Up And (Down) Under

South Africa regain possession and Delport was absolutely MONSTERED there by Daniel Herbert! My GOD, what a
tackle!

Australian commentator, Australia v South Africa, Sydney, Saturday 29th July.

YOU MAY have to rouse yourself from your bed at an ungodly hour of the morning to watch it live, but the Tri Nations is generally worth the early start and Foul Play can think of no higher compliment.
In any case, with the British Open turning into a dreary procession for that half-golfer, half-Corporation Tiger Woods, Wimbledon proving to be as unwatchable as ever, and nothing more appetising than Shelbourne v Rosenborg in the way of football, the annual triangular rugby tournament between New Zealand, South Africa and Australia is basically the only show in town at the moment.
In gathering together the three strongest rugby powers in the world, the Tri Nations is the real deal not just for the occasionally stellar quality of its rugby. It also exposes the poverty and low calibre of so much of what passes before our eyes each spring in the Six Nations.
Nowhere was the quality gap better illustrated than by the tournament s opener, an astonishing match between Australia and New Zealand three Saturdays ago in Sydney.
Before a crowd of some 130,000 in Sydney s Olympic stadium, New Zealand roared into a 24-0 (yep, twenty-four points to nil) lead after just eight minutes. Space prohibits a full recount of what subsequently transpired, but suffice to say that it involved a monumental Aussie fightback which saw them leading 35-34 in stoppage time. At which point Jonah Lomu crashed over for the try that won the match for the All Blacks.
By comparison, their subsequent 25-12 defeat of South Africa in Christchurch was nothing more than a good old-fashioned war of attrition, if an eminently watchable one, as was Australia s 26-6 win over the Springboks in Sydney at the weekend.
The latter game was certainly a more entertaining affair than the two countries World Cup meeting at Twickenham last October. That one took little time to degenerate into a private contest between Matthew Burke and Jannie de Beer as to who could slot over the most penalties from long range in conditions of driving rain. Burke won, 8-6.
On Saturday, it was the turn of the inimitable, and brilliantly-named, Stirling Mortlock to take centre stage. Mortlock, a Wallaby winger with bloodhound-like facial features that cry out for caricature, stuck over four penalties and converted two tries, the first of them his own, to leave the field having contributed 21 of the Aussies 26 points.
All that the Boks could muster were a couple of penalties from the boot of their own placekicker, van Straaten. The two big South African back-row mullockers, flanker Andre Venter and number 8 Andre Vos, were reduced largely to the status of impotent, helpless onlookers as Australia s distinctively remorseless brand of power rugby steamrollered them and the rest of their pack out of the game.
Indeed, the big story of this Tri Nations is turning out not to be the rejuvenation of the All Blacks after their World Cup debacle, but the decline of the South Africans, who are falling apart like an old banger.
The weekend s reverse in Sydney was their fourth in succession, and coach Nick Mallett now looks certain to be given the Black Pill after the Boks wrap up their programme with home fixtures against the other two.
The onetime golden-bollocked boy of the side, Percy Montgomery, has already been made a scapegoat by being very publicly dropped from the full-back slot. Old Percy endured a disastrous afternoon against the All Blacks the other week, dropping balls left, right and centre, and gifting the opposition two try-scoring opportunities which were gratefully snapped up by the superb Christian Cullen.
Montgomery could be said to be the Springboks answer to Jamie Redknapp, in that his haircut generally ends the game in even better condition than it was at the start. His distinctive locks, and the magnificently corpulent beer belly of the hooker Marais, are in their own very different ways proving to be enduring symbols of the Boks seemingly neverending decline.

As if it didn t already have enough going for it, the Tri Nations also provides no end of amusement for those who take infantile pleasure in noting down the dodgy monickers of foreign athletes.
The current captain of the All Blacks, for example, glories in the name of Todd Blackadder (cue no end of Blackadder Goes Forth-type headlines in the UK press previews of the Tri Nations), and there are plenty of other characters in the tournament with, among other things, surnames where their Christian names should be.
At a glance, we have the aforementioned Stirling Mortlock, Elton Flatley and Ben Tune of Australia; the All Black stalwarts Kees Meeuws, Andrew Blowers and Royce Willis; and a whole plethora of weird-sounding types in the Springbok camp: Braam van Straaten, Selborne Boome, Thinus Delport, De Wet Barry (often listed in newspaper line-ups as Barry De Wet) and not forgetting their replacement flanker, John Smith.
Though this evocative nomenclature may summon up images of pimp stereotypes in Seventies blaxploitation movies, it s worth pointing out that every one of those South African gentlemen is as white as the driven snow. But that really is another story for another day.