NZ laments sickly lineout
2009-09-14 14:21
Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – What’s the best New Zealand joke doing the rounds? That country’s lineout may well top the pile at present.
It has been the key area of ridicule in a generally scathing domestic reaction to the All Blacks’ third consecutive defeat of the year to the Springboks at Hamilton on Saturday.
Local media certainly latched onto the lineout as a critical source of woe, suggesting the department will need a massive post-mortem and rethink if New Zealand are to be contenders at their own World Cup party in 2011.
Forwards coach Steve Hansen was predictably pilloried over its repeated failings in 2009 against Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha and company.
Richard Knowler of The Press scoffed at Hansen’s post-game assertion that “human error” could be blamed to a large degree.
“The lineout is Hansen’s baby and when it crumbles, he must carry the can.”
Toby Robson of The Dominion Post wrote: “Hooker Andrew Hore was like a golfer with the yips in Hamilton, worried as much about the tap-in as the 30-footer.
“For all (lock) Isaac Ross’s promise, the All Blacks are badly missing a senior lineout specialist like the injured Ali Williams.”
Wynne Gray of the New Zealand Herald national daily charged that the lineout was the “ugliest component” of the All Black armoury.
“Sure, they were up against the world’s best but waiting 30 minutes to claim, ironically, their first collect from a Bok overthrow, was a handbrake on any continuity.”
Outspoken columnist Chris Rattue, in the same paper, said: “It’s hard to know how Steve Hansen can keep his job when he has produced a lineout that couldn’t catch a cold in an epidemic.”
Describing the Boks as “worthy champs” and the home side as “embarrassing chumps”, he was also generous in his praise for captain John Smit.
“Smit was inspirational – including a wonderful hit on Brad Thorn – although it is probably inevitable that his tighthead scrummaging will remain erratic; that he will tire at times having returned to the position late in his career.
“Smit will go down as a colossus of world rugby, in the pantheon with the likes of Martin Johnson and John Eales.
“The All Blacks are simply going down: man for man, this is (their) worst side of the professional era.”