What next...i think i like this journalist.
Chris Rattue: This was one of the great test victories
5:00AM Monday July 02, 2007
By Chris Rattue
Sometimes finding the big picture is too hard. So, a few snapshots from the Melbourne test match instead.
* Test matches like this are fabulous. It's what international sport should be about. Gripping to the end. A glorious battle which gets the juices flowing. That's why the Springboks' decision to rest 20 players is a travesty. We're getting robbed. There has been the odd comment already that Saturday night's test wasn't a classic - but I disagree wholeheartedly. What do people want? Frilly test football? Test matches are about duking it out in the trenches and working every situation to your best advantage. I love those scrum resets and tactics. I even enjoy, in a perverse way, getting mad at George Gregan because he won't put the ball in. Gregan milked the scrum situations brilliantly.
* Well done Australia. You were magnificent - a written-off side (guilty here) who were under the pump but bravely held their nerve, and emerged victorious through a mixture of technique and tenacity. This was one of the great test victories. It has put the emphasis squarely back where it should be - on the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cup rather than the World Cup for now.
The All Blacks' R and R programme got a serious kicking in Melbourne. Yahooo. Manna from heaven.
I'm a committed opponent of Graham Henry's rest and reconditioning plan, New Zealand rugby at its most cringe-inducing conceitedness. Hey look at us - we're so important and winning the WC is so vital to our sorry little state we're prepared to stuff up an entire multimillion-dollar competition without regard for anybody else.
So stick the R and R ...
If we can't win the World Cup without destroying the rest of the game, well so be it. We'll have to live without it. The sun will still shine, the grass will still grow. Can you imagine English football pulling players out of half of the premiership. It wouldn't be allowed, and nor should it.
The rugby World Cup is a test of the ability to claim the highest honour because of and in spite of advantages and hurdles. It's not supposed to turn everything else into a wasteland.
Right, got that off the chest. So what of the programme itself then?
It was only ever a theory, and not a sure-fire one. The All Blacks appear short on the battle hardness which enables players to produce their best when under pressure.
Does it work? Maybe yes for some players and no for others. Tony Woodcock is playing sublime football. Yet both Dan Carter and Keven Mealamu appear to have had their instincts dulled. Mealamu is doing a decent job, but he's lost that zest which made him a unique front rower.
Apart from Mils Muliaina, the backs - never in need of R and R anyway - looked badly out of sorts in Melbourne. Sportsmen who get to this level thrive on the battle. They don't like sitting on the sidelines for long periods. I suspect at least a few aren't all that fussed on being reduced to marionettes in the hands of power-crazed coaches either.
And if the R and R programme was so necessary, how come Australia - whose players took a full part in the Super 14 - appear to be getting stronger. Their resilience was superb in Melbourne. The R and R plan was a grandiose scheme and I'll gladly take any opportunity to put the boot into it.
* Rico Gear. Cut out those post-try hand signals son - although if you're still working out which is the right and left thumb, get help. (Tip - the one making the L-shape is the left) Silly hand signals look even sillier when you drop bombs and miss vital tackles.
* Ali Williams. He may be a loony, but he's also a test dynamo and we miss him. Badly.
* Deep breath ... you've got to hand it to the Australian tight forwards. Their seriously outmatched scrum was a glorious memorial to the ultimate cling-on prop Bill Young, who hoodwinked his way through an entire test career. Matt Dunning is going to be a sorry bag of bones by the end of the season though. He will need extended R and R, as in rest and reconstruction.
* Marius Jonker. The ref. Where was he looking when Australia's retreating runners parked themselves offside in the first half. Lazy refereeing meets lazy running.
* Stirling Mortlock equals Mils Muliaina. The All Blacks must play Muliaina - who was terrific at fullback in Melbourne - at centre whenever they face Mortlock. The big Aussie was brilliant, but he should face tougher opposition than makeshift centre Luke McAlister's nightclub-act defence. It's also unfair on McAlister playing him out of position at this level, just as it was promoting Isaia Toeava too quickly.
* Are the Australians peaking too early? Or have they peaked at all?
* Is Stephen Larkham held together by tape, or is a wad of tape being held together by Stephen Larkham?
* Is John O'Neill a New Zealand rugby jinx?
* Will the real Dan Carter ever come back?
Wonders never cease. A Kiwi who actually can give credit where credit is due.
