First. I don't pretend to know it all when it comes to rugby. I've made this post to hopefully get some insight which i may be missing and which is causing me no end of frustration when watching our national team.
Let me start with Morne Steyn and what i feel picking his says about the way we want to play. Right, so lets assume for a moment that we are able to give Dan Carter, Quad Cooper and Morne Steyn some points out of ten for certain aspects of their roles.
Lets score them for kicking, attacking, defense and decision making.
We can pretty much break those fields down into two categories. Kicking and "the rest".
Now if you were to score these guys on their kicking game, all three would probably score near perfect marks out of ten. So we move on to "the rest" category. The category that talks about the other facets which they posses and can offer to the team. As far as i can tell Dan Carter is the pick of the three here and i would give him a 9/10. Actually i'd give him a 10/10 but screw it he's an All Black. Cooper, well probably pretty close to 10/10 too. Both of those guys are vipers on attack and read the game at near genius level. Then we get to Morne Steyn.
What would you guys give him out of ten, remembering we have already scored him for his kicking and this other score is now for the rest of his play. Really i struggle to see any reason to give him anything higher than a 5.5/10. Why, well i feel it's obvious. I watch and scrutinize every Bok game and i can't remember a single occasion where he has shown any sign of creativity or managed to put the opposition under pressure with his play. On the odd rare occasion he will kick the ball to a winger who may be in space, but this is about as attacking as i have seen him be. It seems he is capable of only two things 1) Kick 2) Just pass it on ASAP without any perceived perception of what is happening in the game around him. Is it just me who has noticed this?
So the question i have to ask is, why or earth do we pick him so consistently? After all, we have other kickers in the country who are able to do that job just perfectly whilst also posing somewhat of an attacking threat. Marnitz Boshoff being one of them and oh my god even Dean Elgar. Hell Frans Steyn has so many line breaks and set up tries for the Sharks this season that it baffles me why is not our first choice flyhalf(his knee problem maybe). The point being that we have so many other choices that would slot in beautifully with our back line which is looking deadlier all the time.
So i have given my opinion, it is just an opinion and i am asking that somebody out there with a rugby brain please help me figure this out. Really please help me see the Morne Steyn light because i'm so in the dark here that i dunno if my eyes are open or closed.
Now Ruan Pienaar.
So we already have a flyhalf who really just wants to kick because that's all he's got and he has to show it off as much as possible to remain in the team. But we also seem to be constantly picking probably the worst scrumhalf available for selection. Really, Du Preez, Hougard, Piet van Zyl, Vermaak and even Sean Macloed deserve the nod ahead of him. Anyone notice again how on Saturday the moment Du Preez came on the the back line was transformed almost instantly. This box kicking business of Ruan's. Between him and Morne Steyn i am surprised our back line ever get the ball. Not only that but his general awareness and freakish slow releasing of the ball is astounding to me. If any of you noticed, maybe not, at the weekends game, where his passes were going? If you can watch a replay take a look at the detail in it. The ball is always a bit high, a bit behind or just plainly misdirected...and this after he has taken three steps to steady himself for the pass. Is this not criminal?
Again can somebody please shed some light for me because maybe, very possible, there is something i am missing here. It would be great if somebody could unlock this seemingly unfathomable weirdness in our selection policy for me.
Anyhow all of this seems to me to mean one thing. We still wanna kick and chase. I swear the All Black backs must smile in their hearts every time we up and under/box kick from our 10 meter line. Oh thanks for the ball lads...we'll just run at you again and again and again. I remember a game from two years back where the Boks where trailing by 10 points with about 6 minutes to go and we were just kicking the ball to the ABs constantly. The Kiwi commentator actually said "What are the Springboks doing? Why do they insist on kicking the ball away constantly when they know they can't get points if they don't have the ball in hand?" To me, that sums it up perfectly.
My opinion is that we seem to think we manage to be no.2 in the world because of this kicking game of ours. Unfortunately i think that our insistence on kicking is holding us back from being number one consistenly . There is no way that anyone can say we cannot match NZ, Oz or England in terms of running talent in South Africa. As far as i can tell we have an embarrassment of riches in that department.
Again. Please shed some light on this one for me. It would really be great.
PS excuse the typos but i can't be arsed to edit.
