Lots more dutchies were locked up in internment camps back home at bleak places like Koffiefontein for openly being Nazi sympathisers. Ex-PM and president Balthazar John Vorster was one such scoundrel.

(And the remaining SA soldiers serving up north who weren’t whisked off after Tobruk served under Monty and made a crucial contribution at winning El Alamein, thus ending Rommel’s lovely run of good fortune.)

They all served under that old orange-white-blue flag and were known by one and all of their allies as “springboks”.

this was exaclty like the game Snor tried to play initially – where we got killed in the brakdowns. Maybe he thought that having Brussouw wil fix the problems. But Brussouw is a plus on defence – not in attack (although he gets some good yardage from slippery running in attack too). The flaw in Snor’s game plan is in not having enough players at teh ruck to clen to get quick recycling ball. The only way to ensure that you do have this is by telling the forwards where the first few phases are going to be, so that a sufficient number of them are there in support. They also need to have the cleaning out techniques down pat (clean from inside out). The tackler must present the ball as well with BOTH hands.

It does not help that the ball carrier tries to stay on his feet until the support arrives- that is also giving time to the defence to regroup. The ball carrier must get between tacklers and drive with is feet to make ground and stay on his feet until the support arrives.

Our forwards to go ground WAAAAAY too quickly, and if they do stay on their feet, they get stopped in a maul situaton which then requires a LOT of support which negates the attack. This is why the forwards must receive the ball at speed, and use that speed in the right direction to make ground and keep the legs pumping.

If the forwards are too spread outin the line, then they cannot be there to support en masse, and cleanout effectively.

Suck on it. I know, he knows, you know, we all know that he is right.

The Dutchies fancy themselves as ‘gruntier’ than everyone else and being bossed by the Lions will have hurt their meat head pride.

Obviously the Germans at Tobruk didn’t think much of the Dutchies, they thought they were softer than the Italians the way they dropped their rifles and surrended at the merest sight of a Nazi uniform.

‘Honestly, I’m happy about the win but I wish we were celebrating a series victory now, not celebrating a dead rubber win,’ he said.

I wish, if only … that sums it up.

There were 2 dead rubbers in this series: this game and the one in Mike Philip’s back pocket