Great performances and winning more often than you lose are always down to the team, rather than the individuals – mostly – but what winning consistently does do is make individuals stand out from the crowd.
Getting noticed in a losing, or battling, team has always been tough and that is perhaps why so many good players are overlooked, and others who are maybe not always up to it, get noticed when their team wins.
This is why provincial or Super Rugby teams that win regularly produce the bulk of the players for the national team. But there have been, still are, and always will be, those players at not so successful teams who get overlooked. The Bulls, Sharks and Stormers have probably produced up to 95per cent of the Bok players in the last 10 years, simply because those teams have been successful. The Cheetahs have produced a handful of national players and the Lions even less.
Now, I just wonder in these early stages of the 2013 Super Rugby competition, what a Springbok team would look like were they to be asked to play a Test against New Zealand next week? How many Bulls and Stormers players would make the cut – not that those men who have done so well for the Boks in the past aren’t necessarily good enough – but because they’re playing in battling teams.
How much of the selection process is dependent on the individual and what he can bring to the national side, and how much weight is given to the players’ team’s performance?
Surely right now a Bok team would be filled with Sharks and Cheetahs players and perhaps even a few players from the Kings. And this is why the future of Bok rugby is so exciting ... there are new players emerging on the scene who are giving the “oldies” something to think about.
The Cheetahs have always produced outstanding individuals, but it’s always seemed as if they’ve had to fight a little harder for recognition.
This season though, on the back of their five wins in a row, those young Cheetahs players are standing out and screaming for a chance to play at a higher level. Raymond Rhule is a must for the Bok team this year, Willie le Roux, too, has something special about him, while Robert Ebersohn has been a powerhouse now that he’s at inside centre. Up front, there’s Trevor Nyakane, Lappies Labuschagne and a few others ... these are players who have the skills, and are standing out because their team is winning.
This, of course, isn’t the way it should be, but it helps in getting noticed and then picked. South Africa has again produced a new crop of outstanding youngsters, in every franchise ... I just hope some of these guys go on to play for the Boks this year, irrespective of how their teams do in Super Rugby. - The Star