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Monday, 7 October 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
We were also greeted by a strange sight to see referee Nigel Owens when he went down with cramp. Owens did not put a foot wrong and deserves a lot of praise of the way he communicated with the players and handled this high pressure game with ease. Our local referees could definitely take a leaf out of his book. In such an intense game it is not easy to pick out a single player for praise.
However as one watched it was fairly obvious that Kieran Read, the big burly No. 8 was just simply magnificent on the day. It was tossup between skipper McCaw and Read but McCaw was at times on the wrong side of the ruck and did give away a few penalties which did not prove costly in the end.
Boks skipper Jean de Villiers put them ahead after he barged over to claim the bonus-point try and thereby provided the Boks a slender hope of victory. However, replacement Barrett brought the dreaming Boks down to earth with the All Blacks fourth try and with that the championship was secure.
In the 49th minute with the Boks being awarded a scrum just close to the All Blacks goal line, Du Plessis was substituted and that move had many puzzled including the player as he lingered close to the field of play before being asked to take his seat on the bench.
Whilst the Boks were guilty of not fielding the high ball well enough, the talking point in rugby circles will remain as to how the All Blacks team manager made a vital error when he wrote Dane Coles name instead of Keven Mealamu on the team sheet.
The Referee let play continue by accepting that it was a typo error, which I believe is a very rare occurrence in Rugby. The question still looms, how do you beat the All Blacks? They grabbed every opportunity to score and despite the physicality of the Boks, they calmly went about their business of capitalising on the Boks errors.
In the second game the Wallabies had their backs to the wall as they faced the probable ignominy of ending up at the bottom of the table. This time round they gave a better performance of themselves although their defence was once again their weakest link.
The forwards played with purpose although the Pumas had the better of them at scrum time. There were seven scrums in eight minutes close to the Wallaby goal line. Five scrum penalties were awarded to the Pumas, whilst one yellow card was dished out to the Wallabies. It was mind boggling that the Pumas were not awarded a penalty try for such repeated infringements by the Wallabies. As a result the Pumas got nothing from their time camped early on Australia’s five-metre line.
Veteran Argentinean Felipe Contepomi bid the game farewell after his 86th test. He has been a great servant of the Pumas and the reception that he got as he ran onto the field was earth shattering.
The Wallabies played a different style on the day with Quade Cooper being a lot flatter and swinging the ball wide with several cut out passes. The forwards provided some good front foot ball and with Genia clearing out fast they had the Pumas scrambling in all directions. Whilst on record the Wallabies won, all is not well with their game as there were many loose passes and defensive errors.
The Wallabies will meet the All Blacks in two weeks time for the final Bledisloe cup battle for 2013 and the All Blacks will expose and exploit these weaknesses to the maximum.
(The writer can be reached via [email protected])
