I see the whole world and their pet pugs are now keen to now write off the All Blacks given their losses in Port Elizabeth and Brisbane …
Riddle me this … If a Super Rugby side had had to travel from New Zealand to South Africa to play a game, then head back the day after to play a game in Australia the following Saturday, how much would have been expected of that side?
And if that side had headed West with 8 or so front line players missing, and then lost two loose forwards to injury in the game after going back East?
It seems a good few people are happy to use travel as an excuse when one of the SA sides comes unstuck, yet are perhaps not that ready to grant that same excuse to an overseas side?
And all this side did was lose by 9 points to a full strength and desperate Springbok side, and by 5 points to an Australian side hell bent on picking up the Tri-Nations trophy for the first time since ma caught her boobies in the cheese grater
Nope, my friends … Write the MIB off at your own peril. In fact, to my mind, instead of this being the beginning of yet another All Black choke, these two losses could in fact be seen as the entire choke, just two weeks prior to the event, rather than at the event!
Sure they seem a little less invincible, but these guys now head home to Eden Park – their “Security blanket that envelopes them and inspires them to great deeds,” according to Justin Marshall – knowing that they controlled most of that second half against the Aussies, and with the complacency smashed out of them completely …
Two especially poignant points that the Boks can take from the two games though … It was the tight, no frills, ten man rugby that got the All Blacks back into the game in the second half, and no one on earth does that better than the Boks. And the fact that Wyatt Crocket will be taking in this tournament in the stands or in front of his 50 inch plasma while sucking on a Stein Lager. What a geluk!
But these Boks have a few bony fish to fry before worrying about the All Blacks though … Those Samoans are going to be a seriously tough nut to crack in the final pool game. Get that wrong, and it’s the Aussies rather than the Irish in the quarter finals. Get past the Aussies and it’s and the mock MIB Poms in the semis before worrying about the All Blacks …
One game at a time as they say in the cliché classics …
