Since I did not watch the game let me rather deal with statistics. I don’t know whether this will support Heyneke Meyer or not because I will post them as I source them. You sift through it and make with it whatever you will.
The three National coaches (I will leave Argentina out for now) currently have these win percentages:
Steve Hanson 100%
Robbie Deans 68%
Heynecke Meyer 50%
Steve Hanson has been with the All Blacks setup for years, Robbie Deans is into his 5th year and Heyneke Meyer is new, only had six games.
Looking at our Tri Nations history, it is absolutely depressing and if anyone doubts our loyalty they can fly. When you read this stat and think how we all try and stay positive we all need gold medals.
Since Saturday 18 July 1998, the first Test coached by Nick Mallet we have this away record in the Tri Nations:
Played 32, Won 6, Lost 25, Drew 1
That is a mere 18% win record!
This is the one specific statistic we are all praying for to change. We want to turn the wheel NOW!
I will show the different coaches performance a bit later.
Our home performance against the old foe is better: Played 32, Won 20, Lost 12
That gives us a 62.5% win record at home.
A lot of factors influenced the different coach’s performance, like resting players, taking over from a total mess, to playing with a World Cup winning team from a previous coach. South African teams went over to Australasia with an apologetic attitude that varies from underdogs to whatever excuse each coach can come up with. The fact is we go there as sitting ducks. Nick Mallet started off his away career and promptly beat both New Zealand and Australia in 1998. That gave us hope that at last we will just go over and set the record straight. But since that tour we look dismal in losing 25 out of the next 30 played.
To start with the individual coaches let me say this, if Heyneke Meyer sticks around, he does not have a high mountain to climb, he can become the best away coach with relative ease. Have a look (and weep) at what figures he must beat. Remember this is the away records.
Nick Mallet: Played 6, Won 2, Lost 4
Harry Viljoen: Played 2, Won 0, Lost 1, Drawn 1
Rudolf Strauli: Played 4, Won 0, Lost 4
Jake White: Played 9, Won 1, Lost 8
Peter de Villiers: Played 11, Won 3, Lost 8
So there you have it! Heyneke, beat them 4 times and you will be our best, but how long will you be alive to do it. I doubt that you will be afforded the same leniency the others had.
A bit about Heyneke Meyer’s Super rugby career, concentrating on the last three years when he was afforded the time to build a team. The previous stints were either a learning curve or a hire and fire situation.
If you look at his building a team to win the 2007 Super trophy you could clearly see a gradual improvement. He also showed a lot of loyalty and in the end it paid dividents. His Team gelled and the results became better year after year. In 2006 he reached the playoffs with 7 wins out of 13 and in 2007 it improved to 9 out of 13. His try tally increased from 36 in 2005, 41 in 2006 and to 45 in 2007. So it seems he is a slow builder with all his structures.
My question is, Can I bear it or can the average South African bear the slow rate of change?
As a true Bulls supporter that gets older by the day, my patience has grown shorter, so Mr Meyer I doubt that you will stay on for longer than the end of this year’s tournament if your team cannot put up a decent fight in New Zealand this weekend and then return to South Africa and beat them both locally. If you do beat the old foe in South Africa I would suggest that you ask for midweek games on the End of Year Tour to be able to commence building a team to beat the Australasian teams in Australasia. Also, try something new – have a few plans, yes even if we laugh at plan A, B and C. Just don’t be so rigid in your game plans!
This is stretching my patience, to think of it, results only by the end of 2013.
But OK, that is the time I will give you.
If you want to slit your wrists i can add Andre Markgraaf and Carel du Plessis stats
that would complete the post ,95 era
Played 36
Won 6
lost 29
Drawn 1
% 61.1
Even our home win ratio suffers then
down from 62.5& to 61.1%
Hell guys and girls this is just not acceptable, we have became also rans.
If only our National Anthem was sung as passionately as the Welsh anthem we could have been quite happy with the odd win against the All Blacks.
Some more info
Post 1995 WC
SA vs AUS/NZ
Played 72
Won 28
Lost 43
Drawn 1
In those Guts and glory days before Pro Rugby
SA vs NZ
P 42
W 21
L 18
D 3
Then the WC and After that
P 41
W 13
L 28
Even worse watch the tur around vs Australia
Pre Pro
P 33
W 23
L 10
After 1995 WC
P 42
W 18
L 23
D 1
Overall we are still ahead, the day we lose that lead is the day i stop watching or caring about the boks.
P 75
W 41
L 33
D 1
At the rate we lose against them it will happen before 2015
We have lost 5 on the trot now, Sias, sis, GA
OK with all that moaning i am out to do something positive, plant a few trees and shrubs.
Chat later today.
Super, I fear that Heynecke will reap the wrath of a rugby supporting public that has grown gatvol of successive Bok coaches’ narrow definition of ‘winning rugby’.
His biggest problem is that time is not on his side. Gatvol is what it is…
He should not use the term ‘winning rugby’ either but boldly state that his intention is to move away from the kick dominated game plan. It is the only way he will be able to buy himself time.
His second biggest problem is to ‘re-programme’ players who know no other way of playing Bok rugby.
Some interesting stats for you to mull over.
Missed Tackles: SA 14, Aus 19
Lost possessions: Turnovers conceded: SA 21, Aus 15
Handling errors made: SA 8, Aus 7
Tactical Kicking from the hand: SA 38, Aus 45
Penalties conceded: SA 9, Aus 9
Contestable time in opposition’s 22: SA 6.11 min, Aus 3.12 min
What is amazing for me, is that apart from the turnovers conceded, SA were better in every department, and therefore by rights, should have taken this match. I am focussing only on one point here – I am sure that there will be many to come still – but One of the reasons we lost when you look at this small snapshot of just some of the stats is summed up perfectly by the second point on the list. Turnovers. Wonder why there is so many turnovers conceded? Game plan. Simple as that. The longer we continue to insist that Alberts’ role is simply crash ball, and not to look for spaces, the more we will continue to lose the ball.
We can win in every department, but if we gift the ball to the opposition, we are just handing them the game.
Some other bloggers thoughts:
http://www.rugbybanter.com/1/post/2012/09/boks-vs-aus-my-analysis.html
http://www.ruggaworld.com/2012/09/09/rigtinglose-bokke/
http://blogs.sport24.co.za/mclook/2012/09/08/kotsenswaardig/
http://www.frontrowgrunt.co.za/2012/09/weekend-wrap-15/
http://davesviews.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/meyer-suffers-first-loss-as-springbok-coach/
@ superbokspringJan:
Thanks, Super, for putting this in black and white. I am aware of our terrible record after re-admittance and it often feels like I am the only one. Most Bok supporters seem to live in the time warp when we used to dominate. The harsh reality is, as the record shows, that we have been the weakest of the three SH teams since re-admittance. Bok rugby has been living in the past, off past glories and the occasional modern flashes of greatness like the 2 World Cups.
We have not yet adjusted to the modern way, we still think in terms of dominating the opposition by brute force and our coaches are generally infatuated with size. Crash and bash, skop and jag is our mentality. It’s farcical that our emblem is the nimble, graceful, Springbok. The rhino would be more suited to our way of playing – an animal that just storms blindly forward, incapable of changing course. It’s so sad that white supporters fought so hard to maintain the symbol, but never tried to live up to the essence.
I think Heynecke is very much in the mold of this mentality of the past with a thin modern veneer. He is in love with size and rejects all the more skillful players because of it. He values loyalty and surrounds himself with yes men. He wants automatons, not players who can think for themselves. He is a good salesman who convinces the people around him with his sincerity and passion. However he is a flawed coach who is out of his depth at the moment, convinced of his own rightness and blaming the players for not executing the game plan. So far he has shown no sign of adapting. His comments after this last debacle was that there was a big improvement, that Morne had a good game and that the side is just too inexperienced.
His supporters also take criticism of him personally. They feel he is one of them and it is disloyal to criticize him. They will say that this is his first loss and that the other coaches, as illustrated in your article, didn’t have a better record. So why are we coming down so hard on HM?
The answer is that time moves on, we are supposed to learn from our mistakes and improve. The first 10 years after re-admittance could be forgiven as a whole generation of players, coaches and supporters had to adjust to the modern era. Then we have the added factor of political meddling in rugby. The last coach had a torrid time and was written off even before he had begun. HM had the best start of all the coaches. He was hailed as the saviour who should have been chosen 4 years ago and has had no political meddling and the complete support of administrators and most of the public at large. There is always going to be a certain percentage of people that is against the coach for whatever reason – this happens all over the world, you can’t please 100% of the people.
The signs of HM inadequacies have been slowly but steadily mounting. In the early days it could be excused and one tried to find the positive spin. But they just continue to mount up and there is very little on the positive side to give one optimism. There is zero sign of a man learning from his mistakes, just a man doubling down even more firmly on the course he worked out 4 years ago. So for this Bok fan the future looks like a depressing continuation of the miserable modern record. Bok coaches asking for time while the Bok record becomes more and more stained with defeats. We have drawn at home against a young, ordinary England team without really dominating them in any of the other tests. We have drawn against Argentina and we have lost to one of the worst Wallaby teams of recent times. There has been absolutely no sign of improvement, of a coherent, competitive game plan. In fact the players don’t seem happy. They seem to be questioning themselves and are afraid of the ball because they are under instruction not to play with it. The big forwards are supposed to bash their way towards the line and the backs are supposed to kick the ball. When the opposition works that out, we have zero answer. It was sad to see how we helped Australia gain confidence in that last test. This was a Wallaby side under pressure and we generously gave them the opportunity to regain their confidence. Deans should be sending HM a big bouquet of flowers… and some chocolates too.
Under Mallet we had our first victory in New Zealand and a record equalling winning streak, under White we had a poor record with a WC win to top it up, PdV gave us a Lions victory and a Tri-Nations and beat the All Blacks twice at home. These were the highlights that we treasure while we try and forget the lows. What do have to look forward to under Meyer? Three years of pathetic rugby with maybe a flash in the pan WC. Will that be considered success?
@ The_Young_Turk:Good summation. I was just penning an article along the same lines, so I’ll scrap that!!!
What is plainly obvious, is that if the coach and the captain cannot see the problems and honestly believe we “are on the right track, just not executing properly”, and, “but for 2 soft tries, we would have won”, then they also believe that they are firmly on the right track, and will soon be on their way towards winning ways, and nothing will change. That is what is really worrying.
Supers article does bring it to the fore, and in a match or twos time, we are going to be told that we were so wrong, and have no idea, blah, blah, blah, because the Boks have won a match. I said before, I will happily eat my words if I am wrong, and that HM has the right game plan. However, I think I may remain hungry for a while yet.
@ Just For Kicks:
It is actually a sad illustration of the state of our rugby when kiwi supporters are sympathising with us. Overseas opposition are dumbfounded by our continued bashing our heads against the wall. Fear turned into contempt and now into concern. It’s like watching a former enemy slowly lose their mind, where they are no longer focused on hurting you but hurting themselves more.
For me personally Bok rugby is the be all and end all. The Boks represent my country of birth and my nationality. As an expat, the Boks are what I am recognised by overseas. The Super15 is a pleasant distraction and the CC even less so. If my local team does well in those competitions, it is meaningless to me if the Boks are performing poorly, and conversely if the Boks do well it leaves those competitions in the shade. Every test match should be treasured and respected. They should not be used to play out of form or unfit players into form. If a player is out of form or unfit, he should go and play in one of the myriad other competitions and only come into consideration once he has proven himself. We have many talented players. Lets play to the strengths of the players we have rather than looking back through rose tinged glasses at the players of the past. Their is so much lamentation of the players we have recently lost: Matfield, Bakkies, Smit, FdP, Daniesaurus, Gurthro, Jaque Fourie, Smith, Burger etc, etc. We conveniently forget that it was these same players playing and available during our miserable record!
We don’t lack the players. Stop looking back at a mythical, imaginary, fantasy past. Lets look to the future and play with the fantastic young players that we DO have and play to THEIR strengths!
Anybody got Sir Henry’s number?
Then there is our obsession with size. If Aplon, for example, had moved to Oz or NZ early in his career, he would be cutting the Boks to pieces now. Size doesn’t seem to matter to our SH opponents. McCaw is barely over 100kg but in SA Brussouw is considered too small at just a few kilos less. We prefer to play big bruisers at least 10/15 kg heavier and are surprised when they don’t deliver the results. Imagine the little James o’ Connor, with his S.African mother, had grown up here. He would have been too small for full back, too small for wing, too small for fly half and definitely too small for centre!
Aplon, JdJ, Brussouw, Daniels, Watson, Jantjies, Lambie etc, too small! Too small to bash through the opposition, sure, but the big bruisers are not having much success at it either! Why not play to their obvious and clear strengths?
The big units occasionally have success, especially against inferior opposition, but in general they fail more often than not. There has to be a balanced approach with the ability to adapt to what is in front of you. The All Blacks performance against the Pumas was a good illustration. There were some people mistakenly asking if that match put the Bok vs Puma match into perspective. Yes it did, but not in the way they intended. It showed an All Black team that tried to play their open expansive game plan, in torrid conditions against a rush, committed, passionate defense. Then in the second half the ABs adapted, played the game more close and totally dominated the last 30 mins. Just the Pumas passionate defense kept the Blacks out. At the end there was no question of the Pumas ever winning, just how much they would concede. A perfect example of a team adapting to their opposition. Imagine that it had been the Boks in the ABs place? Well, you don’t have to imagine, just look back to the match in Mendoza. A clueless, frustrated Bok team scraped a lucky draw.
If Habs and Jannie are out for this weeks game with a injury and Etzebeth cops a ban for that head butt. We 3 players missing that we really can’t afford to lose. Who will replace these players?
Habs was one of the backs that played well, would be a pity to lose him. Also if we lose Etzebeth that is a huge loss as none of the other locks are playing well. Can we then send for Bakkies? We just may have too that is if he can get released from his club. Don’t rate Flip and Bekker much right now and Kruger not playing that well. Cilliers will have to start if Jannie can’t on Saturday.
Actually don’t matter who we start think we going to get a huge hiding come Saturday.
16 @ fender:
Not sure what Mitchell done at the Lions. But heck he sure got them playing good rugby in the CC last year. We can never rate them this year with Mitch as Lions had so many injuries. Meyer should get in Mitch for some help and bring in Carlos Spencer as well. Now that would be a great start. Mallett is not coaching right now either so he is there as well, but really don’t think he will want to coach the Boks again. Bring in Mitch and Carlos to help Meyer, that would be the best bet.
15 @ The_Young_Turk:
Good post.
8 @ Just For Kicks:
Thanks for that site address. Excellent article written there.
Afternoon guys.
Did anyone catch the try by Aplon in the opening minutes of the WP game??
That’s why we need him in the team. At wing in my opinion.
Juan de Jongh must be there in place of JDV, who is a good player but doesn’t seem to be fitting that 13 role all that well.
Ruan didn’t really impress me to be honest either.
Flip will be in I guess.
Actually most of the guys played kuk, this is a bit redundant. Steyn, Steyn, most of them.
Sigh.
@ BobbejanklimdiebergStormersboySpringbokJan:I did, and I also was really impressed with he WP play yesterday. Far from the finished product, but they have realised that their game plan in the S15 was floored, and are at least trying to adapt, and, boy, these youngster are certainly disproving the idiots that say we don’t have the ability to play expansive rugby. They can, the senior coaches just coach that ability out of them. As Turky alluded to, in the NZ game, where they had to adapt, so the WP had to adapt to the Staat long range kicking game, and they did. Shows the youngsters have the ability and brains to adapt mid-match, another thing that is coached out of the seniors
If the Boks tried to play with the style that most of the CC cup teams are playing, then we would forgive them the loss, because we could see that they were trying to change. But I don’t see that happening. As I said earlier, how can HM fix something he just can’t see is broken?????? Perhaps if he took his head out of the sand and wiped his eyes, he would get his vision back!. Ostrich.
Gio can’t play for the Boks under Meyer, as he won’t conform. He will continue to remain unpredictable, and thats a problem for HM. The size thing is purely an excuse.
HM’s Boks look like they they have no intelligence. They have had had any spark coached out of them.
I fear next week Saturday.
Just For Kicks wrote:
i did not read all the comments that followed , but from what you said here, one thing comes to my mind, we are like deer in the headlights, sad but we believe grunt and grunt alone will make our opponents capitulate.
The_Young_Turk wrote:
The_Young_Turk wrote:
will come back here
Springbok Rugby cannot change styles in a hurry.
Springbok Rugby is like a fully laden oil tanker. To change direction is a VERY SLOW AND DIFFICULT PROCESS.
Our schoolboy players are creative and play with a freedom that is both invigorating and inspiring.
The U/19 teams play less so, and by U/21 almost all of that creativity and inventiveness has either been coached out of them or has been forgotten.
SA Rugby is in the crap. Period. There are no SA coaches capable of changing the playing style. The change has to start at the bottom, but SARU, the body responsible for the development and protection of the sport in SA just don’t give a tinkers’ cuss about anything except money and political goodwill.
‘nough said. Go ALL BLACKS for Saturday.
Once again, I predict SA to come a DISTANT 3rd in the Rugby Championships.
27 @ Scrumdown: it might be 4th.
28 @ Loosehead:
Maybe, but I think it’ll be harder for the Argies to beat the Ausmob and All Blacks than the Boks, even in Argentina.
Bakkies on Stand By. As I mentioned in my post 18 yesterday. If Etzebeth is out we will need Bakkies back and especially for the game in NZ. One player I will be pleased to see, because no way are our other Locks up to it right now. Kruger, Bekker and Flip just not up to it. Only Etzebeth has been performing and that brainless head butt could cost him a week or two.
Now hope that Bakkies is fit and ready. If he is he will slot in easy.
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