By Greg Smith
July 5th 2009 @ 6:21am
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Script bucking Lions defeat the Boks
As dead rubber massacres at Ellis Park go, 28-9 for the Lions is a contender (with the record 53-8 for South Africa over Australia in the 2008 Tri Nations) for my end of series rugby album.
If it wasn’t for the B-team deniability, the 10 changes to the Bok squad, I’d maybe put the British & Irish Lions dead rubber massacre on top of that list.
I can’t say the British & Irish Lions were brilliant but they were spirited. Well done, thanks for coming, series over and see you in 12 years time.
That’s where the plaudits end in this disappointment for anyone hoping that the ’script-buckers’ would triumph.
3-0 is a B&I Lions series result South Africa just cannot bank (Whitewashes are so 1980’s).
Bucking the script was a fantasy I can kick myself for falling for again but this time the disappointment I have for my beloved Boks has to do with something more basic.
Discipline. (Surprise?)
Didn’t anyone tell the South African squad that they had little chance of winning this game?
It seems not because it was an embarrasment to have to watch various off the ball niggles develop as a combination of poor refereeing and escalating conflicting ‘loser’ emotions managed to put paid to any hopes of smiley faces at the post series fairplay awards.
I think South Africa could have beaten this British & Irish Lions team. I really do. But South Africa entered the game with everything set up wrong. It was obvious this wasn’t a do or die game and that the 3-0 wasn’t on.
That said. Then you’d expect the losing team to go down with grace and I’m sorry to have to admit South Africa fell flat on their faces on this count. I blame certain overzealous players but ultimately lay all the blame at the feet of Peter de Villiers and his inability to act as the ‘guts’ of the teams discipline.
Kitch Christy, Ian MacIntosh and even Jake White oozed discipline. It’s obvious Peter de Villiers doesn’t and young players believe they have free reign in terms of poor behaviour.
In the end, it turned an inevitable loss into something worse. From a Bok fans perspective it looked like we were frustrated and poor losers. A shame especially with the series already won.
British & Irish Lions fans were gifted a fairy tale ending and I wonder if that’s built into the packages ? All is fair in love, war and rugby, it seems especially in South Africa. No hard feelings, see y’all soon, 2010’s around the corner, bring your friends & family.
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Hayden said | July 5th 2009 @ 6:44am | Report comment
Going into this series, most of the smart money was on the Boks to trample the Lions. However, they were fortunate to come away with the series win. After watching this, I’m picking the Boks for the wooden spoon in the 3N again. They flatter to deceive, lack discipline, and are coached by a madman.
mart said | July 5th 2009 @ 8:57am | Report comment
Luck played a big part in the 3 Tests….Boks had it in the 1st 2, Lions had it in 3rd
Guy Smiley said | July 5th 2009 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
mart when all is said and done I believe that’s a pretty good summation of the series. Two evenly matched teams busting a gut and giving us three great test matches. Congrats to the Boks and the Lions.
Hemjay said | July 5th 2009 @ 3:30pm | Report comment
The South Africans saw nothing in the third test they had already won the series so why risk injury to their starters when the Tri-Nations is just around the corner?
One thing that this did show and proved a point which I and a few others have been trying to say for the lasy few weeks is that any team missing as many frontline players as the ABs have had will struggle greatly and that is exactly what happened with our Sout African bretheren, their second stringers just couldn’t cut the mustard against a somewhat weakened Lions team.
In saying that if Giteau is injured the Wallabies game plan will fall apart while they have a few genuine stars if any of them get injured they will struggle.
The form of either team is hard to pick as one team has had over a third of its starting 15 missing for the whole international season to date and at times over half it’s top players. The Wallabies have strung together some very average performances also and any rugby person in there right mind would know that the French were not the same team that played against the All Blacks.
The Springboks were up there but I believe there is still more to come from the boys in green. However the Lions tour and June tests aside the Tri-Nations is a totally different kettle of fish. Rivalries are not something to be taken lightly and the SANZAR nations have the fiercest of them all and the quality of rugby in the southern climes is second to none.
There’s a reason why SA, NZ and Aus fill places 1 thru 3 in the world rankings
Darryl SA said | July 5th 2009 @ 3:35pm | Report comment
Hayden,
I don’t know why there is continued insistence that the Boks were going to trample the Lions. Based on what? The Boks hadn’t played for ages, and other than the Bulls S14 win, the other SA teams had ended quite poorly in the S14, whereas the Lions member nations had come from a very good Six Nations showing and I for one never expected any games to be a Bok trampling.
Luck may have been a factor, but that’s the way the game goes. Just a pity the Boks didn’t show up for the third game. Very unprofessional. An opportunity to make history thrown away. Very disappointed.
Ian Noble said | July 5th 2009 @ 8:06pm | Report comment
Greg
Sorry but the majority of the independent observers would say that throughout the series the better and more exciting rugby was played by the Lions. They played it in the right spirit and in spite of losing the series they can hold their head high. For the players and supporters it has been a wonderful tour. It is a pity that the majority of the players will never play together again, unless possibly in a Baa-baas shirt.
If I was a Boks fans I would be concerned about the depth of talent as essentially a scratch side came together and made some of the Boks look very average. I don’t accept the argument the Boks were undercooked the majority of the side has been together since before 2007 and it was the coaches decision to exclude the players from warm up games against the Lions. The Lions for their part, played three very different sides and made mistakes in selection through lack of time together and paid the price in two out of six halves of rugby. yet in the remaining four played the Boks off the park. I see that Geech is calling for the Lions tour to Oz to be longer to allow for more preparation before the tests.
Greg Smith said | July 5th 2009 @ 10:39pm | Report comment
Ian Noble
British & Irish Lions rugby is ‘festival rugby’ complete with a ‘licence to thrill’ !
Independent observers you say. Ha, ha…
I’d say independent experts 100 years from now will revisit the Lions 2009 tour with words to this effect:
‘South Africa beat the worlds greatest rugby circus in 2009 by effectively evolving to the game type – testimony to South Africa’s dynamism, a trademark which won the Springboks the Rugby World Cup twice circa the turn of the 21st century’
Colin N said | July 5th 2009 @ 11:10pm | Report comment
It may have been a Bok second team, but this was a Lions side missing many of their star performers from the tour, mainly Roberts and O’Driscoll. Also, Jones gave that solidity in the scrum, but Vickery stood up well yesterday. The Beast is hugely overrated, what has he actually done apart from boring in, in the first and third tests?
However, both Flutey and Bowe stood up to the plate and were excellent. Since coming to England, Flutey’s improved his defence immensely.
I personally thought South Africa gave all they got, but didn’t play their best. Brussow was excellent and will become one of the best opensides of his generation IMO. I think most South Africa supporters wanted that back-row that played yesterday anyway, especially with Spies flattering to decieve. The same goes for the centre partnership, as both were the in form centres in the super 14, and perceived by many to be the prefered option.
The obvious weakness was in the back three, but many fans wanted a natural full-back instead of Steyn. But, the two wingers certainly are no way near the quality of Habana and Pieterson at the moment. Muller isn’t a patch on Botha and neither was the hooker on Du Plessis.
van der Merwe said | July 6th 2009 @ 9:53am | Report comment
“Also, Jones gave that solidity in the scrum, but Vickery stood up well yesterday.”
He did give a good account of himself, but that’s hardly surprising, considering that Tendai and John had a sponge trapped between them. Sheridan is also a stronger scrummager than Jenkins.
“The Beast is hugely overrated, what has he actually done apart from boring in, in the first and third tests?”
Tackle, tackle, tackle.
“If I was a Boks fans I would be concerned about the depth of talent as essentially a scratch side came together and made some of the Boks look very average.”
Though I don’t disagree with your assertion about depth, that’s hardly the most complementary way of describing a team hand picked from the best of four supposedly first tier rugby nations.
pothale said | July 6th 2009 @ 10:33am | Report comment
VDM – supposedly first tier rugby nations from the NH which are regularly peed upon by SH commentators as playing sub-standard, plodding rugby, don’t forget.
The Lions are a scratch side playing a Boks team – most of whom have been playing together for the best part of two years. As to the individual quality of the players, someone asked a good question earlier. Which of the Lions squad would you want to have in your national team/squad? If memory serves, I think O’Driscoll is the only one ever mentioned before the tour started as who might get a spot on the bench.