I nearly told you so...

Yesterday I wrote about 200words about the first 3Ns game this Saturday between the All Blacks and the Springboks but got bored and went back to looking at this.


You can't really blame me can you? I typed an excellent piece foreshadowing the precipice over which Pieter De Villiers stood yesterday and describing how his selection for the game would determine the start to his career. He was either going to ascend to lofty heights or drop far down to the bottom of the stupidity pit. Within 24hours PDV beat my article and took the jump himself.

What position do you play son? Centre sir! Which one? The middle one...

The impasse was simple. Select: James, Steyn, De Villiers with Monty at the back; or James, De Villiers, Jacobs with Jantjies at the back. The former would almost guarantee him a fairytale 3Ns start whereas the latter would send his rugby career onto a similar trajectory Egon Seconds suffered. Moreover, I am surprised Seconds isn't sporting the 14 jumper in Wellington this weekend as opposed to the Griquas 22 jumper in...err...Wellington.

Came in seconds, gone for ages...

Here are the teams:

South Africa: 15 Conrad Jantjes, 14 Odwa Ndungane, 13 Adrian Jacobs, 12 Jean de Villiers, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Butch James, 9 Ricky Januarie, 8 Joe van Niekerk, 7 Juan Smith, 6 Schalk Burger, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 CJ van der Linde, 2 John Smit (captain), 1 Gürthro Steenkamp.
Replacements: 16 Bismark du Plessis, 17 Brian Mujati, 18 Andries Bekker, 19 Luke Watson, 20, Bolla Conradie, 21 Francois Steyn, 22 Percy Montgomery.

New Zealand: 15 Mils Muliaina, 14 Sitiveni Sivivatu, 13 Conrad Smith, 12 Ma'a Nonu, 11 Rudi Wulf, 10 Dan Carter, 9 Andy Ellis, 8 Jerome Kaino, 7 Rodney So'oialo (captain), 6 Adam Thomson, 5 Ali Williams, 4 Brad Thorn, 3 Greg Somerville, 2 Andrew Hore, 1 Tony Woodcock.
Replacements: 16 Keven Mealamu, 17 Neemia Tialata, 18 Anthony Boric, 19 Sione Lauaki, 20 Jimmy Cowan, 21 Stephen Donald, 22 Leon MacDonald.

The All Blacks definitely not the intimidating force as in the past but if you don't have your best team you are never going to challenge them. I shouldn't bitch though, I'm actually glad Puke Watson has been ousted.

And if you were too lazy to look for the result online, the Cane Toads took the State of Origin series 2-1 by winning the final game in the series 16-10, with Israel Folau scoring twice. One of which was a beauty.