GERHARD VAN DEN Heever made his first start of the season for Munster in Saturday’s 19-14 defeat to the Ospreys, showing some of the attacking ability that convinced the province to bring him to Ireland last season.
The South African scored three tries in 11 appearances in 2013/14, but there was always a sense that van den Heever was finding his feet in that first campaign.
While a knee injury in the Limerick World Club 7s in August meant his bow this season was delayed, the 25-year-old gave head coach Anthony Foley a reminder of his pace and breaking threat against the Ospreys.
He’s a big physical man, he took his try very well,” said Foley at Thomond Park. “A lot of other aspects of his game went well as well. It’s his first hit-out of the year after being unfortunate to get injured in the 7s.
“He was back training with us two weeks ago, then banged knees with Simon Zebo and had to go back onto the treatment table. Today, he showed the value that he adds to the team.”
Van den Heever’s first real involvement in the game came thanks to a poor kick from man of the match Rhys Webb [above], whose miscued box kick allowed the wing to counter into space.
His left-footed sidestep took him past Alun-Wyn Jones and then a fend on Webb allowed him to power into a collision with Justin Tipuric, leaving Munster with excellent front-foot ball.
There was another similar attack from van den Heever later in the first half, again coming from a Webb kick.
Usually the catch in this instance is for the man coming onto the ball [Ian Keatley here]. We don’t know if the Munster out-half communicated that he was coming to catch the pill, but van den Heever decided to step in and claim it.
The 6ft 3ins, 100kg+ wide man jinks past the onrushing Jeff Hassler, bursts past James King, hands-off Rynier Bernardo and once again ends up well into Ospreys’ territory. It’s a wonderful moment of individual ability and another demonstration of what van den Heever brings to the party [Duncan Casey gets some credit for a smart tracking line in front of King].
As Foley alluded to post-match, van den Heever took his try well, although the score was more about the Munster forward’s efforts to suck in defenders and then Keatley’s laser pass out to the left.
Former South African U20 international van den Heever has a strong pedigree, having scored eight tries for the Blue Bulls in the 2010 Super Rugby season. Van den Heever’s form in the years following that peak has not been as impressive, however, as injury troubles and competition for places left him on the fringes at the Bulls and then the Stormers.
The man they call ‘Shadow’ in South Africa gladly accepted Munster’s three-year contract offer in 2013, and with it a potential switch of international allegiance in Ireland’s favour.
Having initially arrived in November of last season, van den Heever was greatly appreciative of a full pre-season ahead of the current campaign, even if his knee injury slowed his progress somewhat.
I’ve been working a lot on my speed in pre-season,” van den Heever told TheScore.ie in July. “My acceleration when I get the ball, before I get the ball and after I get the ball is key for me to exploit those gaps in the defence.”
Those elements were certainly in evidence against the Ospreys, as the wing looked physically sharp, bursting with pace and full of appetite to get his hands on the ball.
Despite the positive elements of his performance, there remain aspects of the game for van den Heever to work on.
As we see in the GIF above, the Ospreys scored a try down van den Heever’s wing in the first half, with the South African biting in to allow the Welshman to exploit the space out wide.
Essentially, van den Heever and Keatley both look to tackle the same player – Andrew Bishop. That leaves the Ospreys a man up on the outside edge and Justin Tipuric does superbly to draw Johne Murphy and send Hassler over to score.
Ideally, Munster would defend the situation in the manner below, with Keatley taking Bishop, van den Heever shepherding Tipuric and Murphy shadowing Hassler.
Instead, we get the wing’s nightmare of ‘biting in,’ whereby van den Heever loses track of ‘his’ man and looks inside to Bishop.
It’s impossible to know if Keatley provided van den Heever with the communication to reassure him that he was in position to make the tackle on Bishop, or whether van den Heever simply ignored it to turn his body in.
Either way, Bishop does well to take two Munster defenders out of the game and create a scenario where the Ospreys are going to score nine times out of ten.
It is in situations like the one above where Munster and van den Heever himself will have known that he has progress to make. There is little doubt about his attacking ability, which looks like it may be even sharper this season, but the 25-year-old still has a way to travel to become the finished product.
His physical power and counter-attacking energy certainly provides Munster with a weapon in attack, however, and Foley may look to van den Heever to spark the province in the coming weeks.
