Goosen needs time to develop

One of my favourite rugby players of all time is Gaffie du Toit.

It's an admission that meets with a lot of derision from my mates simply because Gaffie, or the Gaffe-meister as a colleague and I used to call him, was easily the most unreliable player ever to put on a gum guard.

My friends like to support serial overachievers, whereas I like my rugby players to reflect life as it really is - a little messy and unpredictable.

As a man, I've made a career out of knocking on opportunities when it came to the things I really wanted in life.

Seeing Gaffie - we've been on a first-name basis since I discovered his propensity to cock up a sure thing - at work was always proof that rugby gods were also human.

Before getting too carried away pontificating about the meaning of life, the point is that we have an opportunity to stop South African rugby from creating another Gaffie in Johan Goosen.

I'll be the first to agree that it's a big statement to make.

But while Gaffie's supposed mental frailties got in the way of his fulfilling his prodigious talent, Goosen's career may well be undermined by his coaches' obsession with rushing him back from injuries.

Given his appetite for the big occasion, many might struggle to see similarities between Goosen and Gaffie.

But apart from reminding one of the wiry Henry Honiball physically, Goosen's gifts are closer to Gaffie's.

There's the physical presence, the electric pace off the mark, the rocket-launcher boot and the distribution. That has seduced all and sundry, including a decidedly unromantic Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer, into believing he is the one.

In comparison with the other three flyhalves considered to be in the race for the Bok flyhalf - Pat Lambie, Elton Jantjies and Morne Steyn - Goosen ticks most of the boxes.

The problem, however, is when that statement is made, it is on the basis of potential and not what he is doing on a weekly basis. We simply don't see enough of him because he is frequently coming back from some injury or other.

The 20-year-old had a muted start to the season, with his goalkicking a little wayward.

Cheetahs backline coach Hawies Fourie has attributed the misses to a niggling heel injury, which has bugged him from as far back as when he was with the Boks during the Four Nations last year.

The Bok coach insisted on playing him, and asking him to take goalkicking duties, despite the fact that he couldn't practice kicking.

Goosen's heel injury has outlasted shoulder and knee injuries he had last year, both of which were followed by playing him with almost indecent haste.

All he had to do to "prove" his fitness after his shoulder injury was play a half of Currie Cup, which got him a place on the bench and a few minutes against Australia.

When he suffered the knee injury, Meyer carried on playing him for about 20 minutes.

And, now that he has recovered, he didn't even have to play a trial match to go straight into the Cheetahs' Super 15 starting line-up, when any of Riaan Smit, Elgar Watts and, even Willie le Roux would have done the same job.

For all his massive potential, Goosen is still a baby and needs looking after. His coaches should really try to make sure that, the next time he goes out there, he is ready to play, not being shunted back for their selfish reasons.

I know it all comes from a good place, but nobody wants to talk about Goosen as another Gaffie in 10 years' time.