Rugby: For pity's sake, give Habana the ball

It may not be anyone's fault but you have to say one of the saddest sights in world rugby right now is the inability of the Springboks to get Bryan Habana meaningfully involved in their game plan.

He is one of the most exciting players in world rugby but for whatever reason there is no way we are seeing the flying Habana at anything like his best.

When South Africa ran some good quality second phase ball deep in their own territory last Saturday against the All Blacks, you felt it was a situation tailor-made for Habana to be released. Alas, the play was going toward JP Pietersen's wing, not Habana's, and besides, it became irrelevant when Jean de Villiers hoofed the ball downfield so far it rolled over the dead ball line.

Was that single act some kind of a death knell for an enterprising, open rugby philosophy of these Springboks? Have we been fooled into believing that, under Peter de Villiers, the South Africans would expand their game in contrast to the rigid and formulaic plan adopted by de Villiers' predecessor Jake White for the World Cup?

De Villiers has become no different to White; namely pragmatic, fully aware of the pressures of test rugby and the demands of his position. For how many would applaud if the Springboks lost most of their matches but Habana scored a hat full of tries?

Whatever the truth, it is a waste of players with multi talents like those of Habana to see them almost entirely restricted to chasing kicks belted downfield or into the heavens, or running them back 10 or 15 metres before being engulfed.

Releasing a player like Habana seems to have become a lost art within the Springboks team. Sure, the Blue Bulls managed it during an era which has brought them two Super 14 titles. But once he gets into the Springbok side, it is as though Habana is largely forgotten. The Boks' strategy rarely involves him getting the ball in his hands in any kind of serious space.

The one pass he received during the World Cup final was just a yard from the touchline. Yet Habana is potentially one of the most lethal runners and finishers in the game today. Few have ever possessed his searing speed and dynamic ability to switch his running line at top pace. It just seems an absurd waste of so valuable a player.

But one reason for it is the preponderance in the modern game of kicking. Most kicks downfield are replied in kind; few fullbacks seem willing or able to attack, ball in hand. Yet a player like Rob Kearney, the Lions fullback, demonstrated on the recent tour of South Africa that it is perfectly possible to run the ball out from the back and make some significant inroads into the advancing defence.