The position of flyhalf has become a topical talking point following Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s match-winning performance against Argentina last week. Still, he is part of a long line of good pivots who have played for this country, as signified by the five players who have made the shortlist for our Springbok Dream Team, selected from the last 30 years.
The strength of the list of flyhalves who have done well for South Africa is indicated by the omission of Butch James, who was a World Cup winning flyhalf in France in 2007.
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HENRY HONIBALL
Henry Honiball, known as Lem by his teammates for the way he cut opponents in half with his tackling, didn’t follow the usual route to becoming a Springbok. As he was at a school, Estcourt High, that didn’t attract the attention of the Natal Schools selectors, he didn’t progress to the higher levels through Craven Week or age-group rugby.
Disillusioned, he gave up rugby straight after school, so it was through a stroke of luck that he ended up getting back into the sport, with his passion for the game being reignited when a friend asked him to fill in for a platoon team in an inter-divisional game during his military service. He played well, he decided to continue playing a bit, and the rest is history.
Well, maybe not quite. Honiball, who farms in Winterton in the foothills of the northern Drakensberg, played for Free State in his university years, again not taking the conventional route as he made the Shimlas team out of Koshuis rugby. But when he was done with studying farming called, and it took some persuasion on the part of the late Natal/Sharks coach Ian McIntosh, who heard that Honiball was back in Natal and obviously rated him based on what he did for Free State, to get him to play on.
It was a difficult time initially for Honiball. He played his club rugby for Maritzburg Police, two hours drive away from his farm in Winterton/Bergville, and to go to Natal training required an extra hour on top of that. His time away from the farm when he became a Springbok also cost him in the sense that when he went on tour he had to pay for a farm manager to look after things at home.
In those days rugby was still amateur, and while the provincial unions were finding imaginative ways to handsomely reimburse players, the same did not hold true for the Boks, and Honiball related to me once how he actually lost money by going on tour.
However, while Honiball may have appeared a reluctant rugby player and reluctant hero, he was fully committed on the field of play, and became the most feared Bok by New Zealanders during the years he played. That was because apart from his devastating, bone crunching tackling, he also carried the ball well and was good at the gainline, which was not something South African flyhalves were always renowned for in those days.
Honiball was never a great place-kicker but he developed that skill later in his career, and also worked hard on his field kicking game, but it was for the way he set up players around him with ball in hand as well as the aforementioned tackling that he will be remembered. The Boks under the coaching of Nick Mallett missed out on a lot when Honiball wasn’t fully fit for all the key games at the 1999 Rugby World Cup and while Jannie de Beer won the quarterfinal against England with his five drop-goals, Honiball’s presence might have made a key difference in the semifinal against Australia, a game they lost to a drop-goal in extra time.
BUTCH JAMES
In his early career, Butch James was noted probably mostly for his tackling style. Like former England captain Owen Farrell, he tended to tread a narrow line between being too high and too dangerous, or even too late, and being spot on with his defensive reads.
However, in a 2007 season where he played a crucial role in helping the Sharks top the Super 14 log, that being the year they lost the final to a last gasp try from Bryan Habana, James suddenly blossomed and moved away from his reputation for being a discipline problem.
His surge actually started on the previous year’s Bok tour of Ireland and England. The trip comprised three test matches - one against Ireland and the other two against England at Twickenham. James, christened Andre James but given the nickname Butch by his grandmother, had not played for the Boks much under the coaching of Jake White before being pressed into action as a starter in the first game of that mini-series.
James delivered a performance of supreme control to help the Boks build a sizeable lead, only for them to blow it when James was forced off the field with an injury. In that game James, although he didn’t finish it, showed how he could exert control, and of course with Fourie du Preez alongside him to share the playmaking duties, it was a task made even easier in the World Cup year.
James became the second Bok World Cup winning flyhalf to have come out of Maritzburg College, with Joel Stransky having preceded him in 1995.
He wasn’t used much when in the year after the World Cup, 2008, Peter de Villiers took over as Bok coach, but he showed what an impact he could have when he was selected into the team that smashed Australia by a big score in a Tri-Nations game in Johannesburg. That was a time when the Boks were struggling a bit, having lost to the All Blacks and Australia consecutively in Cape Town and Durban respectively, and there were criticisms that they were not direct enough.
James brought that directness in the Emirates Airlines Park game and it made all the difference as the Boks responded to a 14-point defeat the week before at Kings Park by scoring more than 50.
Wing Jonghi Nokwe scored four tries that day but James was often understated as a flyhalf, meaning he did his primary job of helping those around him profit off him.
Although he did not play much in the best season the Boks experienced under De Villiers, 2009 when they beat the British and Irish Lions and won the Tri-Nations, he was challenging Morne Steyn for his starting place in the team that was going to the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand but there was a perception that his place-kicking was a bit off. So when he missed an easy kick when possibly affected by a gust of wind that blew the ball over in a game against Australia in Durban, that was the moment Steyn was installed as the starting 10.
Even then, there was still a lobby in favour of James on the grounds that his more direct approach made him a better attacking option, although it also has to be pointed out that James was known for being one who could play through pain and there was apparently a lot of that during that 2011 campaig. He spent a lot of the training sessions on the sidelines having ailments attended to, a testament to him having been one of the more physical flyhalves of the era he played in.
MANIE LIBBOK
There’s a perception that Handre Pollard was the flyhalf who won the Springboks the 2023 Rugby World Cup through his place-kicking exploits but it isn’t quite true - Pollard wouldn’t have been in a position to win the quarterfinal against France if it were not for Manie Libbok.
It will be recalled that Libbok started the game and Pollard came on as a finisher, something he did really well once the French forwards had tired and the Bok big men were starting to take control. It was a kick from Pollard that eventually got the Boks in front for a lead they retained until the final whistle.
However, early in the game the French dominated and scored three good tries. Only for the Boks to strike back with tries of their own every time that France crossed the line, thus keeping the host nation within their sight even though on the balance of play France should have been far ahead.
It was Libbok who was the catalyst in most of those early tries, with his superb passing game, perhaps unrivalled among modern flyhalves since the retirement of former Wallaby No 10 Stephen Larkham, giving the Boks the X-factor strike power they needed to keep in the game against the run of play.
It was a good selection from the Bok coaches, with no stone being left unturned in the Rassie Erasmus/Jacques Nienaber era when it comes to strategising and planning. It did nearly come unstuck though a week later when they decided to stick with Libbok as the starting flyhalf even though it was clear the semifinal against England was going to be a wet weather game.
Libbok’s skills were not suited for wet weather rugby, although he has been working on those skills since then and there has been an improvement, but on a dry day there’s no-one better suited to the task of bringing out the best of the backline players outside him and attacking into space, both with passing from hand and so-called kick passes, than Libbok is.
His debut was as a late replacement in a narrow loss to France in Marseille in 2022, the day that Pieter-Steph du Toit was red carded early to reduce the Boks to 14 men. He did not make an impression as his entry was so late, but it was apt that he made his first appearance then as it was then that the Boks arguably started on the path they have gone so far down now towards becoming a more capable attacking team.
That momentum was given further spark by Libbok the following week when he made a telling contribution in a second half turnaround in the Bok favour against Italy, with his running game offering glimpses of what the South Africans would be capable of with his kind of flyhalf.
Of course, there have been times when he has been criticised through a perception he is unreliable as a place-kicker. Some of that criticism has been valid, but he’s often nailed the crucial ones, such as the conversion from the touchline that won the Stormers their Vodacom United Rugby Championship semifinal against Ulster in 2022. Libbok had been walkabout the rest of that game so the fact that he could nail the one that really mattered says a lot about his temperament.
Libbok’s international career is still at a relatively fledgling stage and even though Feinberg-Mngomezulu has emerged now as the clear No 1, there is need to keep a pool of at least three flyhalves operational so that if before the next World Cup in Australia there is a repeat of 2023, when a star performer in Pollard was ruled out initially because of injury, it’s no crisis.
Libbok is a world class performer, as he showed with the way he set up the first Bok try of the last World Cup against Scotland and, as shown in the most recent big win over the All Blacks, when he came on as a replacement, the backline players tend to excel when he is at first receiver. Coincidentally, or maybe it is not coincidence before, Libbok was also involved in the previous record win over the All Blacks at Twickenham ahead of the last World Cup.
HANDRE POLLARD
A double World Cup winner, what more can you say? Well, you could add to that - Handre Pollard also had a pivotal say in his Springbok team winning both the World Cups in question - 2019 in Japan and again in France in 2023.
It was his clutch kick minutes from the end of the semifinal in Yokohama at that first World Cup that got South Africa through a tense game against Wales to set up the final against England the following week. And it was his clutch kicks in both the Paris quarterfinal against France as well as in the semifinal against England that secured the one point wins that secured the Boks their place in the final in 2023.
Pollard, who was schooled in the Western Cape but contracted to the Bulls when he was only 15, showed his talents early, and he was still at school when he played for the Junior Bok team that won the 2012 Junior World Championship played in the Western Cape.
He captained the South African age-group team two years later when the World Champs were played in New Zealand, where they were denied only late in the game by a very good England team that was led by Maro Itoje.
Just a few weeks after that Pollard played his first test match against Scotland in Gqeberha, and as a youngster who could hit the gainline hard and was a threat on attack he drew the admiration of the All Black team that suffered what was in those days a rare defeat in Johannesburg at the end of that Rugby Championship season.
However, necessity appeared to take over and change Pollard’s playing style a bit after the Boks went the ultra conservative route as coach Heyneke Meyer’s reaction to the shock loss to Japan in Brighton at the start of the 2015 World Cup in England.
Pollard showed then how well he could control a game with his boot and his clutch kicks that were to be such a talking point years later were already to the fore, but it was then that he started to line up a little deeper, which may have impacted on his attacking threat.
Pollard is a gifted player who can also play in the midfield, but it is at flyhalf that he is the noted “Mr Steady”, a player who can always be relied on in tight moments, and not just with his place-kicking boot, in general play too.
Pollard has competition for his place now that Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Manie Libbok have come through but he should reach the magical 100 test appearance mark sometime next year, something that will be yet another notable milestone in a remarkable career that is set to be ended where it all started - he is back at the Bulls after spells in France, Japan and Leicester Tigers.
MORNE STEYN
When Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu was the star of the show in the Springbok No 10 jersey against Argentina at Hollywoodbets Kings Park, the old timers in the press box were throwing their minds back to a similar seismic individual performance - Morne Steyn’s 31 points against New Zealand there in a 2009 Castle Lager Rugby Championship match.
It was just Steyn’s firth appearance in for the Boks and yet he was the match-winner as his try, conversion and eight penalties accounted for all of South Africa’s 31 points in a 31-19 win. This broke several records, among them the record for the most points by an individual in a Tri Nations match, previously held by Andrew Mehrtens with his 29 points against Australia in 1999 (one conversion and nine penalties).[6]
Steyn scored the most points by a player at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, 62 points, and that is quite something if you consider that the Boks were knocked out of that tournament in the quarterfinal stage.
Steyn would have been disappointed to come short there and with his other World Cup being the 2015 tournament in England, where he was second fiddle to Handre Pollard and the Boks bowed out with a narrow loss to New Zealand in the semifinal, it is probably his bizarre achievement of winning two consecutive British and Irish Lions series 12 years apart that he will be best remembered for.
Steyn was not an initial favourite of the then Bok coach, Peter de Villiers, ahead of the 2009 Lions series, but he forced his way into the squad through his performances as he helped the Vodacom Bulls to that year’s Super 14 title, where they scored a crushing win over the Chiefs in the Loftus final.
De Villiers preferred Ruan Pienaar, a wonderful utility player but more often a scrumhalf, in the Bok 10 jersey for the first test in Durban, which the Boks won and Pienaar played a blinder. However, Pienaar was noted to have a suspect temperament at that stage of his career, with his performance in a game often dictated about how successful he was with early place kicks.
In a tumultuous second test in Pretoria, Pienaar started poorly and then disintegrated, and Steyn was called onto the field, with his pressure kicks in a magnificent Bok fightback proving crucial until he was presented with a monstrous kick to win the game after the hooter.
Steyn was known as a cool customer and he duly stepped up amidst scenes of unbearable tension for everyone else to send the ball flying high over the crossbar and through the posts to clinch the series win for the Boks.
In August 2021, having not played for South Africa since 2016, he was selected as a substitute for the deciding third test against the British & Irish Lions. He replaced Handré Pollard in the second half, and, as he had in 2009, kicked two late penalties to help South Africa win the game and the series.
Steyn was another of those South African flyhalves who started his career noted for wonderful attacking skills but then dropped deeper as his career progressed and winning became more important, so it was his place-kicking in particular that he will best be remembered for following a career that saw him play 66 tests.
JOEL STRANSKY
One of the most noteworthy things about Joel Stransky as a human being post rugby is how humble he is. Few would try to play down a match-winning drop-goal in a seismic World Cup final, but Stransky will if you try and fuss over that epic moment in 1995 when the Springboks became global champions for the first time.
Not that it was the first time that Stransky was part of an historic moment where nerves of steel were required. In 1990, in the days the Currie Cup was akin to test rugby in South Africa, Stransky was part of the Natal team that won the title for the first time in 100 years of trying by beating Northern Transvaal in the Loftus decider.
Stransky showed his nerve in slotting his kicks, including a long range penalty from the halfway line that turned the three point advantage given to Natal by Tony Watson’s try and Stansky’s conversion into a six point lead. In those days a converted try was worth just six, as a try fetched four points and not the current five, so with time almost up on the clock that penalty effectively made it impossible for Northerns to win the game.
Stransky grew up in Cape Town and attended Rondebosch Boys High until the age of 15, or Standard 8, with former Proteas cricketing legend Gary Kirsten his halfback partner in a winning team. His parents then relocated to what is now KZN, and he moved to Maritzburg College, which meant he was a Natal Schools player in his Standard 9 year, when he made the South African Schools side.
Bizarrely Stransky was overlooked in his matric year, but his playing career took off when he spent his military service years in Pretoria, memorably making his debut for the Bulls when still a teenager on a day that Naas Botha was injured. He returned to Natal though for his senior career, before later moving back to Cape Town, where he completed his local career with WP before moving to Leicester Tigers.
Although Henry Coxwell, also a Maritzburg College product, was Ian McIntosh’s guinea pig for what at the time was considered his innovative direct rugby style, Stransky was good at it too - although the role of a flyhalf when playing the direct game was misunderstood in those years and that was why he and Robert du Preez were criticised when the Natal halfback duo teamed up for some of the tests on the 1993 Bok tour of Australia.
The decision to omit Stransky from the 1994 tour of New Zealand that followed, something he was brow-beaten into by seven fellow selectors, was forever one of McIntosh’s big regrets from his time as Bok coach. Stransky was an adaptable player, capable of playing more than just one game, and his tactical nous would have been crucial in the New Zealand conditions.
McIntosh’s successor Kitch Christie called Stransky up for his first games as Bok coach and his first tour to Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but dropped him after the Bok midweek team lost to Scotland A in Melrose.
Yet while that seemed like it could be the end of Stransky’s World Cup dream, the player re-set himself, it was noticed by Christie, and by the time the World Cup arrived in May 1995 Stransky was his first choice No 10, with Hennie le Roux, who had been used there in the last McIntosh series and then again after the Melrose game, moving to inside centre.
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