Brutal, titanic, savage, compelling.
The South Africa-Ireland series was all of those things and more, with Saturday’s second Test throwing in some unsightly, nasty blood injuries, for good measure. The first half took nearly an hour to complete, so numerous were the demands on the medical staff.
Willie le Roux was forced off for good, with a brain injury, after two minutes; Franco Mostert and Eben Etzebeth had blood streaming from facial wounds; and then Mostert left the scene permanently with a leg injury. At that point, the game was barely 15 minutes old.
In their reimagining of the game, it’s very doubtful that this is what World Rugby have in mind. What the first quarter, in particular, did for the image of the game is anybody’s guess. Great to watch, but who’d want to play it, professionals apart? The physicality was off-the-charts and unrelenting.
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And so the series was shared, one win each. Andy Farrell’s men have now won four of the last five matches between the teams. The Irish defence was magnificent, and denying South Africa a try was one of the keys to this great victory. Rassie Erasmus did not look for any excuses. He expressed his disappointment and said Ireland deserved it.
As the match reached its dramatic finish, it looked like referee Karl Dickson would be the villain of the piece. The breakdown apart, the main issue was the scrum, and a seemingly invisible knock on by Ireland, with the immediate offside penalty being whistled, and giving yet another three points for Handre Pollard.
There were just two points in it when up stepped Ciarán Frawley.
Members of that wonderful North County Dublin seaside club, Skerries RFC, would not have been surprised at the strength of will shown by this young man, who came through their underage system. He played his first All-Ireland League match on his 18th birthday, the very first day he was eligible to do so. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
It has always been a bad idea for a referee to over-focus on one team at scrum time. Ireland’s front row were undoubtedly guilty on occasion, but nothing will convince me that South Africa were squeaky clean either. Once they get ‘go-forward’ movement it is all too easy for them to generate the penalty by forcing upwards, or being the ones to drive across.
In fairness to Dickson he started well and his early decision-making was much more coherent than what we saw last week from Luke Pearce. Gradually however, as things developed, the pressure came on and that was accompanied by a dip in the performance level. Also, the degree of refereeing difficulty could not have been greater.
For some reason referees have eased off on side-entry and sealing-off offences, but, in doing so, they’ve actually made life more difficult for themselves.
Bodies flew into the breakdown, players were off their feet a heck of a lot more than they stayed upright. It would have been a wise move to tidy up that area; it doesn’t need a lot of sanctions. Players change their behaviour when they know what’s not going to be tolerated. The converse of that statement is also a truism.
One of these breakdowns saw Caelen Doris correctly sinbinned for coming in and on to the leg of Malcolm Marx, attempting to croc-roll him away. It’s an action which has caused horrible knee injuries and is expressly forbidden. Some are of the opinion that James Ryan was more to blame, but, actually, it was both of them. The secondrow could well have kept his captain company in the sinbin, while the bunker decided whether or not to upgrade his card to red.
Ireland were fortunate that Marx had not been injured, otherwise Doris was certainly not coming back. Operating in the bunker was last week’s TMO, Ben Whitehouse, so we all waited with worried and bated breath for his decision – he’s well nigh impossible to predict.
Whitehouse kept the card yellow because the dynamics of Ryan contributed to Doris’s action. From an Irish point of view, we’ll take it, even though those excusing dynamics were not legal. Ireland could ill-afford to have lost the captain who was absolutely terrific throughout, his contribution immense.
Just a word here about the first Test. Recently retired referee Jaco Peyper, now working with the Springboks, spoke out post-match about several matters, including supporting the TMO decisions which went against Ireland. But not one word about RG Snyman’s hit on Craig Casey, which left the scrumhalf in complete oblivion. That’s the one we all wanted to hear about from South Africa. What is their view on it? It would certainly be nice to know.
The match officials – including assistants and TMOs – have finished this Test match window with some credit in the bank. But there is much room for improvement. There have also been, to put it politely, disappointing performances too.
World Rugby elite referee manager Joël Jutge has not been afraid to drop officials in the past. Several will be worried right now, and will be waiting to learn of their next involvement. And one or two might well be gone for good.
