Thus, the only team standing in the All Black's way, until the Argentineans turn up, is South Africa. Ordinarily, they would win all of their home encounters and beat the Aussie's away. This would set up a situation which a New Zealand screw up would give the Saffers the bragging rights.
This year has not been ordinary. While Australia have looked improved, of that there is no doubt, the main deviation from the norm has been the abject South African showing. Whatever their gameplan was for the two New Zealand games, it was proved ineffective and impotent pretty quickly, and the Saffers looked slow and ponderous, like a drunken oaf from the Highveld squaring up to a professional MMA fighter outside a Carisbrook bar. Only one outcome.
New Zealand got to the ball first
And the Australia game last Saturday proved it was no fluke, no 'jet lag' as annoying midget coach Peter De Villiers tried to wave it away as. The simple fact is that the South African style of play has remained unchanged for too long, and the other Southern Hemisphere sides have sussed it out. De Villiers, it seems, has been either complacent or blind to the issue.
Does this man, with his ridiculous histrionics during the Lions tour about ballet dancers and dancing in tutus, and with his constant whinging about refereeing bias and conspiracy, really deserve to manage such as prestigious side as the Springboks?
The political correctness of his appointment is one thing, but his 'moving on from the racist past act' cannot disguise his lack of skill at actually doing the job. He has been parachuted into the job and now sits there smugly, convinced that his mandate is his ethnicity and not his ability.
PDV is rapidly running out of people to point the finger at...
To clarify, as, sadly, it still seems necessary to do when talking about South Africa, there is of course no racism in my motivation for thinking this. I simply feel that De Villiers has now failed to properly safeguard the traditions of South African rugby that were laudable; namely being at the head of the pack with regards tactical innovation, succeeding at blending speed, skill and muscle, and never ever lying down and dying.
The Saffers have done precisely that of late, and with the talent available to them this is nothing if not a crying shame. De Villiers needs to take his head out of the sand, introduce tactical variety and innovation, and stop his sometimes ridiculous personal preferences with regards player selections, and focus less on coming up with external sources to blame for anything and everything.
GM
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