Jason Ryan: Tupou Vaa’i ‘becoming a man at Test level’

Agree that Amastero is worth bringing on, as is Canham. William's work rate could be handy on the bench at 6, primarily. His kiwi coach at the Force won't let him play at 6 tho, for obvious reasons.

Edmed is playing well in a second rate mickey mouse competition in NZ. He has a lot of potential although maybe less than Jack Bowen. He couldn't run a Wallaby side with confidence at the moment.

Kerevi definitely should be in, which is why Schmidt will refuse to select him. Kerevi at 50% is better than any other Australian 12 at 100%. Pure and simple.

That good.

No one is perfect, he makes mistakes and he has plenty of detractors. But make no mistake, Rassie is a world class operator and history will judge him so.

The first thing I would look at would be the composition of all the squads and the value to european exposure for each, especially to recently promoted teams and those facing relegation battles. Some sort of system that favoured youth and promoted a more competitive spread of experienced talent. I'd seriously look at mimicking Champions League football for a good few months of the year, playing domestic games mid week, worked around jokers and rest of the world downtimes/league gaps.

I'm not sure what this has to do with NZR though?

Utimately the Boks dominate because Rassie and his team are so scientific and so driven. His attention to detail and obsessive analysis smacks of Tom Brady's approach.

He has engineered a system to find and nurture talent from the best schools to the most desolate backwaters. That system has a culture and doctrine very similar to elite military units, it does not tolerate individuals at the expense of the collective.

That machine also churns out three to five world class players in every position. They are encouraged to play in Ireland, England, France and Japan where their performance continues to be monitored according to metrics that is well guarded IP.

Older players are begged to play in the less physical Japanese league as it extends their careers. No Saffa really wants to see Etzebeth or Peter Steph or Pollard play in France or British Isles. And especially not in South Africa, where you just have these big, physical young guns coming out of hyper competitive schools looking for blood.

Last but but no means the least is the rugby public's alignment with the Springbok agenda. We love it when they win between World Cups but there is zero drama if they lose a game or a string of games for the sake of squad depth.

It's taken time to put it together but it has just matured into a relentless machine.