Three wins from four on an end-of-year slog with a greatly weakened squad: that’s not nirvana, but it’s also not a ruinous state of affairs and South Africa have had coaches who have kept their tracksuits after worse tour returns.
But let’s abandon the bigger picture now, because sideshows deserve suspension – even if short-lived -- when a terrific win like this is achieved, don’t you think?
Yes, this wasn’t too far off a Bok hall-of-famer, when you consider how they were being written off after the Murrayfield mud-bath and England, simultaneously, were being hyped – outrageously, I’d strongly suspected – on the grounds of the 35-18 whipping of the Wallabies at the very same venue.
Martin Johnson’s charges had won some plaudits a little earlier in the month, too, when they at least gave the All Blacks some “problems” along the way in succumbing 26-16.
Well, here the Boks prevailed by the same margin, yet arguably with greater comfort: remember that England’s lone try was a late, flattering intercept and that both Steyns, Morne and Francois, had thumped the uprights with much earlier penalty attempts within the space of seven minutes.
Both even-handed English television commentators, Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes (what a relief not to have had that barking anti-Saffer Brian Moore in the booth) were unreserved in their praise for the whip hand South Africa held, virtually across the park.
“South Africa look the more experienced and better team,” Harrison had simply but aptly noted as the teams trudged off at half-time, with England somehow level-pegging then at 6-6.
And afterwards former Test flyhalf Barnes, while also suggesting the Boks suddenly didn’t look so dead in the water as a World Cup 2011 factor after all, observed: “This was their shot at redemption (after Scotland) and boy, have they fired the bullets.”
He gave player-of-the-match to Bismarck du Plessis, the hooker who threw into the lineout beautifully after his bad day at the office in Edinburgh and rampaged about the pitch like a man possessed in the general exchanges.
Mind you, there were many colleagues like him in muscular commitment and positive energy.
One was Pierre Spies, the big No 8 who has rather pole-axed some detractors in recent weeks, this one included.
Yes, he did bungle one routine, no-pressure kick-off collection, but otherwise the Bulls man was dynamite at Twickers.
On one sublime occasion he not only stopped a rumbling English attacker near the Bok line, he drove him several yards backwards – it is moments like that that demoralise opponents and gee-up allies.
Beast Mtawarira, meanwhile, tackled and made metres, tackled and made metres ... you get the picture of the loosehead prop’s levels of industry. Oh, and before we forget, he was also part of a jubilantly successful effort to lower the colours of a supposedly immovable English scrum!
2010-11-27 22:24
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Where they had come up short against the Scots for precision, the tactical kicking and body language of Ruan Pienaar and Morne Steyn was light years better here, while Jean de Villiers simply oozed zeal and tenacity and a desire to stay on the front foot.
The substitutions, so often an area of wrath by Bok monitors, were like clockwork this time: the right men came off with understandably wearying legs during the second half, and bench performers like Willem Alberts, CJ van der Linde (save for that ill-fated but ultimately not too expensive “prop’s pass”) and Adi Jacobs busied themselves with commendable immediacy.
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SHOOT: I am one of those who didn't give the Boks a chance against England. I'm glad they won; shows when they concentrate, and focus, they can take on any comers. But that's not how you win a world cup. You need consistency for that. DIV doesn't ooze consistency. But let's see how it goes...
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