With nothing much happening on the Ulster front at the minute, apart from watching the squad run up and down sand dunes, we turn our attention, once again, to the Ulster media reporting of rugby.
Over on the Belfast Telegraph Peter Bills really does seem to have a bee in his bonnet about South African Rugby and the coaching of Peter de Villiers in particular.
Whatever the outcome of today’s final Test between South Africa and the British & Irish Lions, let there be no doubt about one thing.
The 2009 Lions tour has failed where it really matters — out on the field.
The brutal truth of this tour should not be masked. The Lions only got close because we have seen a pitiful illustration of Test match rugby by the so-called world champions.
For the ‘Boks to have twice been scrambling home to a narrow win has been a dire indictment of their coach and his crazy ways. How much longer South African rugby continues to let this guy take charge of their national team remains to be seen.
This moderate Lions team SHOULD have been thrashed out of sight twice by now.
A stunning performance full of tremendous grit and determination by the Lions in Johannesburg completed a tour in which the world champion South Africans have spluttered only occasionally into life.
Is this what we are now to expect from the 2007 World Champions?
Most alarming of all, the disinterest in this tour among most provincial crowds was matched on Saturday by most of the Springbok players. They looked distracted, disillusioned and quite unable to turn the red tide that rolled all over them.
No doubt partly due to South Africa’s poor, dreadfully uneven performances during the Test series, the Lions escaped the 3-0 whitewash which an efficient, properly structured Springbok side would inevitably have inflicted.
Now while there may be a fair degree in truth in his assertions about the lack of coaching ability of de Villiers it is the way he uses this to belittle the performance of the Lions that is so extraordinary.
I don’t know what series Bills was watching but I happened to see three exciting, brutal and incident packed matches, all played with a fair degree of skill and certainly no lack of application by both sides as the injury count proved. In short the matches were a testament to The Lions concept and while both sides made mistakes on and off the field, it is unlikely that the intensity of these matches will be matched anywhere in world rugby anytime soon.
So why has Bills chosen to consistently take this approach? There could be a variety of reasons, but his continual undermining of the Lions performances to highlight the known failings of de Villiers, does show how out of step he is with the rest of the rugby world.
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One Response to “Meedya Watch!”
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Bills has a lot in common with that other so-called “expert” on rugby at The Times – Stephen “Myopic & Jaundiced” Jones. At least Bills doesn’t lionise (no pun intended) English internationals past & present, merely for being English! Small consolation, though. They both know duck all about rugby, yet manage to make a living sharing their skewed views with the public in tones of hushed reverence laced liberally with pomposity. Were it not for the comedy factor i wouldn’t read Jones at all.
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