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France's scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili (centre left) runs with the ball during the IRB Rugby World Cup quarter final between England and France at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011. (AAP Image/AFP, Franck Fife)
It has been noted by many commentators that the four teams in the RWC 2011 semi-finals are the same sides that contested the semis in RWC 1987. There is, though, a different lineup of matches. In 1987, New Zealand played Wales and Australia played France.
The All Blacks played splendidly to defeat Wales comfortably.
The Wallabies, the favourites to win the tournament, were eliminated with a late-minute try by Serge Blanco. There was a hint of a knock-on in the build-up phases to the try.
The Wallaby coach, Alan Jones and others, made a fuss about supposed mistake by the referee. Refereeing misdemeanours, if this was in fact a mistake, have always been with us in RWC tournaments, it seems.
This should provide something of a context for the ferocious attack from South Africans on the New Zealand referee, Bryce Lawrence, over his handling of the Australia vs South Africa quarter-final.
You expect supporters to go over the top when a referee does not seem to help their side win an important match. And South African supporters are among the most vicious and foul-tongued going around.
Some of the emails I have received, for instance, from South Africans, many of them judging from their job descriptions on the bottom of their emails in important executive positions, are unprintable, even in the most vulgar of websites.
But the intervention of Andre Watson, the former South African referee, and his claim that the South African Referees Association was going to hound Lawrence out of international rugby was shameful.
To begin with, Watson’s handling of the Australia-England RWC 2003 final was severely criticised by the England coach, Sir Clive Woodward. England’s superior scrum kept on being penalised.
Woodward was not happy.
The fact that England won probably prevented the sort of action against Watson that he now wants to take against Lawrence.
As for the South African Referees Association? In my opinion, the South African Craig Joubert is the best referee in the world right now.
He is 33, three years younger than Brad Thorn, fit and referees for an open, skilful game. He is accurate in his decision-making.
It is hard to make the same generalisation about his fellow countryman, Jonathan Kaplan.
Even four years ago, in RWC 2007, Kaplan had trouble keeping up with a sweeping French attack in the France vs New Zealand quarter-final and missed the most obvious forward pass imaginable, even though it was only metres away from him.
If I tried to discuss other South African referees, I would, unfortunately, have to travel into defamation territory. But suffice to say, Lawrence, for all his failings, is a better and more accurate referee than any of the others.
This row over Lawrence and all the talk about Richie McCaw’s fracture on his right foot have distracted some attention from the first semi-final, Wales v France.
An Irish drinker in the Welsh Bar in Wellington said to some New Zealanders after his team was eliminated from the tournament by a rampant Wales side: “You’ll be sorry Wales won and not us because they’re tight-fisted, mean bastards.”
This may be true of their supporters. But their national side is expansive, skilful and generous in its exploitation of the talents of its players on the field.
In their first match of the tournament, the English referee Wayne Barnes refused to use the TMO to confirm his decision that a penalty goal kicked by James Hook did not go through the posts.
It looked to me, and to the kicker more importantly, that the goal had been successfully kicked. But Barnes dismissed his call for the TMO to review the matter.
South Africa was the beneficiary of this decision.
But the Wales coaching staff just took it on the chin. There were none of the tantrums that Watson is indulging in.
Wales are a young side, with a 20 year old number 8 Tony Faletau, a 19 year old winger who is massive George North, and a 23 year-old captain, Sam Warburton.
The side is extremely fit.
I noticed with some surprise, for instance, that Adam Jones, the prop with a beer gut and wild hair, was positively svelte. He has apparently sworn off beer for the tournament (something that England should have done!), along with all his team-mates.
As a consequence he has ‘slimmed’ down from 127 kgs to 120 kgs.
The slimmed down, in comparitive terms only, forward pack is complemented by a back line that has two monsters playing at halfback and inside centre (Mike Phillips and Jamie Roberts) and a mercurial winger and fullback (Shane Williams and Leigh Halfpenny).
This combination of size and twinkle-toes was too much for the much-vaunted Irish backline to cope with.
It is surprising to me that none of the pundits, nor the bookmakers, are giving Wales much of a chance to win the tournament.
The fact is, in my opinion, they have been one of the most impressive teams in the tournament. They have improved with every game. Although they had many players out with injuries before the tournament started, they are coming through relatively unscathed in the actual playing part of the tournament.
Their young number 10 is out, but James Hook and Stephen Jones in the reserves are more than adequate replacements.
And what about the French?
They are claiming that they did not have to produce their ‘one great game of the tournament’ to defeat England. England were easy to knock over, they are claiming. They are fielding the same team that knocked over Martin Johnson’s hopeless and hapless side against Wales.
They claim that all the divisions that seemed to split the side into factions, who were also split from their coach, have all been fixed up.
One of the rugby writers has made the point that “the French are only a peace when they are at war.” They have had their war. They were impressive in defeating England.
But then, how good or, more accurately, how poor were England.
That is a statement, not a question.
When France knocked New Zealand out of RWC 1999 in the semi-final, I predicted they would lose comfortably to the Wallabies in the final. My confidence about the result was based on the truth that “a souffle does not rise twice.”
This French side claims that it is still to rise.
We will see.
The best aspect of their victory over England is that the semi-finals feature four teams that have generally kept the faith in running, enterprising rugby since 1987. This has worked more for the Wallabies, with their two RWC triumphs, than the other three sides in all the previous World Cup tournments.
The All Blacks, famously or infamously, won the first tournament when the dominant referee was the Australian Kerry Fitzgerald, a referee in the Craig Joubert mould.
It was a tragedy for rugby that Fitzgerald died young of cancer.
Bossy, officious referees like Andre Watson tended to dominate in succeeding tournaments. This worked to the advantage of South Africa in both the World Cups they won, 1995 and 2003, for it rewarded their negative kick, chase and tackle game over the more expansive running game (especially that of the All Blacks) played by the teams playing out the semi-finals this time.
This is why I call the semi-finals the Deam Finals.
Four teams are now involved in playing out the rest of the tournament. Whichever team comes through, it will be a side that plays real rugby, which is rugby played in the main with the ball in hand and with the object of scoring tries.
Saturday night’s match between France and Wales is shaping up to be the sort of heart-stoppoing thriller the France-Australia semi-final in RWC 1987 proved to be.
Bring it on!
