The turning point of the game - we are camping in the AB 22. Dominating scrum after scrum. Yet we do nothing with that dominance. Milk a penalty, scrum again. Milk a penalty, scrum again. Ireland all over again. A self-absorbed flexing of muscle. The All Blacks remain one step short of crumbling completely, yet the scoreboard doesn't move.
We get a solid scrum, not dominant, but solid. Solid platform. 5m out. Williams waits. And waits. We want to fuck them up in the scrum. Again. But the ABs get the penalty. A few minutes later, try other end. The game changes.
Why didn't we play?
We are called mamparas whenever we doubt. Argentina was just a subterfuge, they said. Good old Rassie games. Yet I called Sacha's inability to create any structure around him against Argentina. Exact same thing played out tonight. We were a disjointed mess outside him. Our kicking game worked for a while because the ABs were terrible under the high ball. But that and the scrum and Wiese's barnstormers were all we had in the tank.
I said after the England and Scotland game physical dominance is no longer a given for the Boks. Scotland bliksemed us physically - in the second minute already Darge had bumped off PSDT, setting a tone. England had their moments too, damn near parity. We need something more. We need to play some rugby.
Tonight, what did we see out back? Passes to nowhere. Passes to the head. Knock ons. Sacha doing stuff that involves no one but Sacha. Strong scrums not being used as a platform for attack (what's that?), but for milking penalties to scrum again. Stupidity. The All Blacks isn't Ireland.
May this be a timely wakeup call. We need to get back to playing rugby again and respect the scoreboard, which is where you actually win the game. If you never saw a team resting on their laurels of past success, you saw one tonight, milking the good old scrum and the high kick and the charge into traffic because fuck it, what more do we need, everyone caves before us eventually. Not a hint of sleight of hand, of outfoxing anyone, of changing the narrative.
But this is just firing from the hip, I'll do a proper second viewing review. Much to unpack. Well done to the All Blacks, they were under the cosh for a long time and showed great fortitude to turn it around. Great test match.
