analysis Early penalties emasculate Australia's spoiler before home forwards deliver an all-time great performance, writes Alasdair Reid
Yesterday, South African official Craig Joubert did exactly the same to David Pocock, the Wallaby No.7, in the second semi between Australia and New Zealand.
What? You missed the second red card? Probably because Joubert didn’t actually use one.
No, he just applied the law instead. In the eighth minute, with the All Blacks’ early onslaught in full, furious flow, Joubert spotted Pocock up to no good at the bottom of a ruck and promptly blew his whistle.
A couple of minutes later, another shrill blast as the official pinged Pocock again, this time in the shadow of the posts. Piri Weepu slammed the penalty home as firmly as he had struck the first one against an upright.
Two minutes, two penalties, too easy to conclude that Australia’s hopes of reaching the final were evaporating before their eyes. If the whole of Wales felt a sense of injustice when Warburton walked, they must have been choking on their biltong in South Africa to watch Pocock get his just desserts at last.
A week earlier, Australia had beaten the Springboks because the flanker’s nefarious activities were overlooked by the wretched New Zealand referee, Bryce Lawrence.
Joubert could scarcely have emasculated Pocock more comprehensively if he had wielded a scalpel as well as a whistle. He cut Pocock’s, er, options down to nothing by making it clear he would stand for no nonsense at the breakdown. Nonsense is Pocock’s art form. From that point on, Australia were bound to struggle.
It speaks volumes for Pocock’s wider abilities that he still exerted a massive influence on the game. If they were handing out medals for effort at the end of this tournament then the 23-year-old Western Force flanker would deserve one of his own. Possibly inscribed with the image of Saint Jude -- the patron saint of lost causes.
Because no side in the world could have lived with the All Blacks’ forwards yesterday. Come to think of it, no side in history could have done so.
Theirs was an effort of almost superhuman will, a force of nature, a rugby cataclysm that obliterated Australian defiance. A black tide swept through Eden Park yesterday in one of the greatest pack performances ever seen.
There were cameos all over the shop. There was Keven Mealamu, the hooker, bouncing around the park, laying waste to any Australian who got in his way.
There was Brad Thorn, the veteran lock, pilloried by his team-mates last week for his lack of emotion on the pitch, punching the air after yet another piledriver scrum and exhorting the crowd to produce more noise.
And there -- or rather everywhere -- was Richie McCaw. There had been mutterings that McCaw’s form had taken a dip, that the screw holding one of his metatarsals together might be loose, that his relentlessness had, well, relented.
But at the heart of this titanic contest, McCaw stood out as the best player on the pitch. The 30-year-old from Otago has spent the past decade at the summit of world rugby; yesterday he flew even higher.
One glorious vignette. Late in the game, Pocock stole a ball near the Australians’ left touchline, handing it straight on to scrum-half Will Genia.
It wasn’t the best position from which to mount an attack, but Genia has a gift for conjuring something out of nothing. He looked up to see if anything was on. And then McCaw appeared.
McCaw hit Genia hard and fast. Desperately, the little Australian tried to keep his feet and the ball. But McCaw kept driving on, yard after yard, and soon Genia had lost both. There had been hints before then that Australia might just have the makings of a late rally, but McCaw destroyed them on the spot.
So much for the player. What of the man? The final seconds said it all.
It satisfied the braying fans in the stand -- and the New Zealand public’s lack of grace could yet leave a sour memory of this tournament -- that the last act of the game saw Quade Cooper, the Wallaby fly-half who has made himself about as popular in these parts as an outbreak of sheep fluke -- hunted down and driven into touch by a pack of All Blacks players.
From a distance, captain McCaw looked on, satisfied but not vengeful. Cooper’s notoriety in New Zealand rests on the allegation that he kneed McCaw in the face in a Tri Nations game two months ago, but McCaw himself has risen above the outrage. No big deal, he says.
Which is how the giants of New Zealand rugby tend to view things. Take it on the chin and move on. It was the way of Colin Meads and of Sean Fitzpatrick, the twin peaks of All Blacks history. McCaw could soon be standing alongside those giants. And possibly even above them.
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