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The Roar

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Age shall not weary Richie McCaw

Roar Rookie
27th April, 2015
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Scott Higginbotham of the Melbourne Rebels (Credit: SNPA/Ross Setford)
Roar Rookie
27th April, 2015
9

It’s a little twee perhaps, on the weekend we honour our fallen, to talk of rugby players as heroes.

But I’d like to begin with a word about Richie McCaw. As he tried not to stagger from the field on Saturday night, having concussed himself by getting his head in the wrong tackling position, more than a few spectators were recalling previous occasions when the great man’s brain case had been rattled.

Not many of those were self-inflicted like this time. In the last couple of seasons, noticing how often he’s begun knocking on, or mishandling in comparatively low pressure situations, I’ve wondered if his depth perception has been altered.

It’s just the sort of thing a hero would deny, wanting to postpone the moment he becomes an ex-player, even that hero whose calcified skeleton is now encased entirely with scar tissue and whose every joint screams with tendonitis, having forgotten what pain is after leaving an everyday threshold behind long ago.

Knock-ons are one thing, but I’ve never seen him get his head on the wrong side of a tackle. If by the middle of the week they announce he’s sitting out the Wellington match, and in the following week that stand-down is extended to a fortnight, I won’t be surprised.

Nor would it surprise me if he took the field, of course. About the only thing that would surprise me anymore about this fellow is if he took the advice of every health professional he knows and called time on himself before the Cup.

Age won’t weary a man like McCaw if repeated high dosage blunt force trauma can’t. He has rewritten the rules for what the human body can withstand. In the early days of his career I thought his hospitalisation was inevitable. But then I thought the same thing about Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize for Literature.

Meanwhile, get used to the attrition rate because it’s going to climb. If Aaron Cruden can be ruled out by stopping too suddenly as he chases a touchfinder, expect more weirdness. Coming soon, after Richie’s eye exam failure, will be injuries to Kieran Read, Brodie Retallick, Jerome Kaino, Julian Savea and all three Smiths.

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They’ll be inexplicably unlucky accidents too, wrists and eye sockets, and some will happen in training rather than under the sprigs of maniacs like Jean Deysel or through the illegal tackle techniques of cheats like Saia Fai’inga. Then, in short order, everyone loving the young piss-and-vinegars like Sam Cane and TJ Perenara will find out there’s more than muscle and vigour to winning rugby.

If it’s over-egging a pudding to talk of heroes and attrition rates this weekend, it will also seem wrong if I rave about Anzac clashes when the two best games were in South Africa.

The 34-29 victory of the Lions over the Cheetahs in Johannesburg was a flat out barnburner from start to finish, both sides flinging themselves at each other like men possessed for eighty minutes.

The tackling was ferocious enough to make my eyes water ten thousand miles away, but so was the ball-carrying of the high veldt’s most adventurous teams, so along with the freestyle handling and every kick chase looking like an Olympic sprint final, enough lines were also breached by force to produce a kind of high-scoring chaos.

Then came the epic in Cape Town between the Stormers and Bulls, a 15-13 win for the home side with almost all the same melodramatic boxes ticked except, of course, less tackle busts. And with it taking both teams so much effort to batter their way into scoring position, you can imagine (a) the tension in Newlands as the normally deadly accurate Handre Pollard lined up a last minute shot, (b) the joyous relief as it sailed wide, and (c) the decibel level of 48,000 screams as he snapped another droppie attempt from directly in front a minute later, only to have it charged down… magic stuff.

Those Shakespearean classics were not challenged theatrically by the games between Australian and New Zealand teams. Most would have been remembered as enjoyable for some great tries if it hadn’t also been for the frustratingly and mind-numbingly tedious spectacle, repeated at every stoppage, of sixteen men standing eyeballing each other, stubbornly going through ridiculously talkative and elaborate pre-set rituals of micro-detail and self-encouragement that should be hard-wired already, but then needing three attempts to put down scrums… all this with thousands watching and waiting impatiently as the match clock inexorably ticks.

One of the reasons everyone hates the other growing trend, of forward passes, is that they result in more scrums.

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Anyone out there with any influence, please exert it. Lobby either for stopping the match clock or for my own suggestion, instant penalties against the team not feeding the scrum if it collapses, with the proviso that this only applies inside the half of the team feeding and that they don’t get the lineout throw if they kick for touch. Until then, if the opportunity arises to punch an IRB board member in the face, please take it. I’m as over scrum resets as I am lower case logos and the word iconic.

I suspect the reason it isn’t as big a problem in South Africa is that their children, apart from being raised on a pound each of freshly-skinned game per day, all aspire to be front rowers over any other position, so their props at nipper level aren’t just picked from the ranks of overweight trialists.

Learnt earlier, their technique is better, they’re not just relying on a few freaks with backs strong enough to reach international level in one piece, and almost all of whom look like they’d have preferred to be flankers if only their parents had put child-proof locks on their refrigerators.

Anyway, with the constant resetting of scrums, the tries were worth waiting for. The weekend began in Hamilton with the Chiefs hosting the Force and the visitors playing all the early rugby. They were rewarded with a simple try to flanker Angus Cottrell, finding a gap in the goal-line defence after a multi-phase assault, but when the Chiefs eventually got going it was with a long range screamer.

Wing Tim Nanai-Williams swerved around his man on halfway, found lock Brodie Retallick on his inside, Retallick followed suit with another inside ball to halfback Brad Weber, and Weber did likewise to centre Charlie Ngatai who strolled in under the crossbar.

Force halfback Ian Pryor was red carded soon afterwards for upending someone in reasonably harmless manner, but it checked every item on the list of no-nos written by hover-mothers, so the Force were down to fourteen men for the remainder of the match and had to sub off a forward to get a specialist halfback out there.

The Chiefs immediately took advantage through a driving maul, hooker Hika Elliot getting the try, and were also awarded a penalty try when the Force’s scrum disintegrated.

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The comeback the visitors mounted, bringing them back within eight points, wasn’t just remarkable for the fact that they did it with one man fewer, it stood out for a desperation that other bottom-dwelling teams mightn’t have shown. The end-to-end try finished by wing Luke Morahan looked more like the Hurricanes of early March, every unlikely pass sticking and always a man in support, while the seven versus eight lineout drive that flanker Matt Hodgson finished also said plenty.

Nanai-Williams, though, woke them from their dreams of victory with a piece of bewitching footwork. Without needing either to fend or to untuck the ball from his left arm, he stepped inside one man, bust past a second and hit the afterburners to leave three more defenders with scorched eyebrows, diving over the line like Joe Rokocoko in his heyday.

Replacement hooker Heath Tessman got the Force’s fourth try and bonus point by finishing off another multi-phase goal-line siege, and the conversion could have got them another for a less-than-seven-point loss, but it missed and the score stayed at 35-27.

The second Friday game was in Canberra, where the Brumbies dismantled the Highlanders 31-18 and Highlanders first five Lima Sopoaga had one of those nightmare games where everything turned to caca in his hands. His initial fumble having led to an early try by wing Henry Speight, he continued to cost territory with misjudged kicks and misplaced hubris, leaving the Brumbies constantly within rumbling distance of the Highlanders’ line.

The blame for not stopping the Brumbies’ driving maul can’t be laid at Sopoaga’s feet. No less than three times, flanker David Pocock flopped over to score as the Highlanders’ pack disintegrated.

The Highlanders fought back bravely, tries to second five Shaun Treeby and flanker Dan Pryor giving the scoreboard a hint of respectability, but many other chances were blown with Sopoaga’s inability to maintain pressure and the rest of the team’s uncanny ability to isolate themselves. Whenever they did, Pocock would materialise like a freckly phantom and prove impossible to pry away from the ball. If there’s a player in the world right now any better at surviving cleanouts, I haven’t seen him.

The only bright side for Highlanders fans is that the loss came without the services of Aaron Smith, Malakai Fekitoa and Ben Smith, all three needing a rest before their last Dunedin game, the punishing South African itinerary and the three New Zealand teams waiting upon their return.

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The Crusaders 29-15 win over the Blues in Christchurch on Saturday wasn’t just notable for John Kirwan’s mystifying decision to rest Jerome Kaino, or the injury to McCaw and the fact that it was in the middle of his best game of the season so far. It was the worst of the matches for scrum resets, and with the Crusaders so dominant it was almost criminal of referee Chris Pollock to be so lenient.

Wyatt Crockett, Codie Taylor and Owen Franks constantly bettered Tony Woodcock, Keven Mealamu and Charlie Faumuina on the Blues’ put-ins, and it was perfectly obvious which front row was stapling, losing its grip, changing the gap and delaying the crouch in an attempt to disrupt on the Crusaders’ feed. The Crusader front row were as businesslike as possible and with their backline making hay there was no reason to postpone giving them front foot ball, but we spent a total of ten minutes twiddling our thumbs as Woodcock and Faumuina left no stone unturned in their search for new ways to anger Cantabrians. Pollock should have marched them ten yards for arguing whenever he did find fault.

It wasn’t the only area where Pollock had his priorities twisted. In policing the tackle area it seemed as if he was trying to prove that partisan crowds couldn’t sway him, which was silly because without Kaino’s muscle the breakdowns were as one-sided as the scrums.

On one occasion McCaw did everything right – grassed his man around the ankles, released him as he regained his feet, was the only person over the ball, got straight onto the ball instead of a foot past it – but Pollock screamed “No, seven!” McCaw obeyed, looking quizzically as Pollock as he did so, and I wouldn’t have blamed him for thinking, “Crikey, if Polly’s being this way imagine what Barnes and Clancy are going to be like.”

Like I said, the tries were the good making up for the bad. Wing Nemani Nadolo was the star for the Crusaders once again, drawing three defenders to create a hole for centre Ryan Crotty and halfback Mitchell Drummond in creating the first try, then getting up to demolition speed before fooling everyone with a deft pass to flanker Jordan Taufua for the second.

The Blues had brief moments of class, like when second five George Moala put his midfield partner Francis Saili through a hole between Dan Carter and Crotty with a lovely short ball and Saili skipped around the cover to score, but more often than not they managed to invent the sort of errors that haunt you the whole off-season, like lock Josh Bekhuis toe-hacking a loose ball instead of falling on it, and it going straight to Crusaders fullback Tom Taylor who immediately worked a one-two with Nadolo to score the home side’s third. The try might have been prevented by wing Frank Halai, who had a chance to stop Nadolo but like everyone else with that chance ended up resembling a speed bump.

The bonus point try came with the Crusaders in rampant mood, swinging from one side of the field to the other fluently and hooker Taylor going over. At this stage many in the crowd would have forgotten how badly they’d been ripped apart by the Chiefs the week before. But when McCaw’s ear collided with Lolagi Visinia’s hip, and there were more people watching the converging medics than watching flanker Brendon O’Connor score a late Blues try, none of the realists at AMI Stadium were losing sight of the big picture.

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On Sunday there were plenty of nervous Hurricane fans, having had their bubble burst a little after a home loss to the Waratahs. The competition leaders were in Brisbane to face the Reds, who although they’d just come back from South Africa, were two from ten and had easily the worst points difference in the competition, still represented a tricky corner for the high octane New Zealanders.

The Hurricanes’ talk midweek had been about getting the old risk/reward formula right, which was the right way to be thinking after handing the Waratahs a victory with the sort of overambitious disregard for danger normally reserved for our top order batsmen.

If discerning between opportunity and the need to consolidate were the coach’s instructions they didn’t appear to have sunk in. For the first twenty minutes it looked like they’d spent the whole week practising stupid kicks. And finding themselves constantly defending their line, they missed young centre Samu Kerevi twice to be 12-3 down.

Luckily Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith had brought their A games. The midfielders took matters into their own hands and began regularly to break the Reds’ defence open. First Smith sashayed past three would-be tacklers, found Nonu on his shoulder and halfback TJ Perenara was there for the finish.

Nonu was next to split the line, trampling several defenders, and the Hurricanes should have been in straight away but wing Julian Savea threw a pass behind both his support runners. It didn’t matter as a few quick recycles later flanker Callum Gibbins ran an acute angle and crashed over.

Some mental errors began to creep in after halftime, and Perenara made the worst. In good attacking position for the backline, instead of passing he had a snipe, tripped himself up on one of his ownteammate’s feet, and in falling foolishly attempted an offload which went forward. Not satisfied with those four mental errors inside two seconds, he immediately made another couple by playing at the ball on the ground, committing the same offence one of the Reds had been penalised for a minute earlier.

Reds flanker Liam Gill scored a try three phases later, under the Hurricanes’ goalposts shrugging off lock Jeremy Thrush who for some reason thought he’d try stripping the ball instead of simply tackling the smaller man. Minutes later, with a five yard scrum right under the Reds crossbar, Perenara dared the great Will Genia to steal the ball from under his nose, then spent the next minute whining to the referee when Genia did so and scampered downfield.

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I was peeling myself off the wall, explaining to a worried Blonde that my loud curses were meant only for mouth-breathing little narcissists who spend all their practice time in tattoo parlours, when Savea restored the safe lead by tiptoeing down the touchline to score with two Reds defenders on his back. Then the other wing Mike Proctor was given forty yards virtually unchallenged to return a kick, found Perenara in support for the final try to make it 35-19, and I consoled myself that at least I didn’t live in Queensland.

The tries being scored in Super Rugby are a good sign, but apart from the Chiefs and Hurricanes not too many are chancing their arm regularly. All the other conference leaders are just successfully pragmatic appliers of new rules and the game structure they favour. Resets, the mental errors and attack-defence priorities are what worry me about the game right now, not just the likelihood of the Hurricanes blithely carrying on winning.

All the SANZAR nations touring Europe have proven lately is that beating a southern superpower only takes goalkicking and tackle completion percentages in the nineties.

Linespeed and territorial pressure are a tried-and-true recipe for hobbling over-ambition, and any team of superstars can play (a different sort of) boring rugby if they forget how exciting to watch the well-done basics can be.

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