By MARC HINTON - RugbyHeaven | Wednesday, 09 July 2008
Bleating doesn't become grown men. Especially not Springboks who call themselves world champions. Their conduct since last weekend's Tri-Nations opening loss to the All Blacks has, in my opinion, been nothing short of disgraceful.
For goodness sake, have they not heard about the concept of taking it like a man? Of losing with dignity?
Not this lot, it seems. There's been that much wailing coming out of the Boks camp ever since they had their butts handed to them on a sling in Wellington last Saturday night that they're in major danger of needing an extra pellet of Kleenex shipped in.
I admired the 2007 Springboks who deservedly won the World Cup with a mixture of brutal pragmatism and occasional lightning strikes of attacking brilliance. They got it right when it counted, and on behalf of all New Zealanders I salute them for that. It's something our own finest haven't managed to do for over 20 years now.
But so far the 2008 mob leave me feeling only pity. Pity they've become such a pack of whingers.
Boys, you just got played off the park by a pretty inexperienced All Black pack without its best player. And you were lucky to get as close as you did given the ref ruled out a perfectly legitimate second try to Jerome Kaino. To me that's a time to suck it up, gather in tight and let your actions on the field do your talking.
Instead, what have we had? Complaints that the All Blacks are scrum cheats; that Brad Thorn's "thuggery" wasn't punished harshly enough; and bleating about the so-called "protected status" of Dan Carter.
Now, I'm all for a bit of firing up in the week of a test match, but this latest chorus of wails from the Boks smacks to me of desperation. Peter de Villiers appears to be a coach hanging on by a thread, his players are woefully off their 2007 peaks and all in all there's just something missing in 2008.
Maybe this is their attempt to inject a bit of fire in the bellies for Dunedin on Saturday night.
But if it is, it's misguided. The Boks don't need any more passion to beat the All Blacks. They have plenty of that, as evidenced by their deliciously intense opening half-hour in Wellington. What they need more of is skill, precision and cool heads. Accurate boots would help too.
But all they would have served to do with this latest bout of finger-pointing is to fire up another changed All Black pack. Bad move guys.
Besides, all this crying about the All Black scrum is becoming boring. It's funny how every team who gets a lesson in set-piece execution from the men in black all wail like babies afterwards about how hard done by they were, yet referees the world over seem to be duped en masse. Gee, go figure.
One other thing. I sympathise a little on Thorn's situation. He should have been yellow-carded, at the very least. It was a bad miss by ref Stuart Dickinson and could have affected the balance of the whole match.
But stuff happens. Just in case you weren't paying attention, Butch James was firing himself around like a guided missile, clearly trying to take Dan Carter out of the match, fair means or foul. It was borderline stuff, mostly on the wrong side of no-man's land.
Now, I know we have a lot of South African readers of this website, and if any of you passionate followers of the Bokke take offence at the above, well, I'm sorry.
But I'm just telling it like it is.
The Boks are world champions and they won the right to call themselves that by manning up when it counted.
Right about now in New Zealand they need to take a similar approach.
In fact, here's some advice. For free.
Fellas, last time I looked you hadn't won a test match in New Zealand since 1998. You've actually got a great chance this weekend if you can get your act together and focus on the task at hand. The first step in that direction is to stop crying like babies and grow a pair.
Fair comment from Marc Hinton? Let us know your thoughts on his article and the Springboks' stance since last Saturday night. Have your say on our comments system below.
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