Springboks – The Best in the World?
There is far too much praise for the Springboks in the media at the moment and I’ve had a gutsful of it. Yes the All Blacks have been out of sorts and it is true we have not been playing great rugby. I’m not going to make any excuses for them, they have been unable to adapt their game plan when it hasn’t been working. What really gets up my nose though is the selective and very short term memory the media has.
“The result represents more than one South African hand on the Tri-Nations trophy, it extinguishes any lingering doubts about South Africa’s standing as the world’s best team.“
Yes the Springboks have played well in their three home games for the Tri Nations, well done guys, you hardly put a foot wrong but let’s put this into perspective shall we?!
YOU WON AT HOME! BIG FUCKING DEAL!
There are 9 Tri Nations matches. The Tri Nations trophy is won and lost on ONE thing and ONE thing only. Away wins. It’s as simple as that. There have been 4 Tri Nations matches played so far. The first one was in New Zealand. We had a shakey win against the Wallabies but it was a win. It was the first time Stephen Donald played at First Five Eighth without the safety net of having Dan Carter bail him out if he didn’t play well. He had an average game and was criticised widely but we won and when you look at the record books, nothing that happened on the field matters at the end of the day. A win is a win right?
Matches, 2, 3 and 4 were played in South Africa’s backyard. There were key moments in all of those games where things could have gone very differently and the Boks could have lost them but that’s Rugby and that’s what keeps it interesting.
Four games down and with a quick look at the board, an uneducated casual Rugby follower would exclaim, “Wow, those Springboks are AWESOME! They are CARVING up!”
Current Tri Nations Standings:
| Team | Played | Win | Draw | Loss | For | Against | BP1 | BP2 | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SA | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 59 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| NZ | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 60 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Australia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 16 | 22 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Let’s look at the Away Win records for the last few years shall we just so we can put this into perspective:
Richie holds up the Tri Nations trophy AGAIN, he must be getting tired of it by now?
2008 – All Blacks Win Tri Nations
New Zealand Wins Away – 1 in AUS – 1 in SAF
South Africa Wins Away – 1 in NZ
Australia Wins Away – None
2007 – All Blacks Win Tri Nations
New Zealand Wins Away – 1 in SAF
South Africa Wins Away – None
Australia Wins Away – None
2006 – All Blacks Win Tri Nations
New Zealand Wins Away – 1 in AUS – 1 in SAF
South Africa Wins Away – None
Australia Wins Away – None
See a pattern? It takes a minimum of 1 Away Win to win the Tri Nations. There have been no Away Wins yet therefore there is no team on top of this competition yet. You can’t tell me that the media wouldn’t be lavishing the same praise on the All Blacks as they are on the Boks if the first 3 Tri Nations matches were played in NZ which in all likelihood we would have won! I’m willing to concede that on paper South Africa look the better team at the moment but let’s not jump to conclusions here! The All Blacks are only shit if they lose MORE games at home than one of the other Tri Nations teams and so far no team has an Away Win.
Final thoughts. In the 13 years the Tri Nations has been running, the All Blacks have had the least number of Away Wins only twice, that’s a legacy. The Rugby World Cup is being hosted in two years. We haven’t won it for over 20 years but have held the mantle of #1 team in the world for most of that period. Do we really want to go into ANOTHER World Cup as the favourite anyway? Look at South Africa’s Tri Nations record in 2006 and 2007, horrendous yet they won the World Cup in 07. We may do better on the back of rubbish 2009 and 2010 seasons and take the underdog tag for a change. Who knows? Maybe we won’t choke? Yeah right…
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