An Open Letter from Jacques Nienaber (and Michael Cheika)
The Springbok (and Puma) coaches give Dave Rennie a piece of their minds after New Zealand snatched another Rugby Championship
Dear Dave,
Hi, this is Jacques from the Springboks. Rassie says hi.
(And this is Michael from the Pumas. You know, the bloke whose job you took over after RWC 2019?)
Ja, so the thing is this, Dave. We’d really appreciate it if you guys would stop shipping points to the All Blacks. I mean all kinds of points. Points for winning, bonus points, points on the field…all of it. Because the way it is now, you’re making our lives hard!
Photo source: @springboks on Twitter
I mean, just look at this latest Rugby Championship. We put a decent campaign together. No, really. We won four out of six. We split the games with New Zealand and also with you okes.
(Mind out, we split our games with New Zealand and your fellas too, mate. Vamos Pumas!)
We had faith in you this time around. It was such an open tournament this year, after all. So even after you lost the first Bledisloe Cup game in Melbourne – because you’re always too busy looking for ways to gain a sneaky advantage and finally got called for it – we weren’t too worried. We didn’t expect you to win in Auckland, but was it too much to ask for you to at least run them close? To stop them getting a bonus point?
Letting them put 26 points on you…ag, that just gave us an impossible task in Durban, hey? A shame for the fans there. And even for the neutrals who wanted a real showdown to the best tournament ever. A game where one team is chasing a win, a load of tries and a big points difference all at the same time is such a weird thing to manage. It’s not usually a nice game, in the end. But we keep on having to play games like this, every year, because you Wallabies always leak a whole stack of points to New Zealand. So come on, man!
This year was just a big tease. You used to get these big Bledisloe losses out of the way early, so we already knew from the start that we had a mountain to climb. Chasing a winning bonus point against the AB’s in the Ellis Park finale, that kind of thing. This time, we had to wait for the last round to watch our hopes leaking away with every try you guys gifted them.
We thought it would be different if you played them at the end. You’d have some wins under your belt and you’d know your lines. Plus, you came from Melbourne with the knowledge you were actually good enough to beat the Kiwis AND (supposedly) a major score to settle. But it was the same deal for us in the end.
You have noticed that everyone else is beating New Zealand these days, right? Ireland’s just won a series over there. We’ve been splitting our games with them for a few years now. France got them in Paris last year. Even Argentina beat them!
(Twice in the space of a couple of years, actually! If you don’t mind!)
Going over there and winning is not that big a deal anymore. Or at least not getting hammered and not gifting them a bonus point. Especially when you are their nearest neighbour. Other people fly across the planet and win there.
(We won in Christchurch, Dave. Christchurch!)
You guys don’t even need a visa, but when you’re in New Zealand you always make it look like somebody’s asked you to play on Mars. What’s that all about? What’s so scary about Auckland, anyway? Maybe cut out the Once Were Warriors screenings on the plane?
If you want tips on how the Wallabies can challenge the All Blacks, feel free to call me.
(Yeah…ahem…call Jacques…)
Because I feel like I’m wasting my time in the Rugby Championship. It’s a hard one to win. Harder than the World Cup, if you ask me. Get a good draw in the World Cup and you might only need to win two or three games against champion-material rugby countries. But winning all six games in this company, with big travel included? It’s a massive ask – especially with Michael’s guys coming along like they have.
Even New Zealand rarely manage a clean sweep: this year they won four out of six, exactly like us. The only big difference is they tend to steamroller you guys while nobody else does, and take the title on points difference or the bonus points you keep slipping them.
What I’m saying is, no team is likely to win all its games in the Rugby Championship. We all have our ups and downs. Realistically, you need a bit of help from the others if you want to win the tournament. But you never help us. NEVER! It’s as though you’re a New Zealander or something!
So can you maybe just give us a crumb, you know? It might even have been okay to get hammered in Auckland if you’d managed to close out that game in Melbourne. Jislaaik, now that would have made the log table interesting. Here’s the table just before you get awarded that penalty under your own posts in Melbourne:
Now, let’s say Foley kicked it out on time, and you won with New Zealand getting a losing bonus point. The result in Buenos Aires stays the same, and I’ll let you keep your landslide loss in Auckland because, hey, like I said, everyone has their bad days. Here’s how the log would have looked going into the last game in Durban:
(Sorry it’s not so pretty as the first one, but this one never existed on the Internet for me to screenshot, obviously. And I’ve got better things to do than make fancy graphics. Rassie needs some help with a Twitter video, for a start.)
New Zealand P6 W3 BP4 Pts 16
South Africa P5 W3 BP2 Pts 14
Australia P6 W3 BP1 Pts 13
Argentina P5 W2 BP1 Pts 9
You see what would have happened? Points difference wouldn’t have mattered! All we would have needed was a win! Plain and simple!
(Hey, and my Pumas could have had a shot at second place on the table! Our best ever! Hadn’t thought about it like that! Mate, come ON! Sort your boys out!)
You could have lost by a thousand in Auckland and we wouldn’t have cared. But ONLY if you had won in Melbourne. That’s what I mean when I say you must just give us a crumb when you play the All Blacks. Take some points off them SOMEWHERE along the line.
You manage to beat us often enough. And we beat New Zealand often enough too. So logic says you shouldn’t have forgotten what the Bledisloe Cup looks like, right? Sort it out, please.
I know you can lift your game when you want to, because you played some great rugby in Melbourne. That was a Bledisloe Cup classic. Very exciting. Mikey and I are hoping most of your home Bledisloe games will be like that going forward. Just, you know, with a slightly different ending. That, or don’t roll over and die in the other game. Either one is fine by me.
Lastly – and I hate to be the one to tell you this – but you guys aren’t very popular at the moment. People think you’re a bunch of cynical, diving, ref-milking, glorified soccer players. If this tournament was won on yellow cards, you’d have been champions. No, serious, you topped the table there with nine of them! (Okay, we were only one yellow behind you, but the one Nic White milked for Faf doesn’t count, so make that two.) And only Argentina’s penalty-fest in Durban stopped you taking the honours on that front, too.
(Next year that one’s all yours, mate! We lost our cool at the start and the end of the tournament, but we’re getting ever closer to stringing six cleanish games together. Watch us!)
If you need some help with DISCIPLINE, I could talk to some of our elite schools in South Africa? I’m not sure what school is like in Randwick or wherever, but Australia is a nanny state so I guess they hand out nappies? No worries, I know some senior teachers at Affies, Paul Roos and Grey. I’m sure they could find a place for some of your squad for a few weeks. They will very quickly learn why respect for the referee comes naturally to our boys…
Then you can go out and win back some credibility with refs and fans alike. People will like you again! More importantly, if you can cut out playing with 14 men half the time, you might just give the All Blacks a run for their money over two games.
And if you can manage that next year, Rassie promises to have you over for a massive braai! No, not one of those Aussie gas things, man! Hot coals and a whole animal on the spit!
(And Agustin will be happy to rustle up some choice steaks for the asado next time you’re over, yeah?)
Do we have a deal?
Cheers, Jacque
(See ya mate, Michael)
**Just in case there are any lawyers around who cannot appreciate creative texts, let me make it clear that this is a fantasy piece written by me, and none of the rugby coaches mentioned have anything to do with it.**
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