Last year Ebersohn was a popular pick for Bok centre, but despite an excellent S15 he never made HM's list. This year Sadie is the most consistent player we have at 13, he has excellent stats and a number of highly rated games, but he may suffer Ebersohn's fate. Here is a summary of his season:
80 runs gaining 490 metres.....an average of 6.12 metres a carry.
Twelve clean breaks or a break every 6.6 runs....pretty impressive
Ten defenders beaten or a defender beaten every 8 runs...a bit less impressive but workmanlike
Balanced offloads to turnovers 10 to 11
And 75 tackles made out of 86 for a high 87% ratio.
These are great numbers and Sadie at 6' 2" and 96kgs is almost the perfect physical type for outside centre. So why do I think HM may not have Sadie in mind?
It comes down to the step up to test rugby. To make an impression in tests, you have to have a few obvious weapons that can hurt an opponent. JdV, for example, has a great cut onto a pass and the ability to step through the best tackles with a long stride.
What does Sadie have? Nothing very obvious. Certainly his defence is sound, without being punishing in any sense. But at 13 security is more important....he passes that test.
What of the attack. Well the lad has gained big yards at a high metres per carry....6.12 is nothing to sneeze at. But he has only beaten 10 defenders....de Jongh for example has beaten 9 defenders in less than half the games. This makes an impression on the viewer.
To me Sadie feels like a clever player who breaks the line by being in the right place, by running dangerous angles. He doesn't seem to have all that much horsepower to break tackles and as we saw in his long run yesterday, he has decent pace but not unusual pace. All this is consistent with more impressive clean break numbers than defenders beaten numbers.
Does this amount to somebody who will make a difference at test level? I fear not.
