Lambie is No1 for the No10

The best flyhalf in South Africa wasn't even playing flyhalf on Saturday.

Patrick Lambie spent most of Saturday night at fullback for the Sharks. Freddie Michalak was preferred at No10 on the night.

Durban's favourite French-man can be flakey at times, but Saturday night wasn't one of those. He coolly dropped a goal and spent the rest of the time dazzling the Bulls and the fans with some of his exceptional rugby skills.

For a must-win game like this, Sharks coach John Plumtree had taken something of a risk playing Michalak, so soon after his arrival from Europe, ahead of Lambie. "Plum's" demeanour is always that of a man in a state of permanent anxiety, but it has never stopped him gambling with selections.

If Lambie was disappointed at being usurped by the man from Toulouse, it didn't show. What was revealed yet again was Lambie's versatility. He's a World Cup shoo-in, no matter whom Peter de Villiers prefers as the first choice at flyhalf for New Zealand. A player who can fill in almost anywhere in a backline is worth his weight in gold to a team on tour, where injuries will always be a factor.

Saturday night's game was no ordinary one either. It would be season-over for whoever lost and the Bulls had just come off a six-match winning streak that had included a win over the Sharks at King's Park and one against the Stormers at Newlands. Surely they couldn't lose, not at their Fortress Loftus?

But with Saturday night's decider in the balance almost up to the end, and Michalak briefly out of the line, Lambie quickly moved into first five-eighth. It was like a Joburg rush-hour driver suddenly finding a gap in the traffic on the acceleration line. He didn't even need to indicate.

Lambie made a telling break, fed Ryan Kankowski, who had to do a bit of work shrugging off some Bulls defenders before setting up Lwazi Mvovo for a match-winning try in the corner. It needed a player of Mvovo's speed to wrap it up, but it was Lambie's try as much as the little winger's.

Both Lambie and Mvovo will go to the World Cup in September, but it's not clear if the flyhalf will be the coach's first choice. Morne Steyn is as much De Villiers's man as is John Smit.

That's not to say Steyn does not deserve his place. The Bulls pivot was superb against the Stormers at Newlands two Saturdays ago. It wasn't just his goalkicking, although with four penalties and a conversion of Francois Hougaard's try, that did make a difference. It was his kicking out of hand, as Springbok Dave Stewart pointed out to me when I spoke to him yesterday about our possible World Cup flyhalves.

Indeed, Steyn's garryowens that night were so high they might have been visible from Devil's Peak. Catching those up-and-unders can be a bugger, and the Stormers dropped two that I counted.

Few will begrudge De Villiers for opting for Steyn at a World Cup, but the Bulls man - for all his obvious skills - lacks the sense of adventure and daring that is clearly part of Lambie's make-up. And what is sport if not an adventure?

Stewart also points out that for De Villiers to choose Lambie ahead of Steyn there needs to be a buy-in from the entire team, an understanding that the Springboks will attempt to play creative rugby rather than the stagnant stuff that won us the last World Cup.

That would be like Julius Malema favouring the free market over nationalisation. It just ain't gonna happen. But that doesn't mean Lambie is not the best flyhalf in South Africa.