Article in Rugby Heaven
OPINION: Brilliant. Oh, that's brilliant ... If the greatest writer of the written word had written that story, no-one would have believed it. That really was something. The match between South Africa and the All Blacks played out like a testimonial to Cliff Morgan, the former Wales fly-half and mellifluous commentator, who died just over a month ago. Just what would Cliff's soft vowels and love of life have made of the glorious rugby played at Ellis Park? The greatest game ever played? Cliff would have bathed the day in his enthusiasm.
Morgan's commentary lives on as part of the drama of the evening back in 1973 when the Barbarians and the All Blacks played out what has always been viewed as the greatest game. The rugby was compelling, the Lions for a half, then the All Blacks taking over and then the Lions again, sweeping from side to side in the final stanza.
Morgan's soft alliteration, "Bevan, so strong"; his feel for the over-reaching phrase that is somehow almost perfect, "the Gibson man", as if CMH of Ireland was somehow an advanced stage of evolution; his generous sense of the comic as the players come to blows, "Edwards and Kirkpatrick, that was nothing, they were [pause] together"; and Morgan's excitement bubbling over the "sospan" and the perfect timing of, "This is Gareth Edwards, a dramatic start, what a score!"
Some of the honeyed phrases leaked back into my head as I watched the All Blacks and the Springboks play rugby as it should be played on Sunday, each team trying to run the other off their feet, too absorbed, and maybe just too knackered to contemplate much of the cynicism, the negative cheating that sometimes defiles the modern game at the top level.
At the end we were all smiling, even the South Africans, privileged to have watched such a contest, some of us reminded of the lady who, after the Baabaa's game of 1973, turned to her husband, a Welsh weekend player, and said, "Is that the same game you try to play every week?"
And perhaps no-one has ever played the game like Kieran Read played it on Sunday morning. There were some great No 8s in the early 1970s, men like Tonga's Sione Mafi, Mervyn Davies of Wales and Jean-Pierre Bastiat of France, Ireland's Ken Goodall before he took the shilling, South Africa's Morne Du Plessis and the athletic Andy Ripley of England.
In the 1980s and 1990s New Zealand dominated the position. Murray Mexted may have been the best of the three, but Wayne Shelford and Zinzan Brooke's abilities will prolong robust debate. It was a phenomenal era for the position in this country. And yet on Sunday morning Kieran Read surely surpassed them all.
Anthony Burgess wrote a book about James Joyce called Here Comes Everybody. Could that be a more fitting title for Read. In the opening minutes he was pinning the Boks into the corner with a little chip through. In some No 8s it might come across as an extravagance, but with Read it is just the right play at the right time. When South Africa were gathering momentum, Read hit Zane Kirchner with a tackle that rattled the rib cage. In the 76th minute Read was still at it. His lungs must have been running on empty, but he made a side-on tackle on Lambie that was a remarkable feat of strength.
The No 8 set up the All Blacks' opening try with his blazing pace off the mark, leaving Alberts groping at a shadow, taking out Habana and then flicking the ball out the back. "Here you are," he said to Ben Smith, "time and space, that's your thing isn't it?" When his team were down by eight points Read took to the skies, winning back the kickoff, providing fast lineout ball off the top, and then he was part of the group that somehow kept the ball alive.
This All Black side has collectively the best hands in rugby. They can work in the tightest spaces, and it is clearly deliberate selection policy, a reason for favouring Hore despite his defensive lack of pace. Those little moments led to Liam Messam's first try. A bigger, stand-in-the-middle-of-the-room sort of moment initiated Messam's second score. South Africa were carving a way out of defence when Read tackled J J Engelbrecht. The No 8 was back on his feet before the dust had settled and ripping out the ball for the turnover.
In the second half Read just kept growing. It is one thing to be a big man amongst weaklings, but Duane Vermeulen was having a blinder for the Boks and the crowd was screaming like one of those jet engines that had passed over earlier. Read was surrounded by hostility and he burgeoned. He put Savea away up the touchline; he ran in a try under the posts, great support player that he is; he started picking off the South African lineout; and with a minute to go he fell on the ball as South Africa had one last desperate thrust. "My ball," he seemed to say and the Boks were beaten.
You just hope they don't close the pits from which this piece of coal came out of. For me, 1973 still lives on as the greatest game, swollen with nostalgia, but on Sunday an All Blacks No 8 gave one of the great performances in rugby's history. The Kieran man.
