Former Springboks head coach Nick Mallett has praised Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu after the fly-half hinted at a return to form during their dominant victory over Italy.

While the 24-year-old has not necessarily been poor in 2026, he has struggled to replicate what he showed the previous year with inconsistent displays for both club and country.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu has therefore had some criticism for the first time in his relatively short career, but all that was forgotten with the playmaker’s spellbinding effort in Turin on Saturday.

Sacha sublime

The pivot got the ball rolling with a wonderful solo try and he duly went from strength to strength by guiding the Boks to a 66-7 triumph over the Azzurri.

He was particularly exceptional in the opening period as they scored over a point a minute in taking a 45-0 lead into the break.

“He does set very high standards for himself and that’s understandable. If you’re playing for the Boks, there’s a lot of competition,” Mallett, who also described Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s performance against Italy as “outstanding”, said on the Talking Boks podcast.

The former Springboks boss added: “He would like to play the perfect game but, as we all know, it’s not possible to play a perfect game, you will have an occasion when a kick will come off the side of your foot or you will get a really difficult pass or you don’t handle a contestable as well as you would like.

“It’s good that he has these high standards but he is an emotional guy, there is no question about that. He loves performing well, not only for himself but for the team.

“I just like that personality, he wears his heart on his sleeve and, when he’s on song, he’s a joy to watch.

“There are not many fly-halves in world rugby who can show and go like he did through that backline move and then turn on the afterburners – it was just a wonderful effort.

“It’s great to see him in good form.”

French fly-half crisis

Feinberg-Mngomezulu unsurprisingly retains his place for the France clash on Friday and he was scheduled to go head-to-head with one of Les Bleus’ superstar fly-halves, Romain Ntamack, this weekend.

Ntamack featured against Fiji in the Nations Championship on Saturday due to the injury to Matthieu Jalibert, but the 27-year-old has now joined his fellow playmaker on the sidelines.

It means that the French are suffering a fly-half crisis ahead of the clash against the back-to-back world champions with Thomas Ramos and Antoine Hastoy two more 10s that are out.

“Ironically, France, who have got a guy like Jalibert, they’ve got a guy like Ntamack, it was going to be a big contest for someone like Sacha to play against two world-class fly-halves – or whoever Fabian Galthie decided to choose – and now it looks like they’re going to be scraping the barrel a bit,” Mallett said.

“It’s interesting to see what France does but we’re going to move on very quickly from this game and focus on France because they are a very difficult side and they have the ability with their back three to score tries from anywhere.”