Nearly Scotch Missed

New Zealand clinically dispatched with Ireland and Australia firmly dealt with England. South Africa were meant to annihalate Scotland. A fifty-point differential would have been about right, given that we are the World Champions and that they are the alleged minnows of the Rugby world. But when we turned at half-time at 10-0 down in a game blown by yet another referee who could not decide what he wanted, it looked as if the unthinkable was bound to happen. But somebody must have apprised the ref of his shortcomings during the break, because in the second half it became Scotland’s turn in the barrel and they looked as bewildered as we had been in the first half. Besides that, our play was littered with basic errors which, when coupled with the ferocity of the Scottish attack ensured that we played a lot of the game on the back foot. Only Juan Smith acquitted himself like a Springbok on the afternoon. Looking at our coaching panel on the few glimpses the camera gave us, Pieter de Villiers looked as if he were praying for another miracle to go with the previous week’s whilst the other two actually looked as if they were meaningfully engrossed in the game. A decision on our coach’s efficacy cannot be postponed much longer if SARU are serious about maintaining spectator interest. As we have said before Rugby knowledge are too few and elementary selection errors are too costly to countenance merely to pay lip service to political correctness. England looms large this weekend and that is bad enough. Meeting our southern hemisphere rivals does not bode well on our current form, We have the players. Let’s mould them into a winning machine by giving them the support that they need. ( De Villiers got his miracle by four meagre points but should stay on his knees for some time yet)