SA government was threatening the Boks by not giving them permission to play tests in SA IF they didn't move faster in making the quotas etc.
False!
They threatened to place a ban on us hosting major sporting events such as the RWC, CWC, Commonwealth Games and Olympics. As well as the 7's. They were never going to stop us from hosting our yearly matches.
A bit extreme!
You need to judge each sport / discipline relative to its performance and management.
Cricket has coped well with the transformation relative to others sports. Why? What have they done differently to accommodate these transformational changes?
We don't want to return to the "bad old days" when all international sports participation is penalised because of the policies of one delusional ideology.
Have they though? If we look at the traditional black players who are currently in the Protea fold, Rabada, Bavuma & Phehlukwayo. They were all in posh english schools. Rabada's father is a neurosurgeon. Bavuma's father is a big shot in the finance industry and Phehlukwayo's parents have a franchise of some sort. They would have come through the ranks regardless of the quota system in Cricket. The last rural black child that played for SA was Makhaya Ntini.
Cricket has found the right recipe though in the way they expose players into the top level, and that's mostly because they have the luxury of having 3 different codes in which the players can be involved in.
A lot of talk about quotas etc. ruining SA rugby in here, but that's no explanation at all for the result today.
Look at the team that SA put out - did anyone expect Italy to beat them, quotas or no quotas? This is a huge shock and you have to question the players on the day, as well as, obviously, the coach and direction.
Well, yes and no.
Many Saffas expected a loss. And wasn't shocked at all by the result.
I agree with you on the coaches and the direction, but then again there is an inherent link to the quota/BEE system. As stated previously, AC was appointed by SARU (basically headhunted) and was a form of a BEE appointment, although, many Stormers fans would say the appointment was fair and justified. But then they appointed Mzwandile Stick as backline coach. And that raised the eyebrows. Stick's only former coaching credentials was that he coached the Southern Kings u/19 backline team, and was involved with the Kings' Super Rugby coaching squad. That's it.
What then happened was a domino-effect. AC was given full rights to appoint the rest of his coaching squad, so he appointed his old buddy Matt Proudfoot from the Stormers as forwards coach. Meanwhile, Johan van Graan, who was still under contract with SARU was demoted to technical advisor, which is basically, glorified waterboy.
For this EOYT, after the Indaba, they got Franco Smith to assist in the backline, and JP Ferreira to assist with the forwards and defence, but just a week before the tour started we learned that Franco Smith would be there merely on an advisory role, and assist with the kicking (because he was a springbok fly half himself).
Now if we look at the last 3 matches against the Baabaas, England and Italy. The shots of the coaching box, usually only showed AC and Franco Smith sitting next to him (in the England Game you could see the other guys sitting behind them). Now this raised more questions. Was Franco Smith coaching AC while the game was progressing? Who was really calling the Shots? What was AC plans? etc.
As for this last match against Italy, I just can't understand what was our plan to see out the 80 minutes??? We all knew that Italy will be a tough opponent for the first 50-60 minutes, and then usually they fade away, and I think in the first 15 minutes we did what was needed to soften them up. But then we stopped. In the 52nd minute we made 5, yes, that's right, 5 substitutions in one go. Kitshoff, Nyakane, Mostert, De Klerk and Jantjies came on for Beast, Koch, De Jager, Paige and Lambie. Now I would have agreed on only subbing Koch at this stage as he was knocking the ball on every time he got it. But Beast was playing one of his best games ever! De Jager was finally figuring out the Lineout calls of the Italians and started to compete in that area. Paige and Lambie were controlling our backline well, made good tactical kicks and defended very well.
Again Elton Crumbled. Apart from his first and only kick at goal, he was anonymous the rest of the match. Faf, who I thought would speed up the play, did the exact opposite. Mostert was nowhere, and I didn't hear his name once from the commentary.
This is out and out the coach's call. And it was terrible calls that were made.
I'm just flabbergasted at the lack of professionalism from everyone involved.
