Kyle is man to solve WP fetcher issues

Kyle Brown has enjoyed a glittering career as a specialist openside flank.and capped it with a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics. Photo: Alessandro Bianchi

Kyle Brown has enjoyed a glittering career as a specialist openside flank.and capped it with a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics. Photo: Alessandro Bianchi

Published Sep 11, 2016

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Cape Town – Western Province’s Currie Cup campaign has virtually ended before it started, so the rest of the competition may as well be used as preparation for next year’s Super Rugby competition.

And the first port of call for director of rugby Gert Smal, Stormers coach Robbie Fleck and WP mentor John Dobson is to identify a genuine openside flank.

That has been a problem area for the Cape franchise since Deon Fourie left for France in 2014, and even he was actually a hooker who was turned into a fetcher.

Despite Schalk Burger having worn the No 6 jersey for most of his Newlands career, he never really played towards the ball.

Instead, Siya Kolisi, Nizaam Carr and lately Sikhumbuzo Notshe and Rynhardt Elstadt have been asked to play that role, with varying degrees of success. Carr has been arguably the best of that bunch, but again, he is a natural link man at No 8.

Notshe can play at seven and eight, while Kolisi and Elstadt are traditional blindsiders.

And while Fleck’s main problem area is arguably flyhalf, he will hope that the return of Kurt Coleman and Jean-Luc du Plessis from injury will solve that issue next season.

The Stormers should have a dazzling backline available in 2017, which could easily read as follows: Cheslin Kolbe, Dillyn Leyds, Juan de Jongh, Damian de Allende, Seabelo Senatla, Kurt Coleman and Jano Vermaak.

But, as can be seen in the current WP set-up in the Currie Cup, the loose trio is totally unbalanced. In Friday’s 58-32 thrashing by the Lions at Ellis Park, Kobus van Dyk, Jurie van Vuuren and Elstadt started in the back row. All three are similar players – tall, good lineout jumpers and physical in the tackle.

What the trio lack is speed across the ground, creative skills on attack and being able to contest the breakdowns.

There is a solution, though, if WP are able to think out of the box, and his name is Kyle Brown. Yes, the Blitzbok captain.

Brown is a born-and-bred Capetonian and is a specialist openside flank. He played for Boland and then WP age-group teams after school, and also featured for UCT in the Varsity Cup in 2008 at No 6.

But then he made the Springbok Sevens squad and never looked back. He’s had a glittering career in the shorter format, and capped it with a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics this year.

Brown is 29 years old and has achieved virtually everything possible on the sevens circuit. So why not have a dab at the 15-man game? He was outstanding at the breakdowns at the Olympics and was arguably South Africa’s best player in the competition, which was recognised when he was included in the overall team of the tournament.

And he is far from just a fetcher. Brown is able to read the game well on attack, has good ball skills and a reasonable turn of pace. Yes, all of that was showcased in sevens, where there is much more space to manoeuvre, but he possesses all the necessary attributes to be a success in 15s.

That process could be accelerated if he could play Currie Cup rugby immediately, especially with WP sitting with a loose-forward crisis due to injury.

Brown’s presence could free up playmakers and ball-carriers such as Kolisi, Carr and Notshe to do what they do best instead of having to get into the dark spaces of the breakdown.

Brown is a fine sevens exponent, but should he really go through another four years of toil to try and reach the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when he can be of greater value to the Stormers and even the Springboks too?

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