- Bulls flyhalf Chris Smith admits he's missed his rugby "brother" Morne Steyn after the latter was called up to the Springboks earlier this year.
- The 26-year-old has found that competition with the 37-year-old veteran is quite intense and has been happy to play second fiddle and learn.
- But new URC stats suggest that Smith's impact is far bigger than believed and that he might be pushing Steyn much harder.
For the best part of a year, Chris Smith and Morne Steyn learned to become rugby siblings, predominantly because they were the only two specialist senior flyhalves in Jake White's first Bulls group.
26-year-old Smith, a Maties and Pumas hero, had been expected to belatedly seize a chance for some proper game-time, only to realise that the man 11 years his senior wasn't exactly sitting back and letting the youngsters move ahead of him in the queue.
But, like a proper team-man playing with a plan and a healthy dose of perspective, he embraced the interesting mixture of competition and mentorship on offer from the Bulls and Springbok legend.
"I do think I missed him a bit when he suddenly wasn't alongside me at training anymore because he got called up to the Boks," said Smith.
"Obviously Morne's a great team-man, we have quite a nice relationship. I love working with him, having him as a mentor.
"That said, Morne's a very competitive man, he loves pushing for starts still so he's probably not given all of his advice to me just yet! He’s been great, I just love observing him.
"Competition is important, especially in a long season like the United Rugby Championship (URC). You need depth in certain positions. It's strong at No 10. Hopefully I can eventually catch him, but for now I’m just trying to absorb anything I can from him."
That dynamic now, however, has become a lot more interesting.
While Steyn was busy beating the British & Irish Lions again and taking part in the Rugby Championship, Smith was understudy to another star 10 in Johan Goosen.
When Goosen cried off early with a knee injury against Cardiff Blues, he stepped up an delivered a match-winning performance with a flawless kicking display.
"It wasn't the best circumstances with Goose going off. It was a tough week. We’d been training together and we thought we'd have our respective roles to play," said Smith.
"Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way, but I was very happy to have the opportunity, it was a good 65 minutes of playing time."
In fact, earlier this week, the URC released its StatMaster expected points (xP) metric, one that measures the "impact each player has on his side's chances of scoring".
The URC took data from last season's PRO14, the Rainbow Cup and the current campaign and came up with an interesting revelation: Chris Smith is the best of them all.
With a combined score of 4.56xP, he's the second most impactful No 10 in terms of scoring potential points with +2.68 and balances that with a +1.06 score for carrying impact.
It's a superb number for a man who's predominantly played off the bench recently.
Smith is clearly now heading into the type of territory where Steyn might not be White's first-choice pivot for much longer.
For now though, he needs to focus on being the type of orchestrator that can help the former Springbok coach implement the varied, quicker game that's becoming imperative for any success in the URC campaign.
"For a 9 and 10, game management is very important. Coach Jake has continuously emphasised that we want to play more rugby and with that comes tempo, especially from the opposition," said Smith.
"A team like Leinster is unbelievable in that regard. I learnt a lot. They ran us off our feet. If you don’t adapt now, there will be problems. You need a game that’s controlled by the 9 and 10."