Among South Africa's batch of talented young players at this year's Rugby World Cup, inside centre Damian de Allende has emerged as the most influential in the pool stages.
De Allende claimed the man of the match award in South Africa's 64-0 rout of the United States on Wednesday, ahead even of hat-trick scorer Bryan Habana.
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His prize was deserved for his creative play off young flyhalf Handre Pollard, but also a rock-solid defence that has become a feature of his game.
The 23-year-old has played a telling role in the Boks conceding just a single try in their last three World Cup matches -- and that an intercept effort by Scotland.
Despite his growing reputation, De Allende maintains he is still learning and working out how to get the best out of electric outside centre Jesse Kriel.
Their partnership has ensured the loss of experienced captain and centre Jean de Villiers through injury has not been a serious problem for the Springboks.
"It has been a good year for me, but I wouldn't say I am comfortable. Far from it," De Allende told reporters on Thursday. The Bok youngsters at 10, 12 and 13 have been a major positive in a year that has had more lows than highs.
"It has been a good introduction to international rugby, and we do enjoy playing together, but we all know we still have a lot to learn," he said.
"Hopefully, we have long international careers in front of us, but right now we are just at the beginning and have a lot of progress to make still."
Pollard and Kriel play for the Bulls Super Rugby team, though the latter featured at fullback in 2015. De Allende turns out for the Cape Town-based Stormers.
"We've known each other for about a year and we enjoy each other's company away from the field too. That does help," De Allende said.
"Over the past year we have come a long way together. But while there has been a lot of growth, there's still a lot of improvement that can be done.
"We are a long way from feeling completely comfortable at this level of rugby."
The trio will be tested again when they meet Wales or Australia in the World Cup quarter-finals at Twickenham on Oct. 17.
It is clear that neither is a finished product and the fact that they are still on a learning curve - as stated quite categorically by De Allende - is encouraging and is indeed a positive.
What is absolutely clear is that Mozart's efforts to state that two missed tackles and his description of De Allende as tractoring is career-defining is absolute tripe to be dismissed with the scorn it deserves. His latest comment that Kriel is physically deficient is equally at best nonsence of the first order.
Where I - and as a fact most independent observers differ from DF is the issue of the physicality of De Allende. He is a very strong ball carrier in traffic as well as outside of it - as is evidenced by -
* the fact that it normally takes two or even three tacklers to bring him down and he always manage to go forward in tackles;
* the fact that he routinely beats more tackles than any other center at present plying his trade - in Super 15 this year he was the center with the highest number of line breaks and the highest number of tackles beaten in Super 15, and in the WC games he played in the numbers were equally impressive, namely 4 line breaks and 18 defenders beaten;
* the fact that he is becoming more prominent in breakdown ball protection and recovery, as well as turnover recovery of balls is evidently only possible through physical strength (he for instance made 3 such turnovers in the Scotland test)
Mozart is always harping on defense - and it is granted that there was room for improvement in the Aussie test in the RC - but the constant refrain is rubbish - since De Allende is making improvement in tackle deficiency in tests,
What was particluarly interesting for me was the constant reference by DF to Kuridrani as the best center at present. In the two tests Kuridrani made 1 line break beating 2 defenders. His tackle stats were also not at all impressive - namely 10 tackles made and 5 missed. Not really top c;ass p[erformance on any account.
Be it as it may - it is clear that our future center combination would involve De Allende and Kriel and the jeremiads of Mozart in particular is based on nopthing but prejudice against the player.
