BozOnline says...

Yes, the Boks were poor yesterday, and the Irish were better. There's no doubt about that. But instead of dwelling on recriminations, let's look for lessons learned from the November tests:

1 - You cannot carry a player who is not up to it. This goes for Smit at prop as much as it goes for Jacobs at centre, or Kankowski at 8. I say this even though the Sharks are my team. If you don't pick THE best players in EVERY position, you WILL lose test matches, and you will do so consistently. Yes, you need to test combinations and blood new players, but that's what the mid-week matches are for. Smit is NOT a prop, and if this test series didn't show that, nothing will. He's a hooker or he's gone. Don't move him to prop just so that Chiliboy can hobble onto the bench.

2 - We don't have much depth across the park. There were a couple of finds this season, including De Jongh, Brussouw, Potgieter and Deysel, but at scrumhalf, fullback, wing, front row, and second row, we need to look more carefully. This means keeping players we already have, or find a way of selecting players who don't stay in SA (F Steyn, De Villiers, BJ Botha, James, etc).

3 - Pieter de Villiers is a good coach, but he needs to take the next step. Thinking that he could use the same game plan through a whole season is just stupid. Once the plan is known, it would take a knowledgeable ten-year old to figure out how to combat it. A comfort zone is as bad for a coach as for a player, and never has there been a coach further back in his comfort zone than De Villiers.

4 - We need on-field leaders. Smit is a great leader, but when the game plan fails, it's up to him to change things on the fly, and he doesn't seem able to do that. Maybe that's because he's tied up in the front row; picking a backline leader could help.

These are not difficult things to fix. We have the talent; we just need to use it.

Posted 10:29 29th November 2009