Andy Capostagno Rugby
It has been a mixed week for teams who wear blue. Last Saturday morning the Auckland Blues lost 33-18 to a rejuvenated Queensland Reds line-up in the Super 12. In the afternoon the once-proud Blue Bulls plumbed the depths as they went down 57-27 to the Natal Wildebeests in the Vodacom Cup.
Last Sunday morning the New South Wales Warratahs (who used to play in an all-blue strip before the Gianni Versace wannabe’s took over the Super 12) destroyed the Coastal Sharks 51-18, and in the afternoon France clinched their second successive Grand Slam by beating Wales 51-0 in the Five Nations Championship.
Of these results, by far the most significant is the last. For all that Nick Mallett believes the Super 12 is consistently better than the Five Nations, the fact is that the Five Nations still matters. That is why such a lopsided result should be a cause for great concern among the home unions. Wales may not be much of a world power at the moment, but that does not explain a 51-0 defeat. Neither should we regard France as a world power on the basis of such a win, although they are clearly the side to beat among the Northern Hemisphere teams at next year’s World Cup.
For 60 years the Five Nations was strength against strength and, much as in the Super 12, the team capable of winning away from home always won the championship. England dominated proceedings, but fell away in the 1970s and 1980s as great players emerged on a regular basis in Wales and France. Briefly – at the beginning of the 1980s – Ireland had a good side with a points-scoring-genius at fly-half in Ollie Campbell. Scotland even won a couple of Grand Slams in the 1980s and 1990s, thanks to a plethora of great back-row forwards.
The reality now is that no one other than England or France is capable of winning the Five Nations Championship. On that basis it will surely not be long before tickets for the games will lose their value as certainly as a 10-year-old Skoda.
A rugby public which becomes selective is surely not going to spend its cash on tickets for Scotland against Wales or, in a couple of years’ time, Ireland against Italy.
That’s why 51-0 is not good news, even if you happen to support the monsieurs in blue.
Closer to home, I was at Loftus Versfeld last Saturday to see the Blue Bulls. Those who remember Bulls packs dominated by the likes of Frik du Preez and Uli Schmidt would have quaked in fury at the offerings of the latest vintage.
To be sure the best players are away on Super 12 duty, but time was when you could have pulled forwards out of the Tukkies second team who could have held their own in the Currie Cup.
No longer. Listening to the Loftus faithful booing their own team was one of the most melancholy things I have heard in a long time. It reminded me of a Hank Williams song: ”Blue must be the colour of the blues.”
The same could not be said for the New South Wales Warratahs. Two seasons ago the only thing which differentiated their playing strip from that of Northern Transvaal was the shape of the flower on the two teams’ chests. Now the Warratahs are forced to take to the field in a patchwork quilt. If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, there must be a few dromedaries on the panel who designed this year’s Super 12 strips.
If the audience at home is confused by the similarity of so many of the strips, imagine what it’s like for the referees. We have seen various examples of justice miscarried already this year; remember the knock-back by a Cat given as a knock- on by a Brumbie? So what price a minoring of the ball by a fullback given as a try by a similarly shirted opponent? And what price that it happens in a very important game?
Talking of very important games, Saturday’s result in Brisbane may come to be seen as very significant at the end of the competition. It marked the resurrection of the Queensland Reds and reaffirmed the mortality of the Auckland Blues in their 1998 incarnation. The Reds began the season poorly, but any team which can call on John Eales and Tim Horan clearly has something going for it, and on this form they are a safe bet for the semi-finals and possibly to go all the way.
For Auckland it is a different story. Under Sean Fitzpatrick they were frequently bad-tempered and petty, but they never lost their cool in the manner shown at Ballymore. On top of that they scored pretty much every time they took the ball beyond the fourth phase. Without the injured Fitzpatrick they look good, but not that good. Perhaps it’s the jersey, another patchwork quilt which, even so, does not seem to include one shade of actual blue.
But then again, perhaps the Auckland Blues is not a rugby team anymore. Perhaps it’s a lost Hank Williams song.