A player who runs on to a rugby field has a mind, a body and a spirit. So has a team. This was as true as ever of the Springboks who ran on to the field in Brisbane on Saturday. But when they ran off the field after 80 minutes of play, they had lost on all three of those counts. They were playing against the Wallabies who a week earlier had been comprehensively outgunned by the All Blacks in Christchurch.
Those watching on the TV set at the Rod and Reel could hardly believe it. We were told that it was the second largest margin by which South Africa had lost a test, 49-0 being very, very slightly better than the 53-3 loss to England at Twickenham a few years ago. Embarrassing!
One of our group said: ‘South Africa have only one problem, and that’s South Africa.’ That says everything, but it also says nothing.
The Springboks played badly. At halftime we sat there trying to work out what was wrong – never mind why it was going wrong. It was, alas, familiar territory. The much talked about South African defence – ‘rush defence’ – wasn’t working. The first Australian try was a shove-over affair after a legitimate truck-and-trailer move (which, to be fair, looks just as much against any reasonable understanding of the obstruction principle as the illegitimate version). But the second and third tries, by Greg Holmes and Matt Giteau, showed up the ‘rushes’ as being more like a bunch of broken reeds springing up in the wrong places, or nowhere at all. Defences, rushed or otherwise, depend on first-time tackling, not on the sieve-like holes that the Australian backs shouldered, side-stepped and elbowed their way through. The statistics at halftime said that the South Africans had missed 18 tackles and the Australians one. Even if that was only half true, it is far from acceptable.
The Springbok handling – catching and passing alike – was woeful. Those in positions where there are frequent calls on skills in this department were found wanting, Jaco van der Westhuysen and Percy Montgomery among them. Bryan Habana appeared on that list early on and thereafter, through no fault of his, on no other list of Springbok activities for most of the time remaining. Was there a single South African line movement in which the ball went out to a wing or even to the fullback coming into the line?
The Springboks gave away more penalties than their opponents. George Smith alone ‘fetched’ more ball than all the Springbok pack between them. And Victor Matfield got a yellow card when the score was a mere 20-0. He’d learnt nothing from the Wallaby Rocky Elsom’s card against New Zealand a week ago. At halftime one of the Australian commentators said: ‘The Australians are winning this game with their heads.’ He was right. He would have been just as right if he’d said they were winning with their bodies and spirit as well.
The one thing the Springboks were very good at was stopping the Wallabies from putting the ball down on the ground once over the South African line. They did that three times. It’s scary to think that, if they hadn’t done so, the final score could have been 70-0.
Those were some of the things that were going wrong. The list of shortcomings could have come from the earlier matches this season against a World XV, Scotland and especially France. Why do these things happen? It was raining.
But it was raining just as much on the Wallabies. And then we trot out the tired old catalogue of injuries – Schalk and Bakkies; of the failure to select the scintillating Luke Watson; of Jake White’s wrestling with the rugby authorities over his contract; of arguments about ‘transformation’ selections; and of the new charter for improving our rugby at all levels that has been issued in the last week. But these must surely be seen as excuses, which are the squeezed-out shells of real reasons.
Before the test we had likewise had to put up with media dramatizations of stories about how the Springboks were going to annihilate the Wallaby scrum and at a lesser level of how George Smith’s locks were ‘up for grabs’. But these are not things to cause such an embarrassing abyss in Springbok fortunes. Coaches, selectors and players must play above and play through such nonsense, and worse.
Wait a bit. Perhaps the Wallabies are a really great side, nearly 50 points superior to the Springboks. Maybe. Less than a year ago they were being written off as near has-beens, and their membership has not changed too much. George Gregan is still there, and Stephen Larkham and George Smith and Stirling Mortlock and Chris Latham and Mat Rogers and Jeremy Paul. Are they going to turn round in two weeks’ time and beat the All Blacks, who thrashed them last week? Possible, but not likely.
And are the Springboks going to beat New Zealand next week? Like to bet? No, the Wallabies are good but it should have been a close game.
The real problem is not that the Springboks were beaten, but that they played badly. They came a long way second in body, mind and spirit, and that’s embarrassing.
Reasonable South Africans, despite what is often said, will accept losses in tests when our side obviously and heroically try their uttermost.
Bah les Zamis, même au Normandie sur Les Champs, dans la plus somptueuse des salles, la 1, dudit Ciné !!!!
Bof ! bof ! Pas vraiment du grand film à mon sens ; j’irai même, sans insolence de ma part, écrire : déçue !!
alors plosibles explications :
1. – Trop imprégnée de la réalité en ce qui concerne l’état actuelle et précédente de l’Afrique du Sud pour réellement apprécier le film.
2. – Touchée et sensible aux derniers évènemnets à Haiti, j’ai eu un mal de chien à me plonger en Afrique du Sud.
3. – Quelques scènes touchantes m’ont remémoré certains souvenirs… Je m’en serais passée : ce point, c’est tout perso… no more comment.
Bref !
Pour ma part ce que j’ai « retenu » : C’est long… Plat plat plat… Un Mandela trop caricaturé : la personalité dudit Grand Homme est à mon sens remodelée maladroitement sur certains traits de sa personalité même pas drole ! même pas drôle.
Quant au Rugby : bon ok Serge, tu avais commenté et donné ton avis, ceci avant que j’aille voir le film et j’avais lu le com, mais bon, j’ai parfaitemnet découvert la maladresse du réalisateur d’INVICTUS, dans le jeu, les actions, le rôle des acteurs devant cette discipline sportive mal « étudiée » mal abordée. Elle (la maladresse) est très nette, pas beosin d’être un grand rugbyman : moi ! par exemple : j’ai tout vu et ça m’a bien amusée
Enfin, c’était un thème très délicat à oser aborder et porter en film. Il fallait s’appeler Clint Eastwood pour cela : je pense qu’en réalisant ce film, il était sincère et voulait dénoncer à sa façon & made in Hollywood un sujet qui lui tenait à coeur…. On connait le réalisateur… Enfin moi je le prend comme ça…
Non ! non! non! ça n’a nullement gâché mon pm ! loin de là : juste before le film, à la fnac, parmi les soldes CD sympa, close to the séduisant, charmeur Robbie Williams, j’ai déniché quoi ???!! le top du top : le coffret complet de Supertramp… Back to ma pleine adolescence !!!
Inutile dans rajouter plus et de décrire ma fin de pm.
Bon ok ! je le précise : SANS Robbie WIlliams, mais ça vous l’aviez deviné !!!
Rudyard KIPLINK a dit : « La femelle de l’espèce est plus mortelle que le mâle »…
Et je ne sais plus exactement quels Profs de Harvard affirmaient qu’après 35 ans, une femme a autant de chances de se marier que d’être enlevée par les extraterrestres.
A ceux là, je leur souhaite de tomber dans une bouche d’égout et de rencontrer tout en bas une P. de bande de lesbiennes butch qui les attendent chalumeau à la main.
6 janvier 2010 à 5:30
Sympa à ré-écouter ces interviews.
Merci !
10 janvier 2010 à 12:08
Bonjour
Le froid peut-être, je ne sais pas, mais, je n’ai pas pu entendre Sportisimon hier, trop de parasites sur la fréquence 103,1. Tu étais inaudible.
Pourras-tu poster l’émission ?
Merci par avance.
13 janvier 2010 à 5:15
Soyons très clairs les Ptits Zamis INIVICTUS ; c’est MOI !!!
Alors
1 : Qui m’appelle ?
2. – Qui est de taille à pouvoir m’affronter ?
Non Mais !!
13 janvier 2010 à 5:40
Alors ?! Invictus aurait-il enfin trouvé un adversaire à sa taille ?!!
… Encore eut’il fallu que je le susse …
13 janvier 2010 à 22:22
Subjonctif imparfait du verbe SAVOIR !!!
Rien de plus , Réviser votre grammaire !!
Il ne s’agissait que d’humour !
16 janvier 2010 à 19:18
About Francois Pienaar
A player who runs on to a rugby field has a mind, a body and a spirit. So has a team. This was as true as ever of the Springboks who ran on to the field in Brisbane on Saturday. But when they ran off the field after 80 minutes of play, they had lost on all three of those counts. They were playing against the Wallabies who a week earlier had been comprehensively outgunned by the All Blacks in Christchurch.
Those watching on the TV set at the Rod and Reel could hardly believe it. We were told that it was the second largest margin by which South Africa had lost a test, 49-0 being very, very slightly better than the 53-3 loss to England at Twickenham a few years ago. Embarrassing!
One of our group said: ‘South Africa have only one problem, and that’s South Africa.’ That says everything, but it also says nothing.
The Springboks played badly. At halftime we sat there trying to work out what was wrong – never mind why it was going wrong. It was, alas, familiar territory. The much talked about South African defence – ‘rush defence’ – wasn’t working. The first Australian try was a shove-over affair after a legitimate truck-and-trailer move (which, to be fair, looks just as much against any reasonable understanding of the obstruction principle as the illegitimate version). But the second and third tries, by Greg Holmes and Matt Giteau, showed up the ‘rushes’ as being more like a bunch of broken reeds springing up in the wrong places, or nowhere at all. Defences, rushed or otherwise, depend on first-time tackling, not on the sieve-like holes that the Australian backs shouldered, side-stepped and elbowed their way through. The statistics at halftime said that the South Africans had missed 18 tackles and the Australians one. Even if that was only half true, it is far from acceptable.
The Springbok handling – catching and passing alike – was woeful. Those in positions where there are frequent calls on skills in this department were found wanting, Jaco van der Westhuysen and Percy Montgomery among them. Bryan Habana appeared on that list early on and thereafter, through no fault of his, on no other list of Springbok activities for most of the time remaining. Was there a single South African line movement in which the ball went out to a wing or even to the fullback coming into the line?
The Springboks gave away more penalties than their opponents. George Smith alone ‘fetched’ more ball than all the Springbok pack between them. And Victor Matfield got a yellow card when the score was a mere 20-0. He’d learnt nothing from the Wallaby Rocky Elsom’s card against New Zealand a week ago. At halftime one of the Australian commentators said: ‘The Australians are winning this game with their heads.’ He was right. He would have been just as right if he’d said they were winning with their bodies and spirit as well.
The one thing the Springboks were very good at was stopping the Wallabies from putting the ball down on the ground once over the South African line. They did that three times. It’s scary to think that, if they hadn’t done so, the final score could have been 70-0.
Those were some of the things that were going wrong. The list of shortcomings could have come from the earlier matches this season against a World XV, Scotland and especially France. Why do these things happen? It was raining.
But it was raining just as much on the Wallabies. And then we trot out the tired old catalogue of injuries – Schalk and Bakkies; of the failure to select the scintillating Luke Watson; of Jake White’s wrestling with the rugby authorities over his contract; of arguments about ‘transformation’ selections; and of the new charter for improving our rugby at all levels that has been issued in the last week. But these must surely be seen as excuses, which are the squeezed-out shells of real reasons.
Before the test we had likewise had to put up with media dramatizations of stories about how the Springboks were going to annihilate the Wallaby scrum and at a lesser level of how George Smith’s locks were ‘up for grabs’. But these are not things to cause such an embarrassing abyss in Springbok fortunes. Coaches, selectors and players must play above and play through such nonsense, and worse.
Wait a bit. Perhaps the Wallabies are a really great side, nearly 50 points superior to the Springboks. Maybe. Less than a year ago they were being written off as near has-beens, and their membership has not changed too much. George Gregan is still there, and Stephen Larkham and George Smith and Stirling Mortlock and Chris Latham and Mat Rogers and Jeremy Paul. Are they going to turn round in two weeks’ time and beat the All Blacks, who thrashed them last week? Possible, but not likely.
And are the Springboks going to beat New Zealand next week? Like to bet? No, the Wallabies are good but it should have been a close game.
The real problem is not that the Springboks were beaten, but that they played badly. They came a long way second in body, mind and spirit, and that’s embarrassing.
Reasonable South Africans, despite what is often said, will accept losses in tests when our side obviously and heroically try their uttermost.
But on Saturday they didn’t.
18 janvier 2010 à 18:31
INVICTUS – Le Retour !
Bah les Zamis, même au Normandie sur Les Champs, dans la plus somptueuse des salles, la 1, dudit Ciné !!!!
Bof ! bof ! Pas vraiment du grand film à mon sens ; j’irai même, sans insolence de ma part, écrire : déçue !!
alors plosibles explications :
1. – Trop imprégnée de la réalité en ce qui concerne l’état actuelle et précédente de l’Afrique du Sud pour réellement apprécier le film.
2. – Touchée et sensible aux derniers évènemnets à Haiti, j’ai eu un mal de chien à me plonger en Afrique du Sud.
3. – Quelques scènes touchantes m’ont remémoré certains souvenirs… Je m’en serais passée : ce point, c’est tout perso… no more comment.
Bref !
Pour ma part ce que j’ai « retenu » : C’est long… Plat plat plat… Un Mandela trop caricaturé : la personalité dudit Grand Homme est à mon sens remodelée maladroitement sur certains traits de sa personalité même pas drole ! même pas drôle.
Quant au Rugby : bon ok Serge, tu avais commenté et donné ton avis, ceci avant que j’aille voir le film et j’avais lu le com, mais bon, j’ai parfaitemnet découvert la maladresse du réalisateur d’INVICTUS, dans le jeu, les actions, le rôle des acteurs devant cette discipline sportive mal « étudiée » mal abordée. Elle (la maladresse) est très nette, pas beosin d’être un grand rugbyman : moi ! par exemple : j’ai tout vu et ça m’a bien amusée
Enfin, c’était un thème très délicat à oser aborder et porter en film. Il fallait s’appeler Clint Eastwood pour cela : je pense qu’en réalisant ce film, il était sincère et voulait dénoncer à sa façon & made in Hollywood un sujet qui lui tenait à coeur…. On connait le réalisateur… Enfin moi je le prend comme ça…
Non ! non! non! ça n’a nullement gâché mon pm ! loin de là : juste before le film, à la fnac, parmi les soldes CD sympa, close to the séduisant, charmeur Robbie Williams, j’ai déniché quoi ???!! le top du top : le coffret complet de Supertramp… Back to ma pleine adolescence !!!
Inutile dans rajouter plus et de décrire ma fin de pm.
Bon ok ! je le précise : SANS Robbie WIlliams, mais ça vous l’aviez deviné !!!
Rugbyses
-:)
18 janvier 2010 à 21:14
Rudyard KIPLINK a dit : « La femelle de l’espèce est plus mortelle que le mâle »…
Et je ne sais plus exactement quels Profs de Harvard affirmaient qu’après 35 ans, une femme a autant de chances de se marier que d’être enlevée par les extraterrestres.
A ceux là, je leur souhaite de tomber dans une bouche d’égout et de rencontrer tout en bas une P. de bande de lesbiennes butch qui les attendent chalumeau à la main.