It's not Habana who's lost hunger

In the 70th minute of a Test match against England at Twickenham in November 2004, a young man with an interesting name ran onto the field to make his Springbok debut.

And what a debut it turned out to be as with his very first touch of the ball he displayed his blistering pace to round the England defence and score a try.

Bryan Habana, named after Bryan Robson of Manchester United, was 21 and that try, South Africa's first in four years against England in a match lost 16-32 at the outset of Jake White's drive to World Cup glory in France in 2007, announced the discovery of a bright new star in rugby's firmament.

In no time, Habana would make the No11 jersey his and it soon became apparent that his genetic gifts were complemented by an exceptional instinct to sniff out tries.

The former KES boy scored two tries in four of his next five Tests and by July 2005 he was already into double figures.

It seemed a long way off but those with an eye for statistics started to track his progress and were not disappointed when he equalled Joost van der Westhuizen's try-scoring record of 38 while playing against Italy in June 2010.

Habana, who had equalled Jonah Lomu's single tournament World Cup record of eight tries in 2007, matched the great scrumhalf's mark in his 60th Test. It had taken Van der Westhuizen 86 Tests to get to 38.

And therein lies the rub. Since equalling the record, Habana has played 10 more Tests - against New Zealand (four), Australia (four), Ireland and Wales - and failed (some would say not come close to) in claiming the mark for himself.

Is that an indictment of the player or the way the team have been playing? I would say the latter.

That Habana has not been up to his explosive best - either for province or country - is not in doubt but it is my contention that the drying up of his spring of tries is in large part due to the stilted, unimaginative tactics employed by the teams he plays for.

It is an indictment of Habana's coaches that the role of one of the world's most dangerous players is largely a defensive one. Whereas he made a name for himself as an opportunistic scorer of interception tries, he now has to bank on a quick grab to get a good attacking ball (and defences now watch for his incursions) or he simply throws himself into the thick of things where pace is not a factor.

Where is the quick double-skip to the wing to give him time and space? The fullback coming up to work the overlap? The run-round to do the same? The quick, hopefully unexpected, probe on the blind-side? The dummies? The decoys? All intended to exploit the attacking dynamism of a player like Habana.

Habana has had to endure a lot of criticism and while he obviously has to share some of it, the real cause may well be that the sterile pattern he is forced to play in has stifled all creativity.

This is true for the Springboks and the Stormers/WP and it is significant that in an effort to inject more technical expertise and perhaps a different vision, it was to the latter that Saru turned by adding Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber to the coaching staff.

Erasmus, a former forward, is described as the technical specialist and Nienaber as the defence coach. But what of attack? Is there anybody in the squad who is thinking: "How do we get Bryan Habana scoring tries again?"