A kick of 55m stood between the Springboks and a memorable lions test win. A packed crowd full of red and green and journalists in just about every corner. This is the pressure that Morne Steyn took on when he asked his captain to take the kick on Saturday afternoon. On his home ground Steyn saw Francois Steyn appear out the corner of his eye, the springboks normal longer kick specialist, but insisted to his captain he was the man for the job.
He couldn’t have been more right. In fact that kick could have been ten meters further back and perhaps Steyn still would have had enough to put it over. He described it as one of the best kicks he has had and what a time to do it. The conversion he had just a few minutes earlier was just as impressive. Jaques Fourie’s try was as close to the corner as they come and Steyn made it look simple. One can’t imagine how Ruan Pienaar must have felt to see Steyn look the hero at the expense of himself who perhaps had the worst kicking day of his life. A week earlier Pienaar couldn’t miss but this time round at Loftus it was a totally different story.
It will be interesting now to see what Peter De Villiers does with his starting lineup. He has been critizised already about making Pienaar his flyhalf and now with a remarkable talent in Steyn he certainly has to change his plans. Will it happen? Knowing De Villiers I would imagine not without a fight. He has so far shown favoritism towards Pienaar and while I believe he is a good player, his place needs to be taken by Steyn for the good of the team.
Brussouw is another player that I’m not sure about. Sure I think he is a brilliant player and he showed it this weekend but whether he should start is something different. I imagine that he is a lot more effective as an impact player because of his strength. I believe this weekend in the final game against the lions, which is effectively a dead rubber game, would be a good chance to try him from the start but he is human and towards the end of the game when it counts most he won’t be as strong as he would be being brought on from the bench. With Schalk out for eight weeks he may have to be used for a while starting but when Schalk comes back I wouldn’t be angry to see Brussouw move back to the bench.
The Tri Nations is coming up and this year we finally have a good chance of winning the tournament after our last success came five years ago in 2004. The way the team was able to come back showed guts especially when they didn’t deserve to win the game. So many times in the past the Boks have played brilliant rugby and deserved to be the winning team but fell on the losing end because of little mistakes. New Zealand are not looking as strong as they have in the past, defeated by France on home soil was not expected and while a win this week restored pride to a certain degree they will have to be a lot better to defend against the boks who’s attack was incredible this past weekend. Australia meanwhile shouldn’t challenge their southern hemisphere rivals but that doesn’t mean they will go down without a fight. Australia have always been good competitors and whatever team they put out you know they wont lay down to be run over by opposition.
Anyway whatever happens I hope the decisions made by the coach don’t cause too much of a rift between the players in the team. I wish the cameras could have shown Pienaars reaction to Steyns kicks this weekend, was he happy or angry.
While still on the topic of the Boks I hope coach De Villiers gets hammered for using the race card on those who said Ricky Januarie is out of form. It is so often that you hear of somebody of colour calling white people racists when they express their opinion of a person of colour and is something they don’t want to here. That really is so twenty years ago and we don’t need that in sport, certainly not by the coach of the squad. De Villiers certainly continues his foot in mouth disease without the slightest hint that a cures on the way.
All for now,
Cheers Justin
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