World Cup of one hit wonders

Maybe it is desperation to create competition where there isn't, but this World Cup has unleashed an interesting new media trend for turning mediocre teams into world beaters on the basis of one 80 minute performance.

It happened to Samoa last week and now it appears to be happening to poor old Wales. The Welsh have lived through some lean times in the past decade and they finished at the bottom in the last Six Nations season.

They have stuttered and stumbled from match to match, from season to season. Every now and then they turn in a game which promises better things, only for them to plume the depths again if not a week later, then a short while after that.

Earlier in the World Cup they were nothing better than workmanlike in beating Italy in their decisive game of the Pool stages, and the win over Tonga, where they could conceivably have lost, was nothing to write home to Cardiff or Swansea about.

Yet here we are, just three or four days away from their quarterfinal against England, and suddenly there are several media people who are predicting that they will push hard for a place in the semi-final. Among these are respected critics such as former Welsh captain and Lions flyhalf Jonathon Davies, who has written that Wales may now be on the cusp of a golden new era.

But what is all this optimism based on? One 80 minute effort where they played well above themselves against a New Zealand team that would be excused if it pitched up for the final pool game with its mind on the crunch quarterfinal against South Africa six days later.

Yes, the World Cup is a defining tournament. The Springboks ruled the world as World Cup champions for four years in the second half of the 1990s on the basis of one drop-goal, while Australia owe their current status as champions to the momentary lapse of concentration by New Zealand which allowed France to beat them in the 1999 semi-final.

John Hart lost his job as All Black coach on the basis of that one game, never mind the fact that his team had gone into the World Cup as Tri-Nations champions.

But at least the teams in question were consistent performers - the Boks had to play well to get to the 1995 final and were unbeaten in the year in question.

Supersport analyst Naas Botha might have hit it on the button when he said during the early part of the pool stage that he feared one upset might serve to vindicate those who believe the current World Cup system is the right one.

He made the point at the time that a team needed to be consistent if it wanted to prove itself worthy of a top ranking. He related it to the old 14 team Currie Cup system, where smaller teams would try and justify their right to remain in the expanded competition on the basis of one game against a top team where they either won or were competitive.

"The key for those teams wanting to make a point is surely that they should be competitive consistently," said Botha.

Ironically, Botha was speaking just hours before the last Currie Cup league match of the season, where SWD Eagles confounded a few people by pushing Western Province at Newlands.

At the post-match press conference, their coach Johan Lerm did exactly what Botha predicted a smaller union representative would do in such a circumstance - he argued that his team had proven that they belonged in the top league and that an eight team Currie Cup system, as opposed to seven or six, was the way to go.

Several of the media present lapped it up, particularly those that like to have an excuse to go to George and sample one of the local golf courses. But what was conveniently forgotten was the triple figure score the same Eagles had conceded to the Lions a fortnight earlier, and the many other big hidings they took away from home.

One swallow does not make a summer, and all smaller teams will have at least one game in a competition where they pull out all the stops and push a more favoured team. Don't forget that the WP team on the day in question was going through the motions after hearing just before kick-off that Natal would go through to the final and they were in effect playing for nothing.

The match was played on the same weekend as Samoa's sterling effort against England. Everyone was shocked by the passion that the islanders put into their attempt to derail the world's top team, who clearly pitched up expecting a much easier game.

But the way some media, particularly the Australians, then built up the Samoans as world beaters just defied all logic. Nick Farr-Jones and David Campese, in predicting a Samoan win over the Boks, were surely just guilty of wishful thinking, and thinking with their heart and not their head.

For any glance back through the Samoan records of the past few years, and a study of the players they have at the World Cup, would have made them accept that the South Africans must be clear favourites to win well.

After all, an experimental Bok team scored 60 points over the Samoans at Loftus just 16 months ago, and the Samoans battled on their recent tour to South Africa where they played provincial opposition.

My own take before the pool decider in Brisbane a few days ago was that the Boks would win by at least 30 points, and this was based on the knowledge that the Samoans had already played the one big World Cup game they were capable of.

To the credit of the Boks, they did not get sucked into the "one game makes them world beaters" craze, and judging from their comments in Australia both before and after the game, they never put the Samoans on any pedestals.

As coach Rudolf Straeuli put it, there have still been no shocks at the World Cup, and his team always expected to get through a game they had to win to make the quarterfinals.

Again using the Currie Cup as an example, turning the Samoans into favourites to beat the Boks was a bit like making Griquas favourites to win the Currie Cup on the basis of their two upset wins in successive weeks over the Bulls in Pretoria and the Lions in Kimberley.

Two weeks later they conceded 70 points to the Cheetahs, and no-one was then duped into believing that the Free Staters were suddenly trophy contenders as a result.

Griquas went on to finish in bottom two on the log, and if the World Cup was played on a league basis, there can be little doubt the same fate would befall the Samoans.

But all this exaggeration of the abilities of lower ranked teams might be completely understandable if you consider how completely predictable the World Cup has been. At least the likes of Farr-Jones and Campese created interest, and they may have motivated the Springboks to play better than they would otherwise have done.

They also got South African fans excited about a game (and a result) which on another day might have been regarded as a bit ho-hum.

As for the Welsh, it has been so long since that passionate rugby nation has been able to get excited about anything that we should not begrudge them a little bit of media hyperbole. Maybe it will rejuvenate the flagging interest in the valleys. For this reason, world rugby will hope their current team goes on to become more than just yet another one hit wonder.