Underdogs turned the rugby world upside down to beat the odds-on All Blacks and create one of the greatest games in the history of the tournamentIn these dark days the unscripted drama of live sport feels more important than ever. The second World Cup semi-final at Twickenham in 1999 seems like yesterday to me even though Émile Ntamack, France’s left-wing on that autumn day, now watches his son play for their country. No one in the stadium will ever forget it. At the end, and I kid you not, I turned round from my seat in the East stand press box and grown men were actually weeping.Context is all. This wasn’t just an astonishing spectacle. It came, like so many...
There is no better time to convert casual rugby spectators into lifelong fans, but the game risks missing its cueIn weeks such as this promoting rugby union should be the easiest job in the world. An eventful World Cup is still fresh in the memory and the first two rounds of Europes flagship club tournament have just been played. As anyone who saw Finn Russells fabulous piece of try-scoring skill for Racing 92 at Thomond Park can testify, there are also box-office players out there.Add in Joe Marler impersonating an Irish horse a video which has now been seen by almost as many people who are watching James Haskell in the Celebrity jungle and awareness of rugby amongst the general...
Can-do spirit and a receptive host country look to have opened new markets for what has been a virtually landlocked sportOn stage at the World Rugby awards ceremony on Sunday evening the extraordinary Siya Kolisi was asked what kind of public reaction he and his team were expecting on their return to South Africa. “I’m not sure,” replied the Springbok captain, a note of uncertainty in his voice. He sounded like a bemused lottery winner still attempting to compute how much his life had just changed.The heartfelt roar from the entire South Africa squad when Rassie Erasmus was announced as the world coach of the year was equally endearing. As Erasmus admitted, the team did not arrive in Japan necessarily...
Led by a kid from the townships, South Africa’s triumphant side simply had more to play for than EnglandIf there has been a theme of the World Cup, a lesson for us all to take from these long seven weeks, it is this: the game sometimes runs on strange and powerful currents. It is not necessarily the sharpest, smartest, fittest, fastest or strongest team that wins, but the one who wants it most. Listening to South Africa’s captain, Siya Kolisi, and coach, Rassie Erasmus, talk about what this victory meant in the minutes after they had won it, you began to understand exactly what England were up against and the way the Springboks were thinking about it, England had lost...
Eddie Jones had the World Cup pedigree but the Springboks coach was more cunning in rotating his front-row resourcesSouth Africa had the Bomb Squad; England blew up. It was a tactical triumph for the Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus who, two years ago, was on his way from Munster to run the disintegrating professional game in South Africa only to find when he arrived home that the national side demanded his immediate attention. But the Springboks’ triumph was also based on his belief that sport is equally about the physical and the mental.South Africa owed their World Cup success not only to the aggression that burned in all their players, even those rather smaller than the forwards who seem as wide...