Therre is one postive and a string of negatives to Morne Steyn's kicking game. Lets look at the positive in the first instance and state that he still have an 80% goal kicking accuracy rate. That is a real positive.
Now lets look at the negatives:-
Missed Penalty Line Kicks
The missed line kick penalty of yesterday is obviously clearly in mind of most people now - but the question is - is this not a tendency with Morne?
After all he did it twice in the Eden Park test last year, once at the Ellis Park test last year, twice in the French test last year.
That indicates a repetitive deficiency that regularly comes to the for in the case of Morne Steyn.
When to kick and when not to kick
Here we have a problem with Morne as well - he is clueless when to kick and when not to. The most glaring example was in the Ellis Park test last year - but it shows itself again in both the Pretoria and Salta tests this year when Morne kicked away balls he should have passed because of clear overlaps outside of him.
This is nothing new in Morne - he never really had the ability to read games and adjust the strategy based on reading of the game.
A robotic player who has to be told in advance what to do in games - and he does it religiously.
Accuracy in kicking game
Morne has some really serious problems in the relevant regard. He is really guilty of aimless kicking - ie kicks that cannot be followed up because they are not strategic and merely serves as a handover of ball possession to the opposition - allowing them to counter-attack - putting the Springboks under pressure.
The second problem is that he tends to kick balls directly into touch when they should not even be kicked. This is a continuous problem - for example It happened in the Welsh tests in June and in the Salta test. It gives attacking possession to the opposition and is a serious negative.
Morne routinely stand very deep in the pcoket to prevent it - but his kciks have been charged down in the past and it happened in the Pretoria rest against the Pumss as well.
I could not define that kick by Morne at minutes 13-14 yesterday other than to refer to a similarly poor kick during the Brumbies game alstyear - where Morne also made a kick that cause the loss of the game by the Bulls.
Concluision
One wonders sometimes why Morne is not the regular starting flyhalf of Sttade Francais and a fter seeing some of his performances in France - itis clear that the above deficiencies are in evdence at his club too - and that his kciking game is part of the reason fro his benching.
