While this email that I just got from a mate isn’t really a joke - far from it actually - I still thought it was important to share with you.

To:  cfrolick@parliament.gov.za

Subject:  A picture is worth a thousand words  
 Mr Frolick

My mate just sent me this pic.Only now I can see why you say the Springbok emblem is a symbol of apartheid and the old white regime. Can you see the look of disgust on Mzwandile’s face.

I don’t have the stomach or the heart for Sevens rugby.  It’s far too intense and nail-biting as things can hinge and turn on the smallest mistake or the tiniest margins.

Watching the semi-final and the final of the Dubai tournament - only 34 minutes mind you - had more highs and lows than almost any other fifteen man match.

If you didn’t get to see the Dubai tournament let me quickly help you up to speed ahead of this weekend’s tournament in George.

The Bok Sevens team looked outmuscled by both Fiji in the semi-finals and England in the final.  The Boks are a slight team and that means there’s always a little doubt at ruck time as to whether they can hold their own. 

It’s a calculated gamble, however, as when the ball gets out to the backs there are some thrilling runners and real speeders in the team.  The Boks also proved in Dubai that they’ve got hearts bigger than any muscles the opponents might be brandishing.

I’m getting ahead of myself a little.   The semi-final win over Fiji is one of the more remarkable things i’ve ever seen happen with the oval ball.  Fiji were 7 points ahead and the Boks were battling to make an opportunity.  Gio Aplon - if ever there’s a talisman for this Bok team it must be the dimunitive WP fullback - finally started threatining the Fijian advantage line.  Finally it was Vuyo Zanqa that went over to score on the stroke of fulltime.  He couldn’t get round under the uprights and left his captain a very tricky conversion to level the scores.

When I say it was a tricky conversion out 15 from the right hand touchline I’m slipping in a massive euphenism.  Stick needed to slot the conversion to put South Africa into sudden death extra time.

Drop kicking is one of the hardest arts to master on the rugby field.  The dropped ball makes it a far more unreliable art than place kicking.   In fact, I’d bet that if you put Wilkinson, Carter, Montgomery, de Beer, Botha, Steyn and Hernandez in Stick’s boots you would have battled to get a 50% strike rate.

Stick knocked it over, but what followed was even more sensational.  Fiji kicked off and Aplon sent a massive punt out near the halfway line.  South Africa pinched the lineout and passed the ball to Stick who smashed over a drop goal on the run from out near half way.  The 50 000 crowd at the the Sevens stadium were stunned.  The commentators were almost speechless.  I still can’t really believe what I saw.

In the final the Boks weathered a spirited England fighback before Aplon raced away in the last minute to score the winning try.

I’ve long been a fan of Sevens, but this was taking it to a new level. 

The George tournament is going to be a cracker - I just wonder if I can handle the all the thrills and spills.

The Southern Spears, made up of the 3 rugby unions of the Southern and Eastern cape Rugby regions,  were awarded the 6th South African Super 14 rugby franchise by SA Rugby on the 8th June 2005.  This was contained in a collective SA Rugby Franchise Participation Agreement, between SA Rugby and the 5 other South African franchises, the Bulls,  Cheetahs, Sharks, Lions, Stormers, as well as the Southern Spears, which commenced the 1st January 2006 and runs through to 31st May 2010.

SA Rugby’s Presidents Council bound themselves in a unanimous Resolution on the 8th June 2005, to financially support the Southern Spears for the year 2006 only. Thereafter, the Southern Spears were included in the Super 14 competition for the years 2007 and 2008. When SA Rugby reneged on the agreement in March 2006, the Southern Spears challenged this in the Cape High Court and Judge Dennis Davis ruled in favour of the Spears on the 4th August 2006 and declared the agreement legal and binding. All 27 Southern Spears players and personnel, including the current Springbok Coach Peter de Villiers, received salaries and payslips from SA Rugby until March 2006, thereafter SA Rugby unilaterally terminated payment of salaries to the Spears players and personnel.

Jacques Jansen said, “An employer like SA Rugby, who we are instructed, has wilfully ignored labour legislation with impunity, are acting unlawfully. The players and personnel concerned were without question SA Rugby employees, who were paid by SA Rugby, received SA Rugby payslips, IRP5 certificates and consequently became the victims of these unlawful actions, by SA Rugby. They and their families have suffered enormous distress and financial hardship as a result of SA Rugby’s violation of labour law.
Employers simply must employ responsibly and comply with our labour laws, failing which they face dire consequences. In the event that SA Rugby fails to resolve this dispute, they face defending some 150 applications that will be brought against SA Rugby. We will not hesitate to assist and represent these employees in the Labour Court in order to bring them some solace after this ordeal”

Tony McKeever, past CEO of the Southern Spears said, “Not only has SA Rugby violated their own constitution by failing to bind its members and unions to this unanimous Presidents Council resolution, which in itself is deplorable, SA Rugby has also breached its very own Super 14 franchise participation agreement from 2006-2010 and face the prospect of the 2009 Super 14 competition being stopped by urgent interdict in January 09, unless of course this matter is resolved by the Presidents Council. If they are unable to do that, SA Rugby, in terms of the SANZAR broadcasters agreement will
face multiple damages and loss claims from their SANZAR partners, broadcasters and sponsors, that will run into hundreds of millions of Rands and be fatal to the organisation as we know it today. It is sheer lunacy that SA Rugby has spent R27.1m to keep the Spears out of the Super 14, which would have been far better allocated to building the game of rugby in South Africa and the Southern Hemisphere, rather than destroying it. Six weeks ago I submitted a solution to SA Rugby that remedies this Spears/SA Rugby dispute within days and at no cost to SA Rugby, which is precisely what
Regan Hoskins asked of me.”

The team that occupies fourth place at the end of November will avoid being drawn into a pool with one of the SANZAR superpowers for the group matches in 2011.  New Zealand, South Africa and Australia will finish in the top three with the other four countries hoping to move into fourth - the position which Argentina currently occupy - by the end of the weekend.

Argentina face a tough assignment in Dublin when they take on Ireland.  A slip-up on their behalf could open the door for the other three sides to leapfrog them into fourth.

Wales need something just short of a miracle if they are to finish in fourth place.  They need to beat New Zealand for the first time in 55 years and still hope that the other three teams all lose out this weekend.

Similarly, France need to beat Australia by more than fifteen points and hope that the other three sides all lose.

England are currently in fifth spot and could move into fourth should they beat South Africa at Twickenham.

Australia have an opportunity to move about South Africa if the Boks lose and they can overcome France in Paris. Ireland will also be desperate to beat the Pumas to avoid a repeat of the 2007 World Cup where they found themselves in the Group of Death.

“I just wish we had lost so that we’d be rid of the coach”

Excuse me, but what did you say?

The Springboks won a particularly tight Test without ever looking up for the game.  There’s a saying that winners don’t know how to lose - and I think it’s particularly relevent to what we saw from the Boks in Edinburgh on Saturday.

Now I’m not, for one second, hailing the game a triumph for PdV’s tactics and selection process.  I am, however, saying that the furore surrounding the performance are premature and unfair.  Here are some reasons why I think the critism has been a little harsh.

1)  The Boks never look good up north.  Not an excuse or, really, acceptable but a fact regardless of how we’d like to see them play.  Mallett’s record hunters, Streauli’s record breakers (think Murrayfield and Twickenham) and Jake White’s Grand Slam contenders (the Tri-Nations champs of ’04 were among the worst we’ve seen travel north) have all flattered to deceive.  Blame the cold or blame fatigue - it’s one of those age-old rugby truisms (much like SA teams can’t win overseas in the S14) that needs to be broken somehow.

2)  Disrupting injuries.  Losing Fourie du Preez in the build-up and Bismarck du Plessis in the first five minutes clearly affected the momentum and structure of the Boks.  A professional team should be able to handle setbacks like this - which they just about did, but it certainly affected the momentum.  I’m a long-standing admirer of Ricky Januarie - so what I say here mustn’t be misinterpreted - but the nuggety number nine had a real shocker in Edinburgh.  Fourie du Preez’s protection of Ruan Pienaar and ability to keep the pack going foreward were sorely missed.  Januarie’s ability to scrap in the tight games is great, but his slow service cost the Boks and he was clearly off the pace after not having played for over a month.  Likewise the attention and planning that went into the Smit move were assigned to the scrap heap when du Plessis limped off.

3)  Referees from the North.  The ELVs and the way they have been phased in has been disasterous.  Their implementation by referees is a joke.  Northern Hemisphere refs have been instructed to watch players going off their feet at ruck time and are blowing the attacking teams out of the water.  It’s obviously their way to counter what they perceive to be a conspiracy from Australia and New Zealand to promote a free-flowing and attacking game.  The new rules have been a shambles from start to finish, but surely they weren’t designed to penalise teams that get numbers to the ball at pace with an absence of defenders?  While Saturday’s ref didn’t have an obvious agenda against the Boks (ala Monseiur Rolland the week before), he also clearly didn’t know what was going on.  His decision to just penalise one team per half, though, did make for an exciting game.  They should rather experiment with getting all refs to blow the same set of laws than keep changing the stupid things.  Anyway, rant over.

There are some selections and decisions being made by the Springbok coach and management at the moment that I don’t agree with.  Sure there are - everyone in the country ‘knows’ better.

Trying to squeeze three consecutive games out of the same 22 is rather bizarre. Personally I would have given Fourie, Kankowski, Steyn, Bekker, Nokwe, Brussouw and Rossouw  a chance to stretch their legs and show why they were included in the touring squad.  They chose to stick with their squad and now they’ve got more questions than answers heading down to Twickenham.  Habana is way off form, the front row is decimated and the team have had another game drained from the tank.

The truth is it was a very, very average performance from a team way off their best.  At 10-0 down, and with nothing going right for them, the Boks did manage to pull together and squeeze out  a gutsy second half to beat very passionate, and desperate, Scotland team.

I was at Murrayfield in 2002 and I wish that Springbok team had done the same thing

Now, to the weekend’s rugby. Holy snapping duck****, that was awful. The only side to pitch up was Scotland, and that was for one half and they had the ref pushing them along as well. The Kiwis, like old men with too much whisky in their guts, couldn’t finish what they started, the Irish were so Ronan O’Gara it was frightening, England played probably the softest 80 minutes of rugby since Dafydd Jones’ squad of Welsh pretty boys were walloped by the Village People, the Wallabies were intent on having a scoreline divisible by three and the Battle of the Flowing Locks was as tepid as the water Ray Mears dops.

And then there was the Springboks. Juan Smith, Jaque Fourie, Ruan Pienaar, John Smit, JP Pietersen, Jean de Villiers and Vickies Botfield may block your ears, you are excused from this berating. Pierre Spies, Beast Mtawawira, Ricky Januarie and Adi Jacobs may do so after 5 minutes. But the rest of you, what were you doing? Christ alive, I haven’t seen such a flat showing from a Bok side in ages. It wasn’t necessarily poor, it was just like they weren’t interested in playing a rugby international. People have been easy on them, because they won and because each player had the odd moment of brilliance. But the spirit, the thing that I’ve always believed in, seemed to have been sucked from the very core of our Boks. Whether it was the startling ineptitude of the ref (although his incredible swing of bias in the second half probably saved us) or whether the frosty climes of Edinburgh are a little far removed from the balmy warmth of home, I’m not sure. But if I was Piet, Dick and Gary I’d be kicking these okes so hard up the bum it’s frightening. Because we are so close. So close to the finished product. There were phases of play that left me weeping at their beauty (metaphorically ladies, I’m a hard as nails man’s man and anyway, cowboys don’t cry, you’ve seen my sexy calendar). Apart from Bryan Habana and his nice, pert mammaries at the end of his forearms hands the handling was slick and accurate. Kicking was decent, given the blusteriness of Edinburgh in winter. The scrum’s were a little iffy, but that’s not a big concern because Dr Jannie du Plessis (MBChB) is on the way. But it looked like they were going through the motions, and I hate that like I hate hell and all Montague. We need to pick it up before England because if the highland fling can almost beat us that soft collection of foreigners posing as England are going to beat us if things aren’t better. And by things I mean every oke on the field doing his job like there’s a big comet coming down and he won’t be able to kiss Liv Tyler in a spacesuit on a NASA runway if he doesn’t. 

Enough of that though. Like every other one-eyed Bok fan I believe that we will bounce back and hope and pray that the backlash will be sharp, efficient and aimed squarely at the nape of that wilting rose. And for once, I don’t mean Earl.

To the other internationals. Canada-Wales was Canada-Wales. I literally cannot think of anything else to say about that game but two penalty tries and yellow Welsh kit. Yellow? Are you guys serious? NEON yellow? Who are you Romania 2: The Returnsh? It looked like Canada were playing the Long St Carguards XV. Shocking, but true.

Whilst Rassie Erasmus’ colour cards were hailed as genius, Gatland’s use of road signs was probably a step too far.

England-Australia. How the Aussies didn’t score more tries is beyond comprehension. For a bunch of guys who only got their passports two weeks ago and are trying to get to grips with the English language/why the hell they left their tropical home for Rainandcloudland they actually did pretty well. Then Danny Cipriani’s body fell apart, the fact that they had no gameplan was exposed and the Aussies came alive. End result, Australia winning by a decent margin and Johnson left rubbing his substantial proboscis on the stands. On a side note, what are English flyhalves made out of? Candy Floss and My Little Pony Tale hairs? Jonny Wilkinson, Charlie Hodgson, Danny Cipriani. All have had major injuries and never seem to be able to recover properly. Or maybe the English looseforwards just don’t provide enough cover for their tens. Like women and fishing, this is one of life’s great mysteries. *ponderingly strokes his moustache*

Argentina-Italy. Long hair. Tanned skin. Crying. Waxed chests. Monobrows. Breaking through wide open gaps. Beautiful women. Looks like the script to an 80s porno but believe it or not this was in fact a rugby game. Argentina did well enough to win but to be fair Mallett’s Stallions looked like they were wearing last week’s game heavily. And so they should, they played like Titans against Australia but this was just one game too many for them.

New Zealand-Ireland. Some beautiful running by the All Blacks. They are so quick, so strong, so smart. Their finishing let them down but Ma’a Nonu’s try was absolutely magnificent and I want to marry the Carter break that almost led to another. Ronan O’Gara was so bad I felt sorry for him. He looks like a chorister but on Saturday he played like a bent outta shape trombone. Nonu played the game of his life and I hope he continues to do so because he’s one of the most chilled, lekker rugby players I’ve met. Good man. He gets the prestigious Burton’s Player of the Weekend Award. Boerie Rolls don’t keep too well but I’ll reserve him for one next time he’s in the Republic.

France-Islanders. If I looked at my fixture list and saw the words “Pacific Islanders” I’d feign suicide, go to the plastic surgeon, get my face did, and skip town. Those guys are headcases. That tackle on Elisalde was so illegal if he’d done that in the Middle Ages he’d have been burned at the stake. That little Jean-Baptiste is still alive is unbelievable. As great as it is to have the combined Islanders playing and all the good it does for the growth of the game, if these okes continue this kind of madness they are going to have a fixture list that resembles my prepubescent phonebook. Empty. Well done to France for surviving with their heads still on their shoulders, for that the scoreline should’ve read France: Infinity, Islanders: 12.

Well, that’s that folks. I’m off to the Transkei with a bunch of mates and dolls next week so will be out of contact. Try keep it real without me. It’ll be tough going cold turkey I know, but the advice I usually give girls is find an empty room with a bed, strap yourself to the posts and hold on. Time heals, and I’ll be back shortly. I’ll be a little porridge-brained but that’ll probably just add to the entertainment value.

Jokes aside, go buy green underpants, boerie, rolls, 18 of your favourite beers, salt and vinegar chips,droewors/biltong and invite your mates over for Saturday’s game. It’s our toughest on the tour and the Boks need all the support we can give them.

Everything’s going to be irie.

Peace 

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.

The South African squad, the Springboks, have been training at UCT this week. And let me tell you, it has been awesome. There’s nothing quite like walking out of a harrowing Auditing exam to see 30 minus 1 of South Africa’s finest being put through their paces. And by Jove they are looking good. Pieter de Villiers has made no secret of the fact that he wants to play John Smit at tighthead and Ruan Pienaar at 10. They’ve been training as such and having spent a good portion of my day watching them do their stuff, I can vouch for de Villiers’ decision. Smit’s bulked up a lot since last year’s World Cup and certainly looks like a tighthead. Whether this is due to his wife’s handiness around a baking tray or whether there’s been a plan put in place to get him up to size for his new role at 3 is completely open to speculation. He’s a little rusty on the technicalities but Gary Gold’s working hard at getting him up to speed and you can tell by the atmosphere in the squad that the whole pack is behind him. Which brings me my next comment, the team spirit. Watching the Boks gave me a sense of pride that I haven’t had since that time at Green Man when I scored that doll and my arms reached the whole way around. The Boks looked so behind each other it was a little weird at times. High-fives were dished out like bumbles at 330. There was so much bum-slapping I thought I was at a Village People concert. Bakkies Botha was play-wrestling Mujati before they packed dow, Schalk was pretending to be a bus driver on the scrum machine. I saw the Springboks doing what they were meant to do; training hard and loving every minute of it. People have often questioned de Villiers’ coaching but one thing the guy gets absolutely right is squad happiness. They look unified and tight and awesome. Like me in a Speedo.

There’s been some poo-pooing of the Bok squad of late, aimed mainly at Earl Rose. I’m not going to jump in front of that though. A lot has also been said of John Smit at tighthead and Ruan Pienaar at first-five. As I said earlier, I think Smit is smart enough and strong enough to handle the switch. While Ruan Pienaar is largely untested at flyhalf, he’s got all the makings of a great 10 and a tour up North, with the backing of his side, will do wonders for his confidence in the position. As for Rose, he might surprise us all and play great rugby on this tour. He’s been given a chance and if he takes it makes the most of it then he’ll get some deserved respect. I think there’s more chance of Mosiua Lekota and Julius Malema announcing their same-sex union after the weekend but from what I’ve seen he’s giving it the beans and I can’t fault a guy for that. I will, however, continue to laugh at him for strapping his arms and legs together and wearing the ugliest scrumcap ever manufactured.

While some girls have said that my steely blue eyes can look right through them and into their souls, they certainly can’t look into the future. But having watched the Boks practice has increased my faith in them, the coaching staff and that little man with his giant moustache. While he may speak like he’s just smoked his 40th Craven A of the morning, and deals with the press like I dealt with Kylie Minogue’s rejection of all my letters, Pieter de Villiers has got a good support team around him and he seems to be a great player manager. And if he can manage the whole brigade and bring home the bacon, then I don’t care if he speaks in tongues and relates rugby plays to buying whisky at Solly’s and likes sex in parking lots. He’s the Bok coach and has picked a very balanced squad and for that alone he deserves our support. We’re going to do a lot better on this tour than people have been saying, and I think that a little farther down the line we may look back at Pienaar’s first tour as the incumbent 10 and John Smit’s shuffle to the right as being master strokes. If not, Butch is a train ride away and we’ve got Brian Mujati waiting in the wings.

Now to the final Bledisloe Cup game. There’s been a lot of noise made about Carter at 12, and it’s all pretty pointless. Ted Henry knows he has the Bled won already, and he’s using this opportunity to see if he can fill the big hole at 12 that was left by Aaron Mauger and Luke McAllister’s combined sojourns to England. Ma’a Nonu is a game-breaker, but he’s as consistent as Wayne Ferreira and you need a rock-solid twelve to cement your backline. Anyone remember how awesome we were with De Creative Barry at inside? So he’s trying Diamond Dan at 12, a position he’s played a lot, to see if this is the answer. I think he’s going to dominate. Stirling Mortlock is his opposition, and a formidable foe he is. At outside center. At inside center Mortlock drifts all over the show on defence, leaking tries. Carter is going to waltz past him on the weekend, mark my words. And as for attack, well, he may run hard at Carter, but he’s got Richie McCaw running the cover pattern so even if Dan missed a tackle, which is something I haven’t seen in yonks, he’ll be blitzed by the cover. Bad move by Deans but like Henry he’s also looking to patch open the void at 12. Me personally, I’d have shifted Giteau out to 12, left Mortlock where he’s at his barnstorming best at 13 and played Barnes at 10. Or Beale if he was fit. But then again Deans has won like infinity Super 14 titles and my side once won the UCT B Internal League so he might be a more reliable source of rugby knowledge.

This is going to be exhibition rugby so watch it if you like watching tries and New Zealand winning. If you like watching Australia win, then you can rent the ‘99 World Cup highlights DVD from Mr Video for about 10 ronts.

This is the last weekend in a while where we can watch rugby stress-free so make the most of it. Let the hair grow back, give the nailbed some time to heal, sit back and enjoy the festival. I’ll be learning accounts.

Ja right. I’ve still got my black rods on so it’s Kiwis all the way.

Peace.

Over 100 teams have signed up since last week’s post telling you about this awesome game.  It’s great to see the power of the SARugby.com community and also very exciting for the players of the game in South Africa to see such an overwhelming response.

Quite a few of you that signed up haven’t let us know your team & manager name - so either send it to us using this form or drop your team details in the comments section below. 

Please make sure you do this as we’re looking at running an SARugby.com Cup, doing some interesting promos and using this blog as a place for all our BR players to come together to banter, talk tactics and so on.

It’s a huge vibe and something to keep you going once these final three Test matches are over.

Here’s a list of the SARugby.com readers that have already put their teams into the hat:

My team is called (rather originally) - SARugby.com
Loosie - Southern Speartacklers
RagingBull - Death Squad 4000 (Pacific Islands)
SuperGazza - G’s Units
Austio - Strongside
Knorrox - Knorrox Knuckleheads
fef1 - Province NM
schitzo - Shebeen Boys
BAM! - Auspoesters
queen_bee - The Surfers
Dinesh - Transkei Predators
ricchi - Might Leopards
forgottenplayer - Lasers
milfred - thefourths
b-da-t - Kings Hospital (Ire)
Steynop15 - Golden Titans

* Remember to get your mates involved and let us know their names as soon as possible.  The season is about to end and we’d like to get some sort of competition up and running from the before the start of Season 4.

Let the games begin….

The ANZ Cup final was as tight as expected with Auteroa’s two best sides slugging it out in Wellington’s best attempt at Spring weather. Westpac Stadium and all 22000 people inside it were treated to a messy but titanic struggle in a constant drizzle. I’m not sure if many South Africans watched the game, but there were some very interesting things to take from it. Firstly was a standout performance by Bubbles Weepu at 10. He controlled the game and very much overshadowed the much hyped youngster Colin Slade. Ross Filipo had a cracker at 4, as did Cory Jane at the back. Those are three All Blacks, guaranteed. Canterbury didn’t look too flash but their rock solid defence and incredible opensider kept the Lions at bay. 7-6 reads like a Guinness Premiership scoreline but I can guarantee you that one came from way down South.

I won’t bore you with H&A talk or the intricacies of planning and designing tests of control within the confines of an audit of an entity’s inventory books so I guess it’s straight to the final.

Firstly, what was up with Supersport’s coverage? Those random quotes that kept popping up? “Whose muse will blow their fuse?”. “Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde?”. “Who will blaze the first phase?”. Crisis. And did my digsmate sprinkle some crack on my Jungle Oats this morning or was that really Johann Muller’s wife and Wikus van Heerden and Fourie du Preez’s dads taking up half of my screen during the game? And the technical breakdown due to the weather. It’s not the Middle Ages here, some rain and a little lightning doesn’t have to send our world into panic.

But as for the game, what a cracker. When Frank missed that penalty I thought I’d slipped through a wormhole and it was May 2007 again. I could just see the whole show unravelling. But thankfully we survived the onslaught and a scrum swivel and got the ball into touch. There were some epic performances from both sides, and some rather worryingly poor ones. Stefan Terblanche was absolutely massive. Francois Steyn also had a hummer, carrying the ball up whenever he was asked to and on defence his channel was plugged up like an old lady who forgets to have her All Bran in the morning. JP Pietersen and Odwa Ndungane are serious contenders for the Springbok wingers, especially with Habana injured/looking severely out of touch. Another unlucky omission from the touring squad, Jean Deysel, had a blinder. He is so strong, and so effective on the charge that I can only wonder why The Moustachioed One wouldn’t want him to play in the slow peatfields of the Isles. Fred Michalak won the battle of the 10s, and it’s really sad that his partnership with the vastly talented Ruan Pienaar won’t get a chance to flourish in ‘09. The Beast was great as usual, and I was heartened by Kankowski’s performance in the tight phases.

For the Bulls, Fourie the Rugby Genius had a very strong game. I thought Zane Kirchner played his best 80 minutes for the Bulls at the back and thoroughly deserves his place in Johan Roets’ boots. Wynand Olivier was very strong in all his bottle-blondeness and as much as it pains me to say, is very unlucky that there is such a plethora of talent in the centers for the Boks as he has finally grown into an international standard outside half. Pierre Spies lived up to my billing of being pure rugby distillate and carried the Bulls pack strongly. The competition between him and Kankowski’s really up the ante and both are playing fantastic rugby. The Bulls’ weak point was at flyhalf where Morne Steyn, much like our beloved bouncers in their Std 7 exams, just didn’t have the answers to the questions posed of him. He kicked well out of hand but the Bulls line moved laterally rather than forward despite the best efforts of Olivier, and that meant they never threatened enough. A fine effort at the breakdowns meant that the Sharks often got scrappy ball and the Bulls were about as physical as we would expect from the tough as nails men from the Jacaranda-blossomed Tshwane Metropole.

But the slew of Cape To Rio bottles lying all over Durban and the thick fog of braai smoke hanging over the Berea will tell you that it was the Banana Boys who finally brought home the bacon. Twelve years is a long time to wait for anything and it’s good to have the Cup back in Durbs.

Now to Piet’s squad. The only reason I can muster up behind Pieter de Villiers’ selection of Rose is that for the last couple weeks he’s only had to make simple decisions like “Front or back seat?” or, “Should it be the rugby club parking lot or the one outside Solly Kramer’s?” and so has forgotten how to make complex calls like deciding on a Bok squad. de Villiers justified his selection by saying that Rose has the X-Factor. Despite what the ladies at last night’s hen party will tell you I’m no sexy Police Officer but if that’s cop code for someone who runs ecstacy then Pieter de Villiers is spot on. If it’s rugby code for someone who likes strapping himself up like some bondage freak then he’s also right. If he was meaning that Earl Rose has the X-Factor that players like Christian Cullen, Frederic Michalak and Carlos Spencer have then he was very, very wrong. Rose is a show pony at best, and a belligerent idiot at worst. His dummy throw-in antics and ridiculous headgear are the laughing stock of the rugby world. Nobody takes him seriously. This isn’t helped by the fact that he defends his channel like Paris Hilton defended her virginity. He played a few good games mid-Currie Cup, and those were against the Valke and the Griquas. Against the big boys he faded into obscurity and haemorrhaged tries. I hate to see what he’ll do when faced with international strength attacks. This selection will do wonders for international drug trade, but certainly won’t do wonders for PdV’s credibility.

And then, typically, the rest of his squad is pretty much spot on. Chiliboy was a bit of a bolter, and Adriaan Strauss may be scratching his blonde head a little. But Ralepelle is a class act at hooker and while he’s played more on his Wii than he has on the rugby field in the last 18 months I think it’s fair to say that if he had been injury-free he’d have been a Bok for a long while now. There are always some unlucky ones. As far as I’m concerned, Peter Grant was the obvious choice for flyhalf but it seems that his injury-ravaged season and Ruan Pienaar’s turn of sublime form did him in. Turbos has had the season of his life and must have been drawing parallels between his career and Percy’s but alas, Snor obviously never saw these lines. Jean Deysel must also be wondering what he has to do to get a run. But the fact is it’s only a 30 man squad and Pieter would have to have been either a very brave man or a very crazy one to have started cutting the core that played throughout this year’s TriNations. Juan Smith might have done with a rest and the same can be said for a few others but PdV is right when he says that there isn’t a lot of time for us to get ready for the Lions tour and so taking the big boys over to get some practice against the Northerners is probably the wisest thing to do.

So, all in all, I guess we can’t be too unhappy with this weekend’s proceedings. There will always be a few howlers in a squad selection and considering that there’s only really one in the Wee Man’s squad for this tour we can’t get too upset. Plus, I’m still bathing in the glow of the Sharks finally overcoming their fear of finals and winning some silverware. A week of exams and related boredom awaits me so I best be off to my books. Enjoy the rest of your Currie Cup weekend folks and try keep it real in the upcoming vacuum of no rugby.

Until next time,
Peace.