Thiis issue has been dealt with earlier after I gave a detailed breakdown as to why Francois Steyn was ineffective as a 12 after his return from France. I expected some response from the above two members in the issues raised in the following issues raised by me:-
"Sharkbok
Your assessment is correct as to what is required from a 12. I want to quote -
"The crashballer must be big, heavy and fast."
'The crash must be a run between 2 backline players to pull in opposition backs to create space. "
Those are two critical issues and one has to ask some serious questions I intend to deal with in this case.
Big, Heavy and Fast issue
There is no way that any athletic player can be the height of Steyn weighing in at 118 to 120 kgs. The accepted ratio between height and weight of such a player is somewhere between 105 and 108 kgs, 118 to 120 kgs may be fine for a prop forward - provided they have a broad bone structure, but certainly not for a backline player like Steyn. He does not have the built of a prop - he was a rather slim and stringy guy of about 98 to a 100 kgs in 2007-08 - when he was in his top form.
The fact that he is 20 kgs heavier means that he carries too much fat in his system. That inevitably means that it effects his speed and athleticism. It has one other negative. In defence Steyn has shown deficiencies stemming from his lack of speed. If a player runs straight at him - no problem - running at an angle and at speed and there is a grave problem. Just go and look if you can at the brumbies game last year and you would see what happened. Unfortunately that was not the only game it happened in and his missed tackle ratio is higher than it should be.
Summary : At present Steyn is BIG - but way to HEAVY for a backline player - with a NEGATIVE AFFECT ON HIS SPEED.
Running Lines of Crashballer
There are a number of issues here insofar as Steyn is concerned. One relates to the line of running - ie aiming at a position between two defenders - ie drawing in one defender to create space. A second equally important one is his bodily position and aim in carrying the ball.
The problem with Steyn is he does not aim at a space between two defenders - he runs straight at his opponent. That could be the result of his speed deficiency already mentioned - but one thing is obvious and has been proven conclusively since his return from France and that is that he has never created space for his teammates by drawing in defenders.
The second problem is more difficult to explain. I have looked at Steyn's bodily position when carrying balls. He is bent forward in running with balls - aiming to brush defenders aside by using his shoulder and arms (much like a Bismarck, Etzebeth and other forwards do) and in the process rather than to try and break through defenders by carrying the ball at speed the angle result in two things, namely -
* his aim has an inevitable result - already aiming to be going to ground when tackled - he goes down when the first tackler gets to him; and
* the bodily position prevents him from making accurate ball off-loads in tackle situations.
Insofar as the latter issue is concerned - Steyn's off loads consist of dropping balls back and not passing them in tackle situations. However, it also means that the crashball and off-loads result in an inevitable maul - not carrying on with the attack.
Members of this site thinks I am against players because of prejudice or ignorance - but I make a study of players in virtually every game they play in and if there are tendencies I would pick them up.
One other requirement missing in Steyn is ball sense and making of quick decisions. He was tried at one stage as a flyhalf - but it did not work out - he took too long to make decisions. At center he plays a one-dimensional game - he is utterly predictable and he hogs balls because of that single-minded approach.
Steyn - when I first saw him play at full back - was a miracle player. He then had speed as well - something that went amiss in recent years because of the weight issue. He has had more time at full back to decide at issues - and can with speed run at an angle to make life difficult for opposing teams. Last year he played at full back a few times and he did carry the ball - but was ineffective because of his speed deficiency. In one case where he did succeed in breaking a tackle and put the next player in space - and that was a sole one - the resulting pass by Steyn went so far forward the recipient could not get to the ball.
SUMMARY
There are in fact a number of issues White would have to get right before Steyn would be an effective no 12. He would have to get him back to the required athleticism by getting him to a reasonable weight of not more than 110 kgs at an upper limit. He will have to get him to run faster - which could be done only with a reduction in weight. He would have to get him to change his running lines and style - and ultimately - he would have to get him to become effective in off-loading of balls after making space for other players.
Will White succeeds in getting the improvement and will Steyn be successful in getting over his deficiencies is he big question? I hope to see better results - but have my doubts - there are just too many hurdles to overcome in this case."
RESPONSES
Ceradyne concentrated on the weight issue only claiming that somewhere in March 2013 Steyn got his weight down from 118 kgs to 110 jgs - which according to Plumtree was still 4 to 5 kgs too heavy. The impact of weight on speed got lost in the process - and the serious question remains - what is his present weight and speed? Hopefully it will not be above 110 kgs.
Saffex basically said I was lying about Steyn's tendency to hog balls - nothing about the rest of the issues raised.
Sun Tzu wrote a praise song of how good Steyn was in all aspects of the game and
how I was lying about issues. Nothing about the very serious other issues raised above.
FURTHER COMMENTS
i responded as follows to the rather wild allegations made by Saffex and Sun Tzu - to which they did not respond - proving that I am correct on the issue:-
I really think that you make some unproven sweeping statements to try and detract from what I wrote above and will consequently dealt with it statistically:-
Steyn - the ball hogger
Steyn's bad reputation started off when he played in the tests in 2012 - where he jept possession of balls 725% of all balls handled and rarely passed balls to other players. However, those stats are not readily available and I am now going to give you the stats for the four games he played in for the Sgarks last year before he was dropped from the team:-
Balls handled = 68
Balls kicked = 9 - 13,4%
Balls passed = 27 - 39,9%
Balls kept = 32 - 47,9%
The above figures was an improvement on what he did in the tests in 2012 - but is still way sort of acceptability. Is Steyn a ball hogger? with those stats it is clear - he is one. The chances of another player getting a ball from Steyn is less than 4 out of 10 balls he handled.
Off loads
Because he is in tackle situations in the wrong bodily position effective off-loading of balls in his case is non-existent. In the vary rare case he may try to off-load balls it is a case where he tries to throw a ball back towards team mates - but since it does not represent a pass to anyone in specific - they must scramble to recover the ball and the end result is that they are even in a worse position than Steyn was.
None of his passes or off-loads in fact resulted in appreciable terriroty gain by the teams he represented.
Defenders Beaten
In the four matches under review Steyn -
* made 1 line break beating 2 defenders; and
* in the other three matches Steyn broke 4 tackles,
Not at all impressive taking into account he handled the ball 32 times. That is not convincing at all - he does not routinely beat defenders at all.
Summary
I do not hate Steyn - I always was an admirer of his and am severely disappointed in what I saw of him since his return from France. What I wrote is not based on lies and in any way ignorant or deceitful. It represents FACTS and not generalized hype of big words without proven substance.
I have written before that I wish Steyn would be back to the player he was in 2007 and 2008 and hope to see him recover form - but he has not recovered form and the question is - will he recover it in future? If he keeps on with what he has been die since his return fro France - he is no asset to any team he plays for.
IS THERE REALLY A PROBLEM
I believe there is a problem - I think that Steyn lost his mojo - and is regretfully not the player he used to be.
I tried to prove by example of what I believe went wrong in the case of Steyn and refers to serious issues that is amiss in his technique and physical condition. I expected a furious retort about the latter issues - but got none at all.
I expected to be torn apart by Saffex and Sun Tzu - but got nothing in return - no motivated response to point out where I was wrong in my assessment of the overall position affecting the performances of Steyn,
I regard this as a particularly serious issue and would like to hear from contributors about it - especially with the Super 15 getting closer and the impact Steyn can have on the Shark's campaign this year. What is your motivated viewpoints as to the above issues.
