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Victor Matfield: 'That always happens... the expectations are so high for him'
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Former South Africa captain Victor Matfield has backed Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu to be the Springboks’ first-choice fly-half going forward, but has said he “needs to work through this second-year syndrome.”
The 24-year-old has started all three Tests of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series so far, but was originally dropped to the bench for the second Test in Cape Town before Handre Pollard, who was scheduled to start, pulled out through injury.
Saturday’s 29-24 victory in Johannesburg saw the Stormers playmaker produce his most assured performance of the series despite playing the majority of the match at full-back, with Manie Libbok coming on at No.10 following Cheslin Kolbe’s injury in the opening quarter of the match.
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While Rassie Erasmus has opted to chop and change his fly-halves so far this year, not helped by an ankle injury ruling Feinberg-Mngomezulu out of the Nations Championship, Matfield said on his Rugby Rivals podcast this week that he still backs the man who held the No.10 jersey at the end of last season.
While Feinberg-Mngomezulu seemed untouchable at the end of 2025, he is yet to reach those lofty heights this year. But Matfield believes that is largely down to “second-year syndrome”, adding that he now needs to learn how to build pressure.
“All the games there were injuries in the backs and we had to shift it around. So I think we’ve got three 10s that are quite different,” the former lock said.
“I think in Cape Town when we were under pressure, we wanted to go back to Handre Pollard, who can really control the game, keep the forwards on the front foot, play a conservative type of game where you manage it by your pack of forwards and your nine and 10 with a kicking game.
“I think Sacha’s got the X factor. I think he’s going through that second-year syndrome, when the first year everything just worked and it was easy, where now he has to work for it. I thought in the second half, he really stepped up, although he was on 15, those kicks he had to make, and just again, his physicality on defence, unbelievable.
“And then in Manie we’ve got a 10 that, if you want to open it up, I think he’s probably the best of all three. He loves to call for the ball. He loves to get width on attack, and we scored both of our tries with him giving those long passes to the outside, and Damian [de Allende] firstly and then Jesse [Kriel] beating the guy on the outside.
“So yeah, we still don’t know who’s the guy that will take that 10 jersey. I still think it will probably be Sacha. He just needs to work through this second-year syndrome, and that always happens because I think the expectations are so high for him just to go out there and do magic, where I think he’ll need to learn now how to build it, just to build pressure, and when the opportunity comes, then you take it, because he’s got all the skills for that.”
