Heyneke Meyer
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer was pleased with his team’s 47-13 win over a star-studded World XV at DHL Newlands on Saturday.
The Springboks scored six tries and gained a lot of momentum in the second half of the match, going into the second 40 minutes leading 18-13. This bodes well for next week’s test match against Wales in the Castle Lager Incoming Series.
Meyer warned that the test match in Durban will be another big step-up for his team, as Wales are a settled team after playing together during the Six Nations.
sarugby
“Wales will be well prepared,” said Meyer. “They are a quality side with big backs which will give them go forward ball. They also played together in the Six Nations, while we are just starting out.”
The coach was happy with a number of aspects of his team’s play and feels they will be much better prepared with another week of training.
“This match was important to us, because we have to play together as a team to become better. I believe we are a very dangerous team when we play with quick ball and that was something that I was unhappy about at the break. I had some harsh words for the players about the penalties conceded in the first half.”
“In the second half we applied ourselves better at the breakdown and we scored some very good tries. To score six, seven tries against a side with the quality of this World XV is very pleasing.”
The Springboks depart for Durban on Sunday with no immediate injury concerns.
“There are no injuries, and that is great news for us,” said the coach.
“We also scored some great tries with a number of them coming from the training fields, so I am happy. We knew it was going to be tough and we came though well.”
Springbok captain, Victor Matfield, who returned to team for the first time since 2011, said the side improved nicely as the game progressed.
“In the beginning we did not execute well, but once we managed to get into their half, we played well,” said Matfield. “It was a very good World XV, which gave us a lot of problems in the beginning.”
“On a personal level it was good to be back playing for the Springboks again. It always remains a massive honour.”
Heyneke Meyer has reason to be satisfied… but at the same time there are some danger signs…
The scrums are a worry.
Some players look seriously jaded and tired – Beast, Bismarck, Jannie du Plessis, Willem Alberts.
The Ruan Pienaar experiment needs to stop.
Now’s the time to consider who will be available for the rest of the year’s Tests, and to concentrate on them going forward!
With the call up of Nyakane they admit there are issues with the scrums, but do we really have capable replacements?
Djokovich het nou kak
“This match was important to us, because we have to play together as a team to become better”
OK , this will be the team then. Or else he is lying.
Harsh word lie but that is the way i see it. (i understand a few changes but more than 4 will prove my point)
HM has done well with the team so far.
But remember how i used stats against Jake and PdeV to show that their % is inflated with wins against the minnows. I am not going back to Jakes stats to prove my point again but his performance against the other teams in the big 5 , NZ, AUS, ENG, FRA is bad.
This year the Australian team looks far better , so expect a bigger challenge from them. The All Black challenge will be right there, they wont let the grip go. If HM uses the current tests to sort out his team and “play together as a team to become better” i and everyone else will enjoy the wonderful experience. Can we also go unbeaten this year?
@ superBul:
4
🙂
“Can we also go unbeaten this year?”
I like it
Well, results aren’t guaranteed unless you pay an experience tests trader such as Owen, Rolland or Joubert 😉
The first real test for the Boks will be in September vs the Wallabies, until then we all be living on the bubble
Hondo wrote:
I read in the Newspapers that NZ got “the rub of the green” again, you must be the team with the most gifted wins. They always say, look who is talking.
I did not watch the NZ game , so what i just said was from the press.
Some comment i just read and liked
“Why always talk about a game plan? At this level, the Bokke should be able to adjust, improvise and adopt everything the other teams throw at them. The word game plan is like removing accountability and responsibilities away from the players”
Alfred E Neuman – i saw this name on Sport24
does it ring a bell?
8 @ superBul:
Mr Lam… Ian Lumsden!
@ grootblousmile:
he is not active here is he?
10 @ superBul:
No
What we said all week is summed up in one article by Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – Many of them are staple presences in Springbok sides picked by coach Heyneke Meyer, but the significant Sharks contingent in his plans are also showing increasingly glaring signs of mental and physical fatigue.
Disturbingly, that is with the Test portion of the 2014 season only about to begin, against Wales in the first of two clashes at Kings Park on Saturday.
A common denominator in Saturday’s non-Test, 47-13 victory over the so-called and frankly overly-hyped World XV at Newlands was the fact that the six players in Meyer’s starting line-up from the Super Rugby log-leading Sharks generally struggled to do full justice to their known, indisputable reputations.
It is not a criticism … it is simply the sobering reality of the majority of them having played more or less non-stop for nine weekends, including a four-week Australasian tour with their franchise.
How is Meyer to handle the “Sharks fatigue” situation?
It is delicate, because he needs to win Test matches and justifiably his instincts are to engage his most desired names on paper; stability is a key hallmark of his coaching ideology and he hates handing out caps willy-nilly.
But maybe he is simply going to be forced – whether this weekend or thereafter – to indulge in the sort of rotation practice that, in a country like New Zealand with its more central contracting and priority for the national side, should really have occurred in Super Rugby, preceding the June Bok agenda.
For instance, is versatile back Frans Steyn, with his confessed chronic knee condition, really going to get through further rugby every week for the next three unscathed?
Broadly speaking, the Bok coach probably wishes to build on the many promising signs displayed against the World XV, and thus not tinker too extensively with his side for the first Wales Test.
But he also knows deep down that some players are close to running on empty … perhaps with grave longer-term effects.
Next week in Durban, the Boks will be up against northern hemisphere opponents (Wales) with a northern hemisphere referee, Frenchman Romain Poite, who famously red-carded (two yellow cards) South African hooker Bismarck du Plessis in a Rugby Championship match against New Zealand, in Auckland, last September.
@Superbul 12
I understand that we don’t have the central contracting system, but what we do have is some players contracted by SARU as well.
It a pity that saru cant have some sway over those players and request the franchises that they get rested when necessary.
I can now understand why the national coach won’t pick new players very easily, even the franchise coaches don’t trust their reserves and second tier players to do the job, so how can we expect HM to do it?
maybe we were all wrong and all the tjorks were right we dont understand jakes genius (if he isnt just being plain spightful). idealy we would play all these guys and still win but then the RC will be a nightmare.
15 @ MacroBok:
I have said, and I will say it again… Jake White feels less for the National Cause, the only thing he worries about is himself and therefore the Sharks are his only priority.
But it goes deeper than that, Jake has a vested interest in seeing Heyneke Meyer fail or not perform as well as he and the Springboks should. If Heyneke fails and Jake succeeds, then Jake stands a great chance to become National Coach again, thus furthering his personal ambitions.
Jake will thep on anything to come out tops, even on the Springboks!
That is the nature of the man, the person.
I will put up an article by Rob Howing shortly… and remember he is an avid Sharks supporter, where he laments the tired Sharks players in the Springbok squad.
@ grootblousmile:
And we predicted this will happen in round 5 already, and the sharks on here and most people did not want to believe us.
@ grootblousmile:
All you have said is true, but also remember what some of the SA Rugby guys did to Jake, during the 2006/7 overseas tour. He had to fly home to explain himself to guys like Frik Du Preez et al. There was an attempted overthrow so I wouldn’t be surprised if he held no goodwill towards some of the SA Rugby establishment.
Jake has made it known that he wants to coach a national team again, but I suspect it is not South Africa he has in mind when he is saying that.
The thing is though the sharks started loving the smell of their farts so much that they believed the Springboks should come second.
far too much emo on here boys.
last time I looked, jake was paid by sharks rugby (pty) ltd and, no doubt, there are bonuses built into his package.
so who should jake look after?
I am no fan of his persona, but cannot deny that he is on a mission for the sharks.
another thing……..
you bulle and weepee okes have a lot of whinging going on against the sharks this season.
don’t recall the same when you lot were top of the pile?
maybe you are all too used to being the big dawgs in this country and can’t take it when a soutie union shows you up by being more professional?
dink heyneke het gefouteer en moes vir jannie bissie en beast gerus het die naweek. coenie brits en marcel kon gespeel het
I have to agree with Charo.
Jake cannot be blamed for looking after the interest of the Sharks first. He has been contracted to win super rugby and not to conserve players for the national interest. If the Boks do well and the Sharks fail his head will be on the block… nobody will accept the excuse of him putting the national team first.
Of course it is not right that a national coach must rest tired players but unless we have central contracting this is always how it is going to be.
@ robzim:
Is Jake really looking after the interest of the Sharks though? He went on a tough tour and played the same guys week in and week out, every u/14 coach could see that he can’t possibly play those same guys s the stormers as well, hence a bunch of second choice players humiliated our springbok front row.
Was it in the best interest of the Sharks?
@ Charo:
It was the exact same thing when the Stormers were on top of the pile no one denies this, BUT who else has 4 or 5 springboks on the bench, and SW also believes the other half of the bench could also be Springboks. The depth the Sharks have this year is almost ridiculous, yet the Bulls, lions and Cheetahs are all rotating their front row, the Stormers are struggling with injuries.
but Beast, Bissie and Jannie will start eery single game…
26 @ MacroBok:
I don’t see the need for Beast, Bissie & Jannie to start every game for the Sharks.
The Sharks probably have the best depth of ALL 15 Super Rugby sides in the front row (and most other positions).
I mean, a Dale Chadwick, Kyle Cooper, Lourens Adriaanse front row still does not stand back for ANY other Super Rugby side out there!
To a degree I understand Fransie Steyn being played week in and week out, with Lambie and Zeilinga both injured for long durations.
Overplaying Willem Alberts I do not understand, as the Sharks have absolute riches in the loosies too, with Deysel, Daniel, Kankowski, Marcell, Tera, Botes… all world class!
Now compare that to Ludeke resting Matfield, the week before the Test, continiously rotating his front row forwards during the season, rotating his locks (Flip, Matfield, Grant Hattingh, Paul Willemse), even rotating some loosies, despite the key injuries to Deon Stegmann, Pierre Spies & Arno Botha (by bringing in Vleis Engelbrecht & Wimpie van der Walt)….
Hell even the scrumhalves, flyhalves & centres are rotated at times…
@ grootblousmile:
and It is not like the Bulls didn’t have anything to lose, we were in playoff contention until the last game.
Chadwick and Cooper are extremely underutilized, I hope the Bulls or the Stormers can get Cooper next season or at least make an effort.
The problem now is Meyer has to rest these guys at a stage where our scrum is a big issue and when he would want to use his best available combinations in preparation for the RC, but now it is impossible.
Wonder how Jake expect to find Willem Alberts, Jannie and Beast + Fransie after the June internationals, fresh like daisies?
When in SA ever will we start looking after our players?
@ MacroBok:
28
“Chadwick and Cooper are extremely underutilized”
Agreed, add Adrianse(?) to the list too, the prop was considered the BEST TH in SA last year but now is only warming the bench
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