Morne Steyn vs Ruan Pienaar

[Zyzzyva]

You have to admit its quite funny this thread is still going.

 

[dirkieman]

They should play De Wet Ras man

 

[LancelotSA]

I am on my phone so haven't done a search to see if this has been posted yet but quite interesting to see what Mike Greenaway has to say in this morning's Mercury about the team selection to face the Wallabies.....

I am not able to find it online so I will retype excerpts of it here :

In the unchanged Springbok team to play the Wallabies on Saturday there are two positions of particular interest to me, one for the presence of an invaluable player, the other for the debatable but hardly controversial presence of another.

And before you pro-Steyners jump to conclusion the former refers to Brussouw which he then goes on to talk about. The latter is Morne Steyn which he later refers to as follows in reference to him saying it is debatable:

I can see eyebrows raising? What debate? Howe could you even think of dropping our new super hero? Well it is not about dropping, more about horses for courses because the All Blacks and Wallabies come from very different paddocks but more of that later.

Later he then explains :

On the subject of Pienaar.... well he is our best attacking flyhalf by some margin, a gifted, natural runner of the ball who really is reminiscent of the brilliant Larkham, and the Bok coaches took a bold step of moving him from scrumhalf to flyhalf so that his talents could be best exploited.

Then an ankle injury opened the door for his childhood mate, Morne Steyn, to kick himself into Springbok history.

It reminds me of the 1999 Rugby World Cup. After the tournament, Nick Mallett told me he had two major regrets - dropping Gary Teichmann and not recalling Henry Honiball for the semi-final against the Wallabies " for a different set of circumstances to the England game", as he put it.

Honiball had missed the quarter-final because of a hamstring injury, andin came Jannie De Beer and his five drop goal heroics.

Honiball was passed fit the next week but Mallett chose to remain with the hot kicking game of the Free Stater.

I will never forget Tim Horan saying after the victory : "When we ran out and saw no Honiball, we knew we would win."

I am not saying I would be brave enough to drop Morne Steyn, nor am I convinced that would be the way to go this week, I am merely providing some food for thought, because Pienaar is the one who could orchestrate the total game that overwhelmed this same Aussie team at Ellis Park this time last year when Butch James was flyhalf.

Now as much as you may assume Mike and I are the same person we aren't and yet his words pretty much echo what a lot of us have been saying! And yes I do not doubt we will have claims of him only wanting Sharks players as he is a Natalian but I think you'll find he knows a little bit about rugby......

 

[killadoob]

Biased article by a sharkie as usual.

Damn these sharkies are biased , by some margin? Guess he does not talking about kicking though because there is no way by some margin would come up
Who cares though, steyn is in the team and only 2 more sleeps til we see what he can or if he has some problems

 

[BrianStephan]

MS had a brilliant performance last week scoring 31 pts but his tactical kicking was at times found wanting eg (cross kick that gave the AB a very gd attacking position and they scored a try from it) and he couldnt get the backline going. If the Aussies put pressure on him from that perspective we are going to be in serious trouble and dont come with the Super 14 he did this and he did that its not Super 14 it Test Rugby and u fail to mention the tackle he missed that resulted in a AB try. So I dont care who is the number 10 as long as they can kick, get the backline moving and can make very gd tactical decisions

 

[GreGorGy]

Biased article by a sharkie as usual.

Damn these sharkies are biased , by some margin? Guess he does not talking about kicking though because there is no way by some margin would come up
Who cares though, steyn is in the team and only 2 more sleeps til we see what he can or if he has some problems

This article fails to take sooo much into account, including that ELVs have since been introduced and that the kicking game once more has as much place as a running game. In fact, the secret to the Bulls S14 success was their ability to direct game play into kicking, forcing mistakes and generally putting the boot in.

So, some of those things have since changed again but the fundamentals are there. I am curious if the writer of this article was as quick to critique RP when he was chosen over MS to start the first test. By the author's own account, MS was far better suited to the NZ type game than the Oz. So, then, these horses for these courses - why were they not being served from the beginning?

Oh, I know, cos the sharkies want their player over the BULLS star no matter what. And if the current set of facts don't suit their argument, they have a whole new set ready and waiting.

Every now and then, their comes a time to sit down shut up and enjoy being wrong while the country celebrates victory. You could of course be the fly in the ointment for everyone, secretly cheering for an Oz win so that you can say I TOLD YOU SO.

 

[RanzB]

"When we ran out and saw no Honiball, we knew we would win."

The sentiments of quite a few teams of the 90's.

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

lol, that Mike Greenway article is extremely tame compared to some of the carp that spews forth out of papers such as Beeld and Co

 

[Devill]

If Pienaar can learn to kick Steyn can learn how to send the backline away ....

 

[killadoob]

If Pienaar can learn to kick Steyn can learn how to send the backline away ....

This is what i said a while back when meph and lance said they should stick with pienaar and get his kicking game going.

I asked why they cannot teach morne and the sharkies kept quite and never answered

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

Belligerence and being arrogant doesn't suit you ..........

 

[Devill]

This is what i said a while back when meph and lance said they should stick with pienaar and get his kicking game going.

I asked why they cannot teach morne and the sharkies kept quite and never answered

Rabit Peinaar zealots can't make any sense barring "PIENAAR IS KING", "HIS TALENT HAS NEVER BEFORE BEEN SEEN", "HE ONLY NEEDS HIS TOKS AND A THONG AND HE WILL WIN THE TRI-NATIONS MAN ALONE". They are a special bunch

 

[killadoob]

Yea but why is it you can tell us too teach pienaar and stick with him and not say anything about teaching morne.

O i am not arrogant at all, i just ask questions that may seem arrogant but in fact are just questions unless you are talking about devill in which case ignore my comment

 

[sand_man]

If Pienaar can learn to kick Steyn can learn how to send the backline away ....

Personally I think it's a fallacy that Morne can't get the backline away. You telling me the Bulls won the Super14 with a flyhalf incapable of getting the backline away? I think not. He may not be as fleet footed and dynamic on attack as Ruan is but he can distribute just as well if not better.

People get the impression Ruan gets the backs away better possibly because he passes more than he kicks as kicking is the current weakness in his game. When you kick as well as Morne does neither the scrumhalf nor the fullback need to do the kicking for him so he plays to his strengths which involves the kicking game but then risks being labelled a flyhalf that doesn't get his backline away. Rubbish I say..

 

[Devill]

Personally I think it's a fallacy that Morne can't get the backline away. You telling me the Bulls won the Super14 with a flyhalf incapable of getting the backline away? I think not. He may not be as fleet footed and dynamic on attack as Ruan is but he can distribute just as well if not better.

People get the impression Ruan gets the backs away better possibly because he passes more than he kicks as kicking is the current weakness in his game. When you kick as well as Morne does neither the scrumhalf nor the fullback need to do the kicking for him so he plays to his strengths which involves the kicking game but then risks being labelled a flyhalf that doesn't get his backline away. Rubbish I say..

Try and get that through to BrianStephan... He says S14 isn't test rugby and thus MS can not be judged on that

I also made the point that even in the S14 finals, which is tradisionally a kicking game with fewer tries, he sent our backline away beautifully.

Some people just want to see steyn fail and they try and think up any excuse.

Rather be happy MS and Pienaar are both great flyhalfs....

 

[sand_man]

Try and get that through to BrianStephan... He says S14 isn't test rugby and thus MS can not be judged on that

Exactly and Ruan hardly imposed himself on the Super14 stage so why would anyone think he would cut it at test level

Rather be happy MS and Pienaar are both great flyhalfs....

Truthfully Ruan actually not a great flyhalf, he is a pretty ordinary flyhalf, he was an outstanding scrumhalf but he is green at 10. Will he become a great flyhalf, certainly has the talent but personally I would have left him at scrumhalf...

 

[Devill]

Exactly and Ruan hardly imposed himself on the Super14 stage so why would anyone think he would cut it at test level
Truthfully Ruan actually not a great flyhalf, he is a pretty ordinary flyhalf, he was an outstanding scrumhalf but he is green at 10. Will he become a great flyhalf, certainly has the talent but personally I would have left him at scrumhalf...

I would play him on the bench so we have flyhalf and scrummie covered and then we can bring in an extra prop or even Kanko.

 

[Gothan]

People people, you all know this argument is for naught, because its not about Pienaar or Steyn, basically the question is, how super good will Spies be this weekend?

 

[killadoob]

Spies is amazing, i don't think he is human.

He is an evolved human, the super human

 

[Devill]

People people, you all know this argument is for naught, because its not about Pienaar or Steyn, basically the question is, how super good will Spies be this weekend?

Glad that he has silenced his critics with his steady performance on defence and his workload in the tighter games.

FFS the guy is only 24 this year and brussouw is only 23

We have a some great years ahead for SA rugby IMO