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, 20:20 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-849:
Grantie has been busy blogging recently.
26 Aug 2012, 20:21 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-841:
She is talking about Lucien Freud the painter.
Very cultured sheila our mad dog.
I want her so much it aches.
26 Aug 2012, 20:22 pm
I heared things in marikana are back no normal…. The 34 miners are back under ground…
26 Aug 2012, 20:25 pm
@goyougoodthing2-836: You are joking right?
26 Aug 2012, 20:25 pm
@grant100-853:
wtf thats pretty sick
26 Aug 2012, 20:25 pm
Frans
Hougaard
Jdv
Mossie
Jpp
Goosen
Fourie dup
Spies
Burger
Brussouw
Bakkies
Bekker
Janni dup
Bismark
Beast
This team will kill nz
26 Aug 2012, 20:25 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-845:
It’s a bit better now, sort of shortish mullet with medium hi- lites.
He developed his love for Billy Ray Cyrus when he was still living in he Free State and is struggling to kick the habit despite living in civilised Durbanville for quite a while now. He still beats Elton though (jantjes, not john) .
26 Aug 2012, 20:29 pm
@Robzim-857:
26 Aug 2012, 20:36 pm
@grant100-853: You want a reaction of course.
No, correction, you NEED a reaction as this is your version of ‘online ***’.
The more people react to your whacked off tendencies, the more you jack off. I’m correct of course.
Do you use your pinkie finger and thumb to work with the ‘little guy’?
And what have you named it? The 9 (ooops sorry typo) 2 inch nail?
26 Aug 2012, 20:37 pm
@Robzim-857:
did you watch the province game? i honestly couldn’t tell if it was a mullet but it certainly was an ‘interesting’ colour.
gawd hepl me, if there’s a kid who needs his hair cut its elton. i’m pretty sure he would look better with one.
@gunther-851:
are you saying he should hi-lite it
@gunther-852:
naughty gunther.
26 Aug 2012, 20:39 pm
Sharks pedigree i sommer ask your daughter to help…. I cant type an jerk off at the same time… Cant type with one hand….
26 Aug 2012, 20:40 pm
@Robzim-857: I am one of Duane’s most ardent fans, but eish….I see him out and about a bit, and he honestly is not one of those ‘overly’ worried about appearance at the best of times.
But he cleans up nicely.
26 Aug 2012, 20:41 pm
@gunther-852:
why dont you just
have her
(relationship status permitting)
26 Aug 2012, 20:43 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-862:
focus cupcake
the convo’s specifically about his hi-lites ‘only’
26 Aug 2012, 20:48 pm
Boks are actually a bit soft, both in body and mind.. they are nowhere near as tough as some of these Argies and NZ players man for man..
when Argies started roughing them up bokkies took the bait and that was where they lost the game.. right up there in the first 10 minutes when Argies let the boertjies know this little excursion into the foothills of the Andes wasn’t gonna end with any rosy ring about it.
So Meyer might talk all tough but I wonder how tough he really is.. he could try go like Streauli and institute a military style boot camp to harden these rugger buggers up.. but we all know that won’t work he just has to select the tough nut players which he hasn’t done.
26 Aug 2012, 20:48 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-864: Boo
Helluva nice guy though, character of the highest order. Yes, I am a fan 
26 Aug 2012, 20:51 pm
@gunther-848: Don’t you be dissing Durbanville library….I still have 5 of their reference books (those of the may not be removed sort) that I ‘borrowed’ back in the day for a school project (and never returned). There was no public interweb at the time….
26 Aug 2012, 20:54 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-862:
He was on some TV show a while ago- being interviewed by Dieter Voigt while braaiing with his fiance, his sister and Joe P – seemed like a moerse nice guy, extremely laid back. His sister is quite a stunner btw.
26 Aug 2012, 21:00 pm
@fitz1ella-865:
so he is correct in saying the players lack mental toughness?
good to know.
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-866:
awww
he has a fiance though, sorry (refer post #868)
26 Aug 2012, 21:01 pm
in other news gunther’s quite the stud
(nudge wink nudge)
26 Aug 2012, 21:03 pm
where all the Meyer disciples.. pretty conspicuous by their absence
only one put in a half hearted appearance was that Corporal Van Zyl character trying to sing the Spies is still king ditty…and Potgieter was the busiest bok at the breakdown song and dance routine… no wonder Argies smacked us silly if Potgieter happened to be our knight in shining armor
26 Aug 2012, 21:04 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-854: 100% true
26 Aug 2012, 21:11 pm
the fact that Kolisi has now injured himself in a meaningless CC game vs Lions is downright travesty where the Boks are crying out for competitive loosies at the breakdown while best candidates Elstadt, Kolisi and Brussow are all injured due to playing extensive meaningless CC rugby.
Poor player management if ever I seen any.
26 Aug 2012, 21:14 pm
How many Springbok caps is this Kirtchner bloke going to accumulate? He’s so average it’s unreal. He’s the talisman of average in the Bok team(Morne Steyn at least had some big moments in his career) Hopefully Meyer starts Lambie at fullback vs the Aussies and gives firm instructions to Steyn to stop kicking fckn bombs.
If I was Heineken I wouldn’t change the backrow for the Aussie match; he’s made the calls already for the RC just let the guys settle into their positions a bit (Potgieter wasn’t bad against the Argies TBH and the Aussie backrow certainly isn’t any better) and maybe introduce Daniel earlier than he did in Mendoza.
26 Aug 2012, 21:21 pm
@fitz1ella-873:
Yeah Skoppie that makes makes it even harder to take
he should have been in Mendoza
26 Aug 2012, 21:22 pm
I really don’t see what everyone clamors about Lambie at full back, he been pathetically average there and showed as much when playing 15 for Sharks vs Chiefs.. very poor under stringent conditions.. Kirchner is even worse so if Boks don’t want to end up stone last on the rugby Richter scale again either of Lambie or Kirchner are no good for Bok 15
Play F. Steyn at 15 if you need some rock of Gibraltar stop gap, but if you want an attacking flair from 15 then the way to go is Gio Aplon or Andries Pretorius or Willie Le Roux.. or even Ludick or Francoise Fouche.., but not Lambie or Kirchner. definitely NOT.!!
26 Aug 2012, 21:30 pm
@CoachPete-875: very poor player mismanagement Meyer basically discards him out his Bok plans and plays that moronic overrated Tarzan twat and the net result is Kolisi out for the rest of the season.. this Meyer moron should get hung drawn and quartered for his blind as bat moronic idiocy sending Bok rugby in reverse gear at a rate of knots
26 Aug 2012, 21:34 pm
cab still reckons White was a good rugby coach..
NO good rugby coach loses 49-0 to ANY team EVER and NEVER.. White was such a pathetic rugby coach who got smacked silly by NZ 7 out of 10 starts and lost twice to Ireland AFTER he proudly proclaimed no Irishman would be seen dead in any position in his team and lost 3 from 4 vs France…
White without Jones was a dead man walking and he knew it only too well.. if White would have contested the 2007 WC alone without Jones calling the tune and instituting the game plan he would have been sent home in the quarters .. Fiji would have sent Boks home, same way France did to NZ.
26 Aug 2012, 21:35 pm
@fitz1ella-876: Lambie was very prominent at fullback in the Boks best performance under Meyer (the 2nd test vs England). He’s a far better bet than Kirtchner.
26 Aug 2012, 21:39 pm
@fitz1ella-878:
yeah and you still cant accept he won the little gold trinket cos u dislike him so much. what you wanna deny reality for? you also said he would be useless as a s15 coach, now he revolutionised brumbies in first year – so what is what ekse?
you keep attributing all these successes to all of whites team’s to everyone but white, he must be gdam lucky is all i can say – and one thing else, say what you want about White but he was as tenacious as all hell, no-one not you, not frikkie, not the blobul union, not the gdam ANC itself could remove him from the Bok post, he fought all the way and came out top, yes even after the 49-0 result..to lift the RWC, the greatest trophy in world rugby.
26 Aug 2012, 21:50 pm
Technique, why have the Sharks managed top keep their pack intact throughout most of the season and the Stormers are all broken. The ABs have very few injuries. The Kiwis and their coaches understand technique
26 Aug 2012, 21:59 pm
@Robzim-868:
His fiancé his sister and Joe P?
Which was Joe P?
Fiancé or sister?
26 Aug 2012, 22:00 pm
@fitz1ella-878: old Sir Clive lost 76-0 and 64-22 on consecutive weekends, Wales under Henry had 50 points put on them in Dublin.
@Spiesisworthless1-879: I think Lambie is a better player but purely on his Bok performances I don’t get the criticism of Kirchner, imo he has played reasonably well.
26 Aug 2012, 22:02 pm
Let me guess.
Fuckadilly predicted this in his morning stool?
26 Aug 2012, 22:02 pm
The 2007 WC was a no contest WC .. Argentina and England most definitely do not represent strongest 2 rugby nations to contest a semi and final against…
White lost to NZ 7 times from 10 starts
that is how I rate White, he lost to Aus 49-0 away and 45 – 26 to NZ at home
He lost both times he played Ireland away and lost to France home and away 3 from 4 starts.
in 2006 and 2007 Whites 3N record read played 10 won 3 lost 7
Before Eddy Jones White was TOTALLY lost at sea without a hope in the world of getting the Boks up to WC competitive strategy..
a 19 year old Frans Steyn kicked 2 long range drop goals at Newlands to prevent a total whitewash clean sweep loss in the 3N prior to the WC
The difference between Boks prior to the EJ inclusion and after EJ spent just a couple of weeks with Whites Boks was like DAY vs NIGHT
White was and is a very mediocre coach.. 66 % success rate when the bulk of that percentage is made up of wins vs Namibia, Samoa, Argentina, Wales and England on weak inbound tours etc., then you know White was a poor coach who got lucky..
Since Eddy Jones educated White into some decent open rugby strategic thinking White has improved.. like now he plays fetchers at Brumbies while when he was Bok coach his goddamn brain was shut tight same as this poor HM fool is showing now… and that is why he lost 49-0 because his self righteous nincompoop brain was shut tighter than a claptrap vice in freeze mode.
26 Aug 2012, 22:07 pm
White never picked an out-an-out fetcher for Boks, and they won the RWC and the 3N, his ethos, like the ABs is that all forwards should fetch and that a bigger player was better than an equivalently talented smaller one, and he’s 1st choice was Burger who won IRB player of the year and was phenomenal in his pomp. White was always ready to received external input, far more so than most of the ppl on this site and any previous coach. He had intimiate knowledge of SA rugby players and was extremely astute, let us give thanks and praise..
26 Aug 2012, 22:11 pm
Argentina DREW with the Boks!!
Flipping Hec
Bet you are all sweating now!
26 Aug 2012, 22:17 pm
White was and is so full of himself he was fucked up down the tubes staring his one possible saving grace of pulling a WC fluke out the fire was his last hope at any redemption of a totally bereft legacy of 49-0 and wooden spoon x 2 in the 3N
That why his one and only hope was to rope in a strategist from outside of his closed lost bewildered set of circumstances .. and Eddy Jones saved his arse.. without EJ White was an absolute goner.. and he knew it only too well..
I watched as Eddy took over the coaching entirely through the WC and prior.. White wore the blazer and latched onto Eddy’s arm.. Eddy did all the hands on coaching.. White collected the accolades…
Beside White is a bit of a prick.. but that beside the point.. his actual coaching ability has improved in recent times since the WC but his personality still pretty much the same..
White got lucky.. Eddy saved his backside because through 2006 and 3N 2007 White was absolutely nowhere even though he had the cream of Bulls and Sharks youth policy players who were brought to scratch through Campese and Louden input and coaching filling his stable
26 Aug 2012, 22:19 pm
@gunther-882:
Never thought you think of Joe in that sense
He married a sports illustrated swimwear model though.
Marzaan Kalis (one L, not related to Jacques)
So you have serious competition, lol.
26 Aug 2012, 22:22 pm
So who saving Jakey’s arse now? gdam there alot of saving go on – its amazing.
you think it is the shoe polisher at brumbies that got anything to do with it?
EJ did not chance anything, the only change was enforced through injury in that Frans Steyn was picked over JdV at 12, through injury, a position that was an eye-opener to every successive coach who was picking him at 10 or 15, whether the decision to play him at 12 was White’s or EJ, it is kudos that JW made the final decision to do so and/or to take the advice to do so.
No man is an island, not in anything, the smartest surround themselves with the right ppl, i dont think old sir clive had any of white’s rugby nous, but he did know how to surround himself by a team, white learnt that from woodward, as he picked up various things from different ppl – so no i dont think he was close-minded at all, quite the opposite.
He was a tad convervative imo, but some of these guys also make for v good coaches with good results – SA pretty much been NZs only oppo over last decade, and in fact over sweep of history generally.
26 Aug 2012, 22:25 pm
You seem like quite the groupie there Robbo.
26 Aug 2012, 22:30 pm
@gunther-891:
He knows this stuff!! Bizarre
26 Aug 2012, 22:38 pm
It seems that I am not the only one worried about the Straeuli-direction Meyer is taking the Boks in. Meyer must fight his instincts
By: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – Five matches into his tenure as Springbok coach, and already Heyneke Meyer finds himself at something of a crossroads.
The bravery, or otherwise, of his response could go a significant way to defining his era in the hot seat, however indecently early it may seem to be judging him so intensely.
Such is life in his unforgiving position, let’s face it.
South Africa started well under him: there were some very promising elements to the successive, quickly series-sealing victories first up against England in Durban and Johannesburg respectively.
His new-look Boks (and we mustn’t under-estimate, in fairness, the extent to which he has been forced to re-assemble the team) combined crunching forward power and commitment with good hints of ambition out wide and willingness to counter-attack attractively in those matches.
But instead of only cranking things up a notch, the last three Tests – which have yielded only one further win despite an unbeaten record tenuously remaining intact – have seen only regression in many ways.
That, quite obviously, is substantially worrying.
Meyer is a likeable man, of good character and sound first-class coaching track record, if perhaps revealing just an excessive hint of robotic disciplinary habit and a penchant for over-earnestness: just what is it that he barks into that walkie-talkie during games, all the while looking as though he is about to crumple into some degree of nervous breakdown?
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and from an era of deep depression in Bulls country he slowly dragged that mighty union out of domestic depths and into a phase where they began to even routinely boss Super Rugby – admittedly aided by the presence of some of the most iconic on-field figures in South African rugby history.
The trouble with being Bok coach is that patience isn’t afforded in doses nearly as generous.
Supporters of our national team want sparkle and conquest today, tomorrow, yesterday, and in the next three and a half minutes too.
It has been forever thus.
Meyer finds himself in the firing line, then, only a few months into his reign… and significantly even before he has locked horns with either of South Africa’s toughest foes, New Zealand and Australia.
The similarly unconvincing latter nation, incidentally, hang onto No 2 slot in the IRB rankings because of the Boks’ failure – er, and then some – to put away Argentina by more than 15 points in Mendoza on Saturday.
Of course you get plenty of absurd, emotional over-reaction at times like this. Quick check: Meyer’s Boks haven’t actually lost yet, for goodness’ sake!
Also to consider is that he has been bedevilled by injuries to the very type of players who should be his core personnel in this post-Smit, post-Matfield, post-Du Preez sort of landscape – his “new old-guard”, if that makes sense.
Men in that category include Schalk Burger and two who started under his tenure but have since also been cruelly sidelined, Bismarck du Plessis and JP Pietersen.
Both earned good votes for various phantom World XVs penned worldwide after the June Test window period, let’s not forget that, and for the moment are desperately inconvenient absentees, only making a transitional Bok outfit more vulnerable than they would like to be.
There is also a case for saying it is easy to put yourself in, say, Nick Mallett’s (admirably animated, nevertheless) punditry shoes in the relative haven of SuperSport’s studios, having a right old go at the Boks from afar.
But then again, much of what Mallett, who has been there and done that as a title-winning and record-breaking Bok coach, said by way of post mortem after the Mendoza snore-fest from the South Africans just sounded so much more honest, pin-point and pro-active than the verdict from Meyer himself.
The incumbent spoke of such things as “improving our mental toughness” and “training harder” by way of remedy for the all-too-obvious torpor from Saturday’s Boks.
Mallett was far more interested in game-plan considerations which — dare I say? — the majority of us also favour placing under the microscope with great, great urgency.
I just fancy that the time has come, quicker than he would have liked it to, for Meyer to wrestle his own philosophy, which is geared around stability in selection, staunch adherence to “structure” and a pretty low-risk mindset by his players.
Those can, of course, be fruitful qualities in sport.
Can be… only there are strong signs at present that such a formula, especially so stringently applied, simply won’t cut it against the planet-leading All Blacks, who are not exactly averse to physicality themselves but combine it, tellingly, with wonderful cut and thrust and amazing skill-sets across the park.
I’ll tell you one thing, for starters, which won’t earn me any admiring cheques in the post for ingenuity: if South Africa were to repeat Mendoza by fielding two such blunt, lopsidedly “direct” instruments as Willem Alberts and Jacques Potgieter in the same loose trio against the up-tempo New Zealanders, they will get hammered.
Somehow it just seemed like a tactic straight from the Straeuli template of turbulent years gone by.
The Boks tried to take down the rugged, revved-up Argentineans in their own den with heavy emphasis on “stampkar” resources yet (with apologies for borrowing another delightfully expressive Afrikaans-ism), largely only got out-bliksemed anyway.
And where are they when that happens? Rather up the creek without a paddle, it suspiciously seems.
Smart rugby people often insist, too, that the makings of a successful and simultaneously vibrant team come in the form of appropriate selection in the “eight, nine, ten” jerseys, where so much of the play is made or at least heavily influenced.
The Boks are currently beset by a sad absence of nous and X-factor in those departments, to put it bluntly – a situation that is impeding them more collectively.
Meyer has to act decisively: how many more danger signals, ahead of the away-and-home challenges against Australia and New Zealand, does he need?
The last three Tests – Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and now Mendoza – have been cheerless and bankrupt for the majority, I confidently submit, of Bok supporters.
Will the coach have the courage to act decisively?
It may well be in his best interests, although he will be grappling his instincts all the time as he does so.
26 Aug 2012, 22:39 pm
@carol-892:
I do not know Sam Mendes though
26 Aug 2012, 22:42 pm
Without Jones White would have picked Wynand Olivier for 12 and not gone with Steyn.. it was Jones who gave White sufficient courage to chance his arm and play Steyn
but that still beside the point.. White inherited players put through a revitalized SA rugby nursery by Bulls and Sharks structures through Australian coaching techniques in Campese and Louden and that why in 2007 Sharks and Bulls contested the S12 final.. they were the top 2 teams n the southern hemisphere and the world then.. and even so White managed to come stone last in the 3N two years consecutively with those very same players..
White was a poor coach who’s real international credit was below 50% if you compare to top 5 playing nations world wide
vs NZ, Aus, Ireland, France, SA lost far more than they won under White..
so fetchers or no fetchers Whites real rugby brain was very limited and his style of rugby Boks are still playing today.. something they have not managed to shake off since Streauli.. his play without the ball defense wins games kicj chase rugby is same garbage rugby that HM is sticking with and Boks have been LOSING under since 2009 hand over fist..
White has since got with the program.. his FIRST names on his team sheet at Brumbies were Hooper a Luke Watson carbon copy and he just begged borrowed and stole Pocock to join his crew.. so for somebody who reckons he only needs fetchers to fetch beers from his fridge he’s done a compete 180 degree swing around.. and his outright hypocrisy stinks to high heaven..when his philosophy back in the day was fetchers were an absolute no no…
Its ironic that Pocock made Burger his bunny at the 2011 WC when some reckon Burger was the fulcrum of the Bok attack .. yet Pocock the fetcher beat Burger the hulk hands down.. time and time and time again.. and was the thorn in Boks attempts with Burger leading the charge and getting done EVERY time at the breakdown … and so same with Brussow when it mattered for Boks in 2009…
so much for a coach who supposedly knows his oats around the inclusion or exclusion of open side specialists.. of which Burger most definitely never was one…
26 Aug 2012, 22:43 pm
Jones?
since when Jones been the groot magga of all things rugby?
how many world cups EJ won? just who been saving who?
you think 49-0 was a biggie, how does red 93-3 results go down?
26 Aug 2012, 22:55 pm
off wiki –
“In 2005, the Wallabies lost seven straight games and at the end of the Wallabies European tour had lost eight of their last nine matches. On 2 December 2005 whilst having two more years left on his contract was terminated as the Wallabies head coach.”
“The Queensland Reds in 2007 finished bottom of the Super Rugby table and had only managed two wins the entire season. Injury spells meant Jones at times was to do without up to 8 regulars to his starting team, including the loss of influential Wallabies fullback Chris Latham even before the season started. Jones hinted that he would probably never coach in Australia again, thus potentially closing the door on his long held ambition to return as coach of the Wallabies.”
you can edit and spin anything any way, rugby at that level, unless u the ABs, got more more to do with injuries than anything else, injuries screwed stormers this year, Boks in 2006 and 2010 under JW and PdV respectively, and reds under EJ in 2007
26 Aug 2012, 22:56 pm
Rob Houwing’s journalistic style can only be described as constipated to the point of autism.
26 Aug 2012, 22:59 pm
Jones beat Mitchell in 2003 WC semi to take Woodwards England to extra time in the final with a rather limited bunch of lightweight forwards and some aging backs who peaked in 1999
White was an absolute GONER without Jones.. and White knew it perfectly well else he would have gone to the WC with Rassie as techie adviser and Coetsee and Smal as his two sidekick coaches..
As it happened Jones did ALL the strategic thinking and back line tweaking and game plan setting for Boks at the 2007 WC.. White stood around and counted his lucky stars that he found a stooge who was desperate enough to show up his own countrymen who had booted him out their campaign.. AND who knew the ropes of WC strategy planning.. and who wasn’t wet behind the ears without a goddamn clue in the world as White had found himself and his other 2 stooges who were swimming in the absolute mire of their own bewilderment prior to Jones setting the strategic direction
Eddy Jones saved Whites arse.. you may not wanna think it but White KNOWS it.. without Jones White would have been sent packing out the quarters.. Fiji would have sent Boks home .. that is how dour and poorly coached they were prior to Jones setting them on the revitalized course of action.. why could White not beat NZ or France or Ireland prior to the WC without Jones tweaking his thinking..? He was clueless prior to the WC and that why he desperately needed some professional rugby strategies fixing his non enlightened rugby thinking
26 Aug 2012, 23:02 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL4ei-RE3Nc
so who been leaning on who? a marriage made in heaven, waltzing arm and arm to the cup, lekker.
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