Loose Pass
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with persecution complexes and warm feelings…
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with persecution complexes and warm feelings…
So, not only has the coach gone bonkers, the union President's chucked a wobbly and even the country's match officials are seeing nasties that aren't there.
South Africa's Union President has said that the disciplinary hearing against the national team's coach is a 'declaration of war' by Australia and New Zealand on South Africa.
Now he's in trouble as well, with SANZAR asking Mr. Hoskins to explain his words.
Players banned, coaches in disciplinary hearings, Presidents involved in the equivalent of a diplomatic incident, even match officials demoted because they saw nasty things happen, when actually nothing occurred.
We could excuse the South Africans for having a persecution complex under some circumstances but they just won't do themselves any favours. Their match commentators take the adjective 'cycloptic' to a new extreme, and television studio analysts back them up. Media whips SA fans into frenzies, raging at the injustice of it all. “How,” runs the continual plea, “can so much go against us? It must be a conspiracy…”
Well, here is a cold, hard fact: South Africa's rugby players are the most carded – by some distance – since cards were introduced into Test rugby in 2000. They have received 70 yellow cards in the past ten years, with Australia some way back on 44 and New Zealand even further back on 37. They have had more than three times as many players sent off as the other two countries: seven to two each.
Peter de Villiers did more than just hint at bias by referees, an offence which should surely make him accountable to disciplinary hearings for the sake of the integrity of the sport. Likewise Oregan Hoskins who has abjectly failed in his diplomatic duties.
The sanctions handed out to Jean de Villiers, Jaque Fourie and Quade Cooper for respective tip-tackles were entirely consistent – Fourie got longer because he had been banned for the same offence before. Bakkies Botha was lucky not to get longer.
For three matches, the Boks, deserving World Champions three years ago, have been outplayed, out-thought and out-charmed. Unfortunately, rather than going back to the drawing board and coming up with a new plan, or putting some new blood into an ageing squad or doing anything pro-active, the highest-profile South African rugby figures can do little but whine about how a perceived divine right to win has been removed by other countries ganging up on them.
They will not get any sympathy. Anywhere. Not until they learn to lose as gracefully as they once won.
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The nicer side of the game has come out at either end of the world over the past couple of weeks.
Rugby is a dangerous game by nature and injuries will happen. One of the things that the sport has always prided itself upon is the way the fraternity – and in one of these cases, sorority – rallies round in a time of crisis.
So Ben Leia, a Marist Samoan player whose spine was damaged in a match, will benefit from the Black Friday Trust fundraising dinner and charity auction on Friday August 13th at Eden Park for which there are tables still available – contact these people. A number of All Blacks are hosting the tables.
Meanwhile, stateside, young University player Krissa-Marie Wiechmann continues to rehab from a neck injury suffered in a scrum collapse in America.
General info on how to help her is here, including the fascinating-looking big ball sevens scheduled for this coming weekend. If you're up that way, get some mates together and enter a team!
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A cracking game in Dublin to mark the opening of the Aviva Stadium last week (we'll still be calling it Lansdowne Road by the way), but is there something going a little wrong in parts of Ireland?
You'd think that a composite side made of Munster's and Connacht's hopefuls would put up more of a fight against Leinster's and Ulster's than conceding 68 unanswered points? Is there a lean spell beckoning four southern and western Irish provinces? Answers on an e-postcard please!
Whatever the answer, it was nothing to do with a bet though. The man who scored the spangly new stadium's first try, Ulster's Craig Gilroy and in a fit of youthful ebullience, was a gnat's wing away from having a flutter on himself to score the opening try but realised just in time it would have been against all manner of contractual rules.
“We were having a bit of banter before the match and everyone was talking about who was going to get the first try and we were all aware of how important it would be because everyone will remember it,” said Gilroy.
“I was down as 10-1 and thought that was decent odds. I was going to put €20 on myself until someone told me that that was illegal, so I quickly changed my mind.”
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Bath's woes of their home facilities have been well-documented over the past couple of years, but with a new owner appears to have come a new approach.
While they'll still be playing at the Rec, replete with a few new seats this year, the team will be managed and trained at the rather magnificent Farleigh House in Farleigh Hungerford, a castle of a place. It's not a new stadium, but it's a start.
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Finally, we live in the age where promotions, advertising, corporate identity and sponsorship collaborate to rip out the established traditions and identities and cheapen many forms of events. It's a shame, especially as it's often so necessary.
But the Finals of the JP Morgan Asset Management Premiership Rugby Sevens Series (if they think we'll be typing that out in full year on year, they can think again) may have reached a new low this.
The press release that covered the Finals day began thus:
“With over 5000 spectators being entertained by human hamster ball races and 'Britney Spears' singing and dancing the hype for the final couldn't have been any greater.”
Not: “With the teams in tip-top form running in tries for fun the hype for the final couldn't have been any greater.”
Not: “After a tournament marked by physical clashes, free-flowing rugby and good sportsmanship, the best two teams made it through and the hype for the final couldn't have been any greater.”
No. We get human hamster ball races and 'Britney Spears'