ON RUGBY:South African rugby appears to be in the rudest health judging by an awesome victory in the Super 14 final, writes GERRY THORNLEY
AS REALITY checks go, that weekend bit pretty hard. Profoundly uninspiring displays and flattering wins for the Lions and Ireland were one thing, but what was frightening was the scale of the Blue Bulls’ 61-17 victory in the Super 14 final over the Waikato Chiefs. In that 80 minutes at Loftus Versfeld especially, the odds on an unlikely Lions’ Test series win assuredly grew even longer.
This is all the more so in the light of the Bulls’ 37-23 win over the Crusaders in the same stadium a week earlier. Then, the Crusaders began superbly and were 20-7 ahead after half an hour before wilting at altitude and being blown away; Morné Steyn filleting them with four drop goals including one towering effort from around the halfway line.
On Saturday he added another, his 11th of the Super campaign. He simply doesn’t miss. Add to that his all-round command and he looks sure to be the solution to what was perceived as the Springboks’ problem position at number 10, all the more so as the second Test is in Pretoria and given his Bulls’ partnership with the outstanding Fourie du Preez.
Given a 13-point buffer wasn’t sufficient for the Crusaders to withstand the debilitating effects of playing at altitude, the Chiefs’ probably needed more than the early seven-pointer courtesy of Lelia Masaga’s try from Mils Muliaina’s counter-attack.
Whereupon du Preez virtually decided the game on his own with a two-try salvo in no time. His broken field running, sniping and physicality were the dominant features here, coupled with which is probably the best kicking game of any scrumhalf in the world.
Bryan Habana also added a brace by half-time, in the process reminding the Lions he remains the game’s interception king and that skip passes out wide going left to right are simply not worth the risk. Four more tries followed in the second half and all their big guns appear to be firing.
Bakkies Botha looked like the best lock in the world and Victor Matfield was his imperious self. By contrast, although he adorned the game with another trademark long-range try, Pierre Spies was something of a luxury item.
But it wasn’t just the established Boks who shone. Fullback Zane Kirchner and centre Wynand Olivier are also pressing for inclusion in the starting team come the first Test on June 20th. There’s a saying in South African rugby that “When the Bulls go well, the Springboks go well”, and with the Bulls set to be the bulk suppliers to the Boks – in every sense – that somewhat compensates for their lack of warm-up games.
Every one of them seems like a man mountain, and such was the all-round dynamism of their display the Lions’ efforts against the Royal XV almost looked like a different sport. The Lions’ set-pieces went well enough but they’re just not as important as the collisions cum breakdown.
A striking feature of both games was how much the South Africans piled into rucks and were so regularly off their feet, coming in from the side and/of playing the ball illegally. In this, they were given all manner of licence by Joantah Kaplan in Loftus Versfeld and Marius Jonker at Coca-Cola Park, and the Test referees, Bryce Lawrence, Christophe Berdos and Stuart Dickinson, could be massively influential figures.
The Lions did not commit sufficient numbers to rucks, or as fiercely, as they needed to do and they will have to revive this strategy. Perhaps, at altitude, they didn’t have the energy to do so. No one tried harder than Paul O’Connell but apart from him, the only players who enhanced their reputations were backs – Lee Byrne, Jamie Roberts, Tommy Bowe and Ronan O’Gara. Even Bowe looked more interested in sucking in the thin air than accepting any congratulations for his try. The Lions’ physio Phil Pask rated the effects of the heat as 9/10 and Martyn Williams admitted he “had nothing in his legs”, while such was the hardness of the pitch that seven players involved on Saturday were receiving treatment.
The suspicion that the SARU won this Test series before a ball was kicked has been reinforced, with odds lengthening on a Lions’ series win from 2 to 1 to 5 to 2 after the events of the weekend. They don’t look especially generous either. With that second Test in Loftus Versfeld looking to be in the snowball-chance-in-hell category of winnable matches, it’s equally clear the first Test at sea level in Durban is as near to a knock-out must-win for the Lions as makes no difference.
After so much “positivity” about Irish rugby this past 18 months or so, it’s easy to be critical of Ireland’s desultory wins over Canada and the USA Eagles.
With a reasonable smattering of experienced campaigners at Test and/or Heineken Cup level, it was disappointing there wasn’t a marked improvement from the first match to the second. The back play, especially, was awful. Judging by the TV pictures, the coaches looked almost in shock, and Declan Kidney made no effort to kid anybody afterwards, least of all himself.
The two games certainly were eye-openers. But should we be that surprised to discover that when you scratch the surface what lies underneath is some way off Test pace? Or that sooner rather than later a massive rebuilding job is going to be required? Probably not. And, with the 2011 World Cup in mind, better to make the discovery now than in a year’s time.
Everything that has been achieved in Irish rugby not only over the last 18 months but the last nine years has been done courtesy of the frontline Munster and Leinster players. In effect the Irish team in the Americas is down to the second tier from Munster and Leinster along with the best of Ulster and Connacht. Lest we forget, Connacht have finished bottom of the Magners League for the last three seasons and Ulster ninth and eighth.
The Irish management could, perhaps, have supplemented their squad last week with the likes of Gordon D’Arcy, Shane Horgan, Jonathan Sexton, Cian Healy and Seán O’Brien, but after Leinster’s Heineken Cup exploits that would have been a tough ask and, besides, what would they have learned? There’s nothing like exposure to this more elevated level and no less than the upcoming Churchill Cup this “five-match tour”, as Kidney calls it, can only be beneficial.
One can understand former internationals lamenting the modern-day cheapness of Test caps, but the greater crime is that the likes of Dr Frank O’Driscoll aren’t awarded caps in retrospect for far tougher games in Argentina in the ’70s than what we witnessed in northern America over the last two Saturdays.
