“I’m emotionally hedging.” So spoke the big man with the beard and the beer in the pub we drank.
Not the first phrase you might predict of a northern rugby man in South Africa in response to: “And what do you predict, today?”
Yet all his mates nodded. I nodded.
I knew what he meant. A bloody eyewitness to both a squeaking and a spanking Springbok loss in Dublin, and then last year, being ringed by Irish wits as the Bok maul sputtered into the final whistle’s cruel verdict, sure as I was seconds before we had broken Irish hearts in the Pool.
One lunge from a win over these difficult foes, these new rivals, these meddlesome moths we could not seem to be rid off, nor make a penalty kick against?
RG Snyman of South Africa takes a restart ahead of Calvin Nash of Ireland. (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
“See you in the final” I was told in Saint-Denis, not by half of the 23 men around me per se, but by a good half dozen.
On the train back to Paris, midnight came with eternal songs sung by these pale men in a lighter shade green, maddeningly in tune; a rugby fandango which never seems to end. As I sat, with the three knockouts still to come, humoring the serenade with a tight smile, I made plans for 6 July, 2024 in Pretoria.
As I danced after each opponent was put to bed, my mind still went to the Irish exception. I wanted to sing to them, too, in a field of dark green.
The cup is safe in Africa even if the tournament was stolen by France, who was knocked out by the strip of the African Asterix, but one footnote remained, an Irish asterisk: the old ledger unbalanced and in need of a reckoning, a rectification,
But Andy Farrell and his crew of cornermen have their prizefighters coached to never panic, to find edges, hide flaws, and eke wins.
In their tough dignity, we Saffa supporters find some hidden code, some refusal to give our team its due, even if the Irish players permitted to speak are scrupulous to avoid any sledge or slight.
Peter O’Mahony may call an All Black an excremental insult but to the Boks (besides RG Snyman, who he hugs) he just gives an old school handshake. The press conferences are polite conferences.
The leading Irish rugby writers are fair, even enjoying the growing rivalry, never overstating their wins.
But underneath it all, seething, is real feeling, fueled by provincial club rivalry, spiked by a minority of Irish commentators and a few windy Saffa journalists seeking clicks, but nevertheless, true emotion.
What if we lose again? What if we miss three easy kicks, again? What if they manage to make scrums irrelevant or paint a false picture of an early push? What if they sing at Loftus at the end, the Walking Dubliners and we are their zombies?
What if we Boks are their bunnies?
This heavyweight bout was billed (fairly and unfairly) as the main event of the Test weekend, number one versus number two, the challenger who would not give the champion his proper due, and seemingly forgetting the All Blacks’ worthy claims, a battle over “the unofficial title” of best team for 2024.
Contrary to many calls to use the tour to rest veterans and take it down a notch, Farrell named a World Cup pack and backline unless injury and retirement forced his hand. Rassie Erasmus put a thousand caps on the pitch, starting with best available, with only Kwagga Smith at No.8 a potential wild card.
Excuses were excused. This was a real alpha battle for polar supremacy: Six Nations boss with a decade of head-to-head cred against the swaggering holder of the biggest trophy in the sport at home.
Build hype? Prepare for nerves.
Hence the hedge in Hazelwood: everyone in Gauteng I spoke to was restrained, careful, religiously superstitious about not being “windgat” (a showoff) but rabid about the need for righting the wrongs of the record.
Rectification. A legal doctrine in equity which finds there was a mistake in a document; a reality must be undone to reflect a higher truth. In order to get rectification it is necessary to show that the parties were in complete agreement on the terms of their contract, but by an error wrote them down wrongly.
Was the record wrong? Bok fans felt so; it was a pure feeling. Thus, the emotion which flowed into Loftus.
I have described the grounds as an abattoir before, the slaughterhouse of visitors’ dreams, the butchery of hopes, and the burial ground of Bok foes.
But I felt angst in the shuffling mob.
“This shit just got real” admitted a khaki-clad bloke in the beer line.
Champion middleweight Dricus du Plessis revved up the crowd more than a flyover would, and then the anthem rolled like the water of an ancient flood which changed maps.
I did not see a dry eye in the dry air of the stands after we loosed our bind, voices gone before the game, and the largest men in khaki wiped the most tears away.
What deep chords does our sport find in our hearts?
The match was remarkable for its clean violence: both teams tackling at the right height, the cleans low, the contests in the air pristine.
Many other visitors would have been swept away by the start: daylight on both edges, Bok carriers bumping tackle stalwarts like Robbie Henshaw and O’Mahony into oblivion, and a “lekkerback” (the title we have coined for swivel-hipped, curiously strong, unnecessarily scrum-capped Saffa wings who are “transparent” when attempted to tackle) try by local darling Kurt-Lee Arendse who found holes which did not exist. But this Irish squad does not panic.
James Lowe must have an irrational abhorrence of any ball going into touch. He seemed to create half of the tries on the night for both teams as he would not accept a ball going out.
Caelan Doris thoroughly outplayed Smith at eight, so much so that the little Bok loosie was given sarcastic applause each time he did not drop the kickoff.
Craig Casey manfully assumed the lofty mantle left him by the absent Jamison Gibson-Park until he was TKOed by teammate Snyman.
The halftime score was the full time score of their last encounter; and overall, it seemed twice as good a contest to the home spectator.
Despite savage defence by both teams, there was more space, especially for Tony Brown’s backline starter plays and three-phase attack.
Handre Pollard missed the obligatory three kicks against Ireland but carried and passed with authority, setting up the three-in-a-row World Cup veteran midfield pairing of Damian de Allende (O’Mahony batterer) and Jesse Kriel free to outplay vaunted Bundee Aki and Henshaw. Aki seldom had room to breathe.
Two late tries by Conor Murray and athletic Ryan Baird gave the crowd something to think about, but never once did I feel the final verdict was in doubt.
Each Bok try sent the stadium into an emotional release. The hedges were gone, the fake humility gone too, and it was time to dig it in.
Would there be a final moment?
An archetype of dominance? A full stop? A chiseled rectification of the document etched permanently into the tombstone?
Sport never really gives us this elusive goal, but the final scrum came bloody close.
Lowe’s obsession created the scene. A put in. A first and a second shove as Ireland failed to trick the ref again, and the whole pack was obliterated and humbled, yes finally put in their right place.
It was the scrum of dreams, like the very first scrum which ever formed and the last which ever will be, like some conflagration of the gods for eternal life.
Perhaps I overstate, but what is sport without exaggeration?
The scrum of rectification and the release of fifty thousand hedges into the cold blood red High Veld sky.
Oh, but now there is Durban.
There is no end; just the game which goes on and on.
The score actually always is true.
Harry Joneshttps://www.theroar.com.au/2024/07/08/s-t-just-got-real-inside-rugbys-alpha-collision-of-six-nations-boss-and-swaggering-world-cup-holders/‘S–t just got real’: Inside rugby’s alpha collision of Six Nations boss and swaggering World Cup holders
إرسال تعليق