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Wayne Smith | March 23, 2009
Article from: The Australian
AMERICAN humorist Erma Bombeck certainly got it right when she said that anyone who watches three games of football in a row should be declared brain dead. I should know. I've just watched four.
Still, it's funny what you can stumble across, even as your brain is flatlining, when you go into Google. Like that quotation above. As it happened, I was looking for another one from Bombeck, which I thought had been her dying words: "I told you I was sick." (Strictly speaking, they weren't her dying words at all but rather the inscription she had carved on her tombstone, although, who knows, maybe she dictated them with her last breath.)
This sudden fascination with deathbed statements came to me just as I was flicking off the television in disgust after seeing Brumbies five-eighth Christian Lealiifano lose possession in a tackle, 10m out from his own line, attempting to launch a last-gasp, length-of-the-field try with his side trailing the Lions 18-17 at Ellis Park. In a flash, Lions fullback Louis Ludik swooped on the ball and then pirouetted his way over for the match-clinching try.
That pretty much said it all, I said to myself as the screen turned black. Actually, it didn't. The killer punchline came seconds later when the Brumbies rushed Andre Pretorius's conversion attempt. It missed, but referee Jonathan Kaplan ruled the Brumbies had jumped the gun and allowed Pretorius to retake the kick. You guessed it, he got it right the second time and so the Brumbies were denied even a consolation point for finishing within seven points of a team they should have wiped off the park.
The deathbed moments of the other two matches involving Australian teams were equally deflating and dispiriting. No final flash of inspiration. Not a whit of whimsical wit that might have summed up proceedings and made sense of it all.
Just when it seemed the Crusaders had run down the clock on the Waratahs at ANZ Stadium, they gifted their opponents one last free kick. At 13-17 and the tryline only 40m away, what did the Tahs do with these precious last seconds of life? They took a tap and threw the ball to Wycliff Palu who immediately knocked it on.
At least the Western Force players were already beaten as their eyelids began to flutter for the last time. At 10-22 adrift against the Sharks, all they had to play for was a bonus point. But the more they tried to carry the ball downfield, the more they bumbled it backwards.
Finally, having done more than any one man could be expected to do to win a match, Matt Giteau disgustedly hoofed a kick into touch to bring an end to the nonsense before the fumbling Force presented the Sharks with a bonus point-clinching fourth try.
At least the Force didn't die wondering. The West Australians showed real verve in attack, constantly extending the Sharks' defence. Trouble was they also overextended themselves, conceding two turnover tries within the space of 14 minutes early in the second half to Sharks wingers JP Pietersen and Odwa Ndungane. It was like the tail-end of a drunken game of snooker. In off the pink and then the black finished it off.
The Tahs, by contrast, did die wondering. Wondering why they couldn't put to the sword a Cruasaders team that, at least in terms of personnel, bore no resemblance whatever to those legendary heroes of the Canterbury tales.
But in one critical respect, this Crusaders team was very much like the ones of old. It did the basics well. It caught well, it kicked well, it chased hard and it took its chances. The one-dimensional Waratahs, by contrast, caught only fairly, kicked poorly, chased only when it suited them and spurned chances with all the reckless arrogance of a team that figured -- wrongly as it turned out -- there would be plenty more of them. The only thing deadly about their execution was the graveyard silence it produced from the crowd.
Cases in point, Rob Horne's second-quarter fumble with the tryline open and fullback Sam Norton-Knight's poorly-directed third quarter pass to Lachlan Turner. All Norton-Knight needed to do was to get the ball onto Turner's chest -- or even, heaven forbid, put it slightly out in front of him to allow him to run onto it -- and the Tahs would have scored.
Instead, he threw it a metre behind him, forcing Turner to break stride to catch it. He immediately got going again but that momentary falter was all it took for the Crusaders' cover-defence to cut him down. And sorry, but I want to sell my shares in Kurtley Beale. A lot of people got in early when Beale was first listed and maybe over time they've made a modest profit on their investment in him but I bought at the peak of the boom and I've taken a bath. I just want out. I'm not saying he won't bounce back when the recession is over but, heck, he's the guy the Waratahs were relying on to end their recession and, sadly, all he has done is compound it.
As for the Brumbies, it says a lot that the player who delivered most whoop-de-do was a prop, Ben Alexander. He tackled well, supported enthusiastically, ran like his legs might actually have done this before and if he got a little sloppy in his delivery in the tackle it was only because he had so outstripped his own support he had to try to get the ball away or risk a turnover. There was a sense of accuracy and urgency about everything he did, in stark contrast to the rest of the Brumbies' play.
When even the South African commentator talked about their "slow build-up", it's a fair indication the Brumbies were in their death throes.
So, in conclusion, two home-town Australian defeats and an away loss to a side seemingly on the brink of imploding.
Was this, one wonders, the weekend Australia's Super 14 chances died? Maybe not. So congested is the table after this mishmash of upsets it still is possible for an Australian team to rise from the ashes to win the title.
Of course, they could simply be more famous last words.
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Originally Posted by Flamethrower
