First of all, congratulations to the Wallabies. Well deserved victors on the day. What a game of rugby it was. The South African supporters are furious as can be expected. They want blood and they won’t lie down until they get it. And they want to see the end of our funny moustache man.
In 2008 Peter de Villiers was appointed under controversy. Everyone was convinced that Heyneke Meyer would take over and he was ready for the challenge after taking the Bulls to the Super14 title.
When de Villiers was appointed, no one had ever heard of him except for a few people in charge of SARU. He was clearly lacking experience and it was stated by the President of SARU that it was a political decision.
We can only imagine what Heyneke could’ve achieved by now.
For all his faults I am not in favour of upsetting the apple cart so close to the World Cup, even though I am not the biggest PDV fan.
Peter de Villiers is perhaps the worst public speaker I have ever heard, but he has done some good things with this team. He has been the first coach since Nick Mallet to beat New Zealand on home soil.
He listens to the players and he makes informed decisions in my opinion. He has made some mistakes, but so did Jake White. I think this team is mature enough to come back from this. It’s amazing how long a week is in rugby. Jake White had the same season in 2006 and we all know what happened in 2007.
We also had a fairly long injury list this season and we could see the difference Juan Smith made when he came back. When you win by two points you are the best team ever, but when you lose by two, you are the worst.
For me personally the recent losses were far more acceptable than the fiasco we had during 2000-2003.
We showed heart to come back from 31-6 to narrowly lose to Australia.
This is Australia we are talking about, not Italy or Scotland! We also showed a lot of guts against a very powerful All Black machine in Soweto.
I believe that you cannot always be 100% on top every game and we slipped up this season. We had unrealistic expectations due to the Super14 success this year and I believe our players peaked early, whilst the All Blacks slowly made their way to top form.
Hindsight is 20/20 though, so I may be wrong.
I’m not saying bad results in the Super14 will translate into better results in the Tri-Nations for South Africa, but we need to manage the older players better, even if we run the risk of losing the odd game.
To be honest some of the South African players are getting a bit long in the tooth and a big portion of the team will more than likely retire after World Cup 2011.
If we have any hope of retaining the World Cup we need to stick to this team and hope for the best. After 2011 we can change the coach, the players, the management and even the damn scrum machine if we like.
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