Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, Spiro Zavos argues that while the odds were stacked against the Waratahs in Saturday's Super 14 semi-final against the Stormers, the men from New South Wales played an integral role in their own demise.
"A Marxist historian looking at this jumble of statistics would conclude that there was a certain inevitability about the Stormers winning the match. The great pull of historical forces, it seemed, was working for the Stormers.
"But did all of this make their victory inevitable? I don't think so. It is clearly difficult to win an away match. But difficult does not mean impossible. The handful of away victories indicates this.
"The Waratahs greatly helped the historical forces by coming into the match poorly prepared. The preparation started with the team wearing the wrong sprigs on what turned out to be a slippery field. Throughout, the Waratahs slipped and slid as if they were playing on an ice rink. So when the Stormers' inside-centre, Juan de Jongh, made his daring break-out, hitting his left foot in a series of inside cuts, the Waratahs defenders were left skating past him, missing their tackles as he raced under the posts."
RSS feed
