Centre of Attention II

I was watching the second All Black test of 2006, and saw the lovely try by Fourie, bursting through the line. Jean takes it to the line, Fourie condenses in, and Jean slips him through with a nice accurate short ball. We saw Damian do this in the second test, but with very different results. Damian, as is the case with ELV era rules, has the defence a long way ahead of him. He takes it the the middle of the line, and Am slices a nice run. Damian throws an awkward flick behind the head of Am, who loses the ball forward, straining to grab hold of it. This would have been a guaranteed try. The one true instance of attacking rugby, and Damian blew it, because he can't even slip a short pass about a foot or two in length to a teammate. Shocking. Yet, he gets an 8? Am is wasted. Such an incredible player, and he is wasted because we have a Dud coach and his crutch, and such a pathetic inside centre. Esterhuizen makes these passes week in and week out. 

Yawn because you can't refute Cheeto. Big games, big moments. Not often that those opportunities come about. He failed when they needed him to be average. Even the painful to watch Lambie could be relied on to execute a pre-planned run and a simple pass. No feel for the game and no skills. Very poor performance overall. That forward pass in the first test too. We see this too often: no spacial awareness and poor technical ability. Next please. Enough of this farce. 

I know that nothing will ever change your mind, because an absolute expression of over-bearing ignorance is the ceiling of your potential. I'll beat you over the head with the truth irregardless, and watch you squawk like a distressed pheasant. 

Damian will never be top 10 in any position. Like the 17th best flank in the SH, he simply doesn't have what it takes. 

Auge, you are Damien's bitch...he rules your life...justice,  LOL!! You are so lucky PSDT is injured...

Dom Alende remains the best 12 in the country,  regardless of what you think....Esterhuizen is not bad for a Fransie clone, but DdA is much better.. deal with it.

Damian does nothing better than Esterhuizen. Damian does nothing particularly well. Where is he better? Esterhuizen is the best distributing 12 we've ever had. He is the most physical and imposing presence. I never thought Frans would be bettered in these areas, but he is. Damian, dumped on his one big crashball, couldn't hit Am with a pass if he was his conjoined twin. No, you plastic's are my bitches. I am a thorn in your sides, and give your blind state no peace or rest. You can writhe in pain, but can never fight back. Does it hurt? Clearly Dame Unteromlett is on the cusp of another prolapse. Deal with that. 

says you...BTW, I like Esterhuizen and think he's our best second option @ 12, but there's more to Damien than you give him credit for...he tractors much better than you think. 

Acutally, they weren't. Damian was used in plays that got him into space. He was very often the pocket runner in box formations, trying to get him on the outside of the edge defender. His earliest work, right up until the 2015 Super rugby season saw him run overs lines challenging the outer weak shoulder of the tackler and trying to drag them from a weak body position. He squirted the ball out in an awkward motion, and lots of those offloads lead to fumbles inside the tramlines. Frans was the closest thing to Sonny until Esterhuizen. Sonny ran unders lines, challenging the interior and offered the blindside wing to attack off either shoulder. Damian has never played that way. The Stormers have never played that way. After the Brisbane test of 2015, where Cheika stuffed every Stormers scheme to free Damian (Meyer incorporated them into the gameplan), he was utilised differently. Attack the interior and seams with blunt and ineffective running. That has been the model ever since.

Damian is weak to head-on pressure. He gets dragged around on defence, and often ends up clasping at ankles. As a direct runner, there are scores of instances where he is dumped and knocked backwards. Backlines which play through Damian never go forwards, they go laterally and run out of momentum. Damian is not a powerful 12, he has never been anything close to the most powerful. Esterhuizen is superior to Damian in absolutely every way, and vastly more powerful. Esterhuizen stopped Kerevi dead in his tracks and singlehandedly shutdown the Wallaby attack. There is no example of Damian having ever imposed such dominance. Damian is dominated.

I have posted a lot of material of Damian, and challenged the plastics to reference his production, but like the mythical Steph, it simply cannot be found. A lot of adjectives ascribed to something that can never be seen. Mere fantasy. Damian has never been test quality, isn't test quality and will never be test quality. He is a liability and a sham who doesn't deserve to wear the green and gold. Eight years, and we are still awaiting his breakout test.

You keep on looking for the next Fransie...not gonna happen...Damien  is a completely different player. 

I'm not looking for the next anything. I'm looking for a good player. Ende. Damian was never a 12 at heart, but an outside centre/wing hybrid. His poor reading of play and defence put an end to that. He doesn't deliver at 12. If being flaccid is being his "type" of centre, then he is very good at that type. That type is not for me. Esterhuizen and Frans don't play the same, but share similar attributes. Show me the greatness of Damian...

Nice and selective? That's every pass, every run, every kick, every catch, every tackle, every ruck clean, every pressure, every active defensive/offensive presence. In short: Everything. This isn't a tribute video, it isn't a selection to make him look bad/good . It's everything he did in an entire test season. If you don't like what you see, that tells you something, doesn't it? 

He certainly can’t step ….he can’t accelerate….he can’t read let alone read a game. A very blunt instrument.

Incredibly there are those on here who think he is the best 12 in the game. After a classic centre like Jean de Villiers it’s depressing to have this one dimensional player in a key role.

South Africans think alot of things but that does not mean they are right.

Down under is waiting:

DA is De Wet Barry without the Cape of Destructive Tackling. Never seen a fan base this excited about a crash baller.

It was lekker seeing him run over Biggar, but a 12 should be able to bring much more to the table. He is no Jean, but he is the best we have ATM...I won't be against Serfontein or RJvR being given a chance at some stage, but you don't experiment against the Lions after not playing tests for 2 years.

Damian is not the best. Josè has a habit of turning to carthorses for his ball control style. Damian hasn't run over anyone other than Lambie in 2014. That isn't especially difficult to do. 

I do  wonder what this Kindergarten Imbecile  thinks when he writes BS on site - or rather  in his case does not think.   Pollard said that De Allende is the best inside center he ever played with and that he really is brilliant - yet our local imbecile say otherwise.    Who must we believe  - a top class player or a top class idiot?            

Damian is not a typical 12...he doesn't really fit any position,  but he is best played at 12 for the Bok game plan...a more physical De Wet Barry...and helping at the rucks...and his tractoring is the best in the game.

You're right, he doesn't fit any one position. A consequence of the candyfloss rugby of the SH, especially Super rugby. We produce too many players who can't fit into a defined position. Not because they are versatile, but they aren't complete enough to fulfill the duties of any one position adequately. Serfontein, Lambie, Goosen, Watson, Steph, JJ, Kwotalisi are examples.

Lets be clear, Damian is not especially physical. How many times have you seen De Wet Barry dumped on his backside a good few metres? Barry played through you, and had better hands and kicking. Damian is weaker than Jean, Frans, Esterhuizen, Olivier, Barry. He is not strong by NH standards either. Damian has a strong leg drive, not a strong upper body. Watching Esterhuizen literally drag several Welshmen without bending his upper body backwards or leaning forward for leverage shows real brute power. Damian likes to hunch foreward and lean, almost fall, into contact.