Why Boks must pick Butch
22 Feb 2011
MARK KEOHANE, writing in Business Day Sport Monthly, says Butch James won the World Cup in 2007 and now four years later, he should again be the preferred choice at No 10.
The significance of Butch James’ return to South Africa can’t be overstated. He is the most imposing flyhalf presence the Springboks can have at the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Some have mocked the Lions’ decision to invest in James, even if it is short term, but with James at flyhalf and Fourie du Preez at scrumhalf the Springboks have authority and direction in the one area they offered so little in 2010.
James, a Shark all his playing career in South Africa, will look odd in a Lions jersey, but it is how he looks in a green and gold jersey again that is more relevant this year.
James made his Bok debut in 2001 and he has yet to play 50 Tests in an era where three of his World Cup-winning team-mates have passed 100 Tests and the core of the 2007 winners have long gone past 50.
Don’t be blinded by this statistic and don’t be lulled by those who question James’ ability to last another year in professional rugby. Ever since his provincial debut those with a meeker disposition have wondered how he makes it through 80 minutes, let alone a season.
James has never put an emphasis on how many times he plays for his country. It is what he has done when playing for South Africa and his performance at the 2007 World Cup that has never been acknowledged in this country, especially his contribution in the final against England and his final 20 minutes against Fiji in a quarter-final that briefly suggested the Boks could lose.
Overseas they know the value of James wearing the No 10 jersey. In this country he has never enjoyed similar acclaim.
Coaches have played him at inside centre and then looked elsewhere when it failed. More traditional – and limited – flyhalves have been preferred. Wrongly, James’ field kicking game and goal kicking have been perceived as weak, but since 2007 he has managed the flow and control of matches as well as any No 10 in the game and his goal kicking has never been a weakness when playing for the Boks.
Critics have dismissed his value as easily as the greater South African rugby public has, but those who appreciate the psychology of Test rugby know that the Boks command greater respect from the opposition when James plays.
Morne Steyn has exceeded expectation since kicking the monumental penalty that beat the British & Irish Lions at Loftus in Pretoria and, at this juncture, he remains the selectors’ favourite to start the World Cup challenge in New Zealand.
Steyn’s goal kicking is his strength but it can be a selection weakness for the World Cup because it disguises the flaws in his game – deficiencies that were obvious in 2010 when there was no Du Preez on his inside to relieve pressure in decision-making and tactical approach.
Steyn, in 2010, kicked 42 successive penalties and conversions, but the Boks lost half the matches because their overall game required another dimension.
Pat Lambie, sensational in the Currie Cup tournament and wonderful in the final against Western Province, was used sparingly on the end-of-year tour and he may be a season away from making an international statement.
The reluctance to expose Lambie to the demands of starting at 10 in Ireland and the UK last November was a conservative decision because there isn’t time in 2011 for Lambie to serve a Test apprenticeship. Similarly, Lions flyhalf Elton Jantjies, whose only Bok appearance in the defeat against the Barbarians at Twickenham confirmed his national selection to be a year or three too early.
Jantjies isn’t good enough to be a World Cup consideration, and while Lambie will go to New Zealand in a utility role, the biggest fear must be how Steyn would shape in another enforced Du Preez absence. Steyn looked lost without Du Preez in 2010 and offered nothing outside the kick-and-chase game perfected in tandem with Du Preez in 2009.
Ulster-based Ruan Pienaar promised variation to the role post-2007 but there was no investment in what he could do at No 10 because he missed crucial kicks against the British & Irish Lions and was dropped. Frans Steyn, on his insistence, has been tried at No 10, but his best position is either No 12 or No 15.
South Africa, more than any country, has international flyhalf options, but it is James who must be nursed through 2011 as the go-to man if South Africa is to win successive World Cups.
His desire and motivation are obvious. He could have stayed at Bath, cashed in for another two seasons and retired on the international high of 2007. But he has opted to play his rugby in South Africa again and he has committed to putting his body through another season of torture in the hope of being a history maker.
James has been crippled by injuries like no other flyhalf in South Africa. His knees and shoulders have been through more surgeons than Elizabeth Taylor’s face and lesser individuals would have retreated to the sanctuary of a pension payout overseas. Not James.
He went to Bath three years ago to experience a different culture. Injury followed him, as it has done his entire career, but as he did in South Africa, he fought back. The strength of his mind is incredible and it is this mind that is stronger than the entire combined South African flyhalf contingent available for New Zealand.
Du Preez at No 9 is the best scrumhalf in the world. James, never spoken of as a Dan Carter or Jonny Wilkinson, is as valuable to his country as the former are to New Zealand and England respectively.
Speak to senior Boks in private and they want James wearing No 10. None will publicly choose one player over the other, but he gives those on his inside a comfort they just don’t feel when others play. He also gives the opposition a feeling of discomfort because there isn’t a flyhalf in the game with such physicality.
Defence wins teams the World Cup and there is no better defensive halfback combination than Du Preez and James, physically and in organisation of structure.
Steyn is without comparison as a Test goal-kicker and Lambie has a subtlety James will never have. But neither has the ability to threaten like James, whose laid-back approach is a contradiction of how he plays. The fearless and unselfish attitude is why he has spent so much time sidelined, but it is the only way he knows how to play, and he has often said it is not in his DNA to think of the consequence of his approach. Because of this he will always be a risk, but that does not make him a liability.
Since the confirmation of James’ move to Joburg from Bath many have asked why South Africa’s selectors would want to even think of playing him when there is a new band of 10s in this country. I refer those people to his display in the 2007 World Cup final, his ability to always trouble the New Zealand attack, especially Carter, and the strength of his mind.
Lions coach John Mitchell will play James at 10 and 12 and he will be used as much as a mentor to Jantjies as a starting 10, but from a Bok perspective all that should matter is that James is fit when the squad travels to New Zealand in September.
His detractors will make an argument for his omission because there has been little internationally to enthuse about in the past few seasons and he did nothing to warrant future selection when asked to play inside centre last year against Italy. It is a position that he can play, but it is not the position from which he dictates.
James is also not suited to playing an impact role. He has to start and he has to know whoever picks him believes in his ability. Jake White, three months before the 2007 World Cup, publicly endorsed James as his first-choice playmaker, and then allowed the player to settle. Eddie Jones, in 2007, worked on the mental aspects of his game and the necessity of a 10 to control the opening quarter and close out the match in the final quarter. James responded with the complete flyhalf display in the World Cup final, outplaying Wilkinson a week after doing the same to Argentinean flyhalf Juan Martin Hernandez.
White got it right in the way he handled James. Bok coach Peter de Villiers can learn from what worked in 2007 because this is one instance when a glance back reinforces the way forward.
Whenever James played for Bath their backline asked questions in attack and gave definitive answers in defence, but he never played enough because of injury and because of this Bath never threatened consistently.
His impact, however sporadic because of those injuries, was enormous and the club didn’t want to release him, having turned down the Lions’ advance for a year. But the player revealed to club bosses his ambition to play in a second World Cup and to do so he had to be playing in South Africa. Contractually they could have insisted he stays, but they also appreciated that no player can give unconditionally if his mind is elsewhere.
The fear, among his detractors, in picking him for the World Cup is understandable because of his career injuries, but it is how he has battled back every time that makes a greater statement than every time he went under the surgeon’s knife.
To win the World Cup, South Africa need a flyhalf who has done it; not one who has the potential to do so. James, even on crocked knees, stands alone in this regard.
Get Business Day Sport Monthly FREE with the newspaper on the second last Friday of each month.
299 Comments
Pages: « 1 2 3 4 5 [6] Show All
22 Feb 2011, 17:17 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-250: Exactly. We lose the oldest domestic tourney in the wc cause of this. I really rate the CC and loved it maybe even more than SuperRugby. Might be my age, but heck I have always enjoyed CC. Now it will never be the same.
Saru sold it down the river.
Okay now out of here. Cheers buddy.
22 Feb 2011, 17:17 pm
@Puma(Puma)-251: wc = world
22 Feb 2011, 17:18 pm
@gunther(gunther)-248: A third one… Mmm, if its all about options your little red book gives you the same privileges in the Eurozone as say a Dutch or Spanish one (other likely candidates)… A nice green book makes life easy in most of Africa and places such as Iran or Venezuela…
Do you have a nice shiny Blue one?
22 Feb 2011, 17:18 pm
@Puma(Puma)-251: Cheers
22 Feb 2011, 17:26 pm
>>><<>><<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
22 Feb 2011, 17:29 pm
@MTN RedLion Roars…(RL)-219: Yup. You speak sense regarding White and James
22 Feb 2011, 17:30 pm
\\ Thoughts of a RugbyGenius on this day //
If SA rugby was a body
- PDV would be the brains
- Victor Matfield the heart
- Earl Rose the soul
- Currie Cup the lungs
- Keo the tongue
How many of us have stopped and thought to ourselves how wonderful Keo is.
What a lovely man . To make this website and allow us to speak our minds. Keo you are a wonderful man and we all pay big tributes to you.
KEO IS THE UNSUNG HERO OF SA RUGBY.
22 Feb 2011, 17:33 pm
@rugbygenius(rugbygenius)-257:
Hmmm, I wonder which part of the body Marius Delport would be?
Are you working on that newsletter yet RG?
22 Feb 2011, 17:49 pm
@gunther(gunther)-248:
Don’t get too serious now. You do what you have to do albeit sometimes questionable to others. You live only by your rules and by no one else’s rules
until it in some way negatively affacts them.
Very little will piss me off.
22 Feb 2011, 17:57 pm
@JockBok(JockBok)-258: He would be the small finger on the left hand.
I will try but meneer been very busy because the foreman is now gone because his wife is having a babey. They are calling him Henno after Henno Mentz
22 Feb 2011, 18:04 pm
ET
I thought I was being very lighthearted.
Have a drink ou pel surely the sun is passing the yardarm in Philly?
22 Feb 2011, 18:16 pm
@gunther(gunther)-261:
What’s all that serious stuff about an 2nd and 3rd piece of paper.
No effin sun this side of the pond at all. It is just pure snow and snow and even more snow. Good to be watching the cricket in all this snow.
22 Feb 2011, 19:14 pm
The cricket’s interest in SA has been declined for last 10-15 years, ask those who lives around the Wanderess in JHB, the Corlett and Oxford Drives are seldome closed on weekends now unlike the 1980s and the 1990s.
Even Keo closeddown his cricket blog last year, it begs a question:
why discussing cricket here on a rugby website?
22 Feb 2011, 20:10 pm
this oke is mad!
in a live, apparently unscripted
speech on national television, the 68-year-old Gaddafi said,
“Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of a revolution; Muammar Gaddafi has no official position in order for him to resign. He is the leader of the revolution forever.”
“This is my country, my
country,” he shouted, in a speech consisting of short, angry bursts of words, which he punctuated by shaking his fist or pointing his finger.
22 Feb 2011, 20:13 pm
257
lmao
Meneer Rugbygenius u are a very amusing character.
22 Feb 2011, 20:19 pm
James was superb against the Saints at the weekend (Ansbro KO aside), he takes the ball to the line and brings so much more playmaking than Morne Steyn but I can’t see him starting as the Bok coaches clearly want a kicking 10 and James isn’t a goal-kicker.
22 Feb 2011, 20:44 pm
Yep James offers alot more subtlety than given credit for, he runs the backline very well. Might be interesting to play James at 10, Frans at 12 and Morne at 15.
22 Feb 2011, 20:44 pm
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-266: But Frans Steyn’s a better goalkicker and a gifted fullback to boot –even if he won’t pass (rendering him a near-useless centre or flyhalf).
22 Feb 2011, 20:48 pm
@rugbygenius(rugbygenius)-260: Henno? Sounds like fowl language.
22 Feb 2011, 20:51 pm
@Puma(Puma)-251: Just call the winner of the SA Super 15 conference the Currie Cup champion.
22 Feb 2011, 20:53 pm
@cab(cab)-267: forget morne @ 15 he is no fullback, he lacks the pace to be effective in modern rugby! having him there would effectively nullify a usefull counter-attacking option for us!
22 Feb 2011, 21:09 pm
271 transformation
yeah but only a few of the wee ones could do it well Cullen, the English league fella and maybe mills 2 years back – I just don’t think the boks play that sort of counter-attacking rugby from the back. U prob thinking aplon, but the wee fella is a midget. Pity we can’t cap the lions kiwi import Jame. Kamana
22 Feb 2011, 21:12 pm
The current England fullback also does it well, ben foden?, actually they got a very dangerous set of outide backs presently with Ashton and cueto
22 Feb 2011, 21:16 pm
KeoTV?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E03jKeYHIx8
22 Feb 2011, 21:22 pm
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-266:
What happened with Ansbro?
22 Feb 2011, 21:24 pm
Foden is a decent counter-attacker, but really, beyond Muliaina and Beale on a good day there aren’t many great run-it-back 15s in test rugby these days.
@JockBok(JockBok)-275: head/jaw connected with James’s shoulder, knocked out, misses the Ireland game.
22 Feb 2011, 21:27 pm
@cab(cab)-272: ben foden, israel dagg, mils muliaina, corey jane, kurtly beale…even the blues played toeava there last weekend…the days of dumping a carthorse like percy there only for him to take kicks are long gone!
goodness even zane kirchner looked dangerous joining the line at pace creating overlaps.pdv needs to bloody wake up!
22 Feb 2011, 21:29 pm
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-276:
Shiit. Bad news indeed. He’s been one of the good points about the Jocks recently.
22 Feb 2011, 21:30 pm
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-276: Israel Dagg fits that bill perfectly.
22 Feb 2011, 21:36 pm
277 yes true good points all round, it’s just not in the bokkie mindset, wish it was, but it’s not.
22 Feb 2011, 21:38 pm
Must say tho I don’t think dagg is that great – but alot of kenners reckon otherwise.
22 Feb 2011, 21:45 pm
@cab(cab)-281: I’m suitably impressed by the oke. Reckon he’s going to feature come WC time.
22 Feb 2011, 21:54 pm
What the Boks lack – as Transie alluded to – is a FB that can link up with the three-quarters.
The back 3 of FB and both wings have to work as a unit with the FB as fulcrum. If the ball is kicked onto you, the nearest wing must fall back quickly as well – a quick, well timed pass can see 10 – 20 metres made linking-up with the support players and then maintaining momentum. A decent FB will know when to kick for position or to run it.
Believe it or not, but Slapchips is adcocating this sort of play with the Bulls. He said so in an interview not too long ago. Look at Kirchner’s play last season and last weekend – not that I’m a big a fan of his.
But the ploy seems to work.
23 Feb 2011, 03:54 am
@cab(cab)-281:
Over the last year you have said you don’t rate the following AB players Dagg,Kaino, Smith, Read, all AB locks, our half backs, our front row etc and there are many more I just can’t remember them all, why is that with all these players you don’t rate we beat you comfortably in 06/07/08 and 10?
23 Feb 2011, 04:23 am
@NZINCHINA(NZINCHINA)-284: CAB already has SA winning the world cup mate… the fact that these SA “once in a lifetime generation” players are and have been continually bettered for seasons, bar one offs like 2009., stopping NZ winning its 5th straight 3Ns in that one example, is lost on him…
23 Feb 2011, 04:51 am
To all Kiwis who visit this site my heartfelt commiseration for the disaster in Christchurch. Having been to Christchurch and been charmed by the city it is very sad to think of the repeated assaults it has endured of late. I know our kiwi chums are hardy and resilient people and wish them to know that beyond all the bickering and the banter of rugby talk we are with you in our hearts.
23 Feb 2011, 05:15 am
@poppa69(poppa69)-285:
Yer thats what I was thinking, SA did superbly to win the world cup in 07′ but the facts remain that recently we have had the wood on them every year bar 09′,
@stormer in a teacup(stormer in a teacup)-286:
Cheers mate
23 Feb 2011, 08:44 am
Ridiculous. He’s not a 75% goal kicker. Never has been. What a useless article. Who would kick for us? Goal-kicking is important in the WC.
23 Feb 2011, 08:56 am
“Speak to senior Boks in private and they want James wearing No 10″
23 Feb 2011, 10:16 am
@Sharkie10(Sharkie10)-51: because as we ALL eard from the experts during BIL
1st player you pick in a team is the kicker
end of story
23 Feb 2011, 12:07 pm
284 NZINCHINA, just me own opinion, and only partly true, for example I think u have the best flyhalves, but not much at scrummie by AB standards, I think brad thorn is awesome, one of the best tight 5 player in the game but that bakkies might edge him in the cleanout and dominance facets, read and kaino are good, but the former all hard work and the latter all natural talent, I think the Boks shade you in that position, cheater mccaw is however unmatched, but he is slowing down and the refs are more attuned to his pilfering ways, especially barnesey.
Popps,
U are quite right the golden generation is going diwnunder to raise another trophy, get the hankies ready and just remember your lack of respect for the Bokkie shown on this fine day. I will try not to remind u of it, but sometimes a cockerell must crow.
23 Feb 2011, 12:12 pm
Oh yes and the AB centres and strikerunners are devastating and unparalled in the depth department – SBW, Nono, kahui, Ice, Umaga, Smith, Freuen – quite unbelievable but only 2 can play and you don’t seem to pick half of them so the Bokke should waltz downunder no problem.
23 Feb 2011, 12:17 pm
@Mighty Horua(Mighty Horua)-289: If players have mentioned this is in private its obvious that they wouldn’t want anyone splaying it all over a web blog as it could serioulsy harm relations within the team. Furthermore what is the likelihood that they will trust Keo with information in the future if he does this with it.
Or is this merely speculation on Keo’s behalf?
23 Feb 2011, 15:21 pm
@cab(cab)-291:
Fair enough but you didn’t answer the question, why did we beat you 06/07/08 and 10 if the current Bokke setup are once in a generation players and a lot of ours in your opinion aren’t that good?
23 Feb 2011, 19:49 pm
294 NZMYCHINA
injuries and alot of luck
24 Feb 2011, 01:38 am
@cab(cab)-295:
That explains our poor form in 09′.
28 Feb 2011, 08:51 am
Peter Grant – for me still the guy who could really male the strong play for 10 at rwc. His impact on sat night was immediate, takes the ball at excellent pace, commits defenders, gets centres into gaps. He is also a fearless tackler and you may have noticed he slotted that goal from distance perfectly.
He will build a very strong case throught the s15 trust me.
Will he remain ignored? It’ll be interesting.
James before Grant? You must be smoking something exciting keo!
28 Feb 2011, 08:54 am
@Marino(Marino)-297: Grant and James far better than the 1 trick donkey skop en jaag king M Steyn.
Either better choices if boks want to be bold and compete using 15 players as opposed to 10 !
2 Mar 2011, 12:48 pm
Butch James = Jack “Cap” Rooney
Pat Lambie = Willie Beamen
Morne Steyn = Tyler Cherubini
ANY GIVEN SUNDAY.
Pages: « 1 2 3 4 5 [6] Show All
Have your say
You must be logged in to post a comment.