Northampton Saints
On the Blindside
By The Crusader
August 12 2009
After a long absence (clearly jetsetting again), the Crusader returns with a fresh look at recent events, both on the international stage, and closer to home, at the Gardens.
On The Blindside
A week or two back, someone made a valid point in a thread about the tri-nations and the World Cup. He said that whilst we may occasionally see the All-Blacks beaten, we never see them trounced. The inference was that one of New Zealand's finest qualities was their resilience.
It's true. When they get in a pinch, when any reasonable bunch would flinch, the All-Blacks swallow hard and come at you harder.
Which made the previous week's beating by South Africa so remarkable. A score line of 29-17 is certainly not a massacre, but it was a rare opportunity to see the All-Blacks psychologically stuffed. The back row of Smith, Spies and Brüssow had New Zealand floundering and the probing kicks of Morné Steyn and du Preez will feature in the All Blacks' back three's nightmares for years to come.
What on earth has happened to Joe Rococoko? Here's a man who scored tries for fun and had the crowd on their feet each time he received the ball. Suddenly, he's taking passes like he's wearing oven mitts and under the high ball he looked as if he was chasing a ten pound note dropped from a helicopter!
All this made Saturday's match against the Wallabies a fascinating prospect. But even though the Australian mindset seemed to be made of tougher stuff than New Zealand's, particularly after their flying start, the Boks, led by the astonishing Brüssow, looked about to open a huge can of whoop-ass.
At that point, Matt Giteau decided to give du Pre
ez a
mouthful of flying elbow and Richard Brown forgot which way he was playing.
Within two minutes, South Africa were on the Aussie 22-metre line with a
penalty against 13 men. Smits, arguably the most buccaneering prop in the game,
spurned the obvious dink into the corner, followed by a lineout that you could
put Warren Buffett's mortgage on to win, for another weedy little penalty.
And then, as though this pusillanimous three-pointer had pricked their collective consciences, it suddenly dawned on the Springboks that their opponents only had 13 demoralised souls on the field. It was time to administer the biggest stuffing since Bob Cratchit parted the legs of Mr Scrooge's turkey! But instead of simply wielding the surgeon's knife, the South Africans thrashed around the field as though anything less than four tries in eight minutes would be a catastrophe.
By forcing the pace, they created more panic in their own ranks than amongst the Wallabies. At once, the Springbok backs handled the ball as if it were ticking while Berrick Barnes put together the best 10 minutes of the Tri-Nations series so far. Again and again, his touch kicks drove the Springboks deep into their own half as the minutes ticked away.
By the time the miscreants were back on the field, South Africa had lost the momentum and by the end of the game, it was the Wallabies who were in charge.
Nevertheless, three good results for the South Africans and it will be fascinating to see how they perform on an unfamiliar stage when they head west (or is it east) to play their away legs.
Do two handsome victories over the All-Blacks and a fine win against Australia invite some reflection on the British and Irish Lions' recent showing in South Africa? Ian McGeechan's selections attracted general scorn and their on-field performances earned a fair share of criticism. Yet despite a crippling injury list, they came much closer to toppling the ‘Boks than the pride of Australasia. In hindsight, did they deserve better from us fans?
ooooooOOOOOoooooo
There was an interesting thread last week on Sean Lamont's reported comments on his move to the Magners League. In a nutshell, after the austerity of the Roundhead Guinness Premiership, he was looking forward to crossing over to join the Cavaliers in the Magners League.
Naturally, we over-reacted in fine COYS tradition, and duly had our bottoms sharply smacked by Broonie, who demonstrated his own admirable restraint by labelling us "boo-corgis" (not you Ma'am, sit down!) and accusing us of Digger-Worship.
Broonie contended that in his last few games for Northampton, Sean was playing some of the best rugby of his Saintly career. Broonie may be right, but when I close my eyes and think of Sean Lamont, I don't see him in the GBG. I see him in the Blue of Scotland in 2004 when he first burst onto the stage as a Glasgow Warrior. Of course, I remember his four-try tour-de-force against Saracens, but in his early games for Scotland he was an elemental force. There was just something so uninhibited, so instinctive, about the way he could cut a line and power his way through a defence. And for me, somewhere along the way, he seemed to lose a fraction or two of that impetuous, impulsive magic.
Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. I think it happened to Ben Cohen too. Didn't we watch Ben hurtling like a big ol' rocket who came at you fast and hard, ramrod-straight, and went over you or through you. Then, there were none of those stuttering little steps whilst the brain engaged. Ben didn't need to think about jinking. He just tucked the pill under the arm and went lickety-spit to the try line.
Whether the need to play to a plan blunts the instincts, or a little too much self-analysis subverts the lack of inhibition, I don't know. But, goodness me, I love to watch those free spirits like Ben Foden and Digger, who grab the ball on their own 10 metre line and, whilst the hairs on the back of your neck twitch uncontrollably, they lose themselves in the moment and run like men whirling at 78 rpm in a 331/3 rpm universe.
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Many thanks for your well constructed prose.
"Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it."
-- Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161-180 A.D.
No alcohol for January. I'm a dryathlete in aid of cancer research.
Dryathlon
(Somewhere we have a Gold, Black n Green logo for this chap, if its not in the archive i'll find it and email it to you Eds.)
13/08/2009 16:00
2. my main point was that he had actually behaved absolutely scrupulously towards the club in and after his departure - as indeed he did during our bad times as well; this contrasted in fact quite sharply with a couple of "local heroes", which is in large part why i get very very nervous when i see any repeat of our tendency to put people in that position on very high pedestals
3. as to sean leaving per se, i would actually believe that he probably did notrepresent good value looking forward , given his likely cost. wingers mature relatively early, and that space on the wing may represent the best breakthrough opportunity available for young greenhalgh this year.
hence my remark that he was negotiating like tarzan and playing like jane earlier in the season.
for what it's worth i don't think sean has matched his early promise, but when you look at the injuries, then add on more than a season when he had ben cohen calling the back moves
( and got no ball) his time with us may have been less than ideal from his point of view as well.i hope it all goes well for him at llanelli , except when playing saints. come on now. What have you seen in Digger that anyone saw in "the other two?" He's a man of the people. They weren't.
No alcohol for January. I'm a dryathlete in aid of cancer research.
Dryathlon
lets just ignore the fact that he was joint 2nd try scorer in last season shall we?
Man of the people he may be, but sme of those same people who wrote him off as ' too small' relly cannot bear to be proved wrong. Adulation comes also tempered by the fact that in the coysd poll, on a weekly basis, he generally outscored the opposition usually representing no little skill.
David L
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
- Live wrong and preposterously
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