A freak show breaks the tedium

South African minds were understandably occupied with Italy and the Springbok scrumming this weekend, so unfortunately many may have missed one of the freakiest games of rugby union ever witnessed.

There was so much emphasis on the Boks that the only games I watched on Saturday were the one in Udine and then a recording of the All Black clash with England. The latter was ho-hum, with England getting terribly excited about being competitive against New Zealand and yet falling well short.

England, for all their huff and puff, look as bankrupt at the back as Italy do. Had Italy possessed decent backline finishers, and had their kickers been better when aiming at posts, they could have come far closer to upsetting South Africa, who were again well short of their best and relied on individual brilliance for a flattering win.

The Boks were better than they had been in Toulouse in the tight-loose, but how could they be worse. They had the better of the Italy lineout, which you would have expected. And Fourie du Preez, Jaque Fourie and Bryan Habana simply have the class that the Italians lack.

Otherwise the Boks struggled again in the scrums. It was noticeable that after a period when they looked like running away with it, building up a 12-0 lead after 13 minutes, a stage when Italy admittedly were also down to 14 men, it was after the first scrums of the game that Italy suddenly came back into it.

There are some who argue that scrums are less important than they used to be. That is nonsense. A big scrum gives a team a huge psychological boost when it happens, and Italy looked inspired in the minutes after their second scrum, where they destroyed the Boks.

As we saw in the last quarter of the game, when the Bok scrum suddenly, but not unexpectedly settled, when for the first time in eons they had three specialist players in the three specialist front-row positions, what a difference a solid scrum can make to the rest of the team. Instead of getting the ball on the back foot, the Bok backs were suddenly running onto it again, and back came their confidence and poise.

Rugby’s not a complicated game, but the Boks have been making it more complicated just recently than it needs to be. A greater respect for some of the basics of modern test rugby is required in selection to get them back onto a consistent winning road.

There has been a lot of baloney spoken on this tour in terms of excuses for why the Boks have gone wrong, and certainly three defeats in four starts means the trip has been a disaster. But selection has been the main reason for the team struggling, and this relates not only to the front-row, but also to the midfield.

Just what the selectors thought qualified Adi Jacobs for a role at inside centre is almost impossible to imagine. He just doesn’t have the skill-set or the attributes required for the position. In other words, he is not a physical presence, he does not take the ball up strongly, he does not get stuck into an auxiliary flanker role by cleaning out rucks, and neither is he a good passer of the ball.

When a fellow journalist told me at the start of the tour that he could understand why Jacobs had been selected because it was at least a consistent selection, I could only shake my head. That is like saying that when a batsman is injured he should be replaced by a bowler if the bowler happens to be the player nearest to the fringe of the team.

Jacobs is not an inside centre, and never will be. Watching how he has performed on this tour reminds me of how fortunate the Boks may have been that an injury prevented him from playing No12, as was intended, in the first Tri-Nations test against New Zealand. We might have seen a very different Bok performance in the Tri-Nations had that been the case.

But I digress, for by far the most amazing thing to happen on Saturday was Scotland’s epic win over Australia, something that last happened well over two and a half decades ago. It wasn’t so much the result, but the way it came about.

I was told about the game by a friend as I was leaving gym on Sunday morning, and immediately made time to watch it. Knowing the result already and then watching the game unfold had me shaking my head in wonderment. At one stage Australia enjoyed 94% possession and almost as much of an advantage in territory.

Every meaningful statistic was loaded so heavily in the Wallaby favour that it was possible to imagine they were 20 points ahead as half-time loomed. Even the commentators were behaving as if that was the case, with the Scotland inability to get out of their half being criticised.

But somehow Scotland bravely hung onto their tackles, Australia took wrong options at critical moments and just couldn’t get over the line, and Matt Giteau kicked so poorly that you imagined he might actually want Scotland to win.

It was a freaky game, it provided something different to so much of the dross that gets dished up during the international season, and it brought a different result to the norm, with a British team actually winning. If you haven’t, I urge you to do so.