- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The weekend’s two provincial rugby finals, with scorelines from the old days of rugby, were played within hours of each other, in wet, cold Wellington, New Zealand, and in overcast, blustery Durban.
The common feature of the matches was the ferocious mauling, counter-rucking, tackling and running of all four sides.
Despite plenty of wide-ranging attacks, only three tries were scored in all. But two of the tries (one by Canterbury and other by the Sharks) were the result of high-quality passing, running and handling by backs and forwards to break down some strong defensive lines.
Wellington Lions 6 – Canterbury Lambs 7
The Wellington match revealed once again the inability of NZ teams, in this case the Lions, to close out a tight match with a dropped goal. Wellington had numerous opportunities late into the match to set up the drop goal. They had a skilled kicker in Piri Weepu (who had slotted over several such kicks in the warm-ups). But no one had the nous to actually set up the play.
KwaZulu-Natal Sharks 14 – Blue Bulls 9
The Durban match revealed the South African weakness at first five-eighth. Some magic by the Frenchman Frederic Michalak set up the Shark’s second and match-winning try. Michalak is not eligible to play for the Springboks. His replacement Francois Steyn, late in the match, did not have the deftness or craft of the clever French player. And playing for the Bulls, the other Steyn, Morne, was ponderous moving the ball along the line and stood too deep to get the Bulls’ backline moving.
Against this, however, all four sides showed tremendous energy and determination. The intensity of the forward exchanges would have delighted the crusty British journalists who think that rugby is about dockyard brawls in the lineouts and scrums – if these journalists could ever bring themselves to see anything good about southern hemisphere rugby.
There is a warning in these matches for the European teams that face the Springboks, All Blacks and the Wallabies in a couple of weeks time.
That warning is this: the southern hemisphere teams have learnt from the 2007 RWC (especially NZ sides and hopefully the Wallabies, too) that toughness and abrasiveness in the forwards over-rides even skill in the forward exchanges. The Springboks and the All Blacks, particularly, are going to extremely powerful in the set pieces which does not augur well for the Six Nations sides that they are going to face.
One final point, as well, but closer to home. Seven new All Blacks have been picked for what Graham Henry correctly describes as ‘an exciting squad’. These players (the likes of Corey Janes, Scott Waldromand Hosea Gear) distinguished themselves in the NPC, more than the Super 14 tournament.
Once again, the very limited amount of tough rugby Australian players are confronted with, particularly early on in their careers, exposes a weakness in the local schedule.
How much more ready for big time rugby would the likes of James O’Connor and Quade Cooper and the other rising stars be if there was the Australian equivalent of the Currie Cup or the NPC?