Are SA suffering like France?

Before the SH int season started I thought that SA were building beautifully toward the RWC, ok theyre super rugby sides havn't been good, but based on their last AI tour and last seasons performances they looked the team developing at the best rate.

Then that summer tour happened, Wales looked rusty first up then in reality bossed the second game and shouldve won, I'd probably go out on a limb and say a third test would've gone Wales way.

Now that tour was difficult, a lot of players travelling to SA and not getting great prep, one would think going into the RC they would be better, more fluid, and gel.

However it's been the opposite, theyre scrum has looked shaky, backplay has all but stopped, and Le Roux isn't getting the same space or chances he was last year.

Today SA looked shaky again, set peice was ok, but you would expect that area of strength v Aus, the ruck system looked disjointed, and well to be nice the halfback pairing looked totally alien to each other.

SA look like a team still trying to learn to play a different way that they are used to, but now have the added difficulty of trying to include players who are playing a totally different style, on the other side of the world.

So would SA be better selecting home based players only? Is the talent there in SA? Or is the leak to europe just too much to try to impliment such?

I have to say the european based players looked poor today!

The talent is there, plenty of it, but they aren't being selected.

As for suffering, our senior players are over played and Meyer is too scared to risk youngsters.

As for the familiar refereeing errors, every year we get screwed, it is becoming pathetic.

Do SA feild an A side?

SA don't "field" an A side as far as I'm aware.

They've too many players not getting a rest IMO. Thats catching up with them. If the NH and SH seasons were aligned then it would be less of an issue.


As for the style, they have the talent but to switch to a more expansive style means they'll have to lose some of their physicality IMO. Thats what they pride themselves on so I can't see it happening anytime soon.

Jannie DP, Matfield, Pienaar, Steyn, De Villiers would have been retired by now under a different coach.

And that's just those available at the moment.

Talent is there but it's never been developed.

Meyer for me is well below PDV in terms of player development.

Is the talent really there? It should be and always has been before but the poor showing of the Super teams this year seems to suggest the talent pool at present is not that deep - though may be its only a short term aberration.

Of course the talent is there, however you need to understand what happened in SA rugby in the past few years.

The Bulls and Cheetahs were decimated with players leaving. The Lions lost all their players in 2012 when they got kicked out of SUper rugby, the Kings came in for one season, have now lost all their players, then the Lions returned with only a few experienced players.

The Stormers were decimated with injury this year.

last year SA had 4 teams in the top 8 of SUper rugby, this year had the resultant effect of all the changes.

There is no lack of quality, only experience.

You only win overseas matches through experience, and we won only with the Sharks overseas this year. They were the only team that had experienced players.

The Stormers, BUlls, Cheetahs and Lions lacked that.

lack of talent certainly not.

Take Flyhalf for instance... never an area of huge depth for SA. Yet they now have Goosen, Lambie, Pollard and Catrakilis available.... all youngsters all very talented.

Meyer is a very poor coach in my view. His lack of foresight and calm head is worrying and it seems he simply stumbled on a fortuitious group of players as in Bakkies, Victor, Spies, Du Preez, Morne etc at the bulls and knowing nothing else as kept on using the same methodology, the same players.

I can't believe people were crying for his appointment just a few years back.

Don't they realise.... Christie & Stransky, White & James. The boks seem to do best with an English coach and an English pivot. Perhaps its time they threw Nick Mallett's hat into the ring again and gave the reins to Lambie.

I would love Mallett as coach, assisted by John Mitchell, now there is a combination I would give my left nut for

Isn't it odd that we have coaches such as PDV and Mitchell in the varsity shield. One minute they are leading their nations to the KO stages of the RWC... the next they are coaching 2nd division college kids play rugby.

Loco.

That was the problem with Mitchell Fa. He was supposed to lead us through the KO stages

The trick is to make him forwards coach. He knows his stuff there. Don't let him anywhere near the backs...

At this rate SA are suffering at the hands of France. PSA will have called up half the current squad within the next two years or so.