Meyer: We can’t throw Morne away
25 Sep 2012
Heyneke Meyer says dropping Morne Steyn from the Springboks’ squad was not the solution to remedying his struggles.
Steyn has been the central villain in what has been a nightmare Rugby Championship campaign for the Springboks. His ball-in-hand play is widely perceived to be average, while his tactical and goal kicking has lacked its trademark accuracy.
There is a sense that a large portion of the South African rugby fraternity has lost patience with Steyn, the tipping point coming in their most recent Test against the All Blacks in Dunedin, where he missed kicks which were decisive in the final analysis.
Meyer has consistently voiced his view that Steyn’s heavy workload over the last three years has compromised him and reiterated this after the Dunedin defeat once more. He intimated then that he would rest Steyn for the home leg, but said those plans were shelved in light of a ruling that requires Springboks players to compete in the Currie Cup if not in the squad.
‘We need to look at how we manage our players but it was best that he stayed involved,’ Meyer said. ‘There is a lot of criticism [directed] at Morne, but you’re still working with a human being. If you look at when Bryan [Habana] was struggling, as a coach you can’t just throw a guy away and expect him to come back stronger. I’m not the type of coach to just throw a guy away.
‘Obviously if you do stupid things there’s no sympathy [Meyer would later suggest that Dean Greyling wouldn't play Test rugby again because of his cowardly assault Richie McCaw]. But Morne’s general play was good, it was his kicking that was poor and we have to work on that. It is great to have him in the group, especially with Johan Goosen not being 100% fit [bruised heel]. I can already see being back home has helped him.’
Meyer continued to defend his gameplan, which is thought to be too conservative, stressing that his belief in its effectiveness hasn’t diminished. ‘There’s been a lot of talk about the gameplan but I thought we played the All Blacks perfectly,’ he said.
‘We had more scoring chances than them but we finished poorly. We didn’t convert pressure into points. The teams are so close in Test rugby that that is costly. It frustrated me today in training because when we broke the line guys didn’t show an instinct to finish. They almost appeared to stop. We have to finish better. There isn’t a lot to change in the gameplan, we just have to finish better.’
He also suggested that expectations need to be tempered in keeping with his infancy in the role. ‘I’ve checked the stats, Steve Hansen has been with the All Blacks for 100 Tests. Robbie Deans has just surpassed Bob Dwyer’s 65 Tests as coach. The Argentinian coach has been there for four or five years. I’ve been with the team for seven weeks,’ he said.
‘When you take over a new team with new coaching staff and players and take on the top sides in the world there will be a bit of self doubt for everybody. The players know they could have beaten Australia and New Zealand. But I sense the self-belief is growing. That comes with experience and we’re short on that. But we’re home now and the lessons from those defeats must show in our performances.’
By Ryan Vrede, in Pretoria
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432 Comments
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25 Sep 2012, 11:13 am
@poppa69-341:
do you also have “an eel up your bum”?
i believe it’s all the rage these days in nz.
25 Sep 2012, 11:17 am
@grant100-348: Is that even a proper site you are referencing. As someone who has spend a few years in each country, I don’t think you even start comparing the immoral **** that takes place in SA to NZ or anywhere else in the world for that matter.
25 Sep 2012, 11:18 am
@poppa69-341: You are so fcked in the pip, mate. Beyond help.
25 Sep 2012, 11:18 am
garth … stats don’t lie …. also per population, NZ have a higher crime rate.
25 Sep 2012, 11:20 am
@katman-353:yawn… you keep turning a blind eye to it all Katman…
25 Sep 2012, 11:21 am
@grant100-354: stats dont lie huh? read this then
Rape South Africa
Rape is an occurrence which, according to official statistics occurred approximately 16,000 times annually during the 1980s. By 2006 the official figure for rape was over 55 000 , unofficially, based on the premise put forward by the National Institute of Crime Rehabilitation that only one in twenty rapes are reported, the figure is over 494,000 a year.
This means that on average approximately one thousand three hundred women can be expected to be raped a day in South Africa.
A study by Interpol, the international police agency, has revealed that South Africa leads the world in rapes.
A woman was raped in South Africa every 17 seconds. This did not include the number of child rape victims. It was estimated that one in every two women would be raped.
Between 28 and 30 percent of adolescents reported that their first sexual encounter was forced.
Of South African men who knew somebody who had been raped, 16 percent believed that the rape survivor had enjoyed the experience and had asked for it. According to a recent study police estimated that only one in 36 rape cases was reported and of those only 15 percent culminated in a conviction.
25 Sep 2012, 11:22 am
@grant100-354: Hahaha! That’s crazy talk. NZ has many problem, but nowhere near the scale of SA. All the stats prove is that the cops in NZ can count.
25 Sep 2012, 11:24 am
@poppa69-355:
can we agree on the treaty being bogus then?
25 Sep 2012, 11:25 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-358: in your limited opinion maybe….
25 Sep 2012, 11:36 am
@poppa69-355: See what I mean? You’re completely fcked in the head.
Turning a blind eye? What does that even mean here? I’m talking about your obsession to win some kind of one-upmanship contest by gloating about our social problems. That’s mentally sick.
Am I supposed to compete with you? Would that mean I’m no longer turning a blind eye?
Take some time off and go sort your sht out. You’re an embarrassment.
25 Sep 2012, 11:41 am
@poppa69-359:
good man, my respect for you is being sincerely reevaluated as we speak.
european dominance is a relatively new phenomenon in the story of human civilisation, for the most part it was the preserve of african, middle eastern and asian societies.
25 Sep 2012, 11:49 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-361: you have respect for that t u rd?
the man is foul inside and out man, look at him going on about rape as though that kind of one-upmanship actually wins some kind of moral high ground?
there is no excuse for poopsies rants but then again life is filled with people who try to drag others down to their level.
25 Sep 2012, 11:51 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-361: poops is probably just short of 1/8 maori so he cant get the benefits designed to enslave the mind.
hence he is in aus.
we only have to deal with him on a blog, imagine actually working in the same building as this oke?
25 Sep 2012, 11:51 am
@katman-360: Poopsicle is stuck on the bottle, but that’s quite common there no?
@poppa69-356: Keep at it…..I told you yesterday that insults are going to become far more personal if you carry on with this line of shi.t and Fernly’s insults to you will be seen as plain banter. So carry on dishing it out, its gonna fly back and it won’t be politically, socially or anything correct.
25 Sep 2012, 11:53 am
from a chat with Pops’ ex-employer:
“but I can confirm that he is no longer in our employment. We asked him to clean the lifts and he spent four days on the job. When I asked him why, he replied: ‘Well, there are forty of them, two on each floor, and sometimes some of them
aren’t there’. Eventually, we realised that he thought each floor had a different lift, and he’d cleaned the same two twelve times. “We had to let him go.”
25 Sep 2012, 11:56 am
@grant100-349: Sorry Grant100, that word is not in either haka.
25 Sep 2012, 11:57 am
@trupisero-364: thats what he wants though bud, he isnt looking for polite conversation.
its all too easy for him to dress it up as “returning serve” based on comments by a few on this site when what he actually seeks is hate because it feeds the hate inside him.
he is an object of pity trupi, nothing more.
25 Sep 2012, 11:58 am
@trupisero-365:
25 Sep 2012, 12:00 pm
@trupisero-365: Thats Pooper… Keo’s very own Pasifika “bro”… Lifts dont reach the top floor.
25 Sep 2012, 12:00 pm
@rangerman-367: ja, also true. moetsekerdiedompoesjammerkrysmiley
25 Sep 2012, 12:06 pm
My son from partial bonehead heritage will be doing his kapa-haka tomorrow in front of hundreds. I think it’s awesome, but think Verwoed would be turning in his grave.
25 Sep 2012, 12:06 pm
@rangerman-362:
hehe
i meant my respect with regard to this specicific point of contention is being ‘reevaluated’.
pops and i still have along way to go.
@rangerman-363:
he is complicated, our pops.
hehe i wouldn’t want to work in the same bulding as pops but i would enjoy going to pubs with him and watching the odd spectacle of pk’s flying this way and that once he pisses some big boytijes off.
25 Sep 2012, 12:10 pm
@garth-371: its all good bud, its good that he has taken the culture of his homeland to heart imo.
after all, migration has been a constant throughout human history and “die volk” are nothing more than an engineered nation consisting of european and inigenous bloodlines.
think of your son as one of the new trekkers.
25 Sep 2012, 12:11 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-372: hehe, poops would have you in a bit of trouble for sure.
25 Sep 2012, 12:13 pm
@rangerman-373: Ja, ‘n dapper draadtrekker.
25 Sep 2012, 12:16 pm
@katman-375: Nice
25 Sep 2012, 12:19 pm
@garth-376: I forgot to add the smiley. I meant no real insult to your offspring.
25 Sep 2012, 12:27 pm
@katman-377: and if Garth was ‘n trekker he’d have no offspring…
25 Sep 2012, 12:30 pm
@trupisero-378: Or if he used an oortrekker.
25 Sep 2012, 12:46 pm
This thread is funny.
But why is it that mainly Sharks supporters are unhappy?
25 Sep 2012, 12:50 pm
@PissAnt-380: Because they’re still hurting from Saturday afternoon.
25 Sep 2012, 12:55 pm
@PissAnt-380: keegan “the christian cullen of lossies” daniel is not in the team and jacque “dom kamikaze” pottie is in.
25 Sep 2012, 12:59 pm
With Frans possibly injured and Morne out of favour, this could be a stainless steel Bok team, come Saturday!
25 Sep 2012, 13:02 pm
@katman-381: good win on sat, back to back currie cups would be sweet..
25 Sep 2012, 13:03 pm
@PissAnt-380: its mainly non-bull supporters.
25 Sep 2012, 13:05 pm
@PissAnt-380: i am happy, very happy.
25 Sep 2012, 13:07 pm
@BuckTrendy-384: Ja, was a tense game. Not always pretty, but see-sawed all the way.
I’m not counting this particular chicken just yet though.
Got my tickets at the company suite for Saturday – will be taking my boy again. Should be good.
25 Sep 2012, 13:09 pm
@katman-387: should be classic between the 2 premier teams in the currie cup!
25 Sep 2012, 13:10 pm
@katman-387: was a great game and congrats to the lions.
so much for the cc being a dead comp.
i have loved this years cc.
25 Sep 2012, 13:10 pm
@BuckTrendy-388: Ha ha. Every week we play a different team, but it’s always a top-of-the-table clash. Go figure.
25 Sep 2012, 13:10 pm
@BuckTrendy-388: the lions are playing the sharks again this weekend?
25 Sep 2012, 13:11 pm
I see Ryan is in Pretoria
I wonder where he is staying, I want to take him 12 koesiestis and reprimand him for writing such ugly stuff about PdV and such nice things about Meyer
I want to say to him what Gio Appels said to JP Petersen when they had an altercation: DJY!!!!!
25 Sep 2012, 13:12 pm
arent the sharks still ahead of the stormers?
yes, yes they are.
and wp cannot in any shape or form be considered a premier team given their abscence from the silverware table for over a decade
25 Sep 2012, 13:14 pm
the all blacks team will be interesting next year sans mccaw, carter and nonu
McCaw: Will resist big-money offers from Europe
Dan Carter and Ma’a Nonu are both taking a break from international rugby next year and will play for Perpignan and Ricoh Black Rams respectively.
McCaw could expect to be offered a hugely lucrative package, particularly from a French club, but the flanker says his battered body needs a rest if he is to be fit to play in the 2015 World Cup.
“The body takes a pounding regularly,” said McCaw, who is likely to sit out next year’s Super Rugby season. “But it’s when you lose that desire to get yourself over that and ready for the next week, that’s when you start to have enough.
“The big thing I want to make sure is there is not a perception I’m just hanging in there and just being around for the sake of it.
“I still want to do it right and having that break is going to hopefully invigorate the next couple of years.
“Sometimes having a break here and there reminds you how much fun it is when you put the jersey on. I still absolutely love it.”
25 Sep 2012, 13:14 pm
@Sheriff-392: gio actually said “n..aaaaa…..y!”
what the audio didnt pick up was the “baaaas” part.
25 Sep 2012, 13:16 pm
@Transformation-394: ah well, the boks are missing fdp and jaque fourie so i guess it all evens out.
25 Sep 2012, 13:21 pm
@rangerman-374:
hehe
lets just say it wont be pretty, and would probably cost me a few pk’s myself but for every one i’d get he should about four or five.
or i could go for the smart humane strategy and give him a moerse pk myself on the oke who’s about to moer him’s behalf and then just apologise.
always a nifty strategy to pull when you ‘know’ you’re about to get your lights put out and its your doos drunken buddy’s fault
25 Sep 2012, 13:23 pm
@rangerman-395:
Appels is ‘n yster; hy sal vir JP swak maak
25 Sep 2012, 13:26 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-397:
poopsies not gonna like that at all.
cue:
tongue pulling throat slitting chest beating from the escape artist.
@Sheriff-398: appels will get hammered into the ground like a tent peg by JPP.
it will make what JPP did to the little welsh hobbit williams look like party time on loveboat.
25 Sep 2012, 13:33 pm
@rangerman-399:
Djy vat nogals vi Appels virri pop my bru
Appels gat vi hom stiek
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