BOK DREAM TEAM: The inside centre nominees

Outside of the flyhalf, the inside centre, the man who wears the No 12, is the key decision-maker at the back, with there being a good reason that for a long time New Zealanders referred to the position not as centre but as second five-eight.

Hennie le Roux, who played inside centre in the first Springbok World Cup winning team, was the perfect example of why the Kiwis did that - he had played most of his career at flyhalf and was effectively the second flyhalf to Joel Stransky in the key decision-making 10/12 axis. Not forgetting of course that he was also a really good defender, another key attribute for the position.

In the modern game the inside centre is also the man who takes the ball up to the gainline, like Andre Esterhuizen does so well, and there have been several fine players who have worn the jersey who have done that brilliantly for the Boks, with Pieter Muller springing readily to mind for his strong ball carrying and aggressive, abrasive defending in the 1990s.

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The inside centre candidates for the Dream Team

Jean de Villiers

Jean de Villiers was quite possibly the unluckiest Springbok in terms of World Cups. He was selected for the 2003 RWC but was injured in a warmup game and never made it to Australia, while in 2007 he was part of the squad that started the successful quest for South Africa’s second taste of the Holy Grail but was ruled out before halftime of the first game when he tore a bicep against Samoa at Parc des Princes.

In 2011 he was part of the team that lost out in the quarterfinal stage to the Bryce Lawrence refereeing freak show and then in 2015, when he was captain, he was ruled out by an injury sustained in the second game - also against Samoa.

A captain of the Boks between 2012 and 2015, De Villiers was one of the most intelligent players to wear the Bok jersey - and his propensity for scoring intercept tries was down to his excellent defensive reads.

He could also be physical on defence and one of his finest performances in that regard was in the 21-6 win over the All Blacks in Cape Town in 2005, just three weeks after the All Blacks had completed a clean sweep of the British and Irish Lions.

De Villiers impressed from a young age and was a key player of the Junior Bok team that won the Junior World Championship under future Wallaby Clyde Rathbone’s captaincy and under the coaching of Jake White in 2002, and it was on that basis that he was chosen to debut against France in Marseille at a young age.

Unfortunately he sustained a serious injury in that game, which also happened to be the debut appearance of Bakkies Botha, and injuries were to be a constant interruptor to his career. That he came back from each and every one of them though was a testament to his resilience and his determination.

Damian de Allende

A product of Milnerton High School, De Allende got to the top the hard way, with his coaches backing his natural talent over the fact that he did not make it into the Western Province Craven Week team in his matric year and pushing him into the WP under-19 set-up while he was still at school.

De Allende made the most of his opportunity and was soon noticed by the then WP/Stormers coach Allister Coetzee, who played him on the wing as a little known youngster in the 2012 Currie Cup final against the Sharks in Durban. De Allende did well in a game that will be remembered for the try that Juan de Jongh scored to inspire the underdogs to a shock win over a far more experienced team.

From there De Allende’s career took off and he soon established himself as a centre, which was the position he played when he won two World Cups.

A strongly built player in the style of the traditional South African inside centre, De Allende also has very good soft skills, and his passing game was something that Tony Brown made mention of when he arrived as the Springbok attack coach. De Allende is one of the players who has most benefitted from Brown’s arrival in terms of widening his game and is arguably the best inside centre in world rugby at this time.

De Wet Barry

So why was an excellent inside centre Jean de Villiers used mostly as a wing by Jake White early in his Springbok career? It was mostly because of the presence of the strongly built and powerful tackling De Wet Barry, a player from WP/Stormers who was a good straight running centre in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

He made his international debut under the coaching of Nick Mallett against Canada in East London in 2000, incidentally in the same game as John Smit made his debut, and went on to play 38 test matches for his country.

Many of those were alongside his WP and Stormers teammate Marius Joubert, who scored three tries against the All Blacks when the Boks hammered the All Blacks 42-26 in Johannesburg in 2004.

That was an important step towards the Boks winning that year’s Tri-Nations, which kick-started the successful drive to the World Cup title in 2007. However, by then De Villiers had established himself at inside centre and Jaque Fourie had done the same outside him, with Barry fading a bit later in his career.

He captained the Stormers in the 2006 season but that was also the year he played his last game for the Boks, with a defeat to France in Cape Town, the first one on South African soil in the Jake White reign as coach, changing the course of the Boks.

Frans Steyn

When the then Sharks coach Dick Muir moved his 18-year-old fullback Frans Steyn to flyhalf at the last minute before a key Currie Cup game against Western Province in Durban in 2006, there were many who would have thought he’d lost his mind.

Yet there was method in Muir’s decision, taken in the early afternoon of a Friday night game, as rain swept across Kings Park and Steyn played a blinder, almost single-handedly winning the game by himself.

From there it was a quick elevation into the Bok squad, and he made his debut on the wing against Ireland in Dublin that November before switching to fullback for the following two games against England.

On the basis of his performances on that tour Steyn became part of Jake White’s plans, and it was a good thing he did, as he proved a rock steady X-factor replacement for Jean de Villiers when the more experienced player was injured at the start of the 2007 World Cup.

There are many who’d agree with the late former Natal and Springbok coach Ian McIntosh that Steyn’s best position was fullback, but he played mostly as a centre for the Boks in the games that will be remembered the most.

Apart from his good field kicking boot, strong carrying and explosive running, he was also possessed of a dab drop-goal accumulating boot and he was the man with the siege gun boot, in terms of distance, when it came to his place-kicking.

Pieter Muller

When South Africa returned to international rugby in 1992 there was one newcomer more than any other that joined the established stars Naas Botha and Danie Gerber in keeping the Boks afloat - Pieter Muller.

The Free State-produced Sharks player was a standout in the midfield alongside Gerber in the first post-isolation test against the All Blacks in September of that year, and he continued to be so on the tour of France and England that followed.

Muller, brother to Free State produced fellow Springbok Helgard, missed the 1995 World Cup because of injury otherwise he may have played a role in that triumph, but he was there for the 1998 Tri-Nations and played a very influential role in ensuring that the team coached by Nick Mallett and captained by Gary Teichmann became the first South African side to win that trophy.

They did that in a campaign where they were unbeaten and where the Bok challenge was particularly underlined in a win over the All Blacks in Wellington, where Muller was nothing short of sublime with his abrasive defensive game as well as his strength in standing up to the tackle.

Wayne Julies

The product of the Boland rugby factory first made his mark as a member of the SA under-20 team that won a junior international tournament under the captaincy of John Smit and the coaching of Eric Sauls with the help of Jake White in 1999. Julies was one of the standouts of that team and it was on that basis that he found himself making his Bok debut in a World Cup game against Spain later that year.

He made it to the 2007 World Cup as an injury replacement for Jean de Villiers, but it was Frans Steyn who nailed down the starting inside centre spot. In 1999 he played behind another good inside centre in Brendan Venter.

Julies, who played 11 times for the Boks over an eight year international career, was well travelled as a provincial player, with his CV including stints at the Bulls (1999), the Stormers (2000 to 2002), the Cats (2004 to 2006) and finally the Bulls again (2007 to 2009).

He also played for the Boland Cavaliers the Bule Bulls, Free State, Golden Lions, SWD Eagles and Blue Bulls in the Currie Cup and ended his career with 13 appearances for the French club team Aix-en-Provence.

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