By Lucky Maree
The Bulls have recognised Morné Steyn, one of their greatest servants to the game of rugby, in the way that he will appreciate the most.
They will donate R1 for every ticket sold to matches at Loftus to his #MS10 Foundation between January and June when his current contract expires.
Throughout his long career, Steyn could never be considered a natural player. In a sport that values handling skills, physical ability and ball sense, he was never considered great.
And the man who wears the number 10 jersey in any team, is the guy who should have those qualities – all of them – and lots of it. Flyhalf is the position where, what is called natural talent, is supreme.
The flyhalf also has to have an almost unnatural sense to do the right thing.
Any discussion about “the perfect 10”, would be about the likes of Henry “Lem” Honiball, Dan Carter, Beauden Barrett, Phil Bennett and Jonny Wilkinson who are among those who had all those skills. Finn Russell may be in that category soon.
There are very few who are considered to be in that group. It is no shame that (for instance) Handré Pollard, excellent player that he is, doesn’t make it into that category. It’s a very difficult level to attain.
More often than not, the name of Morné Steyn comes up when people talk about the “kicking flyhalf”. That guy who kicks well, but not much else.
To be honest, in the early days of Springbok rugby, Steyn didn’t do much else – but that which he did, he did to perfection.
In 2009 during the second Springbok test against British & Irish Lions, he came off the bench after Ruan Pienaar had a particularly bad day as flyhalf and also as kicker. Steyn slotted two conversions and two penalties and South Africa won the match.
Yet, it was not easy to argue against the statement that there was nothing natural about his play. It’s one of those quirks of the game that he was needed as a kicker, but he wasn’t suited to other positions although he was tried all over the backline to keep him on the field.
He was never hard or strong enough and he was never a great tackler so he was a very marginal centre. He was not fast enough to play wing. As a fullback he needed protection.
So he was always flyhalf. And even there, his decision making was nowhere near the “natural” level.
The battlefield of sport, and particularly rugby, is littered with people who showed natural talent but forgot about getting better. Elton Jantjies is, unfortunately, the obvious example of somebody who hit the glass ceiling of natural talent and never progressed.
On the opposite end of the scale, Morné Steyn never stopped working at his game. For those who cared to look for it, there was always improvement. Never dramatic, never obvious, but it was there.
In the match against the Stormers on 18 February Steyn came on with 15 minutes to go and didn’t have much of an impact. But for those who cared to look for it, there were some moments that proved how far he had come. He took two up-and-unders under pressure, he had two successful tackles and he even broke the line. And of course his kicking was exactly on point.
The 38-year-old had played a good game and given his best – as he always did throughout his career.
Pictured above: Morné Steyn get the recognition he deserves
Image source: Twitter
