Hi all,
I too share that same view of most on this forum regarding Morne' Steyn, he clearly doesn't tick all the boxes when it comes to the perfect 10. I'm interested to hear from anyone willing to comment on who they thought was our best 10 and Why?
Our best 10's are Goosen, Lambie and Pollard for the simple reason they all posses an allround game.........all have good rugby brains, have the ability to attack or set up an attack, are solid defenders and have good boots.
Morne on the otherhand only had a good boot and that's where it ended - hopefully we will NEVER see him play for the Boks again
I am including some other names from the past, when we played less tests too, to make the comparisons complete
Most tests:
1. (56) Morne Steyn
2. (42) Butch James
3. (35) Henry Honiball
4. (32) Jaco vd Westhuyzen
5. (32) Pat Lambie
6. (31) Andre Pretorius
7. (28) Naas Botha
... (25) Piet Visagie
... (22) Joel Stransky
... (13) Jannie de Beer
... (10) Hansie Brewis
Not bad for a useless player in such an important position.
Averages, as a totals comparison is not really fair to anyone.
Points scored per game:
1. (13.9) Jannie de Beer
2. (11.7) Morne Steyn (660 points total)
3. (11.14) Naas Botha (second most total points for a flyhalf 312)
4. (10.9) Joel Stransky
5. (5.4) Andre Pretorius
6. (5.2) Piet Visagie
7. (4.46) Henry Honiball
... (2.1) Pat Lambie
... (1.6) Johan Goosen
An interesting point here, is that in his last 13 starts, Morne Steyn's average was 13.38, which indicates an improvement, directly opposed to the alleged "slump in form"... If I include his few minutes (5) as fullback replacement, it is 12.42 points per game average over the last 14 matches.
We can also add the fact that the average number of tries scored by the Springboks in Morne's last 13 starts was 4 per match (52 tries in total).
Average tries scored per match:
1. (0.27) Joel Stransky
2. (0.24) Piet Visagie
3. (0.15) Jannie de Beer
4. (0.15) Jaco vd Westhuyzen
5. (0.143) Morne Steyn
6. (0.1) Hansie Brewis
7. (0.07) Butch James
8. (0.07) Naas Botha
... (0.03) Pat Lambie
... (0) Johan Goosen
In terms of numbers, Morne scored 8 tries, Piet Visagie and Joel Stransky 6, Jaco vd Westhuyzen 5.... And the great running flyhalf Homiball a full one! Even Honiball's sub (Franco Smith), scored 2...
Another interesting point from this, is that Danie Craven had the following to say about probably our best running flyhalf, ever (Piet Visagie)... "He reminded me of Tony Harris in many ways - a player who seldom broke but when he did, it usually led to a try."
(I selected Visagie because he only played against the top rated teams and never played against the "weaker" teams like Argentina, Italy, Samoa, etc.)
I was was going to make certain deductions from these figures, but I will leave it up to you to make up your own minds about these players."
