Looks Like Morne Steyn is starting against Australia and Allblacks- Meyer refuses to bow to pressure

September 24 2012 at 11:13pm 
By Ken Borland

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(File image) Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer (foreground) is not ready to give up on flyhalf Morne Steyn despite his recent poor form.

Pretoria - South Africa's under-fire flyhalf Morne Steyn could keep his place in the side to face Australia on Saturday in the Rugby Championship following injuries to Francois Steyn and Johan Goosen.

Morne Steyn missed 11 points with wayward kicks when South Africa lost 21-11 to the All Blacks in Dunedin on September 15 but his obvious replacement Goosen has a bruised heel.

The 20-year-old took part in some training in Pretoria on Monday, albeit barefoot.

Goosen's injury, and the possibility that the Springboks will lose 53 caps worth of experience at inside centre if Francois Steyn cannot play, could delay what seems an inevitable changing of the guard.

“You obviously want to give players a break when they are fatigued, but if I hadn't called Morne Steyn into the test squad then he would play Currie Cup for the Bulls,” coach Heyneke Meyer told journalists at Loftus Versfeld on Monday.

“The pressure won't go away for him, the Bulls are also under pressure. It's best to keep him involved with us, he's taken a lot of criticism, but you're still working with a human being and I can see that he is himself again back at home.

“I'm not just going to throw Morne away, he just kicked badly and Johan is not 100 percent and I've been bringing him through slowly. If I bowed to public pressure, then I would change the team every week.

“You can't just throw a whole bunch of 20-year-olds in against the Wallabies and All Blacks, they'll be slaughtered, and I won't push anyone unless they are 100 percent ready,” the coach added.

Francois Steyn injured his ankle and was on crutches as the squad practised, but team doctor Craig Roberts said a decision on the 25-year-old World Cup winner's availability would be made on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Having drawn with Argentina and lost to Australia and New Zealand on the road in their last three matches, South Africa take on the Wallabies at Loftus Versfeld in a last-ditch effort to stay in contention.

Meyer was confident his team could take the spoils against Australia despite a 26-19 defeat in Perth on September 8, after the Springboks failed to turn pressure into points.

“It will definitely be different playing Australia here compared to Perth, where we should have won,” he said.

“In the past we've done well against them at home and I have a good feeling about this team, it's definitely developing, there's a great vibe.” - Reuters

I think that Meyer would have persisted with Morne Syeyn and Kirchner come hell or high water.   The injuries to Francois Steyn and to Goosen is an conveninent excuse not to make the really necessary changes.   I guess that the next move is going to be to really destroy backline play completely.   

This would be to select De Villiers at 12 and De Jongh at 13 - the famous center combination of the Stormers that showed no sign of life throughout the Super 15 season.    Then with Kirchner at full back the star crew of useless backline players will be complete.   A real disaster for any form of attacking backline play again persisting.    Poor Habana and Hougaard will never see a usable ball ever.

I thought the Sprigboks had a good chance against a weakened Wallaby team - but this is now a 50:50 game with the Wallabies - if they play 15 man rugby against the Meyer brand of 10 man rugby they would be having the edge.    This time the Wallabies by 3 points,      Could even be more if the Wallabies play their best game of the season by attacking constantly with their backline.

I found Meyer's argument about 20-year olds superficial and  senseless.   If you have serious deficiencies and failure by the established players - then why not start to change the useless senior players?   If that be the norm - he would also refuse to play Taute at 13 and will retain the useless De Jongh in that position - hence my previous comments.

Headstrongness is not a good quality in such circumstances - it is a recipe for disaster.   Morne Steyn has a 50% goalkicking record this year and that would persist in Pretoria - nothing much to expected from that one.   Meyer always had the same mantra insofar as Morne is concerned - namely that Morne will come right sometimes or another.   But he never really showed any improvement now in all the tests played - yet the same comments again and again.   A real bad shock may change the situation ultimately - and will the Meyer excuse than be repeated?   Surely he must by now realize that he is flogging a dead horse.

I was very critical of Francois Steyn in earlier tests - but in Dunedin he did show some spark after Morne was replaced by Goosen - so now he is out too.   De Villiers at 12 would be a repeat of the disaster in the third test against the POMS.   Watch out for the crowd reaction at Pretoria - another failure would be a disaster for Meyer - so lets hope it is not.   But I am not optimistic - even a narrow loss would be disastrous under the circumstances.

Bad news all round - so I am getting despondent about the selection criteria of Meyer.   In my posts on Meyer as a coach - I was fairly even-handed about him - but he is really getting very pedestrian in his selection criteria and I am really losing hope in this case. 

Dear Mr Admin, just a question, are all kiwis being blocked from this site?  I noticed loggin onto this site, ive been directed to another site called adoptafarm.  lol.  With sheep noises in the background.  So the jokes on us, nice one saffas. lol.   I was only able to login when i routed an ip address via america.

Henry

I do not think that the Editor would intefere in this case.   Probably some compter program hick-ups or some computer hacks got in the way- even we could not log in at times over the past too weeks though and they had to deal with programming adjustments.   Hope it is corrected - bceause I think that with rare exceptions posters like you and Sasue from New Zealand is really tops from a discussion perspective. 

Has Deans had time to discuss the Wallabies gameplan with Morne yet? When not to kick goals, when to throw hospital passes :-))

Darn shame... I was drooling at the prospect of watching Goosen start... already had imagined him putting the centers into space, using Hougaard and Habana in midfield (similar to what Cooper does with Ioane)...

Guess we'll have to wait. Hopefully Morne "finds" some form with his boot, aided by the altitude and his home crowd. If he fails again this weekend, we'll really see whether HM has what it takes to make the changes the Boks TRULY need to improve. *crossing fingers*

hakwa

Spot on - but Deans does not need to discuss it with Morne at all - he can expect it 100% of the time to happen anyway.   There is no chance that Steyn would improve his 50% goalkicking performance - neither his kicking and passing performance.   Morne is the nicest person playing rugby - but he is hopelessly out of form and hopelessly inadequate in the format of rugby applied by thinking coaches.   Other than Meyer - no decent coach will retain him as a pivot in such circunstances - Meyer is making a fool of himself in keeping Morne in that position