ON RUGBY:Many of the tier-one teams suffered first night nerves as the so-called minnows showed how they've improved, writes GERRY THORNLEY
AUCKLAND WOKE up with its first collective World Cup weekend hangover yesterday and caught its breath. To that end they were helped by gale-force winds, a tornado having just missed the city on Sunday. One couple who had moved from Christchurch after the first big earthquake there were among the eight house owners who had the roof of their home ripped off.
Two fire brigade units spent much of the afternoon in downtown Auckland rehanging a giant poster outside one building as, meanwhile, nobody was escaping the flak. The government had been micro-managing World Cup opening night, and in tandem with Auckland organisers, clearly over-hyped the occasion to the point the city simply couldn’t cope with the estimated 100,000 influx toward the waterfront area.
Amid the chaos, passengers recounted harrowing tales of being stuck on trains for up to one and a half hours inside a tunnel, with no communication as to what was happening. Hence, Auckland Transport especially has been getting it in the neck.
It is estimated a couple of hundred people with tickets for the World Cup opening match couldn’t make it to Eden Park and plans are afoot to compensate them, though how exactly and who will foot the bill has yet to be decided. Auckland had utilised a U2 concert last year as a test run for last Friday’s opening night, when five trains were delayed due to one person pulling an emergency cord. That appears to have been part of the problem again last Friday.
The next test for Auckland and especially Auckland Transport will come on Saturday when 52,000-plus supporters make their way to Eden Park for the Australia-Ireland game, with Auckland Transport making assurances that no such mishaps will occur again.
Controversies on the pitch following an entertaining opening weekend were comparatively muted. One imagines Argentina were less than enamoured with three decisions regarding late, or dangerous, tackles which went against them. Nor would Mario Ledesma have been enamoured with Steve Thompson kissing him. Unctuous. Couldn’t he have been cited as well as Courtney Lawes? Leicester in white became Leicester in an ill-suited or ill-fitting black (especially in Thompson’s case) though Pool B doesn’t look like it’s going to be full of joy.
But, save for Sonny Bill’s ripped jersey (there’s something very Beckhamesque or Hensonesque about this lad’s profile hereabouts) most attention focused on the James Hook penalty that wasn’t referred to the TMO after appearing to edge inside the far upright.
A bigger controversy, by rights, should have been the varying interpretations of the breakdowns. The IRB, needless to say, backed Wayne Barnes and his touch judges regarding the vexed penalty that was/wasn’t, while television technology applied an extended upright and suggested the ball would actually have struck the post.
The most eye-catching theme of the opening weekend was the big-night nerves of the big guns, and the surprisingly effective way the tier-two countries and underdogs tore into their first games. There were no surprise results, though Wales should have beaten South Africa in justifying Warren Gatland’s pre-match bullishness, and in what was the match of the weekend.
Even so all the bookies’ underdogs came in under the match handicap – in other words the matches were way more competitive than had been anticipated. That translated to a 128 to 1 accumulator just by backing the underdogs to beat the handicap.
Their collective competitiveness is important because – allowing for games such as Wales-South Africa this week, Australia-Ireland next weekend, or New Zealand-France the following week – the pool stages are as much about the minnows as the elite.
And for the tournament to work and justify remaining at 20 teams, the minnows cannot be blown away by cricket scores whenever they take to the pitch. The global game has been expanding all the time, and with professionalism expanding in the elite leagues and beyond, more and more players from tier-two countries are earning a living playing the game.
All the tier-two countries have been quasi-professional for the last month or so and all are inspired by being placed in the shop window for the first time in four years. Whether they can sustain it remains to be seen but the IRB and tournament organisers are entitled to be chuffed with the early stages of the competition.
However, it’s not just bucket loads of passion that they’ve brought to the competition. Romania sought to make up for their lack of pace with a daring offloading game to back up their big scrum, and with Georgia reckoned to be superior to Romania, Scotland may have an even trickier game on Wednesday in Invercargill – next stop Antarctica – after making 11 changes.
John Kirwan had Japan playing fast and loose and at a furious tempo in their cracker with France, who at least kept playing until the end, and what Ireland wouldn’t have given for such conditions in New Plymouth.
Looking at the match a second time reinforces Geordan Murphy’s claim that on a dry night, and especially on another night than 9/11, Ireland would assuredly have put up a bigger score. Aside from the profligacy with hard-earned chances, few of the marginal calls went with them, such as the fractional knock-on against Keith Earls before he touched down and Craig Joubert’s erroneous award of a late 22 drop-out to the USA rather than a five-metre scrum when Nees Malifa clearly carried the ball over his own line.
It was not a good performance but a bonus point would have changed perceptions, not least for themselves. That remains a pity because the team does appear a little frayed around the edges, both physically and in terms of confidence. But they go into next week’s game at about 12 points or 10 to 3 underdogs.
And while, as team manager Paul McNaughton said yesterday, they don’t seek to be underdogs, historically and in this World Cup, it doesn’t seem a bad place to be.
