Angelica

The Irish counted in Afrikaans


Dublin - When Victor Matfield realised at the second lineout of the match that Irish lock, Paul O'Connell, was counting with him in Afrikaans, he could not believe it.

And, he admits, it had the Springboks baffled for a while.

"It was a bad day for us," Matfield said after one of the Boks poorest performances to date in the lineouts. Lineouts have always been one of the Boks' strengths.

"After the second lineout we discovered that Gert (Smal) had to have given the Irish some Afrikaans lessons, because they could read the calls. We tried to change things thereafter, which did not work either. In the second half, it went slightly better, but this was the worst lineout contest I have ever had in my life," said Matfield after his team lost 10-15 to Ireland.

Smal had been involved in South African rugby for the last decade before he was snatched up to become Ireland's forwards coach. This has come back to bite the Boks' heels rather unexpectedly.

"Gert knows our lineouts very well, but we thought that we could get away from that with Afrikaans calls," said Matfield.

"Our own ball was shocking. There is nothing that we can say, but it does not happen everyday. We will have to ascertain where things went wrong."

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Personally I think this is a very lame excuse for their performances recently.

I think they should just accept that their performance was bad and that there is no valid excuse like the Irish knew their calls in the lineouts.

In Provincial rugby in SA, everybody knows the languages used in the lineouts, and then they don't offer lame excuses like this when the lose.

Fact is, maybe Victor Mattfield and Bakkie Botha's time is over? Maybe they are too old now?

Don't get me wrong. I love these two guys and I think they are awesome on more than one level, but their seems to be something missing.