Freak or the sign of the future? I cannot recall a rugby match at any level ending in a score of 72-65, as happened last weekend in the Super 14 contest between the Lions and the Chiefs in Johannesburg. Apart from the odd number, it sounded like basketball.
So bizarre was this game that a 72-72 draw was not impossible - indeed, looked likely until the Lions ran out of time. Usually, when a team scores 60 or 70 points, the opposition gets much less than half that.
However, it did not look like a game of basketball. The first half was much tighter than the second, and it was only after halftime that the Chiefs scored a flurry of tries. Then, leading by what appeared to be an unbridgeable margin, they inevitably relaxed - much as both Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis threw their wickets away after SA had put on a seemingly formidable 217 for one in the second cricket test in India (and their team went on to lose by an innings).
When the Chiefs eased up, the Lions were able to play the expansive game they evidently had come to play.
Ricky Januarie - Fast and slick
Every game of rugby has a way of developing its own culture, its own rhythms, and by the final quarter it was clear neither side would be able to revert to a tightly defensive game. Loose patterns had become endemic, poor tackling was infectious, and it was as if the players had accepted that they would just have to trot about watching each other run with the ball.It was less about the new interpretations of the laws - though there did seem to be more space for both sides because of stricter application of the offside law - than about the collective attitude of the teams on a particular day.
The game was exciting because the Lions came close to winning, but it was not satisfying. The more tries there are in a match, the less exciting each one is. For me, the right balance is found when both teams' points totals end up between 20 and 30. This means that the crowd will have seen enough scores (by try or kicks at goal) but that neither side will ever have felt the match was beyond them.
The match of the weekend was the Stormers against the Waratahs. For the first time in many years the Stormers delivered on the talent they always seem to have. The difference between the sides was the sparkling form of scrumhalf Ricky Januarie. He cleared from the base of the scrums, rucks and mauls without taking the two or three steps that most number nines seem to think are mandatory these days. He was nippy and full of surprises, and was a major factor in the Stormers' ability to run clean, efficient angles.
As for the Sharks, it would once have been unthinkable for them to start the Super 14 with two home defeats. It's too easy to blame Rory Kockott, who was less accurate than usual with the boot. As the Bulls know, no side with high aspirations can afford to take the field with a less than metronomic kicker. Bulls flyhalf Morne Steyn has set a new standard for reliable goalkicking, and it's no coincidence the Bulls are heading the Super 14 table with full points and the Sharks are almost at the bottom. Points scored by tries do not count more than those scored by goalkicks, as some misguided romantics seem to think.
Ranking the Analysts 2009
