Monday, 21 May 2007

Composure

I went to a friend's place to watch the Super 14 Final on Saturday night - Durban Sharks vs Pretoria Bulls. Outside of our occasional chats on rugby, for years Nick has talked up his ability to cook ribs. Now was the time to put him to the test. Nick was obviously feeling the heat -- he pulled out every excuse in the book on why the ribs might not turn out perfect, from issues with his oven, down to why supporting side dishes might fail the grade (very creative).

Nick has always boasted about the quality of his "dry rub"; for those who think I'm getting a little dirty at this point, if you look at the east coast of the US, rib cookers are divided into two distinct religions -- those who marinate/baste the ribs in sauces, and the other who marinate with mixed salts, powders and other seasonings.

After removing the ribs from the oven I started to understand the gravity of pressure around this situation -- peeling back the foil, I immediately exclaimed "sauce?!" Nick replied "both!" (Heathen!) I am assuming this highly unorthodox approach was taken due to a shortened time for marinating, and while I wouldn't generally recommend it, had good results. Nick was off the hook -- his ribs (as well as side dishes, dessert and wine) were excellent.

As for the game, I think the Kiwi ref Steve Walsh made some awful mistakes in terms of not giving Habana a yellow in the first minute for assaulting Percy dangerously in the air (any test match, and he would have been off immediately), and the supporting Kiwi ref crew missed several knock ons and forward passes. But that really summarises how inconsistent the ref'ing has been this season. Otherwise, a very good game with some terrific crowd support in ABSA stadium (Durban). (The best crowd I've seen at a Super final in years I think).

The Sharks were very much the better team throughout the match, but in injury time they started to look disorganised. Unlike Nick, the Sharks completely lost their composure towards the end, with a soft try by Habana in the 83rd minute. The Bulls admitted the Sharks looking better for most of the game, with their captain Victor Matfield saying "You outplayed us for 79 minutes", as he received the trophy.

I think it was a great final, but with the current controversy over Springbok selections at the moment (basically politicians and the union clearly overriding the coach's choices) it will probably only be a temporary distraction to the usual chaos in South African rugby.

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