Summing up
… unlike breaking up, is easy to do. The Springboks have won Pool B and they wrapped it all up with a 10-try trot past a weakened USA team. The USA will regroup and regather and look to spoil Japan’s World Cup in the final pool game, at Gloucester in only four days’ time.
South Africa will regroup and regather and get ready – I predict, confidently – to squash Wales in the quarter-finals.
Samu Manoa is interviewed: “We played well in the first half, we just had to play well in the second half.”
Fair point.
My last point about 1991 and all that comes via a reader, Ryan Day:
Speaking of the ‘91 World Cup, I did some writing for a small American-based rugby site: http://www.rugbywrapup.com. I started a project to review every American World Cup game in history. I got through the Ireland-USA match from 1999, but one game I could not find the video for was the England-USA group stage match from 1991. If anyone can provide video location, that’d be great. (Sample article.)
Here’s 18 minutes of it, with a brief snatch of Drop the Dead Donkey – apt, in England’s current circs? – before it:
And with that, I’m off.
Try! Mvovo (80) South Africa 64-0 USA
78 mins: A penalty to the Eagles – blessed relief – for a high tackle from Etzebeth. The Eagles clear the ball for one last lineout, which they win, and they go wide and lose the ball in a big tackle on Blaine Scully. The Boks break but there’s a knock-on so Habana doesn’t get his fourth, again.
That’s the clock gone to 80, so this will be the last scrum of the game for the US pack to endure. They get it out and go wide for Thompson to make some ground, cheered on by the crowd, then Shalom Suniula tries to take on a couple of back-rowers. That doesn’t work but Taufete’e makes a great break and the Eagles go forward to look for a consolation.
…and the ball goes down, and Mvovo pounces on it and kicks through twice and picks it up and dots it down for try No10. That’s just how it happens…even when he might not have grounded it, but the TMO gives it.
Steyn with the conversion: he gets it and the USA suffer their biggest defeat in World Cup history.
Updated
76 mins: the Boks march a scrum forward a bit, for something to do, and Chris Wyles gathers the subsequent kick and kicks it back. Brett Thompson then recovers very well from a kick through to the line, and Niku Kruger gets the clearing kick away. The game is now creeping towards a very welcome conclusion.
75 mins: Only five more minutes of this for the USA – and those of us watching – to endure. The Eagles get up after the kick-off… but knock it on.
Try! Kriel (73) South Africa 57-0 USA
72 mins: Joseph Taufete’e is on for the USA, one more front-rower to have a go at stemming the flow. Jesse Kriel streaks straight through for another try – the Eagles defender, Phil Thiel, seeming to slip. Steyn misses the conversion.
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71 mins: The USA have been forced to bring a hooker, Zach Fenoglio, on for a second-row forward, Matt Trouville, which just goes to show that in this kind of game the team on the end of it rarely gets a break. There are holes everywhere now in a US defence that was very tight in the first 40.
Try! Louw (68) South Africa 52-0 USA
68 mins: South Africa lineout five metres out… driven over for another try from Francois Louw. Conversion from Steyn is missed.
Updated
66 mins: The penalty is kicked deep into the USA 22, and the driving maul is driven very forcefully… and Habana misses out on his fourth try by diving for the kick through but missing the ball.
63 mins: Hmmm. This is getting a tad… repetitive. Maybe cosmic or karmic retribution for all that balls about Otley and 1991 at the start of the blog.
Matekitonga Moeakiola fact, as promised: when he scored a try against England in Lens in the 2007 event, he was playing for a Utah club named the Park City Haggis. There is a lot of good rugby in Utah, and at some point I intend to write about why that should be.
In the meantime, we have some USA ball and a penalty to the Eagles in midfield, in front of the posts. Shalom Suniula puts it to touch… no he doesn’t, and Mvovo kicks it clear. Zack Test then loses the ball in contact.
And a penalty to South Africa for a high tackle.
Try! Habana (60) South Africa 47-0 USA
60 mins: Here come the Boks again, Vermeulen travelling through the middle with absolute ease, and that is a very odd hat-trick try for Habana – the ball was held up in a maul, it bobbled out on the US side and Habana caught it to score. Turns out Cam Dolan ripped it out, very well, but that counted as a backwards pass from the US and so there you are. Conversion from Steyn is good.
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Try! Habana (59) South Africa 40-0 USA
57 mins: The Boks mount another attack which ends when Kriel misses Habana with a simple pass that would’ve been for the try. Danny Barrett is off, for the Eagles, for Al McFarland. Phil Thiel is staying on, despite some blood.
Here’s an interview with Thiel, who is a good sort and an old-fashioned kind of player in the sense of the jobs he’s done to stay playing the game.
Here comes another USA sub, and it’s Matekitonga Moeakiola.
More of him in a minute because Bryan Habana has just steamed off De Allende for another try. The conversion is good for 40-0.
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55 mins: We are about to see a number of South African replacements. Before we do the USA backs try something but all it is is a little mini-raid right which ends with Shalom Suniula stabbing a kick into touch.
And here come the Bok replacements, including Schalk Brits and Morne Steyn which is just being a bit cruel to the Americans, really.
54 mins: Pollard with the conversion, which he gets this time, and that’s 33-0 to South Africa and the USA looking down the barrel at a big defeat. It’s more that they’re being ground slowly into the, well, ground, than cut to ribbons by superior back line play. But this is South Africa, so…
Mvovo breaks and Alberts takes it on and then De Allende drops it and there’s a little noise of surprise from the crowd, who are now decidedly becalmed.
Try! Louw (52) South Africa 31-0 USA
51 mins: Habana takes the ball short and makes some yards, as the flow of the game becomes decidedly one-way. John Quill then fails to roll away and the Boks kick the penalty to the corner.
Inevitable rolling maul try follows.
50 mins: South Africa go back to the air and Zack Test can’t collect it.
Meanwhile, Jason Campbell writes:
17:42 “Another suggestion that if teams like the Eagles could only get some more practice in games like this between World Cups, and thus spend more time together, world rugby would become a more interesting and competitive place much more quickly”
I have a suggestion to facilitate this, the USA should just accept it should have never left the British Empire and become the 5th country of the UK, and they can then play with the grown-ups more often, and probably win more wars as well.
Sensible policies for a happier world.
48 mins: That was the bonus-point try for the Boks, although Pollard missed the conversion so it’s still 26-0. The USA react by replacing Manoa with Cam Dolan, who is a very good player but not Samu Manoa. Burger goes off for SA, to be replaced by the equally slablike Willem Alberts, so the Boks are going to continue bringing the hurt. Obviously.
Try! Du Plessis (46) South Africa 26-0 USA
46 mins: the Springboks choose, surprise surprise, the scrum. And from that scrum, Vermeulen nearly makes it and then Bismarck du Plessis does.
Updated
45 mins: Niku Kruger has lost his boot. From the lineout Burger makes the bust and offloads to De Allende, then it’s into the close-quarters stuff. Danny Barrett makes a big hit, probably from an offside position, and yes, we have the penalty.
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44 mins: Now we have some back-and-forth kick tennis, rather reminiscent of the hole the game found itself in a few years ago, since when people seem to have recovered the lost art of running the ball.
42 mins: the kick is good from Pollard and it’s 21-0.
Updated
Try! Habana (41) South Africa 19-0 USA
41 mins: Shalom Suniula clears from the kick-off and we have a Springbok lineout around the USA 10m line. They lose it forward and the Eagles go short, and the turnover follows, a short kick from du Preez and Habana is over for the easy try. Was he in front of the kicker, though? It’s TMO time, yet again.
The answer seems to be yes he was, but it also seems to be maybe he wasn’t, and maybe he was level. And it’s all distinctly boring, and the answer is it’s 50-50 so the try is given.
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Samu Manoa is grinning his head off, as Handre Pollard prepares to restart. A lot of tackling, a pack up against it but mixing it up: he loves this.
The teams are back out now, with no apparent changes made.
This:
@MartinPengelly Fiji critically lost Nemani Nadolo for Wales clash for a tackle a la Burger's. Wonder what the judiciary will say now?
— Alexander R Bisley (@alexanderbisley) October 7, 2015
Chris Taylor found a picture of a Springbok showing its bottom to an Eagle.
Half-time 1991 nostalgia-fest… it’s Micky Skinner’s tackle against France in the Paris quarter-final.
This video brought to you by the past being a better place to live when you’re English.
1991: When Giants Roamed The Land. Where is France No8 Marc Cecillon now, you ask? Not, it must be said, in such a good place.
Half-time analysis
South Africa have been direct and physical – as they usually are – and they have not been particularly good – as they have not been throughout this tournament so far.
The USA have tackled everything that’s moved – as they do – and have struggled in the scrum – as they have tended to do this year.
All that said, the US have applied pressure to the South Africans and have tackled superbly well and they have had their share of the ball. Another suggestion that if teams like the Eagles could only get some more practice in games like this between World Cups, and thus spend more time together, world rugby would become a more interesting and competitive place much more quickly.
This:
@MartinPengelly Burger down like a sack of spuds. Just missing the 10oz coke for a maxi menu. Didn't you have breakfast?
— Rorty Dog (@RortyDog) October 7, 2015
I’ve mostly been drinking the super-black Imperial Angst coffee. Hence all the rubbish about 1991 before kick-off.
Half-time: South Africa 14-0 USA
40 mins: They kick to the corner and Thiel has the ball to throw in. Taken by Stanfill, Manoa carries in midfield, Thiel scrambles on, they go short again, and again with Niua, and again with Stanfill… and Bismarck du Plessis, unsinkable – thank you - while over the ball, wins the clearing penalty. Half-time.
38 mins: Scrum again. No purchase for the Boks so Vermeulen goes, then Bismark du Plessis rolls and surges, and then Vermeulen loses hold of it. Tap and go and an interception from Blaine Scully, to halfway, he’s held up but the Eagles swarm forward… and it slows down with Phil Thiel. Eagles penalty to end the half, though.
35 mins: More short-range bash and crash from the Boks to no effect, a couple of turnovers and a good tackle out wide from Zack Test – he of the need of a pun. Out wide go the Boks again and le Roux breaks and passes to Mvovo. It looked forward. No matter – Brett Thompson off his feet, playing the ball. Mvovo has stayed down. Thompson hit him, got up and went for the ball… then lost his footing. Shame.
34 mins: Manoa makes some ground but then Shalom Suniula kicks it away and le Roux mops it up. Habana chases South Africa’s high ball and collects it, but Brett Thompson mops up the next kick with ease.
32 mins: another scrum goes backwards for the US and le Roux and Mvovo threaten out wide, but the penalty at the breakdown this time goes to the Americans.
Was that James Bond composer John Barry tweeting about high-ball penalties? From beyond the grave? It might’ve been. You only live twice, after all.
In dubious taste, I thank you.
30 mins: A mess o’lineouts up on the USA’s right-hand touchline. Some smack and crack around the ruck leads to referee Gauzère getting one in the mush. He seems OK.
Meanwhile:
@MartinPengelly How was Habana less guilty than Jared Payne against Saracens when he got a red card?
— John Barry (@johnjbarry) October 7, 2015
Haban wasn’t guilty of anything – nor was Scully. So the refs got it right, but recently they’ve been getting it wrong.
29 mins: Pollard converts and it’s 14-0. USA coach Mike Tolkin looks… concerned, as well he might.
Updated
Try! Penalty (27) South Africa 12-0 USA
27 mins: Scrum again. A drive, another penalty for collapsing, the advantage goes nowhere and a penalty try is given. Hey-ho.
Updated
26 mins: Habana and Scully come back, which is Good To See. Boks choose another scrum, which is Grim To See for the Eagles. Kilifi goes down this time, so it’s another penalty, and you’d think it’ll be another scrum. “Talk to your front row,” says referee Gauzère, so Manoa does.
“Pep it up a bit chaps,” he says. Probably. That’s how they talk in San Francisco, I’m told.
25 mins: It’s almost De Allende, it’s almost Etzebeth, but in the end it’s only a penalty for what seems to have been pulling the scrum down, by Chris Baumann.
25 mins: Five-metre scrum for South Africa, which you’d have to expect will result in a second try of the game.
22 mins: Bryan Habana is being called off to be checked for concussion, by the looks of it, after that collision with Blaine Scully. Sensible. The USA are sending on Chris Wyles, usually their captain, for Scully for the same reason.
The Eagles go wide, and get nowhere, and the other way and ditto. And then a turnover, Matt Trouville simply having the ball stripped from him in the tackle. The break from Pollard and a fine tackle from Brett Thompson, but the Boks down on the US line now for a bit of smash.
Jesse Kriel very close with a step and a plunge but it looks like the Eagles have stemmed him with a hand under the ball. It’s “try yes or no time”, which I think we can all agree is one of the least edifying phrases of this tournament.
It doesn’t look like a try. Niku Kruger stopped it – decent effort.
Meanwhile:
@MartinPengelly Best name? Samu Manoa, albeit only when he was playing against Manu Samoa
— Dan Lucas (@DanLucas86) October 7, 2015
Scrum five for SA.
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21 mins: Big South African scrum but the Eagles hold on to it and eventually draw a penalty at the ruck, against Duane Vermeulen, the Springbok No8 who I was about to describe as “big” but that’s kind of a given, right?
Shalom Suniula clears to halfway for the lineout.
20 mins: Some back and forth and then a high ball which Habana and Scully go for and they come down in a heap. Scully landed on his head from a way up – completely accidental, both players going only for the ball. A Romanian was yellow-carded for less yesterday… but both up and running again now. TMO says it was “just unfortunate”, which it was, but so was the Romanian one which wasn’t remotely so frightening.
Updated
19 mins: Attention for Burger – he got Manoa’s knee in there completely by accident. And Burger’s up and moving.
17 mins: Manoa picks from a retreating scrum and is quickly enveloped; Willie le Roux drops the resultant high ball and Blaine Scully – once of Leicester, soon of Cardiff – takes a kick for a mark with ease.
To a lineout for SA it goes, and Schalk Burger drops a flat ball and goes down like a sack of spuds, holding on to his shoulder.
15 min: Kruger hits the post, the Eagles have left six points out there now and then they drive a maul and do OK but draw a penalty against them.
@MartinPengelly a) Name me a better surname for a lock forward than “Swords”. HORNS
— Rorty Dog (@RortyDog) October 7, 2015
Ominous driving maul follows from the Boks.
12 min: Decent attack built by the US and they gain an advantage for Etzebeth not rolling away. This should be 7-3.
10 min: Another scrum, Eagles feed. And a penalty against Tendai Mtawarira for pulling it down.
Meanwhile…
@MartinPengelly Can't think of a killer pun for USA's No.11 but there must be one.
— Hugh Godwin (@hughgodwin_) October 7, 2015
9 min: Manoa takes a short ball and is greeted by three South Africans who take him up, back and down. Back go the Eagles.
Conversion: SA 7-0
7 min: the Eagles have mixed it well but then the game broke up and so did their shape. Easy conversion for Handre Pollard.
Try! South Africa (De Allende 4) South Africa 5-0 USA
4 min: Ominous for the USA – the Boks drive the scrum and get a lot of purchase against Chris Baumann, who has what might be an ironic moustache but good for him if it isn’t. The Boks kick the penalty out for the lineout.
De Jager, all 6ft 9in of him, takes it and the drive comes on. It’s well met by the Eagles pack but it goes and SA then go wide. Andrew Suniula with the turnover off a Brett Thompson turnover, but the kick out was from outside the 22.
Another lineout drive follows from the Boks, Francois Louw at the back, Stanfill offside, a tap and go and some scrappy play and Damien De Allende strolls through some poor defence to score.
Updated
3 min: USA back on the ball, some solid drives and hits and a knock on by Olive Kilifi, one of the many Seattle Saracens in the Eagles team.
3 min: The Eagles will have a shot at goal, through the centre Folau Niua. You have to say Burger likely didn’t get carded for that because of who he is – reputation preceding him, though, he might have had 10 minutes for a think. Niua just short with the long-range shot.
2 min: Suniula returns du Preez’s clearance and the Eagles start off running. The green wall greets him and brother Andrew and everyone else. First penalty, though, is for a Springbok off his feet. Also a pretty brutal choke tackle by Schalk Burger on Shalom Suniula… throwing him down by the neck. It’s a penalty but nothing more from Pascal Gauzère, and we’ve seen cards for much, much less than that in this tournament.
Updated
1 min: And we’re off! The USA kick off through No10 Shalom Suniula, brother of the centre Andrew Suniula. They’re from American Samoa. So is Jerome Kaino of New Zealand. Think of the potential…
The USA have an experienced bench but it is not as experienced as the SA bench. In some ways in games like this, the “tier two” nation just cannot win.
Start Me Up plays. Kenzie says:
@MartinPengelly Otley > everywhere but Bradford
— James Mackenzie (@Kenzie1975) October 7, 2015
Kenzie is WRONG.
Go easy on us, Martin. https://t.co/VXQV2iI5CC
— Richard Farley (@richardfarley) October 7, 2015
South Africa get first anthem. I have to say now, that after three years here I’m starting to find the US anthem rather stirring. Despite origins in the War of 1812 and etc. It’s former Maryland governor and 2016 Democratic presidential outsider Martin O’Malley’s favourite war, you know.
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I’ve just brewed some more of my special Imperial Angst-brand coffee, so this could yet get more baroque still.
Updated
Here they come… USA in all blue, Die Bokke in familiar dark green.
From Ryan Day:
Do you agree with most of “the growing American fanbase” online then that Petri whom you highlighted should’ve been dropped a few years ago? He makes some English scrum halves look like All Blacks in comparison with how slow his service is.
In a word, no. He’s had a strong World Cup, I’d say.
Teams on their way out now. Serious stuff about to begin.
I know this bloke too, from college. He has a point:
@MartinPengelly in 20 years time will you be banging on about the lower east side as you do about Otley? When did you move out from Otley
— James Mackenzie (@Kenzie1975) October 7, 2015
Last game 1999, Kenzie. Against, if I remember rightly and appropriately, Rugby.
Samu Manoa won the toss. Reports that he then ate the coin while staring meaningfully at Bok captain Fourie du Preez as yet unconfirmed.
Apropos the picture of Teague and the previous Uncle Monty quote, something about “vintage wine and memories”.
I shall now start to describe what’s actually happening in London.
Feck it – one more bit of pointless pre-game nostalgia.
How much can I go on about the 1991 Rugby World Cup in a blog of a game in 2015? Quite a bit. Here, for no reason other than blind and unquestioning love, is a picture of the England No8 Mike ‘Iron Mike’ Teague, as he is now:
Elegiac. I think.
One USA player to watch, among others, will be the second row Louis Stanfill. He’s experienced, he’s huge and he’s exuberant. Never mind an empty room, he could start an argument, if not a fight, in the box with Pavlov’s dog.
Last pre-game pointless nostalgia thing?
My mate Russell “Richie” Cunningham (@cunninghamshire, Twitter fans), formerly of this Guardian parish – I actually honestly typed “pariah” there first by mistake, which may be Freudian given Cunningham’s domicile/exile at the Torygraph, but we love him really – points us towards this:
It is a British Movietone rugby playlist, and though there is some rugby “league” in there I do not mind, for it is from the era when rugby “league” players too wore cotton, played with tan leather balls that grew heavier with moisture each minute, and did not know the meaning of an ironic hairstyle or facial accoutrement.
It is, then, from the days when a beard was a beard or, more likely, a moustache was a moustache, and no one had invented cereal cafés. When men were men and rugby, rugby. Yes, even “league”.
With 15 minutes to go, here’s an email from Ian Johnston:
Afternoon Martin! (or morning if it still is with you)
How’s the World Cup been accepted by the Americans? Has it got good coverage? I ask this as a Brit who’s Wife has gone to watch the match today and who had to explain both the points scoring system and conversions to her this morning!!
World Cup not much noticed here by press or TV, but followed seriously and fanatically by the growing US rugby audience. Of which I am one. May I say without any impartiality whatsoever: “Go Eagles.”
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Now I can hear stadium announcer John Taylor, who used to do World Cup games for ITV and when he played for Wales in the 1970s looked like either the Wild Man of Borneo or my dad.
Meanwhile, the commentator on that Ngwenya try I linked to below was Nigel Starmer-Smith. And the Eagles’ last game is at Kingsholm, Gloucester. And they have been there before. And so here’s another thing that shows, conclusively, that Things Used To Be Better:
Points arising:
a) Name me a better surname for a lock forward than “Swords”.
b) The video starts at Otley. Cross Green, wooden temple to the gods of Yorkshire rugby – the endless mauls, the casual maimings, the trips to Wharfedale to play people who thought Colin Meads was a jessie for training with only one sheep under each arm. I played there as a colt and for the 2nd XV and I once dislocated my elbow right on the spot from which Ivan Francescato takes off for his famous try in the video above. Which was fun.
c) Nigel Melville, CEO of USA Rugby, played for and coached the Mighty Otley.
d) There’s a message here somewhere. It may well involve the fact that Things Used To Be Better, and in rugby, A Lot Of That Was Down To The Wearing Of Proper Cotton Shirts.
e) The merest whiff of Vaseline, by the by, and I get perfect Proustian recall of the day when I dislocated my elbow. I can feel the hit – my fullback tackled an Old Brodleian head-on while I got him from the side, leaving my arm in the middle of it all – see the trees at the river end spinning, sense the pins and needles in my entire left side and hear the voice that went through my head: “I’ve broken my arm.”
Actually I hadn’t, but it was definitely A Thing. After six weeks, I taped it up and played again at Wakefield, a club which no longer exists.
Old, now. There can, as noted rugby fan Uncle Monty had it, be no true beauty without decay.
Now we have a montage of fans of both teams, many in fancy dress, in super slo-mo to the score of a lone vuvuzela. Sort of like a video art installation for rugby fans. Might nick it and send it to MoMA.
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Here’s some of Eagles scrum-half Mike Petri’s latest Guardian column:
We need to finish the tournament strong. We are certainly down after two defeats, but we are not out. We are very much still mentally engaged in this tournament and we understand the meaning and importance of these next two games. If we can come third in the group we will not have to qualify for 2019 in Japan.
We intend to fight to the end and enjoy playing alongside each other and representing our country.
Did I also mention Mike has written a book for children that is called R is for Rugby? (Which it undoubtedly is). I probably did. The book is splendid, my girls love it and you can buy it here if you’re in the UK and here if you’re in the US.
S is for Springboks, the team in dark green, their forwards are mountains and their backs, cheetah-lean.
That’s my offering for the sequel based on today’s events: B is for Brave Defeat.
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Commentary team now discussing how to tell the difference between the two Springbok locks: Lood de Jager and Eben Etzebeth do indeed look remarkably similar, which is to say: utterly terrifying.
De Jager has green strapping on his legs, anyway.
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Said particularly attractive USA fan was female, by the way. It would still have been an awkward moment if it had been a chap.
Here’s a thing. I’m watching this on Universal Sports’ official streaming service. The stream shows the warm-ups, which is fascinating – Samu Manoa, captain of the USA today, looks particularly focused as he drills his troops.
But I’ve also got the commentators testing their links and talking to each other. And as the camera found a particularly attractive USA fan just now, one of said commentators was clearly heard to say: “Sod the seat number, what’s the phone number?”
This is a public feed so I don’t feel I’m publishing anything I shouldn’t. But this is a bit like when Prince Charles said something inappropriate about Nicholas Witchell or Bush said “Yo Blair!” to Tony.
I’ve also heard Nathan Sharpe predicting dire things for the Poms before The Game That Shall Not Be Mentioned, and some other stuff that was in Italian so escaped my pitiless notice. But still.
Awkward.
Apropos Paul Davis, Dom Gillan:
@RugbyPaul1976 @MartinPengelly I nominate Canada's John Moonlight
— Dom Gillan (@dom_gillan) October 7, 2015
Big fan of Brett Beukeboom, myself. Also Canada.
And then, back to the matter at hand, there’s South Africa. I’m sure I don’t mean any offence and none will be taken by any South Africans reading when I say their defeat by Japan in Brighton was an absolutely wonderful sporting spectacle that brought tears to the eyes, and one at that which couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of chaps except, yes, yes, England.
Anyway, it happened and it was astonishing and here are some highlights in French thanks to YouTube:
So there’s that. There’s also this team which Heyneke Meyer has picked and which evidently means to do the job that has become necessary thanks to that Japan defeat.
It is of course a job this team should do with minimal fuss, which usually means with the Springboks only the strictly necessary quota of smashing forward charges – all martial and no art as Eddie Izzard would have put it, only he’d have been slightly wrong as brutalism counts as an artistic style – and lightning direct back line raids, lightly salted with the stepping brilliance of the full-back Willie le Roux.
There’s also Bryan Habana and his 114 caps and Godzillian (bigger than a gazillion) tries, of course, but then again there’s also this, from when these two teams met in Montpellier, France in 2007:
Mike Tolkin hasn’t picked Taku Ngwenya for this one. He’s taking pity, see.
Speaking of Lood de Jager, look what Bryan Armen Graham – the man with The Beard, hipsters take note – found on the internet:
Of Bryan’s beard:
It’s a thing I can control even as control reveals itself as a illusion belying the the chaos underpinning a society increasingly defined by random spasms of violence.
And so, anyway, here we are. I think – if I understand the slightly arcane RWC pool rules (no splashing, petting, weeing in the shallow end) correctly, the Eagles could still make it to third place and thus not have to qualify for 2019, if they win here and beat Japan – which they did in Sacramento this summer – and Scotland lose to Samoa and Samoa don’t get a bonus point. Or something and I’m not going to check because make me.
More likely, a much-changed Eagles XV will be looking for a good performance, perhaps another step up on their other two games against the big three in the last year: the 74-6 defeat by New Zealand in Chicago in November, of which more here and here, and the 47-10 defeat by Australia, also at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears, in the run-up to this World Cup. More on that here and here.
Those changes have been made by coach Mike Tolkin with an eye on the Japan game at Gloucester that rounds out the pool stages. That is an excuse for me to tell you to look out, among others, for the South African-born scrum-half Niku Kruger, who relegates Guardian columnist Mike Petri to the bench for this one, and the wing Zack Test.
Test is a major star on the world sevens circuit who has, like centre Folau Niua, wing Brett Thompson and back-rower Danny Barrett, switched successfully to 15s. He used to be a wide receiver at the University of Oregon, so that ticks boxes for the usual British chat about “think what American rugby could be if it could only use some football (yes, football, remember where I am) players”. He and his fellows also show what the success of the USA’s sevens programme (never program, despite where I am and where coach Mike Friday is from, which is deepest London) might yet do for the US 15-man game.
Also, Canada. You think their impressive running game this World Cup wasn’t boosted by sevens players? It was. Not that it got them anywhere, but never mind.
Finally, re: Test, here’s a Guardian Small Talk interview in which he didn’t really see the “funny” side of it. Blame the chap asking the “questions”.
This from Paul “Piglet” Davis, ace Roundhay school and Moortown RUFC flanker of my fast-disappearing youth:
@MartinPengelly Can I nominate Lood de Jager as the best name in #RWC2015
— Paul (@RugbyPaul1976) October 7, 2015
You can, Paul.
Good morning – I’m writing that because I’m actually watching this in New York, where it’s a little before 11am, which is a bit odd but entirely apt in the circs, I’m sure you’ll all agree.
If not, good afternoon and welcome “to” the Olympic Stadium in London, where South Africa face the US Eagles needing a win to ensure a quarter-final place. If it helps, you can imagine me in that old Football Focus “virtual reality” studio – the one in which Gary Lineker sat inside a “soccer ball” (yes, soccer, remember where I am) and you could see odd blue blurry bits at his edges.
Anyway.
This just in from Garth Wakeford, who is both South African and tremendously tall and a tremendous chap, and who also lives here in New York. I promised him nostalgia for cotton shirts and proper balls and maybe some rugby too. He say:
@MartinPengelly @guardian_sport and some imperial angst thrown in...
— Garth Wakeford (@HamptonsRugby) October 7, 2015
He’s right, you know. Whatever else we talk about here before kick-off, we shall NOT be talking about England. Thank you.
Teams
South Africa: Willie Le Roux; Bryan Habana, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Lwazi Mvovo; Handre Pollard, Fourie Du Preez (capt); Tendai Mtawarira, Bismarck du Plessis, Frans Malherbe, Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager, Francois Louw, Schalk Burger, Duane Vermeulen
Replacements: Schalk Brits. Trevor Nyakane, Coenie Oosthuizen, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Willem Alberts, Rudy Paige, Morne Steyn, Jan Serfontein.
USA: Blaine Scully; Brett Thompson, Folau Niua, Andrew Suniula, Zach Test; Shalom Suniula, Niku Kruger; Oli Kilifi, Phil Thiel, Chris Baumann, Louis Stanfillm, Matthew Trouville, Danny Barrett, John Quill, Samu Manoa (capt).
Replacements: Joe Taufetee, Zach Fenoglio, Mate Moeakiola, Titi Lamositele, Cam Dolan, Al McFarland, Mike Petri, Chris Wyles.
Martin will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Michael Aylwin’s preview of today’s match.
To outside eyes their crisis may have been averted but within the South Africa camp the eyes remain cold with focus as they approach their final pool match against the USA. If they win, they will top the group; lose, and they may yet be out.
It is testament to the progress the less-established nations have made at this World Cup that we are careful to couch such a sentence with its full stock of conditionals. “The thing is,” said Bismarck du Plessis, who now seems restored as South Africa’s hooker, “the second tier nations are so much more competitive. Georgia, Samoa and Japan – where it used to be that for the first 10 or 20 minutes they’d be competitive, now they stick it out for 80 minutes. That’s a good thing for rugby. It means we’re growing the game that I love.”
It is a great thing for rugby but it does make life more harrowing for those who are used to a smooth progression to the quarter-finals. Bryan Habana is the most experienced player in South Africa’s team for Wednesday’s game at the Olympic Stadium, which will be his 114th Test, but he has never known anything like the pressure of the past fortnight.
