South Africa’s leading sports science professor, Tim Noakes, insists the Springboks won’t be at their best for the 2011 Rugby World Cup after many of the top players were over-played in 2009.
John Smit in denial || Provinces the guilty ones || Kiwis train smarter
IOL
Noakes played a significant part in the Boks’ 2007 World Cup triumph after he advised former coach, Jake White, to implement a strict player-management programme leading up to the 2007 rugby showpiece in France.
However, he feels that it may already be too late for coach Peter de Villiers to follow a similar route as most of the core Boks were over-exposed to top- flight rugby this year and he has even predicted a series of injuries in 2010 and quite possibly in World Cup year.
He said leading Springboks such as captain John Smit were “in complete denial” about the damage they had done by over-playing this year and consequences would be severe, while he also claimed that the Australasian counterparts were ahead of the South Africans in the way they looked after their top players.
“The Kiwis and Aussies train smarter in my view. We still have the mentality [in the provinces] that you have to stuff up the players at every opportunity and that this is how they will develop the discipline to win,” Noakes said in an interview with Independent Newspapers.
“All the rest of the world realises that matches are excellent training so that once you start playing matches you need to focus on rest and recovery. The Boks coaching staff knows this and rest the players and train the Boks very little when they are with the national side.
“But the provinces don’t know this,” he added.
Kiwis do it better
“South African rugby players do much more running and overall, we spend more time training than the New Zealanders do. And New Zealand are looking after their players a bit better.
“New Zealand are ahead of us and that is why they are much fitter. They don’t do the running in training we do. They do high-explosive intensity training but, overall, that is less tiring.
“These guys [the top Springbok players] are the victims of a rush for money. In South Africa, they should be centrally contracted like they are in New Zealand so that they can be monitored.
“The New Zealanders do that sort of thing, how many times the players are in contact situations, etc. That is why they survive longer. I am convinced that no matter who you are, you only have so many contacts in you during a career. Once your body has reached that number, you are effectively finished.”
Noakes said before the Springboks’ disastrous end-of-season Northern Hemisphere tour in November (in which they lost four of their five matches) that 13 of the top players should not have toured due to fatigue.
“My major point remains that the consequences of the tour will be felt in 2010 and 2011. Furthermore, what happened on the tour had been predicted by myself and the Springbok fitness trainer [among many others at the Sport Science Institute involved in monitoring the players].
“The evidence related not so much to the certainty that the majority of those Springboks would play poorly on the tour – that was sufficiently predictable that it required no intelligent debate – but rather to the long-term consequences of this ill-considered decision.”
The immediate consequence of this over-exposure would be that the Springboks would not be as dominant in the 2010 Tri-Nations. Noakes added that the task of winning the World Cup had now been made harder.
Bok captain in denial
As for Springbok captain Smit, Noakes was scathing.
“It seems clear that John Smit is in complete denial about the state of his own body and its needs. He is like a lot of the top Springboks – he needs an eight-week rest in which he should not see a rugby ball or do anything.”
Noakes revealed that Smit accumulated a total of 2081 minutes of match play this year, while Bismarck du Plessis racked up 2422.
“In the past seven seasons, Bakkies Botha has not been able to stay injury-free the following season if he played more than 1350 minutes in the previous season.
“Prior to the European tour he had already accumulated 1454 minutes. Thus his back injury on the European tour was a predictable ‘accident’ waiting to happen.”
December 27th, 2009 at 1:36 am
Suppose the doctor has a point,
although the Boks playing for
the Baabaas did not look burnt
out.
But were the Boks fit?
Why did they fade in the
last 30 minutes of just
about every Test?
December 27th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Tim Noakes jy kan nou maar fokof na die Comrades toe doos.
Perhaps you can explain why soccer players spend a month off from top flight and then play two games a week for the rest of the year?
Perhaps you can explain why the ATP has only one month off and the rest of the time the top pros are playing almost every second day in tournaments.
Perhaps you could explain why golf has no break at all and yet you get players that play in the US tour and then instead of a break go on the Asian and European tours?
Then again perhaps you should work on the revised edition of your road running book.
To add though
Nobody except the Australians actually pay attention to you.
If our readers recall the “core” that was rested in the EOYT and CC and S14 for 2006 / 2007 were not guys who ended up as Boks in the RWC.
Players like Jean De Villiers, De Wet Barry and Breyten paulse were rested and played ZERO role in RWC 2007.
On the other hand Frans Steyn played CC, EOYT and S14 and was probably one of the most influential Bok players ..
So Noakes no matter how the Cape media try to turn you into some sort of “guru” of rugby…. you’re no more than a glorified MD with a spot of knowledge of road running from experience (constantly having your theories proved wrong by Kenyans) whose sole knowledge about rugby is trying to gte schoolboy rugby banned in the 1980′s…
So tell you what
I’ll stop calling you a pratt if you stop pretending to have rugby’s best interests at heart.
ps.
FACT 1
1. Players returning from injury are generally better
FACT 2
2. Year 3 is generally an SA coach’s annus horribalis*
* By the end of 2010 even the true believers like Morne and the Belgian Penguin and the French sheep lover will be calling for the moustachioed moron’s head on a plate…
December 27th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
1. Players returning from injury are generally better
=====
Eggsackly – they rested.
There you go and blow your
whole argument.
That’s what Noakes also advocates:
8 weeks AWAY from any form of rugby.
Watch Pierre Spies and Juan
Smith come 2010.
Comparing soccer and tennis
and golf to the rough and
tumble of rugby – especially
the dour stuff dished up by
the Boks – is like telling
me there is no difference
between donkey droppings and
figs.
December 28th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Janee only an ERT can argue against reason and logic and then defy his own non-reason?
I know soccer players only ‘train’ pre season and thereafter just stay in condition and work on game strategy. They stay fit by playing.
I was a backline player and perhaps this explains a lot but I could for the life of me never understand why the feck I had to tackle and moer my own fat forwards the week before a game so that I can be ‘hard’ on matchday? Its no use we are all tough as nails but we lack a well drilled game plan?
December 28th, 2009 at 2:17 am
One really do not need to be a sports scientist to predict that a player will be injured. Rugby is a violent game and players are injured on a regular basis.
The more you play the more likely an injury become.
A player rested or not may suffer a career ending injury at any time. Expecting him to sit out when fit is just unrealistic.
December 28th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Reply to fyndraai @ 2:17 am:
Expecting him to sit out when fit is just unrealistic.
========
So this whole rotation business
is plain shit then?
December 28th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 8:57 pm:
For the first time I will agree with you, this guy is starting to piss me off big time.
Jake had a kak season in 2006 and he pulled it through in 2007, Snor can do the same if he look after a few players and I do believe it is not all of them.
We need to manage them in S14 and they will be ok for WC.
Maybe Nokes needs a wife, and if he have one he must ask her to do her job, he needs something
December 28th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Thanks and maybe shields needs to see his response makes no sense…
Jirre skaars ‘n Kaapenaar en daar word hy so mal soos Morne…
December 29th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 8:57 pm:
I thought Dawie could not come up with a more brain-dead argument following what happened before Christmas…
I was wrong.
Dawie, just because golf, soccer, tennis, baseball, etc are sports played with balls, it does not mean it has the same physical demands as rugby you twat.
Hey, but don’t let scientific fact get in the way of East Rand logic now…
And no, I won’t be calling for his head on a plate, I will leave that up to the likes of you that wanted Jake fired less than a year out from the World Cup.
Here are some cold hard facts for you, and copy and paste it if you want.
The Bulls will not smell the Super 14 next year.
The Boks will be lucky to get a 65% win record if our top Boks are not rested for at least 3 weeks in the Super 14.
Fourie du Preez will break down with injury within the first 5 months of 2010, so will Victor, and Bakkies (oh wait, he already has…) and John Smit amongst others…
But like I said, lets not get scientific fact get in the way of your East Rand logic…
December 29th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
After all that, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
December 29th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Ja Morne jou useless waste of salted brain…
In case you haven’t noticed the same Noakes uses he same bleating line with cricketers, rugby players, road runners and he said it about Tiger Woods (boy did he ever get that one right… or did he?), he’s said it to Kenyan runners (spectacularly wrong) and to Russian long distance runners (again spectacularly wrong)
You see the theory of what he says is that in general your body can only take so much hard work before it needs to recover.
Which in and of itself does not really make sense, as anyone with kids will know. And of course people who do hard physical labour will attest to… like miners who work all year and then geta three week or farm workers who carry bales of mielies and work themselves to the bone 24/7… or as 2 billion years of our not so comfortable forefathers attest to.
So off the start there’s 2 billion years of history that calls Noakes a liar.
And especially young people’s bodies last longer… holy crap think of the physical endurance that had to be undergone by special forces soldiers in WW2 for SIX YEARS!!!! And those in Vietnam who were doing it from 1962 to 1975… and those in Rhodesia from 1966 to 1980 and the SADF from 1968 to 1988…
You won’t understand because you were never a soldier but luckily there are people who will.
So you see even outside sports there are comparable situations in the workplace that call Noakes a liar.
So let me get this straight
He says Boks will get injured
Duuurnnnggg Huh
(Parlance understood in Simonstown to refer to morons)
As someone else here so eruditely put it… only a moron would predict players get hurt in rugby and get smug when they do… it’s like looking at a Nascar driver and predicting that somewhere in his career he’ll crash…
If you cannot see the logic of what Fyndraai and I argued then just rather go debate about how WP WILL win the Currie Cup this year.
In any event
In running a guy called Romanov used three world iron man runners in 2001 to totally disprove Noakes’ stupid theorems of “rest”
If you go to the forums on the American runners website http://www.letsrun.com and read the comments by experts on the running field you will see that they viciously criticize Noakes and actually make fun of him because they regard some of his ideas as goofy eg. “Noakes says there is not a maX VO2 plateau” whatever the heck that is but the experst laugh at him because of this. and he says there “is no lactate turning point” which experts regard as ridiculous.
3. In 2001/2002 Drs Nielsen and Nybo, two American sports scientists from Illinois conclusively disproved a theory of Noakes that under constant exercise stress athlete bodies suffer what Noakes called “Catastrophic breakdown (seems that f–ks your stupid theories doesn’t it?)
4. In March 2009 yet another American scientist called Ingrid Wren published a paper where she severely atatcks Tim Noakes’s “governor theory” that says that some part of the brain will shut down your body when it has had enough by the purely medical physical biological attack of saying that the so-called governor theory is disproved because no such part of the brain has ever been discovered…
You see idiot?
Noakes has been wrong about REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS in the past.
His own peers have attacked his theories
So Morne the truth is Noakes voodoo science is questionable and as I pointed out is not borne out by other ahletics sports. and please do not be as naive as to presuppose that just because rugby contains massive collisions between bodies somehow this elevates it above other sports.
Think for instance of the 140 km/h impact on a batsmean’s bat …. say 200 times in a match and maybe what a 1000 times in a season… or what about the runner the ironman who runs say 1500 km in a year in comeptition… maybe it’s not 80 minutes of impacts, but it is constant jarring of a specific muscle…
Same things for soccer. Game not as long but think of it… 180 minutes per week of running up and down a pitch…
The bowler who has to turn that arm over over over over for what 2000 deliveries in a season at an average of 140km/h every ball…
Please tell me you are not that naive?
Don’t bother answering…
You have already proven you are that childishly stupid…
December 29th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Find a brain before you debate with someone who has one…
December 29th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Just as an example of how knowledgable Noakes is on the current Bok team
5 Nov 09
Discovery Health hosts a workshop of experts about how the Boks will do 2011
Present
Niels Liebl (Bok fitness coach)
Dim Noakes
Dim: The Boks will lose the RWC 2011 because …. (insert usual crap about overtraining here)… but example highlights… overtraining… overplayed… province vs country
Niels: Uhm actually no… one you’re no longer involved so you do not know this but… one: the players are raised to a specific fitness state and have to maintain themselves for it. Players are rested after heavy games… sometimes the whole week afterwards in the case of senior players like Vic Matfield and Fourie Du Preez, and the Lions, Bulls, Cheetahs and Sharks co-operate with us in the training of Boks and their fitness levels. Two: we have a plan in place to rest players from playing in 2010 and the runup to 2011…
Dim: Oh… well… didn’t know that… my what an asshole I am… uhm (quick save coming up) …. that is music to my ears…
Now
If that is the extent of his knowledge wrt the Boks fitness and player management then all his bleating is no more than propaganda for the Sports Science Institute…
ps. NOTE
Niels specifically said the Stormers O NOT assist the Bok management in fitness and player rotation policies to get optimum from players… Thanks Ra$$ie and Ali$tair and of course your hero Rob Wagner…
December 29th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 8:56 pm:
It seems the ability to read does not necessarily mean one understands…
Until you actually know wtf you are talking about I suggest you find a corner.
How can you quote theories disproving Noakes’ theories if you have no clue wtf they are talking about?
For instance, the Max VO2 theory is all about the plateau and athlete supposedly reach where his body operates at a maximum level through the oxygen his muscles absorb or use. People with a higer VO2 limit was believed to be genetically superior and knowing this ‘limit’ certain athletes believed they can optimize their training and running programs to reach or use this level to their benefit.
Fact is, there is no max VO2 limit… If a guy runs at 20km/h he uses X amount of oxygen to sustain it. If the speed increases, more oxygen is needed.
However, there will come a point where the athlete will not be able to run any faster, but that does not mean he has reached his limit as the muscles can still absorb more oxygen if needed (hence theoretically some believe there is no limit), the runner or athlete simply for some other reason, cannot sustain that speed or go any faster. This is for reasons that has nothing to do with the ‘VO2′ limit however.
If athlete A is unfit, his VO2 level will be at X, however, when he gets gradually fitter this ‘limit’ will increase which puts the whole theory that there is a ‘limit’ to absolute crap.
You see, some of us actually studied this shit and although not even close to being an expert, I at least try to educate myself before attacking something or a theory.
If there was a VO2 limit a whole lot of guys selling steroids to improve the capacity in which your body absorbs and uses or carries oxygen will be out of business.
Fact is, more of Noakes’ theories have been proven right than wrong.
It is no wonder that multiple champions in long distance running and comerades legends like Bruce Fordyce is a big fan of Noakes and subscribes to his theories, while Dawie sits in his fat ass in the East Rand trying to sound clever knowing how to Google shit but not knowing wtf he is actually reading…
December 29th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
And if you even bother to read what Noakes is saying it is not only about playing minutes that contributes to this, it is about training as-well, where the All Blacks and Wallabies train more efficiently.
If you bother to listen to bowlers like Alan Donald and Shaun Pollock you will also note how they continuously warn against over extending bowlers because they will break down, as they themselves have at times during their careers.
And off the top of my head, coaches like Deans, Henry and Jake White seems to believe that rugby players can only take so much rugby before their bodies break down, hence they employ(ed) rotation and player resting policies at different times.
World War II?
Are you for real?
But what am I saying…
Lawyer vs. Professor…
One makes a living out of distorting facts to suit and argument while the other actually studies it to find the truth…
Nuff said.
December 30th, 2009 at 12:50 am
lol, Dawie kan maar ook baie kak praat.
wattehel het WWII met enigiets te doen?
must say noakes can get a bit precious and i dunno how much of a science it really is, but they no doubt have done many studies so its def prob worth listening to it. one thing is for sure, it does not take a genius to see that our okes look kaput on the EOY tours, tho the ABs look fine.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:11 am
On a lighter note, I went to see Invictus last night.
Great movie. Everyone should go and see it.
The actors struggled a bit with the rugby playing but Morgan Freeman was a great Mandela. Almost as good as the real one.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Reply to cab @ 12:50 am:
Our site will be so much poorer without him…
I just wonder sometimes what he does not understand about the concept; “Theory”
A quick internet search will show you many experts from around the world debate the ‘theory’ of the VO2 max plateau for instance, not to mention the governing theory.
Many experts agree with Noakes, some disagree and have their own theory.
And by expert I do not mean “John123″ posting on the Runner’s World Blog…
December 30th, 2009 at 10:13 am
On the burn out issue – IMO it is more mental than physical.
Physically you can over train but that is cleared up relatively quickly with short periods of rest. For example if the guys look physically drained then rest them for the week and have them do walk throughs uinstead of hard contact sessions.
Mentally is another issue – here you need the player to switch off completely to freshen up and that can not be done from one game to the next in a week – HOWEVER the Barbarians showed that a week of drinking and enjoying life before facing the All Blacks does do a hell of a lot of good
December 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am
It is no wonder that multiple champions in long distance running and comerades legends like Bruce Fordyce is a big fan of Noakes and subscribes to his theories.
=======
I never got to the bottom of this:
The fact that long distance
runners do 200 km-plus running PER WEEK,
yet limit marathon races to only 2-3
PER YEAR.
Could be the intensity?
Then one Ferdi le Grange disproved
this in a way. Early 70′s he did the
London Marathon and finished 3rd.
He was also invited to a major
marathon in France, but the Frogs
shat themselves after hearing he
had also ran the London ONE WEEK EARLIER.
Anyway, Ferdi disproved whatever
theory by finishing 2nd in the Frog
marathon.
BTW he became a medical doctor.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Reply to Morné @ 8:31 am:
No question, one things for sure you will get a direct opinion, no fence-sitting.
I like groot Dawue;s comments, always have, he knows i’m just jolling.
As for Noakes theory, i think you are probably right that he should at least be heeded. The older Bok forwards (> 27) are going to have to be very managed very carefully if they are to be in proper shape for 2011. The new game is just played at such an intensity that players like Smit are alreadt right on the edge of selected, even tho imo he had probably one of the best seasons of his career. He was very good when it counted againt the BIL and 3N. They gotta do something about that EOY tour.
December 30th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Anyway note how stupid Morne is.
Despite the quotes and the examples quoted he cottons on to ONE issue where I said I am not sure about but scientists have stated he is wrong and then conveniently ignores everything else.
What a twat…
Thanks for proving me right.
Why not pop over to your fave professor and fellate him into 2010… and we’ll see how tired the Brazilian soccer players are after a full season of club play in their local leagues, UEFA and Champions League as well as assorted “friendlies” and of course world cup warm up and qualifiers… oh and of course the Germans and Italians and French and Dutch too.
After all June is the end of their season so by rights they should all be falling apart like crocked plates if Dim is right.
As the old joke says
“Grab my nipples!”
“Grab my nipples!”
Morne asks why
The answer is I like to have my nipples twisted when someone is f–king me over…
Fortunately for me only Mrs S gets to do that… and Morne must make do with a hazy picture of me from the old Rugrat Gallery stuck to the back of his toilet door next to the Dim Noakes one, under the Pieter De Villiers one but far below the WP emblem..
December 30th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Cab
the fact is Dim is a charlatan liar who bases his opinion on the Boks on nothing but wisps of opinion and not one ounce of fact as he admitted with the whole SA rugby media was present when Neels Liebl called him out to be the twat he is behind that nerdy little grin and squinty eyes… always a sure sign of a dishonest person…. small squinty eyes…
Dim is a politician nowadays desperately trying to justify the existence of his “institute” when all the dark hued ones want is to break it down and replace it with a diversity training centre which we sorely need in the Cape of course…… Dim is no longer a scientist.
December 30th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I have an idea that the
poofball players are
regularly rotated by
their clubs.
Now getting a free lunch
after running around for
90 minutes, harassing the
ref, kicking a ball, pulling
your shirt over your face and
piling onto a heap and kissing
some bloke when the odd goal
is scored as well as feigning
injuries sounds like a bargain
to me.
It also sounds quite different
from top-class rugby.
December 30th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Yep… 25games of top-level rugga is far more intense than 35 games of soccer (positions depending)…
December 30th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Noakes is full of shit.
Trying to be the sport prophet
yet not one olympic gold medalist
or any profesional athlete
on the world podium
to substansiate his claims.
Athletes get conditioned by a great infrastructure
to preform at the highest level
for a certain period of time.
That time,bearing that the conditioning is
personalised,
depends on the physical and mental
ability of that athlete.
When you are not up to scratch,
step aside boet,
the others behind you are rearing to go.
December 30th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
the only rush for money i see
is you Tim.
December 30th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 2:44 pm:
its that bit about kissing the odd bloke, which dont strike me as a bargain…
December 30th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
JT,
i remember when i was still boxing
that the focus(mental state) was half the fight.
There were times when your focus is so tight
nothing else exist,
its like a perfect harmony with everything
and you never lose.
to reach that harmony
the personal focus takes a lot of energy
and sometimes when you can not
for whatever reason
reach that state of harmony
your performance poorer.
December 30th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Oom Dawie,
i take it you disagree with Tims theories then?
December 30th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Reply to Duiwel @ 4:07 pm:
yip – I had the same experience (dad was a boxing trainer and friends with the Toweel (spelling?) family and had me boxing when I was a kid.
You get in that zone and reaching the “zone” was always the challenge! In the zone you are in charge of everything and the opponent is moving in slow motion but you sometimes lost it in the middle of a fight and got bliksimmed
December 30th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Reply to JT @ 4:36 pm:
Yep the legendary Vic Toweel died in Sydney last year or the year before aged 80… RSA’s first undisputed champ…
I think there are a few of his sons and nephews all here and running gyms with a few good fellow Lebbo Aussies in their stable…
There is a great tribute to him on FB somewhere…
December 30th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 2:25 pm:
I only took one example because it only takes one to show what a complete moron you are.
I find it pointless to even get into a debate with you on the governing theory as you obviously have no clue what you are talking about.
In fact, I think you have no clue what a theory actually is, and how it is used to study and prove and disprove scientific beliefs.
Did you even have science in school?
So I am not even going to go into variables, as you obviously have no clue as to the base of what you are talking about in any event.
Go back, and show me how many actual minutes soccer players spend playing consecutive minutes of soccer a season.
And if you want to entertain yourself further, go read how much of that playing time in soccer is spent running, walking and sprinting.
Compare just that to rugby.
Then go and add muscle stress to the equation (where rugby is a contact sport and muscles gets bruised) and then come back and I just may get myself to entertain you a bit more.
Until then, I will spend my time reading actual articles and comments of interest.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Reply to Duiwel @ 4:09 pm:
Oom Dawie,
i take it you disagree with Tims theories then?
======
That is probably the understatement
of the year.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 5:00 pm:
December 30th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
the toweel;s i think were from the east rsnd too.
that mental process you are describing as being in the zone, therels a whole psychology study devoted to it and its what The Brand was trying to get accross with some of his postings. There;s a hungarian fellow whose called it Flow psychology and it overlaps with some wierd ass eastern stuff like taoism and zen, something oom dawie likes doing alot of…
December 30th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Vic Toweel bt Manuel Ortiz
for the bantamweight WT
31.05.1951.
He was our one and only
indisputable WC – before
the alphabet soup that
boxing became.
Lost to Jimmy Carruthers
(k.o. 1st round) and points
over 10 in 1953. Remember
listening to both on short
wave radio.
I think Arnie Taylor’s and
Gerrie Coetzee’s titles
also had some value.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Reply to cab @ 5:27 pm:
Tim Goodenough recently published one on RugbyIQ too which is well worth a read.
There is a definite link between the physical and mental states of athletes which is why I suppose all of Noakes’ and Co things are mainly theories and not fact.
Otherwise we would all just be a bunch of robots.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
You build depth with a rotation system, rest and recuperate your players scientifically and it all goes to shit because a referee miss a forward pass and your players have been brainwashed against drop-goals.
Why I say you should pick and play to win every series, every tour and every tournament. The world cup is just another one. Three tough and four easy games plus a combination of preparation and luck.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Reply to fyndraai @ 7:33 pm:
Luck?
Can I quote our greatest golfer of all time on the subject ‘luck’?
But yes, there is a place for everything, and all that matters is winning, and for my money, luck has very little to do with winning or losing.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Reply to Morné @ 7:45 pm:
You don’t believe in luck?
You mean the Bulls “prepared”
for that forward-pass knock-on
when Habana stole the game at
Kings Park?
And when that Fijian asshole supreme
high tackled, giving away the
penalty and a CC Final?
And when that ball bounced just right
for Swanger Meerkat in Dungedin -
after the Boks were outplayed in
every facet?
You want me to carry on?
December 30th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
JT,
even when you get bliksemed
when you are in that harmony
everything works out.
Its like evryone else is four gears slower.
i have it now on the downhill.
Its alps here.
Theres some nice drops.
suspension counts.Travel becomes relevant.
Your feet is positioned almost identical as a skier
or when you’re skipping.
All centre of gravity.
But on the day you dip into
that harmony
nothing can go wrong.
Like a molecule being part of the greater good.
You never lose.
There is no opponent.
There is only
that struggle to reach that current of
sheer purpose.
thats what i miss.
The downhill is merely a way to tap the current.
But you can’t wing it.
Or tap it halfway.
You can’t force it
“and bang your drum like monkeys do”
“just let it come
don’t bang your drum”
Its a mental state.
when you are
what ,where and how
you are supposed to be,at that ewact minute.
its being.
Sometimes.
December 30th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 8:58 pm:
No I dont.
you just higlighted 3 mistakes by 3 individuals which forms part of on average between 35 to 95 mistakes (transgressions) players make in a game of 80 minutes of rugby.
Some mistakes comes at a bigger price of course given when and where they are made, but a high tackle is still a high tackle, a missed knock is still a missed knock, and so too any other mistakes by players or refs..
Whether that happens in the 1st, or 83rd minute of the match…
It has nothing to do with luck, it is just the way the cookie crumbles and why we all love this game so much.
The reason I love rugby so much, is because it is not an exact science.
December 30th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Reply to Morné @ 9:35 pm:
You call it cookies that
crumble, I call it luck.
Let’s agree that it adds
to a great game.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:00 am
One S14 title you may ascribe to luck or crumbling cookies. Two in 3 years must be superior game-plan
.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:19 am
Reply to fyndraai @ 12:00 am:
I’ll drink to that too.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:32 am
Reply to Boertjie @ 6:04 pm:
There were a few other goodies in the modern era… Mitchell and especially Baby Jake being two of them…
Interestingly I’ve recently been sent footage of RSA (and Africa’s) foray into the world’s fasted growing sport namely Mixed Martial Arts cage fighting… they’ve a very long way to go and would get murdered in even the smaller USA based productions… need to start improving their ground game with wrestling/BJJ/Judo… boxing, kick-boxing and Muay Thai simply not enough…
December 31st, 2009 at 10:23 am
Reply to bryce_in_oz @ 4:32 am:
Jip, forgot about Brian Mitchell.
Pierre Fourie was
also a decent boxer.
December 31st, 2009 at 10:39 am
Reply to Boertjie @ 10:23 am:
Mitchell was my hero – I grew up at the time he was dominating.
What ever happened to Murray? He was going to be the next best thing but then I lost all interest in boxing when I started playing rugby
December 31st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Reply to JT @ 10:39 am:
You’ve got me on Murray.
Murray?
Can’t recall a boxer by
that name.
We had many OG gold medallists
and medallists up to 1960 -
Laurie Stevens, Gerald Dreyer,
George Hunter etc. Daan Bekker won
silver and bronze as a heavy weight
(one of the famous Bekkers).
Willie Toweel won bronze.
Now we send two boxers and
they can’t even win a single
fight.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
dingaan thobela, corrie sanders – francois botha was another SA heavyweight world champ.
think vic toweel, sanders, brian mitchell, gerrie coetzee, harold volbrecht – all from the east rand.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
sugar boy maligna also a multiple world title holder.
ernie els also from the east, like oom D.
December 31st, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 12:01 pm:
boxer: Gary Murray
Global ID 7429
sex male
birth date 1967-04-23
division welterweight
stance southpaw
height 5′ 11″ / 180cm
nationality South Africa
residence Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
birth place Renfrew, Scotland
He started off like a champ with 29 fights and only 1 loss but then lost to Duran (Allesandro) twice and lost to Thobela and never was the same again.
December 31st, 2009 at 10:07 pm
BTW:
boxer: Dingaan Thobela
Global ID 472
sex male
birth date 1966-09-24
division lightweight
stance orthodox
height 5′ 7½″ / 171cm
alias The Rose of Soweto
nationality South Africa
residence Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
birth place Soweto, South Africa
birth name Dingaan Bongane Thobela
won 40 (KO 26) + lost 14 (KO 4) + drawn 2 = 56
rounds boxed 419 KO% 46.43
His first 29 fights has only 1 draw & no losses so just that little better than Murray. However his fight number 30 and 31 was against Tony Lopez (remember that fondly) which Thobela lost to in the 1st but got revenge in the 2nd!
December 31st, 2009 at 10:07 pm
PS: Happy new year everyone!
December 31st, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Reply to JT @ 10:07 pm:
interesting is that Mitchell drew and lost to Lopez before Thobela did the job on him!
December 31st, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Reply to JT @ 10:10 pm:
sorry got it mixed up – Mitchell beat and drew to Lopez!
Here is Mitchells record and data:
boxer: Brian Mitchell
Global ID 3842
sex male
birth date 1961-08-30
division super featherweight
height 5′ 6½″ / 169cm
nationality South Africa
residence Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
birth place Johannesburg, GT, South Africa
won 45 (KO 21) + lost 1 (KO 0) + drawn 3 = 49
rounds boxed 395 KO% 42.86
Great record! 49 fights with only 1 loss!
January 1st, 2010 at 8:27 pm
You know Morne I simply don’t get you…
I think your short term memory has been wrecked.
First after I throw fellow scholars out who say Noakes is talking kak you react in what I call the “libtard response”
It is basically an adoption of the 1984 (the book by that title not the number, maybe if you read it you will wake up but I doubt it) response to an unanswerable debate point. In 1984 you get the proles to yell “Four legs good two legs bad!” until opponents are silenced.
In the modern sense you ignore the research by scientists that your opponent quotes, because that would mean you have to sdmit your hero’s dick is not as big as you think it is…
Hence
Attack and insult your opponent directly. If you can, hang a label on him, like “East Rand Thug” or the like.. it’s the same as “facist”, “racist”, “Conservative”… and the rest
Anyway I find it smugly brilliant to see you yet again stoop to the libtard debate and then in yor next post admit to someone that Noakes’ science is just theoretical.
Thanks for proving me right yet again…
Maybe drop the booze for a while and let the old brain cells recover some of tat memory loss.
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:11 am
I must say that I in a sense agree with David here. If one test the theories of Noakes on history like wars, it fails miserably.
IMO the tiredness is not due to physical aspects (if accepted that the players are as fit as they should be), but rather on the mental side. BUT also not mental tiredness, but rather lack of conviction.
In wars soldiers could go for days with minimum sleep and still be able to win a battle. Why? Because they had conviction and believed in what they where fighting for. Also there is that little thing called adrenaline. That wonderful drug that can make a person do things he is otherwise not capable of.
I couldn’t see the Barbarians game as Foxtel fucked up my reconnection after I moved, but all the reports stated that the Boks that played there were far from out on their feet. Why? Because they believed in the tradition they were partaking in? Because they know the traditional Barbarian rugby is very much close the the heart of what rugby was meant to be?
These are questions that sprang to mind as I read the comments.
As for Noakes’ theories, I don’t support them, but I sure as hell cannot discount them as a load of bullshit. “Certainty is a very big word for scientist” There is a lot of truth in that statement.
I think that maybe the scientist should rather focus on how the above mentioned questions influence the rugby players today. Do the players still feel they would die for that jersey they pull on?
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:29 am
“but all the reports stated that the Boks that played there were far from out on their feet.”
Nup… they were stuffed after 60mins in both their openers and that at the start of the test season… only a great JF try and Morne Steyn saved the series…
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Deon
Morne does not understand the war analogy because he never was a soldier, but you see I think if you look at soldiers in say WW1 and WW2 and the Korean war as examples it is clear they disprove Noakes general theorem.
Soldiers in say the Burma jungle were at war in the jungle with the japanese FOR THEIR LIVES from 1941 to 1945 – four years. The Chindit Corps consisted of Aussie, English and Kiwi soldiers who had to march through the jungles with their heavy packs (sure not contact sports with the Japanese all the time) to carry food and weapons and ammunition. At Impal though the Allied soldiers fought for over 180 days against a Japanese siege and that was under constant enemy fire, and artillery and snipers and no reinforcements and they were at times fighting hand to hand with the japanese.
Those soldiers were tough as anything.
Of course the jungle had a zillion ways to kill you too… and in a war theatre wehere there simply WAS NO HOSPITAL any injury was a killer.
So
1. You carry a 40kg+ pack
2. Fresh CLEAN water a luxury
3. Your environment can kill you (malaria, snakes, bilharzia, tigers)
4. Guys are in the jungle around you trying to kill you 24/7
5. You have to carry your own gun.
6. You have access to minimal medical treatment
7. Your food is all processed and canned
And this is 24/7 for six months.
Now
In these circumstances you have to survive.
And most soldiers did survive.
Yes you could say it was only six months in this particular battle but consider the mental and physical stresses that these soldiers were under. They far outweigh ANY stresses you can put a professional rugby player under.
Once the siege was broken the soldiers were withdrawn to India and without rest IMMEDIATELY placed into a battle with the japanese for another desperate struggle at Kohima (the Stalingrad of the jungle)…
Think now that these soldiers were under these stresses 24/7 for close on four years, not to mention that their fellow comrades (team mates in your parlance) were REALLY dying all round them.
Yet they managed to get the mental wherewithal to survive.
Same with troops who fought in WW1 for four years in muddy dugouts…
Imagine that…
You can’t
You think professional sport is the ultimate extent of physical exertion….
That was the intention of using the military allegory to show that soldiers under worse physical and mental stresses than pro rugby players can ever be manage to retain their mental and physical sharpness for four consecutive years….
Proving Noakes is a poophole
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:38 pm
In fact
He are a big poephol
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 10:38 pm:
So why do athletes “peak” in
their seasons and select their
races when they can make more
money by running more frequently?
Why do marathoners run only 2-3
or at the most 4 per season?
January 4th, 2010 at 4:06 am
In war many soldiers do in fact break down. They often die. The losers die en mass. Many of the winners die.
In sport we try to avoid all the dying.
All this talk about dying for the jersey is just hogwash anyway. Players play for the glory and the money (even in the amateur days).