Loose Pass: ‘Ridiculous refusal’ adds to ‘uninspiring’ B&I Lions tour while Zimbabwe create something extraordinary
Wallabies back rower Pete Samu and an inset of players of Zimbabwe celebrate winning the final match of the Rugby Africa Cup between Zimbabwe and Namibia in Kampala.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with World Cup qualification, and the British and Irish Lions tour that underwhelms…
34 years later
The late Richard Tsimba is the lead actor in one of your correspondent’s most vivid rugby memories. Not because of the tries he scored, not because of the fact that he was the fist black player to play for his country, not even because he and his brother Kennedy are members of the World Rugby Hall of Fame since 2012 for the marks they have left on Zimbabwean rugby, but because of the sheer irrational level of irritation that enveloped my father when he scored his second try against Romania in 1987.
This was long before trademark celebrations such as the Ash Splash© or other such trinkets, but after tearing through what was a rather ragged Romanian backline, Tsimba indulged in a slightly showy dive under the posts for his score, and dislocated his shoulder in the process. “So unnecessary,” raged my Dad. “So stupid.”
My 11-year-old and still impressionable self, starting to consciously understand the fact that celebrating a try ought to be about paying public homage to your team-mates at most, vowed there and then never to show off when scoring. That moment probably still is most of the fuel for an irrational dislike of Chris Ashton and others who tend to show-pony when – usually – all they’ve done is finish off others’ good work.
Tsimba’s try put Zimbabwe 20-9 ahead on the day, but in a remarkably sparsely-populated Eden Park in 1987, that was probably the closest Zimbabwe have ever come to winning a game at a World Cup. Liviu Hodorca’s late try gave Romania a 21-20 win on that day, while Zimbabwe shipped 60 and 70 points to France and Scotland respectively in the other two pool matches. By 1991, Zimbabwean rugby was already being left behind, and the team took 50 points against Ireland, Scotland and Japan – Tsimba scoring the country’s most recent World Cup try against Japan as well as its first one back against Romania.
By 1991, the economic decline that has blighted Zimbabwe for so many years since was gaining momentum. The generation of players which had taken the Sables to the two World Cups as Africa’s lone representative (South Africa were still being sanctioned for the Apartheid regime, but Zimbabwe had broken from South African Rugby in 1980 when its own white minority rule ended), mostly retired, while many up-and-coming athletes emigrated. Zimbabwean rugby has been largely in the doldrums ever since.
Why all this history? Because while much attention was being paid to the Lions in Brisbane or New Zealand’s struggles against France’s C team, or even England’s travails against the weather in the USA, Zimbabwe’s current generation was writing history.
The Sables beat Namibia 30-28 in the Africa Cup Final in Kampala on Saturday, staving off a late fightback from the team generally accepted up to now as Africa’s perennial other World Cup representative.
“It’s been a year and a half in the making,” said full-back Tapira Mafuwa. “A lot of bus trips!” Veteran fly-half Ian Prior, of the Associates Rugby Club in Perth, was named player of the tournament. A team assembled from truly all corners of the globe, from Iowa to Korea to Poland to Doncaster to Spain and down to Johannesburg, has come together to create something extraordinary.
Namibia now must face the United Arab Emirates in a play-off to see who enters the repechage tournament next year, which is by no means a done deal for the Welwitschias. Rugby’s map continues to change.
A tour in danger of fading from memory
From the intrigue, excitement and fun factor in Kampala and back to the Lions… the tour continues to underwhelm as a spectacle. Fewer matches, less interaction with the locals, a squad now boasting a ridiculous 45 players with several being parachuted in to perhaps garner a few minutes of a midweek game and ‘keep the Test players fresh’. That feels like more of a competition to see who has deep pockets than a tour, while it hardly elevates the value of a Lions jersey.
That Australia are undercooked is not the Lions‘ fault, more the fault of the home administrators who would appear, on the strength of the first half of the first Test, to have perhaps kept their powder a little too dry. There’s also the fixture calendar, in which most of the home players (bar those from the Brumbies) had not played a proper game together before the Test against Fiji since the end of May.
On the strength of the second half, perhaps the hosts did look a little fresher, or perhaps it was simply the fact that the Lions’ bench did not fit seamlessly into the game as it should have. But there’s a suspicion that the Lions simply cruised, having more or less won the match by 50 minutes.
The ridiculous refusal to allow Pete Samu to play in the final match is the Lions’ fault and has continued a somewhat irksome undertheme of the tourists more or less demanding who gets to play which games.
Either way, this has not felt like an inspiring tour and the future continues to be hotly-debated. Is touring France the answer? Perhaps it would be fun, but the familiarity of it all might detract from it, not to mention the likely squabbles in France over which club teams for the midweek games. South America? Three Tests against the Pumas and a host of midweek games against the Super Rugby South America teams, not to mention matches against Chile and Uruguay, even Brazil, is a hugely appetising prospect. Touring Australia currently also feels like bad timing; it’s just not a very good Wallabies team at the moment, but the provincial games could have been far, far better.
Tuesday’s midweek game, usually seen as a last audition for tourists to have a shot at playing their way back into the Test team, now, with all those extras added in, feels like a gap-filler for tourists who didn’t make the grade. The second Test does not loom full of jeopardy. And when it is over, it will all be quite easily forgotten. The Lions’ concept needs a rethink.