South Africa 30 – Tonga 25
England 44 – Samoa 22
The French lady sitting beside in La Place de la Comedie at Montpellier watching the enthralling South Africa-Tonga match was dressed in Tongan colours, with her faced painted in red and white stripes. Her daughter, who looked to be about 8 years old, was similarly dressed and painted. Throughout the match they kept up a series of yells, shrieks and calls, ‘allez Tonga!’ and ‘allez les noirs.’
I don’t know how impressed the Tongan would be to be called ‘blacks’ but the intent of the mother and daughter was clear. They were for Tonga, as were most of the crowd at the ground and at Montpellier. Curiously, a little boy, about a year or so younger than his sister played studiously with his Lego blocks while the women of the family cheered on the torrid Tongans.
It’s to the credit of Tonga that in the end Jake White had to bring out the big artillery with five changes, bringing in members of his number 1 side to replace the weaker number 2 team players. The move worked with two sensational tries by the Springboks. But again to their credit, the Tongans came back and even though fresher number 1 team players were on the field, Tonga almost stole the match on time. It was a pity that the very good youngish English referee, Wayne Barnes, called time on a lineout 5m from the Springboks tryline with the television time showing several seconds of place left.
The play of Tonga against South Africa, and against England next weekend (I have no doubt) makes a mockery of the IRB’s intention to reduce the number of teams in a RWC tournament from 20 to 16. Would Tonga – or Georgia – be in this tournament if it had been a 16-team affair?
Michael Jones was right that the difference between Samoa and England was Jonny Wilkinson. Wilkinson is not just a kicker, although he does kick and awful lot, too much for my liking. I’ve always believed you can’t score tries when the other side has the ball. But most of Wilkinson’s kicking is astute and well-judged, which is more than can be said for the rest of the side.
As I watched the world’s largest rugby community, in terms of people playing the game, struggling to defeat one of the world’s smallest rugby communities, and doing so in a boring, brain-dead, contempt-of skill manner, the anger grew in me that journalists like Stpehen Jones of the UK Sunday Times have had the cheek to condemn southern hemisphere rugby as not being the real thing, too air-fairy, too roboticc etc etc etc …
Jones and his ilk have a lot to answer for for the decline of rugby in Britain. His stupid contempt of the athletic, running game played in the southern hemisphere has meant that journeymen players in Britain whose main thumping is banging their chests during the national anthem are promoted as world-beaters. When they come up against opposition which is not got the northern hemisphere disease of the plodding, these journeymen are revealed for what they are, mediocrities.
It seems inconceivable that Tonga could knock England out of the finals. But on the showing of this weekend’s matches such an upset is possible. Let’s hope it happens.
Your industrious reporter can report that on his way to La Place de la Comedie he walked beside Stephen Larkham for about 20m. The great five-eights looked to be walking without any pain or resistance from his knee despite the operation on it being only a week old.
And then coming back to the hotel asfter watching Argentina thrash Namibia, the huge frame of Lote Tuqiri was spotted making his way back to his hotel. Time: 10.30. So the curfew was being honoured.
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