For the uninitiated, this post is dealing with issues relating to the game they say is played in Heaven, Rugby Union, with our New Zealand All Blacks defeating the Australian Wallabies 22-16 at Eden Park, Auckland, NZ. For more such details, read here.
Hands up who thinks they know which rugby player I am referring to?
I hasten to guess that many will be thinking of the present AB number 10, ‘duckie,’ Stephen Donald.
While the above header would also be relevant in this regard, such a statement would be a patently redundant reality. Although, let me say, Donald, not the Duck variety, while not having a quacking, I mean cracking display at the Garden of Eden, was able keep the moving parts of his game together, and while there was some turbulence at takeoff, early on in the first half, apart from these early kicking ‘wobblies,’ he was able to do the very thing that was ultimately needed, which was not capitulate on his biggest stage yet, thereby allowing the collateral strength of the All Black machine to grind onward to victory… Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
Now for the Bokke at Bloemfontein… Hey Bru!… and they have that Gaul to call Hamilton, “Hicksville,” on a certain Bokke blog… O for the love of a good braai, I would take ‘the Tron’ to ‘Cheetah-land’ any day [perceptions]… well, at least it would be a good battle of the boredom. However, that battle awaits some 6 days, then we rest.
Presently, I have some thoughts to break forth with… Better out the attic than the basement (to quote Jimmy Neutron’s dad), which relate to a certain player’s weak comparison to the Damn, he’s the Man, Carter!
The individual in the dock is one ‘kid dynamite,” Matt Git [head] eau.
For two years now we have had to put up with those ‘quiet, humble, and reticent to blow their own trumpet’ Aussies talking up their boy wonder in the #10 shirt as the Bledisloe battles were about to take off, beginning in 08, and recently, as they perceived weakness in the Black auto-bots, with their premature excitement matched by their messianic clamour that Giteau would lead them to the Promised Land… back to Eden, whereby such a time would affirm that Giteau had now reached, and even surpassed the Carter Pisgah-peak.
Therefore, I watched with interest if Giteau would mark this game with such effect that he would effectively maim the enemy with his play, thereby inflicting and afflicting the opposition, resulting in an Australian victory cry that the battle was long, but the battle was won!
Such possible dreaming went south as the night wore on and the Blacks came marching home!… Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
While there are three more opportunities for Giteau to even turn Thomas, Giteau, in my being-humbled opinion, does not have the repertoire to consistently throughout a given game, or over a long period of seasonal time, to seriously compete with the complete game of Southbridge’s own, Daniel Carter [up to this time anyway].
Let us digress on recent events that exemplify where the curve of Carter leaves Giteau in decline.
2008 – Brisbane… Wallabies vs All Blacks, with the Tri-Nations on the line. The game was of peak intensity, where the requirement for fallen men to do great things with a piece of mis-shapen leather [okay that comment is circa. the 1980's] was at its utmost, was also the place where Giteau could not handle the Carter repertoire of play and wilted on a Brisbane evening as Dan ran through him to seal another Bledisloe Belter for us elected to such a country with such a team, thereby underscoring his status as #10 exemplar!
However, such would not keep their natives quiet for too long.
Some twelve months later, with Dan working his finely tuned body [that's for the ladies] back into rugby working order from a short-circuited season with Perpignan, where they still won the Top 14 [Premier French Rugby Competition for the first time in 54 years], we have the call from Aussie, echoed by some even in NZ, that Giteau was now the number one five-eighth in the world.
Now surely this can not be based on Super 14 form where the Force started more like a farce, but pulled it together to have a solid, yet mostly unspectacular season, with young million dollar baby Giteau, also having a solid, but unspectacular season. Such a comment does not even take into account that Super 14 is hardly a sufficient context to form such a statement.
Therefore, since the end of last season, there have been three early season internationals that Giteau has played in [and one Barbarians match], and I believe he may have even missed [at least] one of these… these matches have generally been viewed as a poor attempt at Northern Hemisphere humour, as the teams they have generally sent have included various Neville nobodies and one-hit wonders… “better to be a has-been than a never-was,” affirms the aforementioned players. I will have you know that the Belfast Rugby Club [CH-CH] saw some of my finest work on the field of dreams!
However, this rugby year has been a little interesting as these national teams decided to do something different and send down near full strength teams, which we found out all too clearly as we were Rainbow Warriored again by the Frenchies in Dunedin. But these internationals are still the or-derv to the main course of Tri-Nations-come-Bledisloe matches that have prime of place in the Southern Hemisphere rugby calendar.
Yet, the refrain has come again that Matt Giteau has surpassed Dan Carter… and I have one word for such idiocy… Bollocks!
Here is why…
To be sure, Matt Giteau is a wonderfully talented rugby player, but he suffers some of the same diseases as one Carlos Spencer who could paint the opposition red, but would be found wanting when the intensity and occasion would require less enigma and more substance.
You see, the test of a sportsmen does not come when the game is easy and the opposition is light. It comes when the battle is at its toughest, when the occasion is prolific, and the expectations are at their utmost, and on such occasions, Dan Carter has what no other five-eighth in world rugby has, which is the ability to play a physically-stressing game that does not need space, time, or the beckoning of a systems error in the opposition to execute. Carter is able to perform on such occasions and create under such circumstances, which is why in such games [circa. Brisbane 08... running through Giteau for a vital try... and even in Sydney in a losing display, where he made Giteau look schoolboy-like, with even the Fox Sports guys noting his performance], Dan is able to… take the pressure down [come on sing it]… and do the business AB style.
Carter is hot enough for any kitchen, and has proved this over a number of years in the pivot position for the team that is black in colour and black for the opposition… don’t mention “grey”… bad memories.
I can play Pauline in Romans 9-11 and answer the interjector who will remind one of that “grey” day in Cardiff in the 07 World Cup. While the result can not be remedied, it must be remembered that Dan left the field with the calf injury ruining his/ our night, with Nick Evans ably stepping in, only to have the injury card used that would play the joker on a nation where each World Cup is an adventure on the dark side.
Before there is too much man-love going on, this is not to say that his game is perfect or that he is not prone to mistakes and periodic failure, but it is to say that his game is peerless, and to affirm the words about Michael Jordan… when total shots made were counted, it would affirm that Jordan had missed many more shots than he made… but what Jordan could do without peer was to get the ones that counted at the times that counted, which is why he was always fatal come fourth quarter… and in much the same, Carter has been able to perform come Gehenna or high water, his skill-set being such that it is not beset with a weakest link that the opposition is able to highlight, attack, and exploit, on the path to victory.
As we interact, Dan Carter’s achilles is near ship-shape, and he has already begun running, kicking and will soon begin contact [don't even go there ladies], with maybe a return to the hallowed fields of Lancaster Park with the mighty red and blacks coming sooner than later, which begs a reflecting refrain on what has been, and a thinking about what may be…
All that has been spoken about Dan has been postscript, all is in the past… gone. We wait with fish-baited breath, waiting to see confirmation that Dan is still the man.
Until then, we will continue to see various incomplete facsimiles that may know Dan in part, even as he is fully known, but when exposed, are shown to be a masked masquerader, doing their best to play his part, but never completing his game, nor mastering his role!
Matt Giteau is presently no Dan Carter!
Who knows, one time in the future, this day may dawn, as long as it isn’t at a certain time, on a given ground, at some significant time come 2011!
However, what I am hoping for is to see Dan Carter again, not merely in the flesh, but in the presence of play that gives the All Blacks the pivot-al player with one McCaw-esome, which cause the hills and valleys of this land with long white clouds to experience crystal-clear moments of sun-drenched adulation… at least on certain occasions come Sept-Oct 2011… where God-willing, rugby-style, our Eden that has been barren since 1987, will be garden-like once more.
If you are afflicted with my disease, I know you will feel me!
Until Next Time
I am Jonny King
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