Victor Matfield is still valuable, but definitely not the player he was, says Sharks director of rugby Jake White.
White was speaking after his side lost 23-19 to the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.
Sport24
The 36-year-old Matfield, who captained the Bulls in the absence of Flip van der Merwe, was again instrumental in the lineouts, with the home side winning 14 out of 14 on their own throw and stealing three Sharks balls.
“He is not close to the Victor I coached. He was 30 years old back then,” White, a former Springbok coach, said.
“There is no doubt that he can still add value. He brings a calmness and knows the game. And he disrupted us in the lineouts.”
But White said it would be wrong to think that Matfield can again play like a 30-year-old.
“He was man-of-the-match in the World Cup final (in 2007). What he offers the team now is very different than when he was in his prime.”
The Bulls host the Chiefs in Pretoria this Saturday, while the Sharks square up to the Waratahs in Durban.
Ag just shut the fark up, Jake!
Victor Matfield and Paul Willemse were miles and miles better than the Sharks locks on Saturday… it was no contest!
What a doos deluxe!
Yes Jake, we know you hate Victor. Did Victor’s performance hurt you? Hope you couldn’t sleep with that bruised ego.
Cant the BBRU set up a motion on no confidence in Jake? 😀
*of
Johan Ackerman holds the record as the oldest Springbok ever to appear in a test match, at the age 37 years and 257 days.
Any side bets that Victor will easily surpass this milestone? I am even willing to bet that he may become the oldest rugby test captain ever during 2015 world cup.
Jacob ‘Jesterman’ should consider growing a mustache, a bushy white one, like Piet Geldenhuys, the WP eigthman of old. Or maybe take a few days off and head back to his homestead in Somerset West, it seems to me the humidity in Durbs is starting to cause rust spots on his brain for he is talking ‘blue bullshyte’ all of a sudden…..
Well to be fair, Victor did get older and may not be as good as back then… but why should Jake be worried about that. He should surely worry about his own team and his own lineouts.
@ MacroBull:
Replay of the match starting over here now, i will keep my eyes transfixed on Matfield!
Victor Matfield body might be older, there is still nothing wrong with his brains. Being older also means you manage his game time differently, no problem.
Victor had a great game and is probably the form no 5 in SA at the moment.
The thing about Jake is, although of course he is correct, Vic isn’t the world no 1 lock he was back in the day, in this case Jake comes off as having sour grapes. Not the first time either.
Still rate Jake as a coach, but like others before him (Pieter DeVilliers and Nick Mallet), he is not gifted in the P.R.O. department.
Just a hogwash designed to stir up the chickens hutch in Pretoria
Matfield doesn’t have to be the same player he was 7 years ago, all he needs to be is better than the opposition’s locks
I guess he still is
In fairness, none of the current ‘Springboks’ are as good as those Boks who played under Mallett, Christie, Cecil Moss or Nellie Smith, they are no way near that individual level of yesteryears
And so what? the ABs surely regressed steadily as well?
MacroBull wrote:
^^
this exactly
A bit embarrassing from Jake, for sure.
But perhaps these quotes have been taken out of context.
What if Jake started out by praising Matfield and was then asked if he thought Matfield was still as good as he was when White coached him?
Imagine something like this:
Journo: “So what went wrong against the Bulls?”
Jake: “Well, Matfield clearly took our lineout apart. He was magnificent.”
Journo: “Is Matfield still as good as he was when you were Bok coach?”
Jake: “He is not close to the Victor I coached. He was 30 years old back then. There is no doubt that he can still add value. He brings a calmness and knows the game. And he disrupted us in the lineouts. He was man-of-the-match in the World Cup final (in 2007). What he offers the team now is very different than when he was in his prime.”
This is the way of the journalist.
With PSDT injured, Matfield is clearly the best No.5 lock in SA at the moment.
What did Jake say that is so wrong? He says that Matfield isn’t as good as he was 6 years ago, which is true.
Fuck me you guys are fucking precious.
13 @ Loosehead:
Don’t you want to suck his tottie too whilst you are at it?
He can do no wrong in your eyes, nothing!
@ Loosehead:
No player in his thirties are as good as 6 years ago, why state the obvious?
Hy is suurgat man…much as I admire Jake for his achievements in the past and for his contribution to SA rugby.
(Hy moet net nie so windgat begin raak as daai kuk voorryman van hom nie, jy weet hoe raak die ouens as hulle daar aan die suidkus kom van die binneland af, hehehehe!)
@ Pietman:
Sorry, original text on the phone read: “No players in their 30s are as good…” ek en Puma sukkel nog bietjie met die foontik.
grootblousmile wrote:
No thanks, he is not my type. You should go and see someone about your “imagination” though.
Jake does plenty wrong but nowhere in what you posted from that article does he say anything that deserves your girly hissy fit. He says that Matfield at 36 is not as good as Matfield was at 30.
I put it to you [fuck I missed him today} that Matfield at the age of 36 is not as good a player as what he was at the age of 30.
17 @ Loosehead:
Matfield might be getting better than when he hung up his boots in 2011.
Did you see what he did on Saturday?
Did you see the lineout steals, tackles, and calming influence he had on his side?
Come on, admit that Jake does not know when to shut his trap…. I can take you to umpteenth examples, apart from this one.
All we have to do is go back to his comments during last week when he said he knew exactly how the Bulls would play. Well if he did, he never imparted THAT knowledge to his team, now did he?
@ grootblousmile:
Boet most of the time everyone knows how the Bulls are going to play. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is stopping them from doing it. 😉
Everyone who disagrees with plank is precious.
19 @ Stormersboy:
That’s the thing… the Bulls surprised the Sharks by doing some unconventional things at times.
They read Jake like a book, in stead of him reading them like a book!
@ grootblousmile:
@ 19
I for one haven’t noticed that kind of ‘surprise’ you mentioned
A 4 points victory over a sea level team at your home ground and at altitude doesn’t constitute a great achievement?!
😉
@ Loosehead:
He did play well though, for his age he gave a stunning performance
Makes one wonder if he is on some ‘secret formula’ 😉
But then Brad Thorn makes his presence known too?!
😀 Still the Bulls have some of the bragging rights this week.
Just remember, the Stormers are still undefeated at home 😉
One can argue till the end of days , but the question for me remains.. what did Jake try to achieve with these comments ???
And that on the back of his comments last week…
Pretty stupid from Jake if you ask me…
The problem with Jake is that he is writing cheques with his mouth that his team can’t cash.
It’s probably his way of using psychology on the Sharks to get them to new heights, but he must realize that these players haven’t achieved anything of note in SR in their whole careers and he must be careful of having them believe all his psycho babble.
We all saw how emo Fransie got because he believed he let Oom Jake down.
@ Hondo:
The sharks have a excuse to be tired every week, in durban its humidity and in the highveld its “altitude” that is the most ridiculous excuse i have heard in my life, if the coastal teams are so useless that they decide they just wont get fit enough to play there i do not know why they take part in the competition… It is weak Hondo, seriously? altitude? hahaha
@ nortierd:
26
What did he say before the semi final last year against the Bulls. Something about SA players are not as intellectually gifted as the Aussies.
@ superBul:
he said something that meant, south africans are yes men, we just keep our heads down and do a 1000 jumping jacks if the coach told them… aussies ask how? why should we do this?
superBul wrote:
Yep, but to be fair, they did win that, they just ran into an intellectual equal with more rugby talent in the final.
The Aussie comment is something that was said long ago already, from the time Larkham and Eales and those guys played, basically that they have to compete with street smarts because they had a smaller player pool and weren’t as physical.
It was still a poor comment from him as he ditched them as soon as he didn’t get the Aussie job, only to come and coach in a country which he had just called the players from stupid compared to the Aussies.
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