Look, Heyneke has blooded about 25-30 new caps in his tenure which I would think banishes any claims of him being conservative. Yes, his hand has been forced due to retirement of players at the start of his tenure and in other instances due to injury or unavailability of players as was the case this evening (SA evening at least).
He has always been concerned about his locks, in his tenure he has blooded Etzebeth, Lood de Jager, Juandre Kruger, PSdT, Lewies and one other last year and I can't seem to recall his name. That's 6 new locks, in the meanwhile we have Bakkies and Matfield who are about as of now although they are aging.
Yet, we have F. du Preez who is over 30, Pienaar who is also nearing 30 if he has not reached it by now. Sarel who has been tried is also over 30. We so desperately need a general at nr 9 who is not Hougaard (too hot and cold and not enough game-time at 9).
I respect that Heyneke wants a balanced 9, a tactical 9 like du Preez or Pienaar. Pienaar is really slow in my opinion and Hougaard is not tactical enough. Sarel is sort of a hybrid which is good but where has he been? Again, he is also aging. Reinach is probably the closest to what we have in terms of international quality 9s at the moment. Kockott is a similar player in my opinion. It is really disconcerting to me to know that if both F. du Preez and Pienaar get injured we are in real trouble.
Let us not forget the ABs had to play their 4th flyhalf at the world cup in 2011. Nothing guarantees the wellness of our nr 9s.
Having said that, Heyneke is a very rigid and statistically driven coach, he probably has some statistics dictating that 9s don't get injured as much since they run around and pass the ball from break-down points mostly, making the occasional tackle and that is likely why he has been developing his team as he has - and I respect that.
It's just... 9s tend to tackle and get tackled by flankers when it does happen. Also considering the future here. All over the park things look fairly bright except at nr 9.
Do we just not have quality number 9s? It certainly feels like it.