Time to find the perfect 10

With the Tri-Nations having ended in disappointment, the big challenge for South African rugby must be to find a goal-kicker who earns his position in the side on merit.

It is palpably clear that the team cannot play without a reliable kicker, but it is time to end the compromises which result in a player being picked who is clearly not the best in his position.

Ever since the retirement of Henry Honiball – in fact even during his era whenever the tall Natalian was injured – the Springboks have battled to settle on a flyhalf who, in the time-worn tradition of the game, was also their general.

Added to this there has been the problem of flyhalves emerging who are not particularly reliable goal-kickers.

This results in Harry Viljoen, having gone cold on the idea of retreading Percy Montgomery into a flyhalf, having to pick Butch James as the form flyhalf – with the downside of the Natalian being a hit-and-miss goal-kicker.

Braam van Straaten, on the other hand, is the best goal-kicker by a long way, but there is general consensus that he is too sluggish a flyhalf to create the pace and variation that leads to tries. It is also true that while Van Straaten has taught himself to be a brilliant goal-kicker, he is not an outstanding tactical kicker of the ball.

Thus James has been at flyhalf to give the team some go-forward while Van Straaten has been at inside centre where his deficiencies on attack could be masked.

Fact is that James has been a let-down. A physical, aggressive flyhalf in the mould of Honiball who relishes making contact James, in the Springbok team, has been turned into a crabbing, tentative plodder completely unrecognisable from the player who turns out for the Sharks.

It may be that James is struggling to come to terms with the demands of the national team’s coaches – certainly his tendency to drift has been amplified by the absence of his Natal running mate Trevor Halstead to straighten the angle - but the young man who holds the distinction of being the heaviest flyhalf to play for the Boks has not made the impact one had hoped.

Van Straaten, on the other hand, has been hugely influential. Not only did he reveal an exceptional temperament by kicking those goals when he was finally brought into the side but his defence has been outstanding. He made two crucial stops on Jonah Lomu in the test at Eden Park while he is not the worst crash-baller in the world.

The fact remains, though, that on pure ability there are players available who could probably bring more attacking options to the team – either at flyhalf or at inside centre.

That is why the fiddling about has got to stop. No more experiments, no more picking players out of position.

My suggestion is that Harry Viljoen stages a “flyhalf forum” in an effort to find the player who can bring to the party to the combination of goal-kicking, tactical kicking, attack and defence that is required – although, in terms of tackling, an inability to make bone-jarring hits has hardly been detrimental to Andrew Mehrtens.

Ideally Viljoen should sit down and draw up what in an ideal world he would like the perfect flyhalf to be. He would do well to enlist the help of some South Africans, rather than Australians, to help him with his deliberations. Former players like Naas Botha, Joel Stransky, Henry Honiball and Hennie le Roux, I’m sure, would have a pretty good idea of what qualities add up to the perfect 10. The next step would be to invite all the likely candidates to a week of testing – probably with the assistance of the Institute for Sports Medicine in Cape Town – to ascertain whether they have the raw material to become a Springbok flyhalf.

Test their speed, their strength, their ability to kick the ball with either foot, the length of their punts and the accuracy of their goal-kicks, see whether their arsenal includes the drop-kick.

Naturally, temperament is more difficult to assess but at least the national coach will then have a clear idea of which players, theoretically, have the best chance of doing the job because of their agility of body and mind.

Who to invite? Staggeringly I came up with 14 possibles, including eight who are already Springboks, who might be part of such a trial.

Butch James, Percy Montgomery, Braam van Straaten, Gaffie du Toit, Jaco van der Westhuyzen, Louis Koen and Franco Smith all have test match experience while Chris Rossouw was one of the flyhalves on last year’s tour.

Then there is an extremely exciting group of six; all of whom are specialist flyhalves and all of whom are highly competent goal-kickers - Nel Fourie of the Pumas, Herkie Kruger of the Sharks, André Pretorius of the Lions (currently recovering from knee surgery), Francois Swart of the Leopards (who caused such a stir by being invited to the Boks’ Plettenberg Bay camp), Conrad Barnard of the Free State and Derick Hougaardt, the current SA Schools flyhalf. You only have to look at the transformation of England since the advent of Jonny Wilkinson to appreciate the value of a goal-kicking playmaker. It is time the Springboks found one of their own.