I see no-one here wants to dare say anything about what happened over in Scotland this weekend, but I got this article off iafrica.com. I think it sums it up quite accurately: :'(<br /><br /><br />DAN'S WORLD<br />Sinking in uncharted waters <br /><br />Scotland isn't even a real country. Technically, it falls under the rule of England, and competes in many sports as part of the United Kingdom. So, in effect, we lost to a province of England, a province where the locals speak a rough hybrid of English and consider a sheep's stomach to be a delicacy. (Scots appearing on television should have subtitles. The woman on Sky News last night being interviewed about her home being flooded was completely unintelligible.)<br /><br /><br />I become particularly malicious and cynical at times like this, and make no apology for it. Seeing the woman standing in a foot of water was the only bit of joy I could drag out of anything Scottish all weekend. I hoped fervently that the cloud responsible had formed somewhere over Johannesburg before migrating north (a well-established South African phenomenon), and that many more were on their way to join it.<br /><br />Not that I have anything against the Scots, mind. It is just my way of dealing with Saturday. Marseille was a one-off aberration, never to be repeated. Scotland was the start of the rejuvenation, the beginning of the new wave of Springbok rugby that was surely on its way. And then Murrayfield.<br /><br />My doctor advised me not to talk about rugby for at least a week. But my doctor has also advised me against beer and red meat, and so I treat his advice with a disdain I am forced to admit is creeping into my appreciation of our national rugby team. I am a balanced man. I concede that victory is not always achievable, that defeat is something I must accept from time to time. But it is not the defeat that concerns me so much as the manner thereof.<br /><br />In times of old, battlefields determined the fate of nations, warriors clashing in defence of the pride of their people. Now, unless you are George Bush, declaring war is an option most try and avoid; the sporting arena is where the battle takes place. And that, as the non-sports fan fails to understand, is why a rugby match can take on such significance. And why, in turn, so many of us bear deep emotional scars on the back of Saturday.<br /><br />The Springboks were helpless. Clueless. Impotent, even. Sure, the television referee may have made two questionable decisions (there is obviously a secret underground camera buried in the try zone at Murrayfield, a camera to which only the television match official has access). But let that not take away from the nature of the defeat. Not one player - not one single player - looked remotely comfortable in a rugby jersey on Saturday, the same rugby jersey that once struck terror into the hearts of opposition players, rather than a welcoming appreciation of an imminent victory.<br /><br />On a weekend in which even the England cricket team managed to fight back and achieve a scrap of respectability, the Boks stand out as the glaring omission on the winner's podium from the weekend of sport. They are a spectre of a once great side, clinging on to the last remaining shreds of a reputation they are doing their best to shed. The Boks have been upset before, but always the voices of optimistic revival have been louder than the voices of dread. Such optimism has been reduced to barely a whisper; even the Springbok camp is battling to muster a collective word of inspiration.<br /><br />The team are now in London, as large a satellite of South Africa as can be found outside of our borders. But where before a welcoming minority would have swept the team into Twickenham on a wave of immigrant support, a new experience awaits. Green and gold clad the supporters may be, but unconditional backing has been replaced by an uncertain hesitancy. The Springboks are in hitherto uncharted waters, and the South African fan is understandably uncomfortable with the new direction taken. The good ship Springbok is taking on water, and no one seems able to pinpoint the leak.<br /><br />I do not know why the Springboks are playing as they are. I toy with the ridiculous - pre-match alien abduction, for instance, or a cunning attempt to lure the rest of the world into a false sense of security before the World Cup. But I can not imagine that an alien race with the intelligence to perfect space travel would have a desire to select the Boks as their guinea pigs, just as any sign of cunning has been markedly absent from the team's play thus far on tour. I could call for resignations and changes, blame any number of people or factors, canvas desperately for support for a new game plan, attitude, approach to training. But ultimately it is out of my hands. It is up to the team now.<br /><br />The father of an old girlfriend of mine used to shed tears when the Springboks lost. I shudder to think what state he is in now. (He also had a daughter who sat through an entire rugby match with me, and afterwards told me how much she loved to watch Jonty Rhodes play. I cringed with reflected embarrassment then; what I wouldn't give now for such blissful ignorance.) Indeed, I shudder to envisage the collective state of our rugby-supporting population. And I am truly terrified about Twickenham. Jonathan Davies, the former Welsh star, has said that he expects England to comfortably put 40 points past the Boks. I pray that he is wrong, just as I pray that some divine metamorphosis will sweep over the South African camp this week. But where before I would have dismissed Davies as a raving lunatic (as one usually does with the Welsh), the evidence in his favour is simply too overwhelming. If we lost by 15 points to one of the provinces, the full side - fresh from conquering Australia and New Zealand - holds a terror of a nature I am doing my utmost not to contemplate.
