Comment: Pacing, standing crisps and why the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry magnets make sense
All Blacks captain Ardie Savea against Springboks in Cape Town.
Shaun O’Neill of the Shaun O’Neill podcast joins Planet Rugby to give a fascinating insight into the 80-minute journey of a fan as he watched the All Blacks face the Springboks.
The pacing gene
When Test matches got tight, my late father would start pacing around the room.
Never said a word about it. Just up out of the chair, across the lounge, back again, hands clasped behind his back like a man waiting on news from a hospital.
I used to think it was a bit much.
Then Cape Town happened, and there I was at 03:10 on a Sunday morning, walking laps of my own lounge.
The pacing started early, and if I am honest it started before a ball was kicked. Handré Pollard had been pulled out with a calf strain, which sounds like good news until you remember what it actually meant, that Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu was in at 10 with a point to prove after a rough night in Johannesburg. Cheslin Kolbe had recovered from his own knock and was back in the side. And Siya Kolisi back three weeks after tearing a hamstring in Buenos Aires, an injury that had ended his last outing after 25 minutes.
Up I got. Dad would have recognised the walk.
Somewhere in there I moved to the second stage of the family condition, which is nervously scoffing potato chips straight from the bag while standing up. Not sitting. Standing. Because sitting feels like surrender.
The All Blacks kept coming, four tries worth of coming, against the best defensive pack on earth, and by the closing stages I had the bag down and I was standing completely still, which in our family is a more serious symptom than the pacing.
They could not get through. The Springbok forwards simply refused to move, and refusing to move is a thing this pack does better than anyone in the world.
South Africa 33. All Blacks 26.
Now, I was never much good at maths. Ask anyone who saw my School Certificate results. But even I could work out the sums that mattered here.
The All Blacks scored four tries. South Africa scored three. New Zealand lost by seven.
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Kolbe kicked four penalties and three conversions for 18 points. That is more than half his team’s entire total, and three times everything New Zealand managed off the kicking tee all night, because the All Blacks did not land a single penalty goal and converted three of their four tries. 18 against six. There is your Test match, in two numbers.
And seven days ago it finished 33-16 to the All Blacks, five tries to one, New Zealand’s biggest ever win over the Springboks at Ellis Park. Last night, 33-26 the other way. The winning side scored exactly 33 points on both occasions, one week apart, at opposite ends of the same rivalry. You could not invent that.
The head to head now sits at 112 Tests. 64 to New Zealand, 44 to South Africa, four draws. Which is another way of saying that in more than a century of trying, neither side has ever been able to put the other away.
And that is the bit I keep coming back to.
World Rugby rankings: Springboks regain top spot as All Blacks’ reign lasts just one week
Because this was only the All Blacks’ second ever Test at DHL Stadium. The other 10 Cape Town matches were played at the old Newlands ground. It is 30 years since Sean Fitzpatrick’s side won a series in South Africa, and this group came into the weekend with a genuine chance of ending that wait early.
They didn’t. They now have to win at FNB Stadium next Saturday, a ground that holds close to 95,000, and then again in Baltimore a week after that.
Harder. Much harder.
Perfect trophy
But here is what I love about it. The trophy for this Greatest Rivalry series has been made in two halves, held together by magnets, and if the series finishes drawn each nation keeps one half. Somebody sat in a room and designed a trophy that can be pulled apart, because they understood exactly what they were dealing with.
Two Tests left. One all. Nobody in front. Four tries to three and still seven points the wrong way.
Dad would have hated it, in the way you hate the thing you love most. He would have paced a groove in the carpet, said nothing for 80 minutes, then turned around at full time and said something like “well, that was a good game of footy.”
He would have been right.
Somewhere in Johannesburg next Saturday, around three in the morning our time, I will be up and moving again.
Get the chips in early.
Shaun O’Neill hosts the Shaun O’Neill podcast. For the world’s best keynote speakers visit essentialtalent.co.nz.