Nom Chompsky
High Tory
This season is a problem with personnel. Did you note how many first timers were playing on Saturday? Our squad is very inexperienced but it won't stop us from beating the Schmucks
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Official Super Rugby 2014 Thread
- Thread starter OrbitalDawn
- Start date
This season is a problem with personnel. Did you note how many first timers were playing on Saturday? Our squad is very inexperienced but it won't stop us from beating the Schmucks
sand_man
Honorary Master
I'll say it again. We way behind our competitors when it comes to rehabilitating injured rugby players! In fact, we probably way behind when it comes to the general conditioning of our players too!! This is a big problem considering the high attrition rate associated with the sport!!
This season is a problem with personnel. Did you note how many first timers were playing on Saturday? Our squad is very inexperienced but it won't stop us from beating the Schmucks
An inexperienced squad compared to whom? The Mighty Lions?? On paper you would expect that Stormers outfit to triumph 9 times out of 10.
Actually watching all the local franchises in action this weekend we look to be in a bit of bother!! Stormers and Bulls are nowhere, Lions you just know will run out of puff by round 5 or 6 and the Cheetahs will no doubt be hampered by a lack of depth once players start dropping! I think our only real challenge is going to come from the Sharks this year!! They've got it all and in huge abundance!!
Nom Chompsky
High Tory
Yeah perhaps not against the Lions but against everyone else. Noticed a few Stormers management members at the Ikeys game today...
sand_man
Honorary Master
No better place to unearth some hidden talents.
Losing top class players to foreign leagues is really starting to take its toll. Very sad actually. We on a hiding to nothing with our ever depreciating currency.
craigdoepie
Expert Member
That's so true, but that's what the Varsity Cup is supposed to fix. To unearth young talent. Top/Experienced players will leave or even get injured and we need to youth/inexperienced players to stand up. (My apologies, didn't read previous post properly)
Look at Etzebeth, Serfontein, Engelbretch even Kolisi.
WRT Stormers, they were dumbfounded by the Lions and totally lost it. After the 1st try, the stormers were never in the game. Only time they thought of scoring, was from a lineout and mauling it over. NO ATTACK WHATSOEVER
Agent_Smith
Honorary Master
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The problem is the sheer volume of rugby we play. The NZRU wraps their players in cotton wool after the international season finishes and the ARU doesn't have a local domestic competition that further grinds their players into the ground, which is both a good thing and a bad thing (for them). It's madness to think that our season starts in Feb and then ends in November. That's 10 months of players getting battered, with 2 months downtime (and that's excluding pre-season training!). Professor Tim Noakes raised this issue YEARS ago already but no one has listened.
sand_man
Honorary Master
Agreed!! Tri-nations shouldn't be an annual event either! Every 2nd or 3rd year!! I guess it's a balancing act. Generating enough income to sustain and grow the game vs butchering the goose that laid the golden egg IE the players...
craigdoepie
Expert Member
It's all about the MONEY !!! SANZAR is smiling all the way to the bank, they don't give a damn what happens to the players. As long as the digits keeps rolling in there bank account
Also maybe, SA should try playing All Blacks type rubgy, where you don't try and bash your way through every player. I dislike the All Blacks like any true Springbok, but can't deny they play beautiful Rugby
The great thing for the Kiwi is that they have central contracts.... we simply can not afford it. I do however think that SARU should start signing players at a younger age but then have it in their contract that they are not to play overseas for till after the next WC. Thus if SA wants to play that player in the WC, he is available locally. Then after the WC the contracts get renewed and the cycle starts again.
OrbitalDawn
Ulysses Everett McGill
Why can't we afford it? I'm sure SARU can at least match the NZRU in money?
I think its more the power our franchises have who would be unwilling to enter such an arrangement.
Well no
1. The ZAR is MUCH weaker vs the EUR than the NZ$ or AUD.
2. Our unions get most of the cash if I remember correctly and they pay largest part of the players' salaries.
GreGorGy
BULLSFAN
The only item lower on SANZAR's list of priorities than the players would be the fans. Useless, greedy cünts.
OrbitalDawn
Ulysses Everett McGill
The NZRU have had issues with them not being able to pay the players enough, so the exchange rate isn't that big of a deal, more so than the hard numbers are.
I think point 2 is the bigger hurdle, as FoXtroT also mentions. The unions have more power here than in NZ and won't likely give up that power, especially when it comes to player management.
But the retain their core group every year. We can not afford to. But yes our system is flawed and the people getting the least is the fans, and we are picking up the bill.
OrbitalDawn
Ulysses Everett McGill
I also wonder what impact the NZRU rule that no foreign based player will be allowed to play for the All Blacks has...
I do think that has a impact but the thing is the NZR did it from the start. If we had to do it now we would lose a lot of players.
Werner Harding
Senior Member
I dont agree they are pro-players its their job I cant go to my boss and say: "Hey I've been working for ten months now so I'm gonna take a 2 Month vacation, see you in Feb" wont that be the life? the same thing goes for making a mistake yes it is human but when I make a mistake I get warned.... 1.... 2..... 3 strikes and your out why should their job be any different
APoc184
Honorary Master
Erm... Do 15 other guys in the office tackle you everyday?
Do you run into walls everyday?
Can't really compare rugby with a normal day job.
But I do agree. They get paid big bucks to do this. And I believe the players are partly to blame for the amount of rugby they play just to get extra bucks.
How many times do you see rugby players completely spent at the end of a season but when the Barbarians wave a check in front of them for an exhibition match they are quick to oblige. The Barbarians games haven't been about the spirit and honour of the game for a very long time now.
Do you run into walls everyday?
Can't really compare rugby with a normal day job.
But I do agree. They get paid big bucks to do this. And I believe the players are partly to blame for the amount of rugby they play just to get extra bucks.
How many times do you see rugby players completely spent at the end of a season but when the Barbarians wave a check in front of them for an exhibition match they are quick to oblige. The Barbarians games haven't been about the spirit and honour of the game for a very long time now.
sand_man
Honorary Master
Except they still maintain their conditioning while "on leave". I often saw the Lions squad training at Old Eds Virgin Active over December and January so the break from playing does not equate to leave.
You have to consider the physical nature of the sport! It's on a par with boxing! You don't see professional boxers fighting every weekend! They have a fight on average every 3 months if they active!!
They earn every cent of their paychecks! These guys, on average, are done after 8-10 seasons and the damage they sustain, they take to the grave!
On top of all that, what they earn in relation to soccer players, is peanuts!!
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