Portents from Twickers
THE sublime moment at Twickenham on Saturday was surely when
Patrick Lambie chipped a perfectly weighted kick and Willie le Roux
gathered on the full to hare downfield and offload to Cobus Reinach
for an absolute scorcher of a try.
There we had the winning formula for next year's World Cup.
Possibly the individuals too.
What a cracker of a Test this was. And what a dream debut for the
new halfback pairing, Lambie's drop goal near the end the cherry on
the top.
And look at the other results. Scotland gave the All Blacks a huge
skrik. France drilled Australia. Our game could have gone either way.
The northern nations on the up and up. England will be the place to
be next year. This World Cup promises to be a totally unpredictable
humdinger.
Threesome
DOWN the other end of the bar at the Street Shelter for the Over-
Forties, folk were huddled round another TV screen. Hey, Jabulani!
Bafana took it 2-1.
Then down in Oz, South Africa won the ODI.
That's a threesome of success. They might even pass a motion of
congratulation down at parliament – just as soon as they can get
together enough pairs of boxing gloves.
Encounter
ANOTHER side of rugby. I'm sometimes unfairly accused of writing
too much about Maritzburg College. Well, here's a story from a
Kearseny boy.
I'm frequently fed snippets of information (most of them unprintable)
by an 80-year-old who calls himself Barrie ("with an 'ie'") who played
rugby for Highbury, Kearseny and Berea Rovers, In fact he once
scored the winning try for Rovers in the Under-19 championship.
Later in life he befriended Keith Oxlee, the great Natal and Springbok
flyhalf. He often watched Butch James, also a great provincial and
Springbok flyhalf, on the rugby field but had never met him in person.
Then the other day he encountered Butch in the parking lot outside
the shops at Mount Edgecombe. He introduced himself.
"What a charming, delightful fellow. He seemed genuinely interested
in talking to a silly old geezer like me. Now I can say I've known two
great flyhalves produced by Maritzburg College, great gentlemen
both."
Barrie the Kearsney boy said it – not me!
Colleen power
BRIAN Kennedy brings us the information that in his native Ireland,
the Minister of Justice, the Attorney-General, the Chief Justice, the
Chairperson of the Police Authority, Commissioner of Police, the
Chief State Pathologist and the Director of Public Prosecutions - are
all of them women.
""Have men got any chance at all?" he asks
It would appear not, Brian. What's left for the men? Chief State Vet?
OC Refuse Removal?
And this can also be viewed, of course, as a monstrous conspiracy
against Ireland's timeless tradition of the lads gettin' together of
an evening for pints of Guinness and a bit of boisterousness and
song, which so often spills out into the streets and spreads through
neighbourhoods.
The bench, the prosecution, the police – all controlled by the
Colleens. It sends a shiver up de spine, begorrah!
Van
MENTION last week of the fellow in Florida who's been arrested
for kissing alligators reminds Marthya Kitching of one her late
dad's favourite Van der Merwe jokes.
Van applies to join a very exclusive hunt club on the Zululand
coast. At the bar he is told of the tough initiation procedure.
"First you must swallow a litre of cane spirit; second you must
kiss the prettiest girl in the village; and finally you must shoot a
crocodile."
"Nothing to it," says Van, reaching for a bottle of cane spirit and
downing it in one mighty gulp. Then he lurches off to tackle his
second task. An hour later he staggers in, bruised and battered.
His face is scratched and bleeding, and his clothes are torn to
shreds. "Quick, give me a drink!" he gasps. "Then show me this
woman I've got to shoot."
"My Dad had three joke books on Van. I love them!"
Faithful
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "I've been
in love with the same woman for 49 years. If my wife finds
out, she'll kill me!"
Tailpiece
Army lieutenant: "I didn't see you at camouflage training this
morning, Murphy."
Private Murphy: "Tank you, sorr!"
Last word
Television – a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.
Ernie Kovacs
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