Good, bad and ugly: Dawn Dunn
Until Friday, no SA team has won overseas in Super Rugby since last year. There was quite a bit of smirking and the Rebels, in their minds, had already won.
The Bad
I think that the boys need to be very careful and stop relying on Steyn and his massive boot to get them out of trouble. We need to score more tries and that needs to be the focus moving forward. We also need to watch the handling errors.
The Crazy Ugly!
Referee Andrew Lees had an absolute shocker! I cannot believe that at his level, he made the errors that he did. The deliberate knock-on by the Rebels player should have been yellow carded. This is the minimum that should have been done. He went against the TMO decision and he needs his eyes checked. He insisted that Mvovo would not have scored a try in spite of the fact that he was reaching for the ball with no-one in front of him. If the Rebels player had not knocked the ball forward deliberately he would have scored a try! It just boggles my mind that rubbish decisions like this can be made and there are no consequences for the idiot ref. Brian Habana got a yellow card for doing the very same thing against the Scots last year in SA.
There was a very dangerous tackle on Keegan Daniels that was totally unacceptable. Once again, this was overlooked by Lees. Then, Lees issues a warning to Bismarck for repeated infringements at the breakdown. Bizzie requests permission to speak to the boys. Rebels take a quick tap while Bizzie is still talking and Rebels score in the corner compliments of the referee. I immediately, together with the rest of SA had a flashback of referee Paul Honiss’s blunder that allowed a crucial try against the Boks by Ireland in 2004. Two SA refs have already been dropped for Super Rugby this year due to inconsistent performances and I am going to insist that Andrew Lees follow them. Andrew Lees made no attempt at being unbiased. His decision-making, went from rotten to shocking!
The Super sport team, including David Campese (ex- Wallaby wing), all had a detailed discussion on how terrible Lees was. #Gatvol #FireAndrewLees
The Good
We won! The Sharks, (Bless their cotton picking socks), are the first and only team to win down under! I am so very proud of the boys for putting their bodies on the line, overlooking some really horrible refereeing decisions and winning in spite of this! The try scored by Pietersen, off a beauty of a pass by Mvovo, was awesome. Deysel and Alberts put in some big hits. We were absolutely resolute in defence. The boys can be proud of this very special win. Onwards and upwards baby boys!
(File photo:Gallo Images)