I think it's important that sport reflects wider realities than just what happens off the pitch, and rugby union means more to South Africa than it does to any other nation spiritually, politically and culturally.
spiritually? wtf does that even mean in this context? politically? all the more reason to want them to lose. culturally? i guess nz must have been nuked while i was watching the snooker ;)
And the rest of the rubgy-playing world bows down and praises God that it wasn't boring old England - because another four years of crowing would have been too much to bear.
nonsense. south africa (actually being the second best team around) will be in a much better position to crow than england were as world champions.
spiritually? wtf does that even mean in this context
I can't be bothered explaining why sport has quasi-religious undertones: if you haven't noticed that yet, then you probably never will.
politically? all the more reason to want them to lose.
What on earth does that mean? Rugby is political in South Africa for all the right reasons - it's tied up in the ending of apartheid and the truth & reconciliation process. Why would that make a reason for wanting them to lose?
culturally? i guess nz must have been nuked while i was watching the snooker ;)
Rugby signifies nothing other than a sport in New Zealand. The most popular sport, sure. In South Africa it's much, much more than that.
south africa (actually being the second best team around) will be in a much better position to crow than england were as world champions.So you've fallen for the All Black propaganda too? No way they were the best team around. South Africa were less showy and spectacular, but superior in every other respect. They score tries when it counts, they defend
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I can't be bothered explaining why sport has quasi-religious undertones: if you haven't noticed that yet, then you probably never will.
so there are quasi-religious overtones? sure. but still a vague throwaway notion of little use. are there no such overtones in ireland, wales, nz, fiji, tonga, etc?
What on earth does that mean? Rugby is political in South Africa for all the right reasons - it's tied up in the ending of apartheid and the truth & reconciliation process. Why would that make a reason for wanting them to lose?
lol: it seems to have taken you all of a couple of days to figure it out with your latest post! pressure has long been on coaches to pick players because of their race. imo sport should remain as divroced from politics as possible. the south african govenrment thinks otherwise. that makes me wan tthem to fail. gordon brown's ugly mug (cheering for team he obviously doesn't support) made me (briefly) want england to lose too! if i were a politician i would not attend such events.
so there are quasi-religious overtones? sure. but still a vague throwaway notion of little use. are there no such overtones in ireland, wales, nz, fiji, tonga, etc?
Yes, but I happen to believe there are more in South Africa. You might not think so, but we're both coming at it from our own subjective experiences.
it seems to have taken you all of a couple of days to figure it out with your latest post! pressure has long been on coaches to pick players because of their race.
Point taken; but I rather think that's a reason to want the team to win! Now that the world cup is won, the quota system might be reconsidered on the basis that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
i don't think so. they were the most talented team and had beaten their rivals more often than not which is why their were short odds on favourites.They were the most talented set of individuals. But that doesn't mean all that much in sport. India have consistently produced the most outrageously talented sets of individuals to make up their cricket teams down the years,
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They were the most talented set of individuals. But that doesn't mean all that much in sport. India have consistently produced the most outrageously talented sets of individuals to make up their cricket teams down the years, but they never seem to win when it really counts either.
when does it count? they have performed well against australia. they have won a series in england. they have won a world cup in the pas thwich is more than can be said of england. they just won the 20-20 world cup (the ultimate choking arena?) beating the team's i would usually think of as non-chokers in the process. they have in the pas tbeen rathe rlimited because they haven't had decent seam bowlers and don't like the ball bouncing around their ears. they have limitations but i don't think they are chokers.
Like New Zealand, who excel in the Tri-Nations, India win plenty of test series, but they never translate their obvious superiority into world dominance
they should have doen better in the 20-20 cup then?
they have performed well against australia. they have won a series in england. they have won a world cup in the pas thwich is more than can be said of england.
But they've been the most extravagantly talented team for a long time without ever achieving the dominance that the Australians did in the heyday of Warne, McGrath and Ponting - who I think were a more limited team than the Indian side composed of players such as Dravid, Laxman, Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Singh should have been.
they should have doen better in the 20-20 cup then?
20/20 is a lottery, which is why it will ultimately die off. A better barometer of India's position was the last world cup, where they were up there with the favourites but imploded in spectacular style.
australia have had plenty of humiliations during their two decades at the top.When?? The only ones I can think of were the loss against Bangladesh in a meaningless one-dayer before the Ashes in 2005, and the failure in the India tour of, I think, 2002 was it?, when their winning streak was put to an
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But they've been the most extravagantly talented team for a long time without ever achieving the dominance that the Australians did in the heyday of Warne, McGrath and Ponting - who I think were a more limited team than the Indian side composed of players such as Dravid, Laxman, Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Singh should have been.
i disagree. they weren't as talented as australia at any point. they have had some stylish players, some flair players if you like but the team has always had inherent weaknesses (can't handle the wrong conditions, poor seam bowling, don't like the ball bouncing around their ears). because they have the largest fanbase they are talked up more than they should be (in a similar way that england's football team is always talked up and for years manchester united were).
20/20 is a lottery, which is why it will ultimately die off. A better barometer of India's position was the last world cup, where they were up there with the favourites but imploded in spectacular style.it isn't a lottery. talent is less decisive
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i disagree. they weren't as talented as australia at any point.
India always had more raw talent - they just never made as much of what they had. Australia were a squad of decent players who maximised their potential. Shane Warne is undoubtedly a genius, one of the true greats. But people like McGrath, Hayden, Gilchrist and Ponting were just reasonably talented guys who made the most of what they had. (All Glenn McGrath really did was bowl perfect line and length over and over again, which is about concentration and practice more than it is about talent.)
lost a one-off test in nz 89/90 lost series in the windies 90/91 lost series to windies at home 91/92 drew both home and away series with sa 93/94 lost series in pakistan 94/95 lost one-off test in ind 96/97 lost series in ind 97/98 lost series in sri lanka 99 lost series in ind 00/01 drew 1-1 in home series v india 03/04 (including one humilating defeat iirc) lost ashes in england 05Very few of those are real humiliations. Losing a one-off test in India? Failing to win a Pakistan
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They beat every team they came across with ease. (And that includes Tonga and Fiji who - and good luck to them - played ten minutes of good rugby each and managed to give the Springboks a fright, but never looked anything like winning.) The All Blacks are all talk and no trousers.they didn't beat fiji or tonga with ease, particularly tonga. one unlucky bounce of the ball at the end of the tonga game and they would have lost. they demonstrated just as much evidence of "choking" and losing their discipline in those games (which they had the talent to win far more comfortably) as nz did against france. fortunately they didn't lose and had a chance to play solidly against argentina and england to enhance their reputation
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they didn't beat fiji or tonga with ease, particularly tonga
We must have been watching different games. Like everyone, I thought it would have been great to have watched Fiji or Tonga beat the mighty Springboks. But they both just had one crazy ten- or fifteen-minute spell until South Africa were able to choke them out. If either had won it would have been a gross distortion of what actually happened during the game.
a cursory glance at the tri-nations tables of the past few seasons amply demonstrates that the all blacks were more than just talk.
Well, winning the Tri-Nations is one thing. But let's not pretend it's what the New Zealand public really want above all else.
while being in throughly uncompetitive pool in which no team even tried to beat them had more to do with it.I was very disappointed with the way Scotland and Italy approached their games with the All Blacks. Especially Scotland. Okay, so maybe they might have got pounded, but that's surely better than losing 0-40 or whatever the final score was. It seems to me
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We must have been watching different games. Like everyone, I thought it would have been great to have watched Fiji or Tonga beat the mighty Springboks. But they both just had one crazy ten- or fifteen-minute spell until South Africa were able to choke them out. If either had won it would have been a gross distortion of what actually happened during the game.tonga had a couple of those spells. one was at the end of the game, and they almost won it with the last play. sa only had one period of dominance in that game (admittedly after they decided to bring more of their proper team on), so it was fairly even overall
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Incidentally, as a fan of Scottish rugby I felt ashamed watching the games against New Zealand, Italy and Argentina. Nobody seemed to want to go for it at any stage - not even really against Argentina, when surely they had nothing to lose. Aside from the one decent set of plays, which resulted in a try, and the last ten minutes, all they did was catch the ball and then hoof it upfield.
spiritually? wtf does that even mean in this context?
politically? all the more reason to want them to lose.
culturally? i guess nz must have been nuked while i was watching the snooker ;)
And the rest of the rubgy-playing world bows down and praises God that it wasn't boring old England - because another four years of crowing would have been too much to bear.
nonsense. south africa (actually being the second best team around) will be in a much better position to crow than england were as world champions.
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I can't be bothered explaining why sport has quasi-religious undertones: if you haven't noticed that yet, then you probably never will.
politically? all the more reason to want them to lose.
What on earth does that mean? Rugby is political in South Africa for all the right reasons - it's tied up in the ending of apartheid and the truth & reconciliation process. Why would that make a reason for wanting them to lose?
culturally? i guess nz must have been nuked while i was watching the snooker ;)
Rugby signifies nothing other than a sport in New Zealand. The most popular sport, sure. In South Africa it's much, much more than that.
south africa (actually being the second best team around) will be in a much better position to crow than england were as world champions.So you've fallen for the All Black propaganda too? No way they were the best team around. South Africa were less showy and spectacular, but superior in every other respect. They score tries when it counts, they defend ( ... )
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so there are quasi-religious overtones? sure. but still a vague throwaway notion of little use. are there no such overtones in ireland, wales, nz, fiji, tonga, etc?
What on earth does that mean? Rugby is political in South Africa for all the right reasons - it's tied up in the ending of apartheid and the truth & reconciliation process. Why would that make a reason for wanting them to lose?
lol: it seems to have taken you all of a couple of days to figure it out with your latest post! pressure has long been on coaches to pick players because of their race. imo sport should remain as divroced from politics as possible. the south african govenrment thinks otherwise. that makes me wan tthem to fail. gordon brown's ugly mug (cheering for team he obviously doesn't support) made me (briefly) want england to lose too! if i were a politician i would not attend such events.
Rugby signifies nothing other ( ... )
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Yes, but I happen to believe there are more in South Africa. You might not think so, but we're both coming at it from our own subjective experiences.
it seems to have taken you all of a couple of days to figure it out with your latest post! pressure has long been on coaches to pick players because of their race.
Point taken; but I rather think that's a reason to want the team to win! Now that the world cup is won, the quota system might be reconsidered on the basis that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
i don't think so. they were the most talented team and had beaten their rivals more often than not which is why their were short odds on favourites.They were the most talented set of individuals. But that doesn't mean all that much in sport. India have consistently produced the most outrageously talented sets of individuals to make up their cricket teams down the years, ( ... )
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when does it count? they have performed well against australia. they have won a series in england. they have won a world cup in the pas thwich is more than can be said of england. they just won the 20-20 world cup (the ultimate choking arena?) beating the team's i would usually think of as non-chokers in the process. they have in the pas tbeen rathe rlimited because they haven't had decent seam bowlers and don't like the ball bouncing around their ears. they have limitations but i don't think they are chokers.
Like New Zealand, who excel in the Tri-Nations, India win plenty of test series, but they never translate their obvious superiority into world dominance
they should have doen better in the 20-20 cup then?
simply because there are better teams out ( ... )
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But they've been the most extravagantly talented team for a long time without ever achieving the dominance that the Australians did in the heyday of Warne, McGrath and Ponting - who I think were a more limited team than the Indian side composed of players such as Dravid, Laxman, Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Singh should have been.
they should have doen better in the 20-20 cup then?
20/20 is a lottery, which is why it will ultimately die off. A better barometer of India's position was the last world cup, where they were up there with the favourites but imploded in spectacular style.
australia have had plenty of humiliations during their two decades at the top.When?? The only ones I can think of were the loss against Bangladesh in a meaningless one-dayer before the Ashes in 2005, and the failure in the India tour of, I think, 2002 was it?, when their winning streak was put to an ( ... )
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i disagree. they weren't as talented as australia at any point. they have had some stylish players, some flair players if you like but the team has always had inherent weaknesses (can't handle the wrong conditions, poor seam bowling, don't like the ball bouncing around their ears). because they have the largest fanbase they are talked up more than they should be (in a similar way that england's football team is always talked up and for years manchester united were).
20/20 is a lottery, which is why it will ultimately die off. A better barometer of India's position was the last world cup, where they were up there with the favourites but imploded in spectacular style.it isn't a lottery. talent is less decisive ( ... )
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India always had more raw talent - they just never made as much of what they had. Australia were a squad of decent players who maximised their potential. Shane Warne is undoubtedly a genius, one of the true greats. But people like McGrath, Hayden, Gilchrist and Ponting were just reasonably talented guys who made the most of what they had. (All Glenn McGrath really did was bowl perfect line and length over and over again, which is about concentration and practice more than it is about talent.)
lost a one-off test in nz 89/90
lost series in the windies 90/91
lost series to windies at home 91/92
drew both home and away series with sa 93/94
lost series in pakistan 94/95
lost one-off test in ind 96/97
lost series in ind 97/98
lost series in sri lanka 99
lost series in ind 00/01
drew 1-1 in home series v india 03/04 (including one humilating defeat iirc)
lost ashes in england 05Very few of those are real humiliations. Losing a one-off test in India? Failing to win a Pakistan ( ... )
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We must have been watching different games. Like everyone, I thought it would have been great to have watched Fiji or Tonga beat the mighty Springboks. But they both just had one crazy ten- or fifteen-minute spell until South Africa were able to choke them out. If either had won it would have been a gross distortion of what actually happened during the game.
a cursory glance at the tri-nations tables of the past few seasons amply demonstrates that the all blacks were more than just talk.
Well, winning the Tri-Nations is one thing. But let's not pretend it's what the New Zealand public really want above all else.
while being in throughly uncompetitive pool in which no team even tried to beat them had more to do with it.I was very disappointed with the way Scotland and Italy approached their games with the All Blacks. Especially Scotland. Okay, so maybe they might have got pounded, but that's surely better than losing 0-40 or whatever the final score was. It seems to me ( ... )
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probably, although i'd take four grand slams for england over the next world cup!
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