Desperation wins World Cups
29 Aug 2011
MARK KEOHANE, in his weekly Business Day column, says the Boks and the Wallabies have the players and the game plan to beat the All Blacks in a one-off situation. But the All Blacks, possibly for the first time in a World Cup competition, have desperation as an ally.
New Zealand did not choke in Brisbane. Australia throttled them and there is a difference between blowing it and being blown away.
Australia blew away any New Zealand complacency but with it introduced perspective to what should be a fabulous World Cup. Any one of Australia, South Africa and New Zealand is good enough to win the World Cup. Forget the northern hemisphere challenge. Neither England nor France has a team with enough quality to succeed in New Zealand.
Australia can beat anyone home and away. South Africa, in a one-off situation, will always back their physicality, no risk approach and strong kicking game to win ugly and the All Blacks, at home, rarely get beaten.
There is a buzz about this World Cup because New Zealand, for the first time since the tournament’s inception, aren’t being put on a pedestal. And rightly so. They stand no taller than Australia and South Africa.
The All Blacks, at full strength, are a fantastic side and in terms of consistency they are the best team in the world. But Australia and South Africa have the players and the game plan to beat the All Blacks in a one-off situation if they get it right mentally and the All Blacks aren’t quite as desperate.
The Boks in Port Elizabeth and the Wallabies in Brisbane delighted in being desperate. Both physically beat up the All Blacks. Both deserved the respective victories. New Zealand’s World Cup squad, all of who played in Port Elizabeth and Brisbane, looked vulnerable and mortal.
The All Blacks, should they win a World Cup for the first time in 24 years, will have to play to the maximum of each player’s ability. If they don’t win it a better team will have downed them. This All Blacks team isn’t good enough to carry the tag of choker into the World Cup. Don’t be surprised if they win the tournament at home, but equally don’t be surprised if they don’t.
Surely that’s a wonderful thing for any sport and any global showpiece event, like a World Cup. No one knows for sure who will win this World Cup and that’s just bloody brilliant.
The Wallabies were outstanding in beating the Boks in Durban and they were sensational in the opening 40 against the All Blacks in Brisbane. The Reds, in winning Super Rugby, were equally impressive.
The core form players of the year have come out of Brisbane and Super Rugby success has been translated into Tri-Nation’s silverware.
Desperation, however, is what wins World Cups. Desperation is what the All Blacks had at Eden Park in 2010 when they hammered the Boks 32-12. Desperation is what the All Blacks had at Eden Park a month ago when they were brutal in winning 30-14 against the Wallabies.
Those two New Zealand wins in Auckland are as significant as the Wallabies two recent successes against South Africa and New Zealand and the Boks win against the All Blacks in Port Elizabeth. It showed that a desperate All Blacks team is far more of a threat than one believing of its own press and the notion that it is a god given right New Zealand should win Rugby World Cups.
The pressure will never be off New Zealand to win a Test match, let alone a World Cup tournament, but for possibly the first time ever the expectation is measured with realism that the All Blacks must earn the right to win this tournament through a series of performances within the tournament.
Australia, because of form and recent history, have the momentum and the Springboks, because of their World Cup history, will command respect. But the All Blacks have it all to do at the tournament because they have always done it in between tournaments.
South Africa, in Port Elizabeth, exposed New Zealand’s lack of Test quality depth in areas like tighthead prop, loose forward and flyhalf. Australia reinforced the view in Brisbane, especially the ability of flanker Adam Thomson who has never been good enough to make an impact for the All Blacks.
Reds coach Ewe McKenzie was annoyed on the eve of this year’s Super Rugby final in Brisbane when the bookmakers and media made the Crusaders favorites to win comfortably.
‘How?’ asked McKenzie before reminding people his players were the favorites because of form, home ground advantage and confidence taken from beating the Saders earlier in the season?
The same logic was applied to Saturday’s result. Why was home ground advantage and the Wallabies win in South Africa against a full-strength Bok team so easily dismissed when making the All Blacks favorites?
New Zealand are not as good as everyone thinks and Australia and South Africa are better than everyone thinks.
Australia’s win in Brisbane was not a shock but a reminder of the strengths of one team and the mortality of another whose players looked more like bemused penguins in the first 40 minutes than potential World Cup winners.
791 Comments
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29 Aug 2011, 23:27 pm
@JockBok(JockBok)-746: What about all the taxpayer money that set him up for life? Surely he must have felt the need to plough something back before heading off to seek his fortune? I mean, what about the people?
29 Aug 2011, 23:28 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-747: Hello boet. Ja I look these days, but it’s hardly worth saying anything usually.
The dirty water is a little too dirty. No one is blameless really.
I miss yak skiing.
29 Aug 2011, 23:29 pm
@ET.(ET.)-745:
Brilliant. You’ve been humiliated beyond belief just now and still you sit and try and divert attention from your lies
No shame. Just lies and hypocrisy. A fraud of corpus dimensions.
29 Aug 2011, 23:29 pm
@ 745: no shame in your world clearly. No need to further engage a delusional mad man intoxicated with his own false greatness.
Hi Sodajoe, how is Minnesota?
29 Aug 2011, 23:30 pm
No respectable black rolls with Nusas and at any white institution..
29 Aug 2011, 23:31 pm
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-752: Ja, we still take the yaks off-piste every now and then. But it’s not the same anymore.
29 Aug 2011, 23:31 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-751:
Nah, it’s a lot easier to sit in Philly and watch everyone else do the hard bit.
29 Aug 2011, 23:31 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-754: Minnesota is beautiful at the moment. Lovely weather. Although we had a ton of rain, then extremely hot weather and now the mozzies make the Congo look quite tame.
from a sporting sport of view – everyone in Minnesota is kak, which puts them on a par with the Boks and Leeds, oh joy.
29 Aug 2011, 23:32 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-756: Maybe they have bad knees? They just don’r carve like they used to.
29 Aug 2011, 23:32 pm
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-752:
Last time you were here Leeds started winning. Then you disappeared and they shot themselves in the feet again and again.
A weekly visit from you is needed for the graph to go up again.
29 Aug 2011, 23:32 pm
@JockBok(JockBok)-757: He’s going to kak himself when he gets here and they tell him at the airport about the retrospective community service.
29 Aug 2011, 23:33 pm
@ET.(ET.)-755: Philly Steak. My Leeds buddy. Stop already. You have nothing to prove and you are very smart.
29 Aug 2011, 23:34 pm
@ET.(ET.)-760: Bloody Leeds. I knew it was going to go papgat. And it has. We will sit here knyping all season long.
29 Aug 2011, 23:34 pm
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-759: I think it’s global warming to a certain degree. The slopes of the Matroosberg just don’t offer the full experience. Plus we’re getting cheap Chinese yaks these days. Don’t get me started on quality issues.
29 Aug 2011, 23:35 pm
@JockBok(JockBok)-757: Hamish are you still stuck in the desert?
29 Aug 2011, 23:36 pm
@ET.(ET.)-755:
Kinda lucky that you ain’t black or respectable I guess.
29 Aug 2011, 23:36 pm
Anyway, I must be off. Good night all.
29 Aug 2011, 23:36 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-764: Ja, bleddy hell. They don’t handle the ice like they used to.
They even made movie about penguins and all to rub the skaam in.
Bar One’s got to them. I am convinced – slegtes.
29 Aug 2011, 23:37 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-767: Bye bud. Hope the Cape is not too wet.
ha ha – first weather win I ever had on Keo.
29 Aug 2011, 23:38 pm
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-763:
No it is far too early to give up already. It is all just a matter of negative circumstance of red and yellow cards and lots of own goals.
Just make a weekly hello appearance and all will be well again.
29 Aug 2011, 23:40 pm
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-743:
Soda, your ears must have been burning, Robzim and I were chatting tonight and decided we really missed your good humour, see you soon I hope.
29 Aug 2011, 23:40 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-761:
No probs, he’s got a pad in Putsonderwater.
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-765:
Howdy Joe. Long time no chat.
Still doing my stint in the backwaters I’m afraid, but fark, I can’t believe my luck at the next job I’ll hopefully be going to at the turn of the year. Don’t want to jinx it but it’s a choice of two by the looks of it. One back in SA, other one on a tourist hotspot in the Indian Ocean
29 Aug 2011, 23:41 pm
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-763:
Yo
29 Aug 2011, 23:42 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-767:
Night boet.
29 Aug 2011, 23:50 pm
@Black Panther(Black Panther)-773: Hello Pinky. Very long time.
29 Aug 2011, 23:53 pm
150 – KEO – show some respect you fool.
29 Aug 2011, 23:55 pm
@JockBok(JockBok)-772: Hamish. An Indian Island tourist hot spot sounds really great to me. Can you take family?
29 Aug 2011, 23:57 pm
@carol(carol)-771: Hello Miss Wilcox. Long time. How is Cheltenham at the moment. How is the Welsh Cricket fan, looking forward to September 11′th. You better treat him very very well. Could be a bad day.
29 Aug 2011, 23:58 pm
@Johannes Expatinus(hanneslom)-776: And you boet. Flok it, I think I last saw you in 2007. How’s Noord Karolinska?
30 Aug 2011, 00:00 am
SCANS IN FOR NZ LOOSIES
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
8.17 a.m.
The injury news isn’t great for
the All Blacks as Kieran Read may
miss the entire round robin
stages of the World Cup while
fellow loose forward Adam
Thomson looks set to be
unavailable for the tournament
opener against Tonga.
Read and Thomson were both
absent from the All Blacks’ official
squad unveiling in Auckland on
Monday as they received MRI scans in
Christchurch on their return from Saturday
night’s Tri Nations loss to Australia.
“Kieran has torn the ligament between the
tibia and fibula at the front of his left ankle
and while it’s still early days in his recovery,
with aggressive rehabilitation we are
aiming to have him available to play near
the end of the round robin,” All Blacks
doctor Deb Robinson said.
“Adam’s MRI scan shows some swelling
around the inside of his elbow which
should settle quickly.
“He also has some deep bruising to his
upper arm and while it’s difficult to know
how long that will take to settle, we are
hoping he will be ready for selection for the
All Blacks’ second round robin match
against Japan.”
Both Read and Thomson will remain with
the squad during their rehabilitation.
The All Blacks assemble in Auckland on
Friday ahead of their World Cup opener
against Tonga at Eden Park on September 9.
30 Aug 2011, 00:00 am
@SodaJoe(SodaJoe)-777:
It’s a 5 year job mate, so it’d definitely be on the cards. Just a whisper at the moment so I’ll see how it goes. More likely I’ll be heading to SA for a year. Either way, not too fussed at the moment.
30 Aug 2011, 00:06 am
@JockBok(JockBok)-781: Hope it works out well. Sounds great.
30 Aug 2011, 00:06 am
Any way good night ladies. See you through the window.
30 Aug 2011, 00:14 am
cheers Soda
30 Aug 2011, 03:23 am
So the ravenous pack of hyenas have saunterd off to sleep but without a morsel of the lions’ kill despite all their trickery and distasteful ploys.
But as their frustrations irked them for so long now, they have indelibly left behind their collective ignorances and the distortions and lies.
And these ignorances are appalling and highly revealing of a lack of an ability to rationalise even simple notions.
For example:
“Anethetist. Not a real Doctor”
Any such person in western civilised countries needs to be a holder of such degrees as an M.B.Ch.B. or M.D. or M.B.B.Ch. or any such like(depending on the country), in short, a bona fide medical degree and that means being a ” real doctor ” dealing with real patients (clinical).
Too many fail to grasp that not all real doctors function clinically but devote
themselves to medical science research with concomitant other functions.
Anaesthetist are generally in it for the money that their clinical involvment garners them. They work with all types of surgeons in theatres.
I know of NO anaethetist that is involved in medical science research, period. Some may well be involved in clinical research but that will be for a pharmacological agency.
The distortions and lies do not bother me because they are simply not true. What should bother the pack though is the fact that they engage in that out of sheer desperation, so often , and daily , to the extent they begin to believe their own lies.
It then becomes a means to an end, any end , and we all that end-result of that manner of attitude in apartheid S. Africa , and Germany also ,
I would be rather worried if I had such a pack mentality that results in a loss of my individuality, but too many are deficient and unable to stand on their own because of inherent weaknesses. So they group and think as a group ,come right or wrong
30 Aug 2011, 03:29 am
@ET.(ET.)-785:
should read “… and we all know that end-result … “
30 Aug 2011, 07:02 am
@ET.(ET.)-785: Liewe bliksem maar jou kop is vol kak.
30 Aug 2011, 09:02 am
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE(KWAGGA ROBERTSE)-787: When he says he works in a lab, what he means is he volunteers for pharmaceutical tests. Two decades of this and it’s bound to have an effect.
30 Aug 2011, 10:25 am
@ET.(ET.)-785: Just had a good chuckle reading your post. The ignorance level on this site is just unbelievable.
4 Sep 2011, 20:15 pm
France will take down one of the SH teams – they are at their best when written off; SA can win, but not with Smit at the helm.
20 Oct 2011, 13:52 pm
@hendrikp(hendrikp)-33:
“Australia vs South Africa World Cup final people. Remember who said it first
”
No sign of SA or Aus anywhere near the WC final. Hendrikp must be predicting the finalists of the 2411 RWC. ABs will have won all the other world cups in between now and then.
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