Daily Archives: 8 September 2014
When Rob Horne cut inside the Springboks covering defence and headed for the line to score the Wallabies’ last try I almost jumped out of my chair.
Then I started to rage that he had dived early rather than run round to create an easy conversion that would give the Test to the Wallabies 24-23.
When there was so much positive to come from the two tests at the weekend and with the Wellington test holding all sorts of intrigue, I’m sorry to start this week’s column with a bleat.
But I can’t help myself.
Why, of all the major sports around the world, does our game have the worst standard of international refereeing? And by a long shot.
OK, I accept that rugby is a complicated game with a lot of rules, and a lot to watch. But where are the referees with a feel for the game?
French rugby club Clermont will be without Zac Guildford for up to four weeks after the former All Black and teammate Jonathan Davies were assaulted.
The 25-year-old Kiwi, who had a record of ill discipline off the pitch in New Zealand before he made the move to France in the summer, was left with a badly-bruised jaw.
Josh Mann-Rea has saved the number of the Wallabies coach in his mobile phone so he never again thinks he’s being pranked with a call-up every rugby journeyman dreams of.
Not getting on as a reserve against South Africa last weekend for the most unlikely Wallabies debut of the professional era has only slightly dented the fairytale that Mann-Rea calls “my wild ride”.
‘Tongan Thor’ Taniela Tupou has urged his “haters” to calm down after he confirmed his sensational defection from New Zealand to Australia.
The 18-year-old will join an Australian Super Rugby team next year after rejecting a landmark offer from the New Zealand Rugby Union, which for the first time in history bid top-up money to a sign a schoolboy.
Tupou, the hottest teenage prospect in world rugby, officially ended New Zealand’s hopes of retaining his services on Monday, telling the Daily Telegraph: “I will be coming to Australia, it is the best thing for my family”.
Watch the video of Tupou in action below
Welsh club Ospreys have confirmed that they have signed Stormers lock De Kock Steenkamp on a three-year contract, despite the player having one more year on his contract in the Cape.
Steenkamp, 27, secured an early release from his Stormers contract and will join the PRO12 club after representing the Stormers on 49 occasions in Super Rugby and playing 59 games for the Western Province in the Currie Cup.
“Joining the Ospreys is a great opportunity for me and a challenge that I can’t wait to get stuck into,” said Steenkamp in a statement on Ospreys’ official website.
Get better as quickly as possible, Fourie du Preez!
That should be the earnest, continued wish of all astute Springbok enthusiasts… even given the knowledge that his return to fitness after an ankle operation for national team purposes probably only comes in time for next year’s roster.
But with 2015 hardly unimportant as it signals the advent of another World Cup, in the United Kingdom, that’s still not the worst scenario to mull over.
France’s Jérôme Garcès will referee the All Blacks v Springboks Rugby Championship clash in Wellington on Saturday.
Following a weekend of highly debatable referee, assistant referee and TMO decisions, Heyneke Meyer will be hoping Saturday’s crucial clash is free of controversy.
The Springboks’ remaining Rugby Championship matches will be refereed by Wales’ Nigel Owens (v Australia at Newlands on 27 September) and by England’s Wayne Barnes (v New Zealand at Ellis Park on 4 October).
Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele has attacked rugby’s antiquated governance and revenue-sharing system as the island powerhouse announced a major sponsorship aimed at taking them to a new level at next year’s World Cup.
Tuilaepa also doubles as chairman of the Samoan Rugby Union, traditionally a cash-strapped organisation with its top players at the mercy of rich clubs and rival countries.
Samoa revealed on Monday a new deal with Australian-based company Cromwell Property Group that should ensure a well-resourced squad for next year’s tournament in England.
The base sponsorship is “significant” but also includes major incentives – $250,000 for reaching the semifinals, $500,000 for making the final and $1m for winning the tournament.
Yes, Irish referee George Clancy made some howlers at the weekend, but the Springboks should really have no excuses for losing to Australia in Perth.
The Wallabies sneaked a 24-23 victory after at one stage trailing 23-14 in the second half.
The performance of Clancy was no doubt below par, but the decision-making and poor execution of skills of the Springboks should also be highlighted.
Here are FIVE key moments which cost the Springboks in their Rugby Championship Test against the Wallabies in Perth:
Injury-plagued hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau is set for a shock Wallabies starting return to quell an improved Argentinian outfit closing in on a maiden Rugby Championship victory.
Polota-Nau, without a game for six weeks, will Tuesday be named as one of three changes to Australia’s line-up for Saturday night’s clash on the Gold Coast.
While coach Ewen McKenzie is poised to promote winger Peter Betham and back-rower Ben McCalman, to replace injured stalwarts Adam Ashley-Cooper and Wycliff Palu, he could have easily eased Polota-Nau back on the bench.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) has confirmed its plans to ensure that half the Springbok team is made up of players of colour by 2019.
Rapport on Sunday revealed SARU’s Transformation Strategic Plan, which aims to bring all of South Africa’s representative rugby teams, along with domestic teams in line with national targets in five years.
Of the Springbok team currently competing in the Rugby Championship, 19% of the players are non-white, while only 12% are black African. Zimbabwean-born prop Tendai Mtawarira was the only black African player to start in the defeat to Australia in Perth, with Trevor Nyakane warming the bench.
But SARU wants to make sure that by 2019 at least half the Springbok side consists of players of colour, with 60% of those required to be black African.
SARU also set a mandate for Bok coach Heyneke Meyer to select at least five black players in his squad for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England as well as include seven players of colour in his match-day squad in the lead-up to the tournament.
According to Beeld, all 14 of South Africa’s provincial unions approved the new strategic plan on August 13 this year.
SARU has already shared the plan with SASCOC and the sports ministry. The next step is for SARU’s general council to approve the plan.
Do I really need to confirm what everyone else already knows… This was not a good weekend for referees!
We are operating in a system where I have said that these type of weekends are not avoidable and until key elements of the system are exposed, and then adequately addressed, this will continue into the future.
The referees are not getting it right, and it is pointless saying after the fact, that things need to be looked at, when the writing was on the wall from the get go.
Xerox Golden Lions coach Johan Ackermann was close to tearing his hair out in frustration, not so much by the way his team stumbled to a 36-26 loss at the hands of the Vodacom Blue Bulls in their Absa Currie Cup encounter, but more by the refereeing decisions that negated his side’s normally strong scrum platform.
Ackermann called the contest “the most boring game” and admitted to being frustrated by referee Marius van der Westhuizen’s high penalty count – against both sides – at the set piece, that robbed the game of much momentum and made it a stop-start affair.
The Wallabies have at last beaten someone perched above them in the world rankings.
It has taken awhile.
But if the Australian players and management seriously start believing they are back on track then it’s time for them to take some ‘truth pills’.
Their one-point win over the Springboks was deeply flawed, exposed many of their inherent weaknesses including a lack of discipline, and showed their fundamental skills are at best average.
The Wallabies can also no longer carry on about being a luckless team, as they received the benefit of a string of dreadful decisions from referee George Clancy, who should have his whistle confiscated after such a diabolical performance. The Springboks have every right to cry foul as they were victims of numerous Clancy blunders.
It is fast becoming the “100 hoodoo” … and it is a trend South Africa must fight grimly to snap when they take on the might of New Zealand in the Castle Rugby Championship on Saturday (Wellington, 09:35 SA time).
Three of four Springboks to have earned the milestone for caps – Percy Montgomery, John Smit and now Bryan Habana – have had the big day soured to a significant extent by ending it in Test defeat.
In the cases of the first-named two, the reverses came at the hands of the very All Blacks, so there’s a potential hat-trick of heartbreak in the offing at the “Cake Tin”, because Bok captain Jean de Villiers hits the landmark then as fifth recipient for the country.
The streaker who disrupted Napier’s first All Blacks test in almost two decades sparked security concerns and soured an otherwise “outstanding” event the city’s leaders hope to repeat.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen labelled 25-year-old streaker Rose Kupa’s antics “a pain in the backside” after Saturday’s test match, while Israel Dagg laughed off the slap on the bum Kupa gave him as she dashed past.