News

Mallett's rain dance

June 21 2008

Nick Mallett knew before coming to Cape Town that no amount of local knowledge could outweigh a telling factor in his hometown: the weather.

If the pouring rain put a damper on Cape Town rugby fans' spirits while watching the Springboks take on Italy at Newlands, they should never have counted on their visitors to liven things up according to Mallett - who he wasn't not exactly in an apologetic mood after the game.

"I was praying for rain the whole week and I was very relieved that it rained for the whole game," said Mallett shortly after the final whistle.

"I make no apologies for the way we played. My job is to keep the score as low as possible and to keep Italy in the game for as long as possible. It would have been a very big error today to take the ball that we won and chuck it around and play phase-play rugby. If the Springboks can't do it, then Italy certainly can't do it.

"We kicked a helluva lot of ball today, it wasn't a very pleasant game for the poor spectators, but unfortunately rugby is played under all conditions. So I'm happy we only conceded four tries.

"I'm not going to go over the moon about this, but I'm very proud of the way our players played. After every try they got back there and stuck to the game plan which was to put the ball behind the Springbok wingers and come with a good line of defence and make their tackles - and we did that well.

"I think our line-out was good. We lost a couple in the second half but we had a lot of line-out throw ins and though we did well. Our scrum was quite solid, and I thought our phase play around the fringes was good. Unfortunately we just don't have the strike power the Springboks have.

"I don't want to say what the score would have been on a dry day, but I'm very relieved it was only 26-0 on a day like today."

Italy's captain Leonardo Ghiraldini said he was happy with the spirit in the team after spending only a short time together.

"This is a new team, a group with many uncapped players," he said.

"Today we came onto the field, after spending just one week together in Rome, but I found a good spirit in the team that played today. We never gave up and in the end, I think we also deserved to score a try. The spirit was good for the whole game."

While some pundits had their knives out for Italian fly-half Luke Mclean for his 'negative' style in the rain, Mallett came out in defence of his young number ten.

"People fail to realise that he hasn't played fly-half for two years, the last time he did was at school," said Mallett.

"To ask a young guy of twenty to play the Springboks in South Africa for your first game at fly-half is a helluva big thing to ask a player. I was delighted with his temperament. He's very calm, he wasn't fazed by much. He certainly followed my instructions to the letter; I mean he kicked the cover off the ball.

"He's a player who can pass, who can attack the line and his defence was solid today. I'm hoping that with a dry ball we'll see more of his skills on attack. From a temperament point of view, he's someone that wants to play fly-half, and that's very important for Italy."

McLean's debut was made even harder by the absence of the experienced Andrea Masi in the second half, when the Italian centre left the field with an injured shoulder. Various other changes meant that Italy were forced to give South African-born lock Jaco Erasmus ten minutes on the wing!

"I wanted to give him some time in South Africa. Four out of seven of our changes were planned, the rest were for injury, but it mostly went to plan," said Mallett.