As the DHL Stadium emptied after the Stormers’ excellent 56-15 win over Benetton at the weekend, a figure appeared alongside the press box for a quick chat.
It was former Springbok, Canada and Western Province centre Christian Stewart, and the subject of the brief chat (I had to press on with my match report for supersport.com) was the same one that was probably being had at several other points as the crowd headed to the exits - Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
Christian was a fine attacking player, and a very creative one too, and he finished his career playing flyhalf for WP and is also an astute observer and watcher. So what he said had some gravitas.
“That was special. That kid is special. In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen a flyhalf this special.”
It got me thinking. With reference to the mould of player that Feinberg-Mngomezulu is, it was hard to think of a flyhalf with that much all-around talent, a player who brings the dynamic that he does. Afterwards, I remembered the brilliant Argentinian flyhalf of the 1970s and 1980s, Hugo Porta. There was a guy who appeared to be capable of anything and who was just clearly a special talent.
Someone else brought up Herschelle Gibbs, who by all accounts was a stellar No 10 in his youth before he decided to become a legendary cricketer instead. A mixture of him and Dan Carter. I saw Carter play, obviously, but Gibbs I only saw play the sport that he became famous for. And anyway, he never got to play senior rugby, so shouldn’t be part of the conversation.
I suggested to Christian that maybe we’d been watching someone who could in time belong in the pantheon of legendary Welsh flyhalves who still have currency with those who saw them play: Barry John, who I never saw play, and Phil Bennet, who I saw only really late in his career.
There have been several great flyhalves over the decades, of course, and close to home, there’s a double World Cup winner in Handre Pollard set to return to his home country to play for the Bulls next year. Speaking of the Bulls, no one was better at what he did than Naas Botha, which channels Johnny Wilkinson. Both of them were kicking flyhalves par excellence.
Then, as kind of diametric opposites, were Stephen Larkham, who so suited the Wallaby style of play, while Henry Honiball was unique and particularly highly rated, and feared, by his New Zealand opponents. I always thought All Black Carlos Spencer was underrated and Joel Stransky, like Wilkinson did for England eight years later, won South Africa a World Cup with a drop-goal.
HARD TO THINK OF ANYONE AS ROUNDED
You’d struggle, though, to think of a player who has the potential to switch between moulds like Feinberg-Mngomezulu can. It is hard to imagine Naas, for instance, scoring a hat-trick of tries, like Sacha did against Connacht. And there could have been four, as perhaps that flamboyant back-flip pass that sent Suleiman Hartzenberg in at the corner in that game was unnecessary - he could have crossed for it himself.
Mention of that and Naas cues a point of concern - sometimes flyhalves have attributes, and in Feinberg-Mngomezulu there is a mixture of flamboyance, arrogance and precociousness that won’t endear him to everyone, that get coached out of them. Many who saw Naas play as a youngster spoke about what a good running flyhalf he was before coming under the coaching of the legendary Buurman van Zyl and before getting exposed to win-at-all-costs Currie Cup rugby.
Those who remember, or who have watched video clips of the game, might think of a Bok game against Wellington on the controversial 1981 tour of New Zealand as a shining example of what Naas was capable of as a running flyhalf.
More recently, in 2014, we saw Pollard burst onto the scene as a thrilling young flyhalf that attacked the gainline. His first-half performance against the All Blacks at Ellis Park in his first international season stunned the Kiwis. But a year later, at the 2015 World Cup in England, he was a very different player, standing back from the gainline often and playing safety-first rugby, with Heyneke Meyer’s style being criticised by most neutrals and some South Africans.
They were desperate times and maybe the Boks didn’t get the credit they deserved at that RWC for the way they recovered from the loss to Japan in Brighton to come so close (they lost to eventual winners New Zealand by just two points in the semifinal). But the bottom line is that Pollard had a lot of the flair coached out of him, something that the new Bok attack coach Tony Brown might have been intending but left unsaid when he spoke about Pollard’s attacking strengths when he first started working with him. You got the impression Brown was seeing things he hadn’t seen when watching Pollard at match time.
CONCERNS WOULD APPEAR JUSTIFIED
There is a danger someone might start to meddle with Feinberg-Mngomezulu because some of the prima facie evidence might make it appear justified. If I was having a conversation with someone the night the Stormers lost to Ulster, it would have been a very different one to the one I had with Stewart. The brain fart that led to the flyhalf’s card in that game may well have cost the Stormers the game.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu reminds me a bit of Australian cricketer Glenn Maxwell. In the sense that not everything he tries will always come off, but when it does, it is just next level. And because he is so talented, he tries things others wouldn’t. Returning to cricketing analogy, the great South African batsman of the isolation years, Barry Richards, used to sometimes bat off the side or edge of his bat when he got bored. And got away with it because he was just so good.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu sometimes does things that look outrageous. But he does it because he can. There is a bit of impetuosity that perhaps can do with some curbing, and his game management definitely needs improving.
But young flyhalves invariably learn that through experience. Maybe, as the player himself suggested in a recent media briefing with Cape rugby scribes, it would be better for Feinberg-Mngomezulu to be himself, to continue to live on the edge and be all out passionate, as he put it, and learn the inevitable lessons all young sportsmen learn in the long run himself rather than have what makes him good lost through heavy handed coaching.
ONE SMALL BUT NOTEWORTHY EXAMPLE
And there’s one seemingly insignificant yet perhaps nonetheless important example of what I am referring to. Obviously, when I am at a game, I don’t hear the commentators and I was at the Connacht game.
Watching the game again on television later that night, I was pleased to hear Supersport commentator Matthew Pearce picking up on something I did during the game. After scoring one of his tries, Feinberg-Mngomezulu threw the ball into the crowd behind the dead-ball line in celebration.
Matt pointed out that in doing that, he was making it more difficult for himself to meet the requirements of the shot clock when it came to converting the score, as it would take time to get the ball back. Fortunately, he managed it, and the try was converted.
But perhaps like me, Feinberg-Mngomezulu noted Matt’s words when he watched the replay on television, because when he scored against Benetton, he initially meant to do exactly the same thing - throw the ball into the crowd. Only this time, he checked himself and didn’t let the ball go. It looked like a case of a lesson learned and maybe, when it comes to the grander scale of his game in general, he can be trusted to do the same - learn from experience.
Of course, it can cost his team in the meantime and I’d expect that Rassie Erasmus will have a long talk with him before the next international season kicks off. But the good that can come from his precocious, adventurous attitude may well outweigh any bad. Let’s not coach another flyhalf’s strengths out of him. Particularly not this one, for he really is a unique talent.