RUGBY: Ruan’s getting roasted

Friday 1 June 2007

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the plan with Ruan Pienaar is non existent.

This after Springbok backline coach Allister Coetzee fumbled through keo.co.za’s question of whether they had given the prodigiously talented Sharks scrumhalf a criteria for what he needed to do to move past Ricky Januarie as the back-up to Fourie du Preez.

The fact that Pienaar has been overlooked with Du Preez missing the start of the Test season due to a shoulder injury is perplexing. Januarie played second fiddle to Jano Vermaak for the vast majority of the Lions Super 14 campaign, while Pienaar had a solid season for the Sharks. Januarie was dropped from the Bok Tri-Nations squad last year for poor form and even worse conditioning, yet was the premier scrumhalf on the year-end tour on the back of four mediocre Currie Cup displays.

In that time Pienaar never let the side down, coming off the bench thrice in the Tri-Nations, and twice on the year-end tour. And while it was seen as no more than an exhibition match, Pienaar’s sublime display against the World XV in Leicester was a timely reminder of what a gem the Boks have at their disposal, as was his cameo in Bloemfontein last week.

It has to be said that Pienaar has his flaws. He often takes poor options and has a penchant for isolating himself with ill advised solo bursts. He has however just turned 23, and he’ll mature with more experience.

The selectors would struggle to justify Januarie’s selection if asked to compare the players head-to-head, because Pienaar would triumph in every facet of scrumhalf play. What this website wanted to know was whether Pienaar stood a chance of overtaking Januarie in this World Cup year, or whether it had been decided that the diminutive No 9 would be the back up to Du Preez for the rest of the season. Coetzee offered this response.

“You obviously need to have scrumhalfs who can play different styles,” he said. “And we want to ensure that we have a scrumhalf that can play in the wet, and one who can play in dry weather and hard surfaces who can get the game going and run around.

“In Fourie and Ruan we have scrumhalfs with big boots on them, and Ricky is the one nuggety guy who can play close. So we’re sitting in a good position of having 9s who can play both styles.”

If Coetzee was trying to say that Januarie is better suited to a wet game he is delusional, given that in those conditions teams benefit from having a scrumhalf who has a good kicking game. Januarie’s is poor. What’s more is that Pienaar has proven over the course of his short career that he is versatile enough to adapt his game to the prevailing weather conditions. So he offers you both options.

What Coetzee’s offering does do is give us a clearer picture of just how far Pienaar is from cracking the matchday 22 when Du Preez returns in a fortnight. The Boks will have one of the most naturally talented backs in world rugby watching from the stands because there’s no way Jake White will include him as a utility back, because that would mean dropping one of his wings or forwards from the bench.

Asked whether Pienaar was now seen as a utility back rather than a specialist scrumhalf, White said: “I think Ruan Pienaar is a special rugby player period. Last week guys reported that I put him on the wing, but Jean de Villiers got cramp and I only had two backs on the bench, so I had to put him somewhere on the field and moving Frans Steyn to centre was my only option.

“As a scrumhalf, I think he’s quite talented, but as a rugby player I think he’s even more talented,” he added. “So I’m sitting in the very fortunate position that I have two 24-year-old scrumhalfs in Fourie and Ricky who are going to be around for South Africa for a very long time. The fact that Ruan doubles up as a flyhalf, centre, fullback and wing is obviously a huge bonus to us a group,” he explained.

White however added that Pienaar’s versatility didn’t give him an advantage when it came down to selection, saying that players like Wynand Olivier, Jaque Fourie, De Villiers and Steyn all possessed that quality. He stressed that the evolution of the modern game dictated that players no longer had set roles from broken play, intimating that Pienaar’s best position was a non issue.

“The Waratahs introduced the idea that the number on your back shouldn’t matter,” he said. “The one thing that Australia have done better than anyone else is they’ve managed to use their backline players in different positions. Joe Roff played in three positions, Lote Tuqiri’s played in three positions as has Matt Giteau.

“The way forward is that from broken play it doesn’t really matter where you stand as long as you have the understanding of what your trying to achieve.”

An interesting concept, but the first step would be to get Pienaar onto the pitch. We have the opportunity now to give him regular game time at Test level before the World Cup, why are we spurning that chance?

By Ryan Vrede, in Johannesburg - keo.co.za

*Disclaimer - Views expressed within this story are not necessarily the views of this Blog