Talk:Tendai Mtawarira

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The Beast grows

After a fantastic 2008 Media:super 14 season with the sharks it was apparent that he had fantastic potential and his speed would be benneficial with the new rules (elv's).

He was then selected in the springbok squad and at first received limited game time. Later on he had the opportunity to be a reserve during the test against the wallabies in perth. Once he came on his impact was signifigant and had two long distance runs out sprinting the wallaby backline before being taken down. It was only then that the south african coaching staff saw his potential as well as the management for the crowd loved him.

He went on to start in all the rest of the tri-nation tests and outshone all his opposistion. He is renown for his big tackles, strong runs and about everything else that he does. Surely at the age of 22 this young man has a huge ammount of potential and is already looking like the best prop forward in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ben1555 (talk • contribs) 23:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox, appearances, Springbok XV etc

I've tried to clean this up. I've added text to the article which actually includes the relevant info, rather than unexplained stats in the Infobox. 'South Africa (tour)', 'Springboks' and 'Springbok XV' are not three separate teams. To include them as separate national teams is seriously misleading. Reliable sources, including SARugby's online stats, do not report them as different teams. @TheMightyPeanut:, I don't have access to a print copy of the SA Rugby Annual. Are you saying it lists these as three distinct teams when giving Mtawarira's career stats? It lists his 2010 game against the Barbarians as 'South Africa (tour)' but the 2016 game as 'Springbok XV'? If it does, it is not consistent with other reliable sources. --hippo43 (talk) 13:33, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Hippo43:, yes, it's reproduced exactly as it's listed. What are these "other reliable sources" you keep mentioning, but never referencing? TheMightyPeanut (talk) 14:14, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Well, I already listed SA Rugby's own online profile - [1]

It includes the text - Total tests: 107, Tour matches: 3, Total Springbok matches: 110

But also, most media sources list the team for these games as 'South Africa'. See, for example News24 [2] or [3] or [4], Sky Sports [5], the BBC [6] or [7] or the Telegraph [8]. There are a lot more, but I'm getting bored copying and pasting.

In addition, the official programmes produced for the Barbarians games list the team as 'South Africa' - See [9] and [10] And the World XV games - [11] and [12]

So in terms of reliable sources, it's pretty clear that the team in these games is called 'South Africa', although they are not test matches.

But the broader point is about how this article helps readers, or not. Having the information presented in the article text makes sense. Having misleading names in the infobox does not. These are not three different teams. No one thinks they are, I'm sure not even you, so presenting them that way is just plain wrong. --hippo43 (talk) 14:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since you have just listed a lot of reliable sources referencing these games, why do you keep on deleting them from the article then? These are not three different teams – as you pointed out, all these matches are for "South Africa". Yet, the statuses of these matches (and the teams playing these matches) are very different, and treated by the South African Rugby Union as such. TheMightyPeanut (talk) 15:08, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't remove them from the article at all. I added them, in the text, with more detail than before. I removed them from the infobox because they are misleading and not supported by sources.

You're going against every independent source, and SARU's own record. You're also going against the convention in rugby player infoboxes here, and making this and some other fairly modern articles inconsistent with older SA players articles. Your view about the "statuses" of these matches is interesting, but you have no evidence for it at all. It's also meaningless - even if it were true, we don't have any articles for these 'teams' or any explanation for the reader. You've acknowledged that these are not separate teams yet you still want to include them. It's bizarre.

I think we need to remember that an encyclopedia is for readers. --hippo43 (talk) 17:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]