Sunday special: ABs get final quarter pounded

Did someone mention that rugby was a 23-man game these days?

Caleb Clarke skips away for a try in happier times. Getty Images

A very quick Father’s Day Special as The Bounce wings its way into your inboxes direct from Sunny Dunedin¹.

The Bomb Squad versus the Flop Squad.

Yea, it’s harsh, way too glib and simplistic, yet that’s the narrative that will emerge from a test that was gift-wrapped for the visitors before a horror final quarter that was pockmarked by chronic indiscipline and some dreadful cameos off the bench.

It was a very good test, with intensity levels that were through the roof, but I’m reluctant to call it a great one because of the usual pace-of-play issues, a bushel of dumb kicking and some baffling officiating (including but not limited to the referee Andrew Brace).

Bongi Mbonambi’s first-half try was a shocker. When you think about how much time is spent by TMO’s poring over what are more often than not incidental and accidental collisions, it is inconceivable that nobody picked up the fact the hooker stone-cold dropped the ball short of the line. 

It was a dreadful decision but the All Blacks had plenty of time and opportunities to get over it and nothing the delicate Brace and his team put forward amounted to much alongside the poor decisions that went into the make-up and implementation of the All Blacks’ bench.

That’s where this Ellis Park test was won and lost.