Firstly, I must apologise for my radio silence over the last week. My final two exams sucked the life out of me and it took roughly infinity cane and cokes on Thursday night to rid me of the vexation that is Financial Reporting. That devil’s tonic provided me with a hangover the size of Kim Kardashian’s derriere and I’m relatively sure it is the reason why my hands are still shaking and why my liver feels like foie gras.

Yesterday our proverbial cups overflowethed with rugby, and it was magical. The Springbok game didn’t give us too much excitement, but it did introduce us to the best contender for the Springbok 10 jersey. Now I know that one swallow doesn’t a bad girl make, but Ruan Pienaar gave us a little more than a glimpse of the noise he brings to the flyhalf berth. Granted, the Welsh gave him so much time he could’ve fashioned himself a birchbark canoe and paddled through the cavernous gulfs in their defense, but his fantastic kicking performance and slick hands got the backline away nicely and if it wasn’t for a misplaced Welsh knee he would’ve scored a cracker of a try. And John Smit, while he certainly didn’t set the world alight, played a pretty handy game at tighthead. Gethin Jenkins spent his youth scrumming coal carriages up and out of mine shafts yet he certainly didn’t give John Smit the roasting that many were expecting. Still, he must prove himself further on this this tour but the signs are looking positive.

My man of the match was JP Pietersen. He was epic on defense, chased the ball like a Darfurian chases an errant chicken and won the ball that set up Adi Jacobs’ try. His performance was also the perfect counterpoint to Bryan Habana’s hopelessness on the other wing. Now I don’t know if people are just marking him to buggery, or whether he’s a little too comfortable in the lofty heights of his Gillette adverts, but I think it’s time Bryan Habana caught a wake up. Whether that means a stern talking to from Wee Man or giving Nokwe the run he oh so desperately deserves and let Bryan see how comfy the bench feels I don’t know, but something needs to be done. Habana is far too precious a talent for us to let this slump in form continue.

For this tour I’ve designed a Special How-Crap-The-Opposition-Are-Relative-To-Us-Ometer. It runs from 1 “Scotland” to 10 “New Zealand (not in a World Cup year)”. Wales get a solid 6. I really don’t know what that means or how it describes the Boks performance so I guess it’s pretty useless. I just like pointing out how bad Scotland are. But seriously, the Boks showed glimpses of magic but still made some silly mistakes and gave away too many penalties. While Alain Roland is to whistles what Jenna Jameson is to men’s crotches and he blew that thing so hard I heard it begging him to stop, we need to be smart enough to adapt our game to a stern ref and I hope the Boks will take that lesson from the game. The Welsh dominated the last half hour and they’ve unearthed a fantastic talent in Andy Powell at 8. It was a brave performance from the Pretty Boys but they just didn’t have enough firepower to challenge the Bok line. Overall I don’t think we’ll be challenged on this tour like we will be in next year’s Lions Tour, but if we don’t want an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Rest of the World Invitational XV posing as England in two weeks time we need to tighten up our defense around the rucks, the Welsh absolutely rinsed us there.

Moving on, I’m not sure if I misread the script, but I was pretty sure that it read “Australians travel to Padova and give the Italians a pasting”. My cursory flicks across to channel 206 told me otherwise. I know the Aussies aren’t scared to big themselves up, and that yes they did beat us twice this year so it’s a little rich to rag them but to only beat the Azzurri by a penalty and Quade Cooper’s sexy feet doesn’t really instill much confidence in our mustard yellow-wearing Antipodean brethren. Granted, it wasn’t their strongest side but it wasn’t a bunch of nobodies either. And it’s the Italians. They’re good at crying, having beautiful girlfriends, waxing their backs and losing wars. They traditionally aren’t very good at rugby. Nick Mallett must be doing wonders with these Italian Stallions (sorry, I had to say it once) and hats off to the Controversial One and his greasy charges. As long as he doesn’t start discussing ticket prices with the Italian RFU, they should continue their strong growth.

The All Blacks Experiment continued and produced dividends yesterday. That, however, could just be due to how absolutely useless the Scots were. Gavin Hastings said that the All Blacks’ Grand Slam tour isn’t a real one, and I have to agree with him. But not for the same reasons. He said it was because they aren’t playing midweek games and weren’t touring for like 3 months like the good ol’ days. I say it’s because Scotland just aren’t good enough to be compared to teams of old. They dropped balls, missed tackles, got messed about in the scrums, missed kicks. The All Blacks basically just had to turn up and they’d have won. I’m from proud Scottish ancestry and it bothers me that they’re so crap. The only way the Springboks can lose next week is if Earl Rose plays and forgets to pack his brain into his scrumcap. If he has even half a decent game we’ll pump them. Kahui was huge in the centers, and as much as I dislike him I thought Adam Thompson had a cracker. They’ll definitely win all their games on tour, they are just too powerful and their talent runs too deep.

Well, that draws to a close my thoughts on this weeks action. Next week it’s Murrayfield, and I expect de Villiers to pick quite a different side for that game. Earl Rose will get a chance to prove me all wrong, and hopefully he does so. Heinrich Brussouw will also get a shot to show his mettle on the international arena, and I look forward to the Springboks having a true fetcher on the park, especially one that isn’t suffering from chronic nausea. The sun’s just set behind Lion’s Head and that’s my signal to head over to Camps Bay for a little frustration-off because while you may think that being a sexy blogger gets me all the hot model action I need, it most certainly doesn’t.

Till next time.
Peace.