Is there anything better than watching two sides throw everything they have at each other on the sports field? Two watch two groups of polished, [professional warriors leave no room for speculation: They are there ro play, and they are there to win.
That is exactly what I saw with yesterdays game between the Maori All Blacks and USA Eagles. A few months back I wrote about the All Blacks v Munster game of 2009 as the defining moment of rugby for me. Yesterdays game may well have superseded that.
I was expecting to tune in to see the Maori All Blacks systematically demolish the US defence and romp home. Instead I saw an Eagles team that did not just absorb the New Zealand attack, on more than one occasion they repelled and attacked themselves. Todd Clever brilliantly captained a team that showed more heart in 80 minutes than the Wallabies have showed all season! They did not turn up to play, they turned up to win. What’s more, they looked like a team that could!
Early in the first half handling errors saw the ball coughed up a number of times to the Eagles, and a lot of pressure exerted on the New Zealand defence. In front of 18,500 screaming fans, the Eagles made a number of stabs at the line, with shows of brilliance from Clever, Mike Petri and the boot of Andrew Siddall left the half time score 9-7 in favour of the home team.
It was a blistering response early in the second half from Maori All Blacks captain Tim Bateman, which appeared to ignite the visitors. However the Eagles just would not quit. Even a blood bin appointment for Clever didn’t slow the Eagles.
Bateman scored his second try of the match, stretching the lead. Again however, inspired kicking from Siddall and sheer determination from Cameron Dolan who crossed the line for a try of his own meant that the home team was soon back to within three points of the Kiwis. The reaction from the crowd, and the team, after Dolan’s try pretty much summed the game up. The crowd erupted in USA chants, and to describe the team as fired up would be a massive understatement.
The final score margin of 29-19 does not do justice to the atmosphere as sheer physicality of this game. Dolan, as man of the Match, commented in the after match press conference “We gave it our all for 80 minutes and just came up short.”
I’m a Kiwi, I should be singing the praises of the Maori All Blacks, and they did play a great game. But How the hell that performance is coming up short I just don’t know. I tweeted shortly after the game, and I’ll say it hear in print: USA Rugby and all it’s fans should hold their heads high. That was not a losing performance. That was not a ‘fall short’ performance. That was what rugby should be, and what rugby always should be. Two teams that give it everything they have, and at the end of the game leave no questions unanswered!
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