A Baabaas win will have British and Irish eyes smiling
It was not the tackling of the Lions that forced the All Blacks' errors on Saturday. It was their own impatience
Now those Lions blighters are conniving to set up a fourth test against the All Blacks on November 4, while draped in the jerseys of the Barbarians.
The imperialists are desperate to finish off the colonials at any cost, even if it would be a Lions team in camouflage, wearing black-and-white hoops.
Worse, Robbie Deans will coach the Baabaas at Twickers, yet another Kiwi unfazed by coaching against his motherland. No doubt the referee will be from France.
Meanwhile, with the 2019 World Cup upcoming, Clive Woodward claims the All Blacks have lost their mystique, something he has been obsessively espousing for a decade. He ignores the fact the Lions are not a World Cup side. They are an amalgam of four World Cup teams.
He should put the stupid score on Saturday to one side. The All Blacks led for 237 of the 240 minutes in the series and outplayed the Lions in the first and second tests.
Then it took a frazzled Frenchman to freeze on Saturday and bail out of a penalty to the good guys, two days before the 32nd anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing.
The French ambassador should be sent packing for this.
My count says our guys scored two tries on Saturday, bombed at least three and were dominant in set play – so who deserved to win?
How many tries did the Lions butcher? Maybe one, when Beauden intercepted.
It was irrelevant the All Blacks had squandered try chances. That was their business, and anyway, you are entitled to play out the 80 minutes.
Instead, the redcoats celebrated a winning draw.
Before the tour, we wrote of our fears – Owen Farrell’s boot, le French referees, the box–kicking, Beauden Barrett not goal kicking with the Hurricanes and the Pommie obsession with mauling.
All came to pass, except the Lions’ mauls, just one consolation try that way in the first test. Otherwise, the ABS neutered the mauls.
Gatland did get his adopted sons running the ball when the one-off boofing became too predictable. But dashing was foreign to the blighters and they lacked the hot hands to finish.
Their tough–tackling forwards were rugged and not half bad. And Rory Best and Sam Warburton way outdid our lot in the aftermatch speaking stakes.
It was not the tackling of the Lions that forced the All Blacks’ errors on Saturday. It was their own impatience, trying to score off the first phase, when the Lions had been well and truly breached.
To be fair, that was a byproduct of Steve Hansen’s otherwise clever strategy to play the test at high dander.
Julian Savea hadn’t been in the team earlier because he keeps over–running the ball. And bingo.
Romain Poite was apparently devastated about his indecision catastrophique at the game’s climax, after he had consulted the dolt from Wellington, Jerome Garces. Both should be exiled, as Napoleon was, to the islands of Elba or St Helena for their sins and their whistles melted down.
It is coolness in the heat of pressure which defines an elite referee. Garces and Poite too often ignored the advice in their ears from the man in the bunker, George Ayoub.
Msieu Poite just didn’t play advantage after the offside and worse, changed his tune when he realised the series hung on it.
At least he wasn’t tail gated off the field by enraged players, as Craig Joubert was at the 2015 Rugby World Cup after he pulled the trigger, using the excuse he was bursting to go to the men’s. I had that urge all game, but what with the gross over use of the video ref, I had to hold on for two hours.
Lifeline needed for Laura
Netball New Zealand has done a disservice to Laura Langman.
At the age of 31, Langman is our best player and has played loyally for the Silver Ferns since 2003.
After 141 tests, she should have been cut some slack instead of being banished from the Ferns because she has chosen to play in a place called Sippy Downs in Queensland.
Netball NZ could have got around it without losing face by awarding her a benefit season, as NZ Rugby did when Daniel Carter went to Perpignan in 2008.
After more than a decade doing the same thing, elite players need new challenges and fresh air.
This year, Langman helped the Sunshine Coast Lightning win Australia’s Super Netball in their first year of existence. The Lightning are the Sunny Coast’s only national league team in any sport and now there are calls to double their 2100-seat university stadium.
Langman is hardly Natalie Newbie. And it’s not as if half the Ferns are playing in Australia. Sabbaticals have been used in All Blacks’ player bargaining, such as when Ma’a Nonu was allowed to swan off to Japan. Netball should learn from it.