Bryce Lawrence incompetence in Rugby matches.

More than a week into the Wellington wake after the Boks’ tragic World Cup exit, the only thing more painful than the wailing from South African supporters is the terrible realisation that the Springboks were the only team in New Zealand that stood a chance of beating the All Blacks.

The Wallabies simply never had the physical presence to trouble the All Blacks in the semi-final and were overwhelmed in all phases of the game. They were not given the opportunity to get out of first gear and thus never got their game going – but the Boks certainly would have been a different proposition.

That is why a poll taken before the quarter-finals had New Zealanders overwhelmingly giving their preference for semi-final opponents as the Wallabies as opposed to the feared Springboks.

Quite right too, given the Australians’ emasculated display in the semis.

It is not being parochial to point out that a Springbok side that was on an upward path and which had the physical attributes to stop the Kiwis in their tracks should have advanced from the quarters.

Yes we have whined like Wallabies and indeed like Poms, but truly the Boks – and the Rugby World Cup – were denied by a “Napoleon in rags” to coin Bob Dylan, in the form of Bryce Lawrence, who sadly had given a number of prior indications of incompetence in Super Rugby matches.

The thing is, when he wants to, he can blow the breakdown. The Sharks will verify this after their match against the Brumbies in Canberra in 2008. I was there, and the visitors were killing the home team until they began annoying “Il Duce” with backchat after a few penalties … and then the game turned. The Brumbies players arrived at each breakdown as if it was a swimming gala on break-up day – a free-for-all dive-in while the Sharks were blown off the park. I recall Ryan Kankowski being sin-binned probably because he looked like David Hasselhoff.
Jokes aside, sort of…!

Look, the margins between success and failure can be minute in Test match rugby, and the bottom line regarding that quarter-final is this: the failure by the official to make decisions at the breakdown favoured the team doing all the defending because they could affect turnovers they usually had no hope of even attempting while slowing the ball down all night.

Usually, a competent referee blows the law as instructed to by the IRB refereeing panel, and in 2011 that interpretation clearly favours the attacking team, but at the Wellington Regional Stadium Bryce Lawrence fluffed his lines and the Wallabies were permitted to “ad lib” on the quarter-final stage.

Should the Boks have been able to cope, crap referee or not?

Yes, indeed, even though Heinrich Brussow was allegedly taken out off the ball early in the game. His suspect ribs were targeted by the opposition forwards and David Pocock’s chief adversary was removed from the battle scene.

Even so, it should not have come to that. The Springbok team that won the title so comfortably in 2007 should not have been scrapping for their lives four years later. They should have been too good for that, and the reason they were not is because the cowardly South African Rugby Union appointed a coach that was not capable of improving the team’s game.

by Mike Greenaway