Kwagga needs to avoid extinction

When I finally decided to play rugby as a matriculant at Dale College, the Mighty Eighths thought they could use my wiry frame at wing or centre.

By wiry I mean I was a negligible physical specimen, having spent the four years before that running cross-country events. But my experiences in the backline were the stuff that horrors are made of.

My first game at outside centre saw me spend most of the time on my backside because my midfield partner fed me a steady diet of the most well-timed hospital passes in history.

The next game was at wing, where my opposite number scored a hat-trick by running around me, through me and sometimes over me, a chastening experience which included a hand-off which saw me fly a good 10m.

Then I found my true home on the rugby field at openside flank and lock. I was hardly menacing at 1.83m and 63kg, but I had Bakkies Botha tendencies and actually scrummed on the tighthead side.

Watching Kwagga Smith play for the Springbok Sevens team last Saturday, the Lions' openside flanker struck me as a player who might have to change his idea of his true position if he wants to make significant inroads into 15-man rugby.

Smith - real name Albertus Stephanus - started playing SA Under-20 rugby last year and made his Currie Cup debut this season, but there is already something about the 21-year-old which suggests he is out of the ordinary.

At 1.80m and 80kg, he's more explosive and stronger than he looks, and he's the patron saint of lost causes in defence.

Add the wonderful running lines he picks in attack, his raw pace, stepping and handling, and you have a prototype for the small forwards who become extinct like the Kwagga he's nicknamed after in the 15-man game, but who are so favoured in sevens.

Were he Australian, Smith would have less problems pressing his claims for higher honours from the side of the scrum.

The Aussies prefer their openside flankers to have a linking element to their game if you think of the roles played by their captain Michael Hooper, who is of a similar size to Smith at 1.82m and 97kg.

But in SA rugby, a flanker has to tick two out of three boxes from being a lineout option, fetching and carrying.

So if Smith harbours ambitions of adding to his junior Springbok honours, he might have to change positions and move to the backline. The most obvious place he could move to is centre, like Gcobani Bobo did all those years ago.

Somewhat encouragingly for an armchair coach like myself, Smith's coach Johan Ackermann says they have experimented with moving him to wing and centre in training and in some Currie Cup games.

But then "Ackers" killed the whole vibe by saying the player has his heart set on playing flank: "The player must still buy into it. We've experimented but he proves you wrong at flank because he adds value there.

"He's strong for his size, he might not get over the advantage line but he won't get run over. He's lighter than our other flankers but he does a similar job."

The real test will be against the hardebarde in Super rugby, a level at which he has yet to play. But Heinrich Brüssow's story must surely serve as a cautionary tale to the point where he should keep the backline option open.

Either that or it's a lifetime of being a sevens great.