Well, I'm thankful to say that today is not such a day. New Zealand celebrated its best day in Olympic history with the Evers-Swindell twins and Valerie Vili taking gold in rowing and shot put. There was a also smattering of bronzes and a silver to throw in the bag too. Not bad for a nation of four million and not much money to bring to the world's largest stage.
Further south in Cape Town, probably only the most ardent rugby fans were turning in to watch the All Blacks play the Springboks in the face of such glamourous olympic competition. But if you were watching, and you were a New Zealander, then you wouldn't have been disappointed.
South Africa came out jittery and their poor decision making and general lack of excution stayed with them for the entire game. In contrast, New Zealand came out fired and with the same aura of desperate hunger they had brought to the table against the Wallabies two weeks ago.
In the end, it was the breakdown and fantastic, brutal and committed defence that really won it for New Zealand. Because Daniel Carter's kicking wasn't going to. The swirling Newlands winds put paid to that. His place kicking however was great and that combined with quick delivery from Cowan and then Weepu let the All Blacks play in the South African half for large amounts of the game. frustrating the living bejesus out of the world cup holders.
There is too much to write for a match analysis so better to go to a trusty expert like Matt at Green and Gold or Toby Robson (who's he?!) at stuff.
For a completely biased representation of events from proclaimed 'Allblackisogynist' then look no further than the grand master of sour grapes Stephen Jones. The All Blacks won on Springbok soil and kept the South AFricans scoreless. I'm not sure what more they have to do to get a 'full credit'.
But then again, Stephen Jones really is just a jealous twat so it makes a great read to see him so huffy.
Final word: Wayne Barnes came to the rescue of the All Blacks on more than one occasion during this game. Maybe it's time to forgive and move on. But hopefully the irony wasn't lost on him that the team he had in some small way helped to elminate from the 2007 World Cup had just left the World Champions humbled in their own fortress.
Stephen Jones has a green-eyed rant
2 comments:
Thanks for the referral - I thought of you when Barnes ruled out Habanas try!
For what it's worth, I see that New Zealand ended up WAY ahead of South Africa on the medal count from the Olympics. The RSA had a whopping single medal-a bit of a suprise considering how good their swimmers have been in the last Olympics. It was good to see your homeland have a good Olympics.
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