he is obviously trying exceptionally hard and took last night personally, so I feel for him but this is what comes with the territory and he should know that better than anyone – probably ages you about 5 years – these okes should probably speak to a head quack or iets to deal with it – probably need that aspect more than the players who have to draw from the coach. Tell you who they have, not a reserve arse massager, but a PR oke who explains how they handle it – but guess that takes all the passion out of it cos u wanna see the coaches reaction.
26 Aug 2012, 15:45 pm
@NZINCHINA-628:
no you dont china, no you dont.
but you know this.
26 Aug 2012, 15:46 pm
@nama1-625: Meyer doesn’t know any other way, he coached Leicester Tigers the same way he coached the Bulls, he even brought Derick Hougaard to Welford Road.
The only way he can make his tenure with the Boks work is to implement his gameplan, it’s all he knows – that means picking the best forwards to implement it and he hasn’t been doing that.
@NZINCHINA-626: ‘he should never have been allowed to ref NZ with NZ seeded to play England in the semi’s’
true, but that was down to Paddy O.
26 Aug 2012, 15:46 pm
@cab-631:
he’s set a dangerous precedent now though by telling his players they let the nation down, what does he tell them if they lose the next 4 games he’s shot his bolt already
26 Aug 2012, 15:50 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-632:
you didn’t watch the NZ game last night because you don’t watch AB games and Super rugby anymore but if you had have watched it you would have seen a well oiled machine playing with the laws of the game, bad last second finishing stop it from becoming a bloodbath, we’ll save that for you in Dunedin
26 Aug 2012, 15:51 pm
634 NZ
yeah u exactly right – worst thing u can do as a coach – lose the players trust and you pretty much finito no matter how good u may be technically. One thing PdV was a legend at … Eye-gouging what?! this us not a game for tutus – granted he was a great character.
26 Aug 2012, 15:51 pm
“within”
26 Aug 2012, 15:51 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-627:
I don’t care so much about HM as a person. I’m sure he is a !God fearing, family orientated man.
It is about HM as the Bok coach that I worry. Up to know, he has not impress me.
75% win record at home
0% win record away
…and he has only played England, ranked 4th? and Arg, ranked 8th, so far.
26 Aug 2012, 15:53 pm
@cab-636:
ha love or hate PDV he stood by his players, Meyer has dressed down his players like school girls in front of the world rugby media bad bad move
26 Aug 2012, 15:55 pm
Are delusional and disenchanted conservatives and not only in rugby!
When a national team with a 10 man game plan loses the forwards are always the cardinal problem.There is no serious experience and genuine leadership in that pack of misfits in everyone of the 3 forward units. They are rudderless and without any well-found purpose when taken on at that deficient game plan by bigger, more brutal pupils; the masters have been out-mastered and a palace revolution effected by the pupils.
What happened to the ahead-of-their-time 20yr.olds of the golden-era-to-be like Etsebeth(is it just Beth), Coetsee, Kolisi, Elstadt(and any you wish to name) when confronted by the ‘hardebaarde’ of the pampas?
As for that big,big sissy Bekker(‘sy hare is ook nou gestruik’) does he now understand what happens to a back when 69 is tried on a park bench by a beanpole?
Laughing stock all is what you are and the laughter is loud and heard all the way downunder.
26 Aug 2012, 15:58 pm
@NZINCHINA-634:
…and yet, some of his disciples are appalled at Nick Mallet and Ashwin Willemse for criticising the players (and Meyer) for the kak they dished up last night.
Not so with HM’s remarks about the players. They feel he was too soft with them. See p.618
26 Aug 2012, 15:59 pm
@NZINCHINA-635:
i will reserve my judgements on whether nz plays any less dirty than they have for so long until the bok games. its the two times i will watch your team, only cos its the boks.
until then i can only go on the past.
out of interest, what do you think has occured for them to actually have played a game cleanly, as you claim? why now and why that game? is it a ploy in order to buy time for cheating later perhaps? or were they just adapting to a ref who is ‘unusually’ stricter with regard to seeing the rules being followed, as they should?
26 Aug 2012, 15:59 pm
@nama1-638:
no, i meant your perceptions of him as a coaching person.
26 Aug 2012, 15:59 pm
ET
is that u oldboy? How goes the doggypaddle?
Meyer gotta weather the storm, pick himself up and address the problems – still early days.
26 Aug 2012, 16:00 pm
@NZINCHINA-637:
hahaha
irony much
26 Aug 2012, 16:02 pm
@Mostofyou-640:
“…does he now understand what happens to a back when 69 is tried on a park bench by a beanpole?”
Funny…funny… funny.
26 Aug 2012, 16:13 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-643:
My perceptions of him as a coaching person:
1. He is stuck in the past. (Rugby has moved on.)
2. He is one dimentional.
3. He has no creativity.
4. He does a lot of double talk.
5. He is not willing to take responsibility for failures. (Blaming the players.)
6. He has SARU in his pocket (at this stage)
7. He believes bigger is better
8. He loves rugby.
9. He is a disciplinarian.
10. He had some success as a coach at provincial level.
I guess you’ll have a different view but that’s OK.
26 Aug 2012, 16:15 pm
@nama1-647:
thats right, i do
on the up side, if he wins we’ll both be happy
26 Aug 2012, 16:16 pm
BRING BACK BAKKIES!
BRING BACK BAKKIES!
BRING BACK BAKKIES!
BRING BACK BAKKIES!
BRING BACK BAKKIES!
BRING BACK BAKKIES!
26 Aug 2012, 16:18 pm
@cab-636: P Divvy protected and supported his players to the ends of the earth and back, amidst international and local scorn. I admired him hugely for that. In the same way Graham Henry took a lot of flack for his love children, Piri and co
Since Meyer’s appointmen all he has done is the following: Publically said he wants Matfield and du Preez (which means he never wanted Hougaard, Bekker or Kruger in any event…) Appointed a captain after everyone else said no, and then told said captain it’s only temporary.
He has also indirectly insulted Brussow, Aplon, de Jongh, Kolisi, Lambie and a few others, by letting them know in no uncertain terms that he really doesn’t rate them. He picked Keegan, dropped Keegan in a very ****** manned by saying ‘we need Potgieter’s brute force’ because you, Keegan are too weak.
He subbed Habana (mistake…) and if I’m not mistaken, I’m sure I saw a ‘fuckyou’ leaving Habana’s mouth as he was subbed.
Even with the first squad announcement, there were mutterings about players who had been told 3 weeks prior to that they were in, whilst players who thought they may be in with a shot (Brussow, de Jongh and co)only realised they were left out at the announcement.
He told all SA players they have a fair chance, and that he wil select on form – he basically lied to them did he not?
He sees Lambie as a 15, but Lousbcher says he is a 10, when the only thing obvious, is that neither of them rate Lambie enough to even give him 5 minutes in either position.
It was easy in Pretoria…..everyone idolised him (and still does). Players at the time bought into his psychological mumbo jumbo and other philosophies. The Poms he tried to coach – DIDN’T.
And it doesn’t seem as though the Boks are either.
He has yet to take responsibility for ONE aspect of the Boks poor play, preferring to heap scorn on his players – who are there because HE chose them to play his KAK KAK KAK brand of rugby.
This Bok camp can’t be a happy one, as his ‘almost Straueli like arrogance and harden players up attitude’ will not work in the way it did with the Bulls.
He was a one season wonder in Pta, nothing more.
I don’t believe we have the international playing depth the Kiwi’s have, but I do believe a well coached Bok team, with a varied gameplan DO have the ability to beat them.
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