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That’s Rich: Rugby getting it right can be a laborious process

rugby02 August 2021 08:24| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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© Gallo Images

A GREEN JERSEY, A GREEN JERSEY!

With the alcohol drought having been lifted the day after the first test, the build-up to the second game was a bit more like old times and what we might have anticipated of this British and Irish Lions series had it not been for the pandemic in the sense that I met some colleagues at a beer house on the Waterfront for lunch before heading across the road to the Cape Town Stadium.


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We were responsible. We wore masks when we weren’t eating or sipping a beverage and we were seated outdoors. That’s going to probably be the new normal for some time to come and we’re getting used to it. It was just great to be able to feel for an hour or so like that old tour feeling was back.

And we even spotted two Springbok supporters jerseys to add further authenticity to the feel. Just two, but still, it was a bit reminiscent of my experience at the Dubai Airport en route to Tokyo in September 2019.

I made a fuss about the solitary Bok supporters jersey I saw then, but that was far from home. It is a comment on how much the world has changed that there should be the same feeling at an establishment that was probably not more than a kilometre from the venue of a massive test match involving the Boks just a few hours later.

BOKS OVERCOME SURRENDERING OF ADVANTAGE

Entering the stadium precinct after what has now become the weekly Covid test three hours before kick-off didn’t give rise to the same daydreaming of the week before. Ahead of the first test, I imagined what the area would have looked like had it not been for the pandemic, how the 30 000 Lions supporters would have added colour and atmosphere to Green Point and the areas further along the Atlantic Seaboard.

But it wouldn’t have been right to imagine something similar ahead of the second test. If it wasn’t for Covid, the game would not have been taking place in Cape Town on that particular day. We were actually supposed to be at Ellis Park on Saturday and then FNB Stadium for what has now become the decider this coming weekend.

Thinking about being at Ellis Park, always a difficult venue for touring teams even though the Lions won the final dead rubber test there in 2009, was a reminder of one of the big home advantages the Boks have given up by having the entire series played in Cape Town.

People who live nearly two kilometres above sea level perhaps don’t appreciate just how much of an advantage it is for the Boks to play in the thin air that visiting players aren’t used to. Indeed, comments on the effects of the altitude and how difficult it was to deal with were fairly staple fare in the early press conferences of the tour, when the Lions played the local version of the Lions and then twice against the Sharks.

Their coach Warren Gatland never made any secret of how pleased he was to be moving the entire series to Cape Town and he was honest enough to admit it suited the Lions and was an advantage.

That the Boks have squared the series at a venue which for the Lions now must feel almost as much a home ground for them as it is for the Boks, in the sense they are now well used to the change-rooms and everything else about the stadium, already makes it an achievement. Winning the series at the weekend, if that happens, will be a bigger achievement than that achieved by previous Bok teams that have beaten the Lions.

LIONS SERIES’ NO STRANGER TO ACRIMONY

Enough already. Those are the words that describe how I feel about the sideshows that threaten to dominate the build-up to Saturday’s deciding test. For many journalists, the noise happening around the series is something to write about and adds to the interest, which it probably does, but it would also be nice to focus on a bit of rugby at some point.

After the Rassie Erasmus leaked video last week, it seemed the rugby itself became secondary. There was little focus in the build-up about how No 8 Jasper Wiese might go in his first test match start for the Springboks, on how the Boks might sort out their problems with the Lions’ kicking game, and most importantly on the pressure the team would have been under as they played to save the series.

That might in fact have helped the Boks, and coach Jacques Nienaber - goodness, this is the first time I have written his name today and we are two stories into this Monday morning - hinted as much afterwards when he spoke about how his team was able to focus on the game and what they needed to put right rather than be deflected by the sideshows.

If there was any kind of deflection, it was the deflection of pressure away from the Boks, and they might owe Erasmus their thanks for that. It was quite different to 2009, when the Bok coach of that time, Peter de Villiers, succeeded in attracting all the attention to himself following the controversial and eventful second test in Pretoria.

You might remember the alleged Schalk Burger eye-gouging incident and how De Villiers, in his attempt to defend his player, evoked images of ballet tutus, wild lions having their eyes gouged in the bush as part of a South African pastime, and other rather amazing statements that were regarded, and rightly so, as incendiary by the visiting media.

They closed ranks at the time, but some of the players involved in that series that I subsequently interviewed for a book have admitted they were irritated at the way De Villiers attracted attention away from their achievement of winning the series and avenging the 1997 series loss.

Durban rugby writer Mike Greenaway relates how he even received an irate call from the then Bok media liaison Anthony MacKaiser asking why it was that “Not one South African journalist is writing about the fact we have just won the series.

Greenaway’s response went something along the lines of: “Um, maybe you should ask your coach that…”

Of course, the Bok coach only had himself to blame for the deflection as he just took the defence of his player, Burger, too far. And he allowed the players to take their support for one of their teammates, Bakkies Botha, too far the following week when they wore those Justice4Bakkies armbands that later saw a fine slapped on them by World Rugby (or the IRB as it was then still known).

But the memory of all that hot air that was expended and all the trees that had to be cut down to facilitate the pages of writing that were devoted to the ‘controversy’ did get me thinking: What is the common denominator when it comes to big rugby controversies? It always seems to the Lions, and a Lions tour.

Four years before the 2009 series, the UK and Irish media just would not let the series against the All Blacks in 2005 proceed without continual reference to a tackle that New Zealand’s Tana Umaga had made that put Brian O’Driscoll out in the first test.

It was a similar story, with the sideshows dominating, when the Lions were in New Zealand in 2017, with a very tight and interesting series being dominated by what some Kiwis referred to as a media circus. Indeed, it is interesting to note that Kiwi rugby writer Gregor Paul has written a piece where he expresses sympathy for Rassie Erasmus on the basis that he knows how weird things can get when the Lions come to town.

“The Kiwis learnt for themselves in 2017 that officiating can take a dramatic and strange twist when the Lions are involved,” wrote Paul in thexv.rugby.

“Just as Erasmus was perplexed and outraged by what he saw as inconsistent and at times unexplainable officiating in the first test loss for the Springboks, New Zealanders felt much the same way at the end of their drawn series against the Lions in 2017.”

Indeed, when it comes to officiating, that series was beyond bizarre and ended on a confusing and controversial note when referee Romaine Poite changed a penalty into a scrum in the final seconds of the game.

ALL BLACKS LIE IN WAITING, AND SO DO ENGLAND

Mention of the All Blacks reminds me that this time next week the Lions tour will be over and the Boks will be looking beyond that to their next big challenge - which will be the two Rugby Championship tests against New Zealand.

We haven’t seen the top two teams in the world play each other for two years now, so there should be more interest than usual, with the All Blacks sure to be out to make a point after surrendering their world crown to their arch-rivals two years ago.

I describe them as arch-rivals, but somehow in the modern era - I stipulate modern era because still have vivid memories of the spiteful 1976 series I watched as a kid - there doesn’t seem quite the level of spite and acrimony that accompanies a Lions tour. Perhaps that is because of the mutual respect between the players and coaches, or maybe it is because of the different type of media coverage those clashes get.

Not that this week is the last that Erasmus and co will see of the UK media this year. They are due to visit Twickenham in November and Eddie Jones’ men will have revenge on their minds after what happened to them at Yokohama Stadium on 2 November 2019.

So there are interesting times ahead and in some ways, I am looking forward to this spiteful series being consigned to history and moving on to something else.

DRAWN OUT GAMES DON’T SATISFY THE TASTE BUDS

When watching television repeats of the 2009 series it dawns on me that the off-field controversies that wracked that series might have obscured the outstanding rugby played. You have to watch the replays though to poke the memory, otherwise, apart from that Morne Steyn winning kick in Pretoria, the abiding memory is of the controversy.

That might be even more the case this time around because of the circumstances. With no crowds at the games, the chances of great rugby memories being stirred when the build-up to the next Bok/Lions series 12 years from now starts might be close to nil.

And while South African supporters will doubtless be gleeful that the Boks won at the weekend, and former Lions star Lawrence Dallaglio, writing in the UK version of the Sunday Times, was gracious enough to describe their performance as “beautifully brutal”, the amount of time the game took up in our lives was not good for the sport.

I was keeping notes of the time during the game. I kept a record. When my watch reflected that it was 18:40, meaning 40 minutes after kick-off and what should have been halftime, the game itself had seen only 24 minutes of play. By the time the deliberations on Cheslin Kolbe’s yellow card were completed, that had stretched to 42 minutes and 24 minutes of play.

When the whistle blew for halftime, it was 63 minutes on my watch since the start of play. Sorry, but that is just too long, too drawn out, and if the price of getting everything right, which the match officials largely managed to do this time, is to draw rugby matches out into a laborious process, then the sport is in trouble.

Of course, it did help the Boks as they were the team that went into the game with question marks over their ability to sustain tempo and intensity over a full 80 minutes. With so many breaks in the game that were long enough to allow a mini-holiday, the fatigue factor was completely taken out of the contest.

Because it favoured the Boks, in the sense that when you race a marathon runner against a sprinter over the marathon distance there is always only going to be one winner, we can probably expect some response from Gatland this week. But let’s hope he doesn’t produce a video for it can’t possibly be as interesting as Rassie’s one was because, the way I see it now, the only complaint he can have is about how long or drawn out it all was.

So what would he show on his video? Probably an image of a clock ticking while nothing happens on the field. I saw enough of that on Saturday so I think I will pass on that one…

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