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Back from the dead in a performance of biblical proportions
Wayne Smith | March 02, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE trouble with the Fox Sports commentary team all shouting over the top of each other when they get excited is the occasional gem gets drowned out.
So I can't say for sure which one of them said it -- I think perhaps it was Greg Martin -- but as winger Cameron "The Good" Shepherd scooted over for his third try against the Brumbies on Saturday night, the dry observation "Thou shalt not want" could just be heard in the background.
Psalm 23 doesn't tend to get a lot of airing at rugby matches, although it would have been particularly clever had Marto followed it up with a "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ... where they award you five points and another two if the conversion is successful" just as Shepherd grounded the ball. Still, for an on-the-run remark, it was almost divinely inspired.
Thou certainly shall not want after watching a display like the Western Force turned on at Canberra Stadium. Not want for entertainment, not want for commitment, not want for "shove that, the lot of you" passion.
The Brumbies, indeed, should be thankful this game ended when it did at 25-16. Judging from captain Nathan Sharpe's post-match interview, delivered at machine gun pace, eyes glistening, neck veins bulging, the Force was in a mood to do a Jeff Thomson. You remember the Thommo story, about the time he stood over a batsman bleeding on the pitch after being flattened by one of his thunderbolts and growled, "Get up, you bastard, I haven't finished with you yet".
This was a match the Force didn't want to end, the Brumbies an opponent it hadn't finished with yet. For months now, the Force has been the punching bag of Australian rugby. Granted, it did hang a "hit me" sign around its own neck by staging a very public inquiry into coach John Mitchell's man-management skills when it might more wisely have gone through exactly the same exercise behind closed doors. It's hardly the place of the media to criticise it for being open and accountable, so due credit to it for that, even if the results of the inquiry were kept closed and unaccounted. But it still was a humiliating process to put a coach of Mitchell's standing through and, if there was something undesirable about his behaviour that prompted the investigation in the first place, then there also was something deeply admirable about the dignified way he conducted himself during and after it.
Interestingly, Mitchell's former lieutenant in the All Blacks coaching hierarchy, Robbie Deans, predicted at the time the ordeal would unify the Force and make it stronger. Initially, it looked like doing the opposite as a listless and unnecessary opening loss to the Blues was followed by a similarly listless and uninspired win over the Cheetahs.
There was plenty to want about both performances, but especially the one against a below-strength Auckland. There was no evidence, at least in the second half, the Force players were playing for each other, let alone for their embattled coach.
When the moment arrived for them to regroup and surge back into a game that previously had been flowing their way, suddenly nothing happened. Then, equally suddenly, the moment returned and again nothing happened.
If the Force players had been wired to heart monitors, there would have been 15 flat lines showing on 15 screens, save for the occasional blip from Matt Giteau's. The Perth fans must have trudged home wanting much, much more.
They didn't get it the following week either, even if they did get a win. There's winning ugly, a process the Waratahs have patented, and there's winning dull and the Force's win over the Cheetahs was downright stupefying.
The club itself looked in need of a good defibrillator, especially after going into cardiac arrest when Giteau announced the next day he would be returning to the Brumbies next season. Outwardly, the team seemed to be on the brink of disintegration. The only thing unified about it was the consensus Mitchell's men were in for the mother of all hidings in Canberra.
But like most of Deans' predictions, this one -- along with the Force -- came good when it counted. This was the day the punching bag punched back. Even while being beaten at the breakdown and smashed in the scrum, the Perth team was all over the Brumbies on Saturday night.
Aside from at five-eighth, where Christian Lealiifano would so jolt his backline that even Stirling Mortlock couldn't get into the action. The Brumbies went into the game seemingly having the Force matched or outmatched across the park. Only trouble was they didn't come close to matching the energy the Perth players brought to the occasion.
Outwardly, the Force may have shot itself in the foot by winning so emphatically.
There was little appetite for a draft in the eastern states before this match, none whatsoever after it. Yet scratch a little deeper and the case for assisting the west still stands. Take Giteau out of the equation or, worse, put him back in the Brumbies jersey he will wear next season and replay this match and it is almost guaranteed the outcome would have been different.
Heaven knows the ACT side desperately needs him back. Its two last-gasp victories were wonderful to behold and may have convinced the faithful that the Second Coming of the Brumbies was near at hand, but on the evidence of Saturday night, the Messiah is still a year away.
For the moment, however, the force is with him and he is with the Force. Its cup overflows.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html
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