In typeface you lost it, the Bulls met the Carter-less Crusaders in Timaru and were completely destroyed. And it wasn`t because the Bulls weren`t interested.
They arrived pumped and prepare to remove heads because they wanted to get the team whose exciting play made headlines about the rugby world when it defeated the Sharks at Twickenham. But they didn`t even get close.
No sniping try from du Preez, no scything five-pointer from Kirchner, no try-saving tackle from Spies, not yet three points from Moyne Steyn. And, most surprisingly, Matfield was beaten in the lineouts by the veteran, Chris Jack.
Given the force of the teams the back could be viewed as a mini-rehearsal for the Tri Nations. If so, leave the ABs slaughter the Boks or will the Boks come up with a workable game plan? They sure didn`t get one on display at Timaru.
Everybody in the park knew that the Bulls had their instructions: stop Sonny Bill or he`ll rip through the air exactly as he did at Twickenham.
So what happened? Less than 15 minutes in, Sonny Bill Williams sprints through on a large weight and scores. And the way he went past Olivier, who had a nightmare game, was about a carbon copy of the way he went past Bosman at Twickers.
As the game progressed, the Bulls started to get ornery - partly because they were disturbed by Jonathon White who pinged them again and again, and partially because their scrum, with their heavy front row, monster locks and big No. 8, failed to fire.
And merely to spoon the ice off the coat the Bulls repeatedly spilt the globe in the tackle.
Why did this happen? Why didn`t two of the best teams in Super Rugby each score two or three tries apiece with the last score influenced by a penalty goal or a missed conversion?
Could it have been because of the NZQ - the New Zealand Quotient?
It`s axiomatic that every team enjoys an advantage playing at home, but some places are harder for visiting teams to win at than others. And the Bulls, who are exploited to performing at sunny Loftus Versfeld, capacity 52,000, had to meet a nighttime game on a moist field at Timaru`s AE stadium, capacity 12,000.
A small bowl with the hometown crowd close to the process is always intimidating for visitors, but when it`s placed in NZ it`s still more so.
It`s a long, long haul for a South African team, and for a squad from any of the Six Nations it must look like interplanetary travel by the sentence they reach NZ.
This is another reason why the All Blacks have to be favoured for the RWC. Even though they`re not immaculate playing at home - since 2004 the ABs have lost once to the Boks in NZ, once to France in NZ, and formerly to the Wallabies (2003) in NZ - just about anywhere they bring in the Shaky Isles (except Carisbrook) is an unbreachable fortress.
It`s a little like the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 when the Russian fleet steamed 33,000 kms to the Tsushima Strait while the Japanese simply waited for them to get then blew them out of the water.
NZ is the All Blacks` playground. It`s their park, their ball, their weather, their crowd. And yet though it won`t be their ref follow the Rugby World Cup, they`ll still make all the other advantages.
And another advantages is the aforementioned Sonny Bill Williams. After watching a picture of the game Deans and de Villiers must certainly know that when they go into the Tri-Nations, curtains raiser to the RWC, they`re leaving to give to organize a demurrer to catch him, much as the Boks did to stop Jonah in the Rugby World Cup in South Africa.
And that leads me to believe, in the Wallabies` case, that JOC won`t be playing opposite Sonny Bill. Mortlock will.
Incidentally, if Sonny Bill Williams had had to have another yard he wouldn`t have scored that try against the Bulls because he was cut down right round the sprigs by a copybook tackle. But that tackle was made by a player flying across the area in cover not question on. SBW can be stopped.
But aside from playing outside Carter, he`ll always make an inch in the WRC - he`ll be acting in NZ. And so leave the remainder of the All Blacks.
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