Will simply recapturing his metronomic best place-kicking standards against Argentina at Newlands on Saturday be enough to cement Morne Steyn’s ongoing place in the Springbok side?
Sport24
That is a million-dollar question on the lips of many observers, and obviously best answered at some point by the man who has shown undying faith in the Bulls No 10 for several years, Bok coach Heyneke Meyer.
It was an area of Steyn’s game – undoubtedly his strongest suit by reputation — that went unusually absent without leave in the recent series against England, where his place-kicking record dropped to below 60 percent.
And if Steyn is missing his shots at the posts, the argument goes, how else does he justify retention by the national team?
So the 28-year-old is probably under at least a certain amount of dual pressure in the opening Bok assignment of the Castle Rugby Championship: get his mojo off the tee back quickly and also demonstrate that he does have the broader attributes to bother the very best the southern hemisphere has to offer as the tournament roster only gets more daunting for the Boks.
Officially, at present, Steyn is unsurprisingly not feeling any special flak.
At a media briefing on Sunday, backline coach Ricardo Louscher only uttered routinely: “He’s been a professional for a long time … he will know what he needs to work on.”
Loubscher also repeated what captain Jean de Villiers had said a few days previously: that the clean-cut flyhalf had played his part in some of the tries the Boks scored against England.
Such statements may carry a ring of truth, when you replay video evidence of the three-Test series, but there’s also a case for saying you would expect your No 10 to be reasonably central to various attacking plays anyway, given his positional stationing on the park.
Interestingly, at least two critics in New Zealand, home of World Cup champions the All Blacks, chose at the weekend to pinpoint Steyn as some sort of restrictive handbrake to consistent Bok success.
Columnist and former Test bad-boy front-ranker Richard Loe said in the New Zealand Herald: “(South Africa’s) biggest selection question is over first five-eighth (flyhalf).
“If they select Morne Steyn, that will slow down their attacking play. They need a (flyhalf) who runs on to the ball and can get their backline away; they have some interesting characters in that backline … such as Frans Steyn in midfield alongside Jean de Villiers.
“That gives them some real crunch going forward and on defence – (but) having someone like Steyn at 10 also tends to rob them of the spark that can come from (scrumhalf) Francois Hougaard.”
Loe suggested, nevertheless, that the Boks still posed the biggest threat to the All Blacks in the new, four-nation event.
“As ever, South Africa will be a danger to all teams at home – even the All Blacks, I’d suggest. Because of their forwards’ shortcomings, I think the Wallabies will struggle to win either of the two Tests against the Boks.”
Similar views were expressed in the same paper by scribe Gregor Paul: “It is hard to see it being anything but a two-horse race (between the All Blacks and Boks).
“There is significant playmaking talent in the Bok squad. Pat Lambie has vision, Elton Jantjies can run and pull strings and even Frans Steyn can slip into No 10 and get the backline moving.
“SA coach Meyer is a big believer in Morne Steyn, though. Steyn is a brilliant goal-kicker, great punter and an excellent but limited tactical navigator. He delivers the basic game the Boks revel in but they will never really hurt teams with him running the show.”
That is the sort of backdrop of public scrutiny, both here and abroad, against which Morne Steyn starts the Castle Rugby Championship on Saturday.
In fairness, he has allayed fears around his general footballing finesse and vision before, and there have certainly been good periods when the Bulls have not struggled for tries in Super Rugby with him in their flyhalf slot.
But if the Boks look unacceptably sterile as an attacking force even in victory against the Pumas this weekend, you can bet Steyn’s detractors will only crank it up like never before…
Morne Syeyn’s main job is kicking to posts and that is where the he and the Boks will fail or succeed. In other words if he succeeds at posts, the Boks stand a chance, but if he fails, the Boks will have no chance against the Blacks.
The ole toppies here will remember and I’m sure still be bitter about the Boks loss to the Lions in 1997. We had the world’s best defensive flyhalf who was not bad at attack and distributing either, called “Lem”. However, he was terribly inconsistent at kicking for goal. The Lions had a pathetic flyhalf called Neil Jenkins but he was a dead eye kicker. The Boks scored 3 tries but Lem missed all his kicks that day – 3 conversions and 3 penalties, while Jenkins kicked 5 out of 5 penalties to continuously keep the Lions within reach and then to draw level with the Boks, where Jeremy Guscott managed to win the match with a drop!
It was so painful seeing a superior Bok team losing because our kicker was shyte! And Lem was not a bad fly half! In fact he had a good game…. except for kicking to posts.
@ grootblousmile:
This is what my main problem is against HM. Steyn is not on form. He has been struggling all season with his kicking to posts. Everyone knows it, also his defenders like you. Yet HM persisted with letting him take the kicks at the cost of the third test to England. Yes, HM’s stubbornness cost us that test to England and that I will always remember. Anyone can make a mistake, but when you repeatedly persist with the same strategy expecting and hoping for things to change, that’s unforgivable. Choose the player who is the in form kicker or give the kicking duties to some one else. But no, for three tests he persisted and persisted and persisted so that even the SA crowd at the test in PE was booing Morne. The player didn’t deserve it. He doesn’t pick himself.
If Morne comes right and finds form in the next tests, HM will just be lucky. You are judged on how you handle adversity, not when things go your way.
@ The_Young_Turk:
Would be so much better if our No 10 could kick for points as well as run the ball. We have that in Goosen, Jantjies and Lambie. Steyn when on song is deadly. Sure he can run the ball and has an eye for the gap, but is not as good the 3 youngsters. But, he does have a lot more experience, and that will count in pressure situations. When Goosen is back, I think he should start for SA. When he plays for the Cheetahs, they are a different side. Some work for the statistitions out there: What is the Cheetah’s win/loss ratio with Goosen starting, and when he is not in the side?
The whole reason that Morne Steyn got into the Bok side in the first place was that Ruan Pienaar was an inconsistent kicker who failed at the big moments. Then Morne came along and he had awesome BMT and never failed! If our kicker is not doing the job we need another kicker. Simple as that.
@ Lion4ever:
I am not even discussing all the other facets of fly half play. I agree with you obviously that it would be even better if we could have a complete fly half like Goosen seems to be. Unfortunately he was injured and so couldn’t be in the picture against England and will first need to recover to be considered.
I dont know the stats offhand, but I do remember the game where Goosen got injured, before the injury the Cheetahs were looking great, after he went off they looked like a totally different side with no confidence and things just started to go wrong from there on. Maybe just coincidence but I dont think so, I think he gives the side a massive mental boost.
35 @ The_Young_Turk:
Johan Goosen is an unknown quantity or quality at present, had half a dozen or so Super Rugby matches, and in the process injured first his one shoulder and then the other. So there are lagging questions surrounding him… can he come back great, is he a perrenial injury concern, will his form continue or will opposition teams find weak spots in his armoury?
He has possibilities, marvelous ones, and I’m desperately hoping he shapes well coming back from injury… because that might just alleviate our whole SA flyhalf conundrum.
At the moment we sit with a given situation AND we sit with foul weather to consider for Saturday…. so it’s either Morné Steyn or Lambie or Elton Jantjies… each with their flawed situations.
If you argue from a Sharks supporter’s perspective, the choice would be Lambie at flyhalf… even though he had a shocker in the Super Rugby Final and was injured before that.
If you argue from a Bulls perspective, the choice would be the man in the saddle, Morné Steyn, despite his kicking woes… we know his potential as a dead-eye-Dick.
If you argue Elton Jantjies’ case, there would be those like me who deems him suspect on defence and often enough suspect from the kicking tee too.
So, each to his own, I say… and the coach has to make a decision… and I believe we have to accept and stand by that decision for now, notwithstanding the fact that even I am getting concerned about it.
Other positions are much more clearcut for me, barring injuries to other players and unavailability of others – Spies would not have been there… and maybe he should’nt be there now anyway. Scrumhalf is another pivotal position and we have our views about that too, all of us.
I think what we generally agree on though, a common ground, is that the Springboks (and the Blue Bulls as well as the Western Province for that matter) needs some game plan changes and changes in overall strategy… and for me the possession game with much less of a kick-at-all-costs strategy needs to be implimented at the Springboks, the Blue Bulls and WP. The Bokke actually looked good and superior with ball in hand during the England Tests… 2nd Half 1st Test, 1st Half 2Nd Test.
Puma wrote:
Puma wrote:
All i can say about Reunion is dont TRUST them
@ The_Young_Turk:
34
true
@ grootblousmile:
37
great points you made here, i could even say that i could not have said it better.
Jantjes will score you more tries, but if the better players around him(if he plays the Bok starting line up) might just plug enough holes.
My opinion about the Stormers fail this year is well known, they simply did not score enough points(especially tries) their defense was absolute brilliant.
One try , converted means you need at least 3 penalties to pass, simple as that.
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