Pretorius leaves the Lions for the Bulls

The Lions Rugby franchise has not been particularly good at talent retention in the last few years and I believe they have made a mistake selling Jaco Pretorius to the Blue Bulls.

(Most recently they sold off Ricky Janaurie and Conrad Jantjes two years back and bought Earl and Jody Rose into their squad).

In Louis Ludik and Jaco Pretorius, the Lions possessed two of the best utility backs in the country - two players that have regularly stood out despite indifferent performances from the rest of their squad.

To lose a player of Pretorius' calibre is going to be a big blow for the franchise in my opinion

Planning?

I know that Keo has already touched on the subject so I don't want to replicate too many of their arguments, but I sometimes have to query the lack of planning that goes into the management and selection of players for the year end tour.

This year end tour has pitted the South African team against 5-Nations champions Wales, a very weak Scotland and then a so-so English side.

The 'A' team played against Wales and achieved a battling 20-15 win - the narrowness of which I think has spooked SA coach Pieter Devilliers not to experiment in the Scotland game this weekend.

That means that guys like Earl Rose, Jongi Nokwe and Chilliboy Ralelepele have basically gone on the tour as baggage boys. Yeah they might learn a bit on the tour, but they are not going to get game time, which the tour was actually supposed to provide them with.

Ralepele in particular needs to run on at least once.

Nokwe - we know he is a classy winger and he certainly wouldn't weaken the Bok side in a match up against a relatively weak Scotland.

Rose - well if he was picked as such a controversial selection - then why is he not going to get the game time after being thrust into the spotlight?

Flyhalf dilemma

While I appreciate it is something of an experimental squad, the selections for flyhalf for the Bok UK tour are baffling.

The logic of picking a scrumhalf (Ruan Pienaar) who has said he doesn't want to play flyhalf as your first choice and a guy who battles to make the first choice for the Lions (Earl Rose) as his backup his curious to say the least.

I appreciate that Eddie Jones and Jake White both believe that Pienaar has what it takes to be a world class flyhalf and we have a lack of any real depth in the position but if you want him as a flyhalf, the player and his province have to buy into it.

Peter Grant and Morne Steyn might not be the next Dan Carter but they're the kind of players who COULD fit the mould of a make shift Bok flyhalf. Steyn in particular has played his part helping the Bulls to the finals. Maybe he should have been rewarded for his efforts.

Well I guess we'll have to see what the team produces on tour....

The squad is as below:
Bakkies Botha, Fourie du Preez, Bryan Habana, Chiliboy Ralepele, Danie Rossouw, Pierre Spies, Gurthro Steenkamp, Jongi Nokwe, Juan Smith, Andries Bekker, Schalk Burger, Jean de Villiers, Conrad Jantjes, Ricky Januarie, Brian Mujati, Heinrich Brussow, Jaque Fourie, Earl Rose, Victor Matfield, John Smit (c), Odwa Ndungane, JP Pietersen, Adrian Jacobs, Bismark du Plessis, Frans Steyn, Ruan Pienaar, Tendai Mtwarira, Ryan Kankowski.

Why did Earl Rose not play flyhalf?

The worst thing about being a top level coach is that when your selection decisions don’t come off you have journalists, bloggers and sports commentators spending the next day telling you what you did wrong.

But I guess that that is part and parcel of the job, as unfair as it may be.

One decision I did find quite curious this weekend was Eugene (Loffie) Eloff’s decision not to play Earl Rose at flyhalf in the Currie Cup semi-final match against the Sharks.

Now just to clarify – I don’t rate Earl Rose particularly highly and have blogged on that topic before.

But Rose has been mentioned as a potential for the Springbok touring side at the end of the year and he is currently the leading points scorer in the Currie Cup. Most importantly, he has been the first choice flyhalf for the Lions for the majority of this season.

Eloff himself has said that he believes Rose will be a Bok flyhalf but he shouldn’t be rushed.

Despite this Eloff decided for the crunch semi-final he would instead shift Rose to Fullback and field Louis Strydom at flyhalf. (Bear in mind that the last time these two sides met two weeks earlier, Strydom came on as a late replacement and covered himself in glory by throwing the intercept pass that sealed the game for the Sharks.)

My ‘arm-chair’ concern is that Eloff sent out the message that he does not trust Rose in the big games because he may be targeted.

What does the rest of the team take out of the decision?

Does that not pass on a message to the rest of the team that Eloff does not believe the system they have employed for the rest of the season will be sufficient to carry them through?

Hindsight is obviously 20/20 and if Strydom had had a blinder or Rose had scalped them from the fullback position, I probably wouldn’t be writing this. It just doesn’t seem to make much sense to me that you would publicly talk about all the faith you hold in a player and then shift them around when the crunch came….

Earl Rose

I’ve been reading a lot of commentary about Earl Rose in recent weeks. Specifically about how he has the ability to combine the sublime with the ridiculous and how his ball skills have made him a shoe-in for the end of season Springbok touring side.

At present, Rose is currently the top points-scorer and he has been part of a Lions squad that seems to have rejuvenated itself since the start of the season. The question is – how much has Rose contributed to this revolution and how much has he cost the Lions this season… and ultimately is he good enough to be the Springbok flyhalf?

Upfront I’m going to make it clear – I didn’t like Rose when he was at Western Province / Stormers and I personally believe that Rose cost the Lions in the Super 14. Do I think he cost the Lions yesterday against the Sharks in the Currie Cup? ABSOLUTELY…

That try for the Sharks where Rose aimlessly kicked it into the charging Sharks backline should be enough to confirm why he should not be selected to play for the Springbok side.

Of course mistakes happen and players make the wrong choices – but with Rose they seem to happen too often in the big games. The choices to run from behind his own goal line or attempts to try and outmuscle some of the worlds’ best flankers or kick into some of the worlds best backline players are mistakes he makes on a regular basis – composure is everything for a flyhalf.

One also has to look at the way Rose plays when considering whether he would be suitable for a Springbok place. I know that Pieter Devilliers is a bit of a fan of his, but ‘Div’ also needs to consider whether or not Rose will actually get a backline firing or not.

Whoever ends up being the Bok flyhalf will be fortunate to have two of Jacques Fourie, Jean Devilliers, AD Jacobs and Frans Steyn outside them – muscular, game breaking centres…

They don’t need a flyhalf who is going to try and be a picture of creative flair. This is why Butch James and Peter Grant fit so well into this system. Both are solid defenders and can take the contact and both (in theory) try and do the basics right.

At the end of the day, as a coach, you have to use what you have. If you don’t have a Dan Carter in your backline to get it firing but you have some super creative centres – then this is where your backline play can come from. There is no point trying to make a player fit a game plan that isn’t there.

Experimenting is great but rather experiment with what you have rather than move away from the game plan that plays to your strengths.