South Africa - The State of the Nation

Duane Vermeulen

Those who offered the opinion, all too prematurely, that Duane Vermeulen should be a strong candidate to lead the Springboks at the World Cup if Jean de Villiers does not make a timeous recovery from injury, would have gained valuable perspective over the weekend. Describing his Stormers team that lost to the struggling Cheetahs as arrogant, having too many chiefs and too few Indians, and “difficult to lead”, Vermeulen revealed weaknesses in his own leadership. Here’s the bottom line: You would never hear Jean de Villiers offer similar sentiments about his players’ attitude. He would have sorted the issue out post-haste.

Demetri Catrakilis

Substitutions can be utterly dumbfounding. Coach Allister Coetzee’s decision not to send Demetri Catrakilis back out for the second half against the Cheetahs was an unmitigated disaster, and could come back to haunt Coetzee in his exit year as Stormers coach. To describe Catrkailis’s boot as invaluable to the Stormers is a gross understatement. Is there any player in the world you’d rather have kicking at goal for you to win the game, in the last seconds of the final of any competition, than Catrakilis? His substitute Kurt Coleman’s spray-gun goalkicking provided an unexpected bonus for the Cheetahs players.

John Smit

The buck stops here. Since John Smit moved from player on the rugby field straight into the CEO position at the Sharks, without serving any training or apprenticeship in running a rugby union in the gigantic leap from player to the supremo of a major union, he fired John Plumtree as head of coaching and has then gone from Brendan Venter to Jake White to Brendan Venter to Gary Gold as coaching boss. Smit dismissed Plumtree’s assistant coaches too and appointed his own people in their place. One can only sympathise with Gold, who of necessity returned late from Japan and walked into an undisciplined shambles. Getting smashed by the seven-try Highlanders on Saturday has exacerbated the Sharks 2015 debacle. Was Jake White spot-on accurate in what he told John Smit were the Sharks problems, little or none of which Smit accepted?
 

Pieter Rossouw

What a pleasure it is to see the Bulls play with such an attacking mindset. Is this the influence of assistant coach Pieter Rossouw? The current adventurous Bulls approach is, happily, so much closer to that of ‘Slaptjips’ in his own glorious playing days than to traditionally predictable Bulls rugby.

Cheetahs

All credit to the Cheetahs for their positive approach and wonderful commitment to playing to the maximum of their potential in beating the Stormers. There have been times in 2015 when the Cheetahs appeared to be in surrender mode – overseas especially – but their mindset on Saturday was highly impressive.