Referee Luke Pearce talks to Springboks captain Siya Kolisi. Photo / Getty
Referee Luke Pearce talks to Springboks captain Siya Kolisi. Photo / Getty
OPINION:
How the Springboks choose to play rugby really is their business. If they think it's a good idea to kick the ball away in the last minutes of a test when they need to score three points, that's their prerogative.
Just as it's their choice entirely if they thinkhoisting the ball into the heavens from inside their opponents' 22 is a reasonable, well-deduced attacking plan.
Plenty of critics disagree, arguing that test rugby is in the entertainment business and the Boks a scourge in this quest to put bums on seats.
But while the critics are right about rugby having a mandate to engage, they are wrong to determine what constitutes a compelling gameplan.
It might greatly offend New Zealanders that stylistically the Boks don't conform to their rigid expectations of what rugby should look like, but they need to accept that no one died and put them in charge of judging everyone else's strategic approaches to the game.
Entertainment is subjective and by nature, broad in genre which is why critics are beating South Africa with the wrong stick.
There was in Townsville, as there has been all year, a cynical element to the Boks strategy that is indefensible, not justifiable in law or advisably condoned by those running the game if they are serious about growing rugby's audience.
The unacceptable strategic ploy favoured by the Boks is their blatant, overt time wasting – a feature that was impossible not to be aware of in Townsville where they manufactured, none imaginatively, ways to buy themselves additional rest time.
Malcolm Marx of the Springboks after their loss to the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport
Arguments can rage about what constitutes entertainment when it comes to style, but there needs to be universal agreement that elongated, frequent periods where nothing whatsoever is happening can't be allowed to plague the sport.
There was barely a break in play where there wasn't a Springbok supposedly in need of medical attention. Some of the injury cases were genuine – certainly tight-head prop Frans Malherbe needed attention as he was bleeding from a cut on his forehead early in the game.
But it was a mystery why referee Luke Pearce stood inertly for close to four minutes watching Malherbe be bandaged on the field when there is a blood bin for that.
There were also six forwards on South Africa's bench and so we have to ask what kind of logic prevailed to put the game on hold to clean up Malherbe?
Just as we have to ask why Trevor Nyakane was able to flop to the floor after the All Blacks had won a penalty five metres from the Boks line at a time when they had a man advantage.
The medics needed almost two minutes to smear his forehead in Vaseline, yet it's unlikely that even a highly trained Police forensic team would have found a drop of blood on him.
It was a painfully cynical ploy by the Boks, designed to give them time to recalibrate aerobically and protect their bigger men from being exposed as not fit enough.
The Boks don't have to play to any prescribed blueprint to appease the self-appointed Style Police, but they do have to play and lying about on the ground, feigning injury or deliberately taking an age to fix up minor ones, is not playing.
Referee Luke Pearce talks to Springboks captain Siya Kolisi. Photo / Getty
New Zealand, and Australia, need some acknowledgement on this as they have conditioned their forwards to be able to play a faster, mobile game where they give up a little power in the set-piece to gain athletes who can contribute more in open play.
If the likes of South Africa can use their bigger forwards to legitimately control the game, slow things down and nullify the aerobic advantage the All Blacks and Wallabies have created by sacrificing size for athleticism, all well and good.
But when they are able to slow things down quasi-legally - or is it just cheating? - and are enabled by the officials to get away with it, rugby does have a serious entertainment problem.
It is the clash of styles that partly makes tests between the All Blacks and Springboks so compelling and both sides need a fair platform to showcase what they bring.
The Boks were rewarded when they used their size and technical expertise to win scrum and turnover penalties. But what help did the All Blacks get from the officials in trying to play their higher-tempo, aerobic rugby?
None because the Boks were able to use every stoppage to manipulate or con their way into extended recovery time – referee Pearce oblivious or untroubled by the circus playing out in front of him.
Unfortunately, because the majority of the Six Nations sides also want to play at a glacial pace and have built their game on bigger, powerful athletes dominating the set-piece and collisions, World Rugby doesn't seem to recognise the validity of the problem it has with strategic stoppages based on spurious injuries.
It doesn't appear to agree that by endorsing a test rugby landscape with vast, barren tracts of emptiness where absolutely nothing happens it is building a product that is boring to everyone.
