If White has not learnt by now is one basic thing 0 then I will eat my hat. White is a much more alert coach than Plumtree - who realized after 4 matches last year th same thing.
That jey issue is that to play Francois Steyn in any position in any backline means that the backline goes DEAD - irrespective of where he plays in the backline. Mozart and boklogic would hate it - but I am going to quote Steyn's stats for the year and give some practical examples of what he does to a backline.
Steyn
0/1
63
45/56/66
104
0
8
5
17
58/15
0/0
10
0/0
Lets analyse the above stats ans see where we get
Try Assists : In the first match this year Steyn made a cross kick that assisted Ndungane to score a try - nothing since.
Conversions : 63 points gained from conversions, Of these 15 was long distance penalties other players would not have converted - the remainder was not really all that difficult.
Kicking Game : Steyn handled the ball 167 times, Of those he kicked 45 (27.9%) - the vast majority of these kicks were totally ineffective and means only handing over ball possession to the opposition.
Passing game : Steyn passed 56 balls (33.5%) - His passing game was often enough inaccurate leading to ball losses by the recipients. He and he made totally ineffective skip passes which eliminated overlaps.
Ball carrying : Steyn carried the ball 66 times with very poor results as uis evident from the average distance per carry gained
Carry Distance gained : 104 meters -average gain per carry 1,55 meters - very poor
Line Breaks : Zero
Tackles Beaten : In his first three matches he beat 8 tackles - in the last 5 Zero
Off Loads : 3
Ball Possession Losses : 17 - very poor show
Tackle stats : Steyn made 58 tackles - missing 15 - for a missed tackle ratio of 20,54%. Way too high to be acceptable.
Penalties given away : 10 - totally unacceptable
SUMMARY
Problem is the stats does not reflect cases where he just stood looking on while attacking players ran past him without even an attempted tackle and where his reading of the game was atrociously poor. When the ball was to be kept in hand - he kicked mainly directly into the hands of a defender.
Steyn is a player with a massive hype following = but since his return to SA - he showed zip - but poor performances and they a re getting poorer with every game he played in.
