Springbok first five-eighths Morne Steyn has settled the debate over the generally miserable form of goal-kickers at the World Cup by suggesting that poor workmen blame their tools.
A number of kickers, notably Jonny Wilkinson of England, have said that they have issues with the official Gilbert match balls, to the extent that England's kicking coach, Dave Alred, and conditioning coach Paul Stridgeon switched the match ball with balls presumably used by Wilkinson in training during the Pool B match against Romania. The law states that a conversion must be taken with the ball used to score the try.
England's RFU internal admitted that Alred and Stridgeon had "mistakenly thought that there was an issue with some of the match balls used and had taken it upon themselves to substitute balls during the match in contravention of both the laws of the game and the spirit of the game". Wilkinson missed five out of eight kicks in England's match against Argentina and the usually reliable Pumas kickers also missed five shots at goal.
Steyn, who has been successful with 13 out of 15 kicks at goal to be well clear of other kickers at the World Cup, said he did not understand the fuss over the balls.
"For me it is the same ball that we always use," he said at a press conference in the capital yesterday. "Before the tournament the guys from Gilbert came and showed us the ball to be used at the World Cup and it was no different to the one we use in Super rugby. The only difference is that it had different writing and patterns on it but the actual ball is the same.
