Well, I decided at the beginning of saturday that come 12 nooon, my decoder would be firmly on 201 with a quick changeover to 202… However, 50 mins into the springbok game I found myself watching 202 and occasionally switching back to 201…
The above just illustrates how boring the second half of the rugby was for me. I chose Cricket over Rugby and THAT says a lot… Yes, while they both fall under the veil of great sport to watch on a Saturday, you can’t tell me Test Cricket is more exciting that Test Rugby? Surely not?
At one stage I sent a text to my friend asking if there was in fact only 2 Stormers on the field because it sure looked like there was 15… When did we accept that winning ugly is ok? I’ll take an ugly win over New Zealand any day, But Argentina ??? Surely, here, against the “Western Force” of the Championship we can be a little more daring? A little more out there?
I recall a second text message to my friend : “We’re stupid, fat and slow” , “Boring and uninventive”
Third Text : “You know, I just realized that our rugby and cricket captains always say “Ya, a lot of hard work still to do and still lots of room for improvement – I’ve never heard Ritchie Mcaw say that, not even when they lose”
It’s a mindset, We want to be the best, but we don’t play like that. There is always this side note of “Room for improvement” We have this low self-esteem veiled in humility that stems from who knows where? Why can’t we just go out there (Cricket and Rugby) and smash the opponents with some brilliant individual displays teamed with a group effort culminating in some awesome displays of skills and unity and then follow it up with an interview in lines of :
“It all came together today, we played to our strengths and we came to win and we did that”
Some call it arrogant, I call it confidence. Sadly, however, I feel the latter will always be lacking as long as we believe we are the underdogs in every game. I knew we would cream England in the Cricket. I knew it because player for player we are better. With the rugby, we are light years ahead in terms of skill and talent, but no, this is “Test Rugby” and we conformed to the old bash it up and see what happens…
Look, I’ll take the win… but hands up if you were happy with it?
“win is a win” has become the mantra of possibly exceptional competitors, only to come up with mediocre performances. Meyer has had 4 games against weaker opposition, and every time he is content with “just winning”. Maybe against the all blacks yes, and maybe the aussies, but against anybody else, it should be a crushing victory. Mediocrity is celebrated in SA. How can we then expect anything better?
Could not have said it better!
Even though i did not like you bringing provincialism in, i think you are very right. And i think SA in general mistake confidence for arrogance a good example is Bolt, a lot of people say he is arrogant, I beg to differ, he is confident, he can back himself. SA need to stay away from the mindset ‘almost’ is good enough and not playing to your/the teams full potential is fine as long as they mention it afterwards to make themselves and us feel better. One can even pick it up in the commentating comparing SA and NZ, in scenarios where a team comes close to scoring and doesn’t, NZers(in general) will see it as losing points, SAans( in general) will comment on the good work to the build and will be ok with the fact that we have some momentum meanwhile the scoreboard stay unchanged. Come on Bokke man the FiretrUCK up! Forever Springboks…
Not putting my hands up at all on this one.
I agree with your post 100%, To put it very frankly, we lack the B@lls to do anything besides the tried and tested and worn through. Look at our game plan, we have been running the same plan for as long as I can remember. Kick and chase, then tackle them to death and force a turn around. Then kick for gain and rinse and repeat. Can we really not try a running game and actually use out backline for something other than tackling and chasing kicks. I know I am being very narrow now but still. I believe we can be number one again with the quality players we have…………….
You are very much right but surely thinking rugby supporters new it was coming. Meyer was appointed Springbok coach as consolation for him loosing out against Div four years ago. Meanwhile the game has moved on the last four years, whilst Meyer never has coached anything else but the style we hate now. Op top of it he is selecting guys like Morne Steyn ensuring that no modern style can be played even if they wanted to. How on earth can we dispatch Meyer to Japan?
The captain and coach’s comments are so predictable after each mediocre win that I can already pen the articles for the next day’s sports pages. After 10 mins of boring rugby, I switched to cricket and stayed there. Caught up with the rugby score on SSBlitz later. Suggest HM and his squad go to Switzerland like Biff and Gary did with the Proteas – seems to have helped them get to number 1
Agree 100%. Super rugby has become a snore-fest, and under Meyer the Boks are playing boring, one-dimensional rugby
The ABs are going to give us a proper klap.