On 27 January 2012 Heyneke Meyer succeeded Peter de Villiers as coach of the Springboks, a job many believed he should have been awarded 4 years ago.
Heyneke Meyer accomplished much success with The Blue Bulls, winning the Vodacom Cup in 2001, Currie Cup Champions 3years running 2002, 2003, 2004, joint Currie Cup Champions 2006, and in 2007 the first South African team to win a Super Rugby title (S14).
In Meyer’s 1st year of Springbok coach the Boks started and finished against England, beating them in the 1st test on 9 June 22-17 and ending their season not necessarily on a high note but walked off victorious 16-15 on 24 November.
During our Incoming Test series we played England on 3 occasions beating them twice 22-17 and 36-27 with the 3rd ending in a 14all draw.
In the Rugby Championship we faced new comers Argentina at home beating them 27-6 and drawing the away fixture 16all.
The next two tests we played away from home against old enemies The Wallabies and The All Blacks. Australia gave Meyer’s Springboks their first defeat 26-19. Next up was New Zealand and again we had to be happy with second best, final score 22-11.
During this time Springbok supporters started questioning Meyers kicking approach to the game, even going as far as wanting P Divvy back as Bok coach.
South Africa’s home leg of the Rugby Championship we saw a different Springbok team against Australia with Habana scoring a hat trick of tries, in the end South Africa scoring 5 tries and klapping the Wallabies 31-8. Unfortunately we couldn’t do the same against the All Blacks and got thumped 32-16 after we managed to keep them under control in the 1st 40.
During our End Of Year Tour we managed to win all our games, for some a successful tour, for others not the most exciting rugby or just plain boring to put it bluntly.
We did see a change in the fly half channel with Pat Lambie getting a shot after watching many games from the reserve bench.
We managed to beat the Irish 16-12 the Scots 21-10 and we ended the season the way we started by beating England 16-15.
Now that the season is finished, many will have their opinions and views on the way Meyer managed his team, team selection, combinations, game plan and availability of players.
Being the national coach can not be an easy job and the supporters most definitely did not make HM’s job any easier. After this year Meyer should have an idea of who to keep and which are past their play by date.
Let’s hope Meyer will have all is top Boks back next year, and though we might not have agreed with everything he did, the record for 2012 stands at W7 L3 D2 = 58.33%
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On the end of the day he only lost 3 games, with atleast one we should have won, I suppose the same could be said about the draw against the Argies, they should have won that game too. So yea I recon 3 losses for us this season, not that bad. I must add that I did lost allot of faith with meyer, but I think he has learned allot from this year, and I “skiem” 2013 should be allot better year for him.
@Uli (Comment 1) :
It’s all ‘if’s and but’s’
We should actually gave lost the Argies games! It was only a lucky charge down try from Frans that saved out butts.
‘If’ we lost the 2 drawn games we would have ended the year with a 41.66% winning margin.
@Pokkel (Comment 2) : yes “but” we didn’t, so why you complaining?
@Stiko85 (Comment 3) :
I’m not complaining. I’m just illustrating to Uli that it’s useless to use ‘if’s’ because it could be used to make things look better or worse.
@Pokkel (Comment 4) : hehe, Half full glass vs half empty glass?
I suppose same could be said about the Sharks 2012 campaign 🙂
@Uli (Comment 5) :
I must say even though the Sharks lost 2 finals I was very satisfied about the year as a whole. Yes we choked in the CC final but the S15 final was just a bridge too far and not even the mighty Crusaders could win the final last year after all the travelling they did.
The Sharks just need to start well this year so that they don’t have to travel for finals this year. There was a certain evolution to the Sharks play this year that really made me happy and I hope we continue with it this year.
@Pokkel (Comment 6) : I agree , I hope they can bring it through to 2013 🙂
Well, as the one English coach remarked, it’s not bad when we’re playing rubbish rugby and we still end up winning.
It indicates that we’ve got a winning mentality, sadly the winning game plan is still very much lacking.
@Pokkel (Comment 2) : No, our winning margin would still be 58.6%, 7 wins and 5 losses. Not sure what maths you use to come up with 41.66. The article counts the draws as non-wins, so the winning percentage is the same whether we lose those draws or not.
@Dancing Bear (Comment 9) : Sorry 58.3% not 58.6%.
@Dancing Bear (Comment 10) : Well you don’t get any points for that, because you didn’t show how you got to that answer
@FireTheLooser (Comment 11) : hehehehe, sort of did, 7 wins, 5 losses, 7 wins divided by 12 games played times 100 equals 58.333333333%. Notice how draws and losses are not even factored in, therefore it makes no difference whether those draws were losses when it comes to calculating winning percentage, which is defined as games won divided by games played times 100. There how’s that??? 😛 😈
Howzit DB. It’s late in the year and the brain needs a rest.
welcome to mathsworld. Grab a pocket protector
Easy now lads. Pokkel only got a bush schooling in Newcastle. 😈
@Pokkel (Comment 13) : Agreed, mine too. 😉
It was a funny year; I’d hazard we won despite some pretty stodgy, predictable tactics.
Thanks must go to some of the forwards who really stepped up on the EOYT. Flour, YsterEben and Strauss in particular, were outstanding.
It ended up as a decent win/loss record, but in this case I dont think the scoreboard really tells the story. There were several times the Boks got downright lucky and were very fortunate to come away with the win.
But, that said, wins are wins, and I’d rather have them than not.