Why Solomons needs to look further than Braam's kicking

Percy Montgomery's performance at flyhalf last Saturday made me feel a little like two slightly weathered cricket fans who kept us entertained during a quiet spell in a Currie Cup match between the old Transvaal and Natal during the late 1970s.

The Transvaal batsmen looked quite comfortable against the spin of Pelham Henwood, prompting these guys to remind Natal captain Barry Richards that Vince van der Bijl had not bowled for a while. "We want Vince, we want Vince, we want Vince," they chanted.

Finally the ball was thrown to Van der Bijl. But when the big man began his spell, he was immediately dispatched for two successive fours by Kevin McKenzie. "Thanks Barry," shouted my friends, "we've seen Vince, now put someone else on."

The way Montgomery fluffed his lines against the Reds at Outeniqua Park, those of us who had called for him to be moved to flyhalf could easily have sent a similar message to Stormers coach Alan Solomons: "Thanks Solly, we've now seen Percy. Now you can select someone else".

But if my memory serves me correctly, Big Vince got McKenzie's wicket in the end. He was always more likely to strike than the other Natal bowlers. The same can probably be said in this case. Great hearted trier though he has been for the Stormers in the past few seasons, it is now blindingly obvious that Van Straaten battles to ignite a backline. If he was a better attacking player, he would not have been dropped so often by the Springboks and he would not have earned himself the nickname "George Foreman" for his habit of making comebacks for the Stormers.

For if goalkicking was to the sole criteria for selection, Van Straaten would surely have appeared in every game that the Springboks have played in during the past few seasons.

Somehow, bad though Montgomery was last week, it is easier to see him creating space for the world class backs outside him than it is to picture Van Straaten doing it. And if there is anyone who still regards Van Straaten as the answer to South Africa's flyhalf problems, perhaps they have forgotten the criticism that was heaped on Springbok coach Harry Viljoen when the "stereotyped" Boks lost to England at Twickenham last December.

Solomons faces a catch-22 that is not unique to him. Both Viljoen with the Springboks and Gert Smal with Western Province last year opted to leave out quality attacking players because they saw Van Straaten's goalkicking as indispensible.

De Wet Barry found himself shifted to the bench to create space for Van Straaten at inside centre for WP. Van Straaten again found himself at inside centre once Viljoen had broken up the Robbie Fleck/Grant Esterhuizen combination which showed such promise in the opening test of the end of year tour against Argentina at River Plate Stadium.

To be fair, the latter move was made as much for defensive considerations as any other. The Irish centres created such havoc in the Bok midfield in the Dublin test that Viljoen had little option but to call in Van Straaten, who at inside centre is a much sounder defender than he is at outside.

It was only then that Van Straaten showed his value as a place-kicker, with his calmness under pressure helping the South Africans win a couple of games they should possibly have lost. His kicking feats, coupled with his tendency to bounce back whenever he was written off, saw me name Van Straaten my "man of the year" in a fun awards ceremony run in my former newspaper.

But when a team is winning with goalkicks, the value of those kicks has always to be weighed up against what might have been the case had the player kicking the goals not been there. It is not always true that the said player is indispensible.

After loudly proclaiming Van Straaten's play at outside centre to be the Stormers' problem when they were battling against the Reds, some inhabitants of the press box were quick to make fun of me when it was his kick that clinched the game on the final whistle.

My response came in the form of a question: Would it have had to come down to a kick had the Stormers backs been selected with attack and other aspects of general play (in other words not place-kicking) as the primary focus.

A fellow journalist remarked after the latest Stormers team announcement that "I guess Van Straaten has to play because the Stormers are scoring so few tries that they need his kicking". But why are they scoring so few tries? Could it possibly be because there is someting horribly wrong with the way they are using their possession. And is it just possible that this problem has its source in poor play and poor selection in key backline positions?

The "importance of goalkicking versus attacking flair" debate is not new. I well remember as a young schoolboy reading and hearing a similar argument when Gerald Bosch and Gavin Cowley were in competition for the Springbok flyhalf position during the 1976 series against Andy Leslie's All Blacks.

Those who trumpeted Bosch's goalkicking as the reason for the South African triumph were quickly shouted down by those who felt dangerous Springbok backs like Gerrie Germishuys might have made more of the ball had Cowley been in the No10 jersey.

It was an inconclusive argument, but that was an era when test matches seldom saw more than a couple of tries. In this age, when teams at all levels are going out to score in excess of four tries and frequently achieving it, goalkicking should be the prime consideration for selection only once it has been established that the player is the most capable in his position and when clearly there is no-one else who could do a decent job.

Montgomery, who would kick if Van Straaten was not present, is nowhere near as consistent. But I do seem to recall a couple of vital kicks that he has slotted in his time. And wasn't his kicking a crucial factor in South Africa's annexation of the Tri-Nations trophy back in 1998?