One of my favourite movie genres has to be “sporting-underdogs-comeback-from-impossible-odds”! Ever since Michael Jordan got sucked down a golf hole to lead 5 Looney Tunes to a 2 points victory over those gargantuan aliens in extra-time of Space Jam, since Emilio Estevez’s took that fatherless figure-skater under his wing (intended) and together they allowed the
Ducks to over come insurmountable odds, poverty and Emilio's dodgy past to secure 2 league titles and an international victory, and since Robert Moxom threw down the shackles of parental pressure, professionalism, strip clubs and whipped cream bikinis to enable his side to defeat their overzealous coach Bud Kilner and claim a State Championship have I loved these movies.
I cheered and shouted when they scored, I cried when they won and I wasn’t surprised when they made a 30 points turn around in the last quarter to claim the win. The scripts to these movies are so outrageous that only their teenage demographic are gullible enough to believe that it could happen in real life yet we all love them…However it does happen! 25-12 down with 15 min to play the, basically anonymous, Free State team clawed back to score 3 times (2 tries and a penalty) against the Blue Bulls taking the score to 29-25, and then held out for 5 long minutes to claim a Currie Cup they haven’t had for close on three decades.
It was absolutely incredible. Playing away at the stronghold of Broedebond rugby, Loftus Versfeld, everyone knew the Cheetahs were the underdogs and only the most loyal of Orange Free State farmers even gave them a chance. It was an insurmountable task. And at 22-9 down with 30 minutes to go everyone expected the Bulls to claim their 4th successive victory and make any knowledgeable rugby enthusiast vomit into his Woolworths biltong packet for the 4th consecutive time...
Instead grown men wept, minnows gained faith, Jerry Maguire started to believe and neutral rugby supporters around the country smiled as they would now stop playing that beastly Steve Hofmeyer song…
Oh and Auckland beat Otago 39 -11 in a try fest...
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