Goosen’s rise continues, axe falls on Steyn

The fairytale rise of 20-year-old fly-half Johan Goosen continued on Wednesday when he was named in the South Africa starting line-up for a Rugby Championship Test against Australia. Goosen faces the Wallabies in Pretoria on Saturday after making his senior debut only last year in the domestic Currie Cup championship for the Free State Cheetahs and playing Super 15 rugby union for the first time this year. But as one-time golden boy Morne Steyn suffered a place-kicking slump that culminated in him missing four of five shots at goal in a 21-11 loss to New Zealand this month, the media and public clamour for Goosen intensified. Steyn, famous for his halfway-line penalty that sealed a Test series against the 2009 British and Irish Lions, does not even make the bench with another rising star, Golden Lion Elton Jantjies, covering Goosen. A criticism of 28-year-old Blue Bull Steyn was that he often lay too deep at set pieces and in broken play, restricting the chances of the Springboks crossing the gain line.