Rugby Union’s Bledisloe Opener to Be Game Played in Heaven

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: July 28, 2010

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Many of us remember one of the greatest games of rugby ever played: When the Wallabies hosted the All Blacks at the then Stadium Australia, and lost when Jonah Lomu crashed over in the dying minutes to score a remarkable try and give a 39-35 victory to the All Blacks.

A world record 109,874 people were at hand to witness the most incredible opening to a test match, when the All Blacks scored three tries to canter out to a 21-0 lead in five minutes. 

It would have been 28-0 had George Gregan—the smallest man on the field—not pulled off a heroic tackle to take down Lomu—the largest man on the field—in the seventh minute.

After Andrew Mehrtens kicked a penalty it was 24-0 with less than 10 minutes on the clock, but the Wallabies hit back to draw level at halftime, and all but had the match won before Lomu took an outrageous pass from Taine Randell to score the game’s 10th try.

The code could not have called for a better advertisement.

Since then rugby has had its moments, but has been marred by incorporating kicking and the changing of laws which has seen ball in hand attacking rugby, truly the glory of our sport, show little of its majesty when in recent years pragmatism has ruled.

Yet this year's Tri-Nations has seen a changing of the guard, where keeping ball in play and running back at an opposition has paid more dividends than putting the pill to the foot ever could.

While we could never take anything away from the way the Springboks strode through the rugby world like a colossus for most of the season in 2009, there can little doubt that the new hybrid of rugby we are witnessing is a far more attractive beast.

The administrators of the game are to be applauded for the introduction of the new law interpretations, and with the attacking team given more gratis at the ruck, keeping the ball alive is showing more reward and we the spectat...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union

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