F-B-F.org -

In a first half dominated by the onslaught of the Irish forwards, you would not have known Skinstad was playing. But for all their Herculean efforts Ireland found themselves behind at the interval, albeit only by a point at 7-6.Then they discovered that a clone of Hercules was playing in the Springbok back row, not Johan Erasmus, not Teichmann, good as both those players are. After Percy Montgomery had kicked a penalty, Skinstad emerged wearing a vest with a large “S” for Superman on the front and in the space of a couple of minutes proceeded to fly over Dublin.Mallett has flirted with the idea of playing Skinstad in the centre; he could probably play him anywhere. When Henry Honiball found the flanker in midfield near the half-way line, Skinstad took off with electrifying pace before swerving past Conor O’Shea to touch down at the post. All the Irish blood, sweat and tears had been transcended in a move worthy of any of the world’s greatest threequarters.It was a devastating blow from which Ireland never recovered.

Two minutes later, from an even deeper position, the Irish pack was driven off their own put-in and Skinstad picked up. Once again there was an injection of pure pace almost impossible to defend against, resulting in a try for Joost van der Westhuizen.The Springboks have officially called this the Grand Slam tour and England will have to produce a superhuman effort to deny them the quickest slam in history at Twickenham on Saturday and a world record 18 successive Test victories.Ireland: Try Wood; Conversion Elwood; Penalties Elwood 2. South Africa: Tries Erasmus, Skinstad, Van der Westhuizen; Conversions Montgomery 3; Penalties Montgomery 2.Ireland: C O’Shea (London Irish); J Bishop (London Irish), J Bell (Dungannon), K Maggs (Bath), G Dempsey (Terenure College); E Elwood (Galwegians), C McGuinness (St Mary’s College); J Fitzpatrick (Dungannon), K Wood (Harlequins), P Clohessy, (Young, Munster), P Johns (Saracens, capt), M O’Kelly (London Irish), D O’Cuinneagain (Sale), V Costello (St Mary’s College), A Ward (Ballynahinch).Replacements: J Davidson (Castres) for O’Kelly 55, R Corrigan (Lansdowne) for Fitzpatrick 55, R Nesdale (Newcastle) for Wood 80.South Africa: P Montgomery (Western Province); S Terblanche (Boland Cavaliers), A Snyman (Blue Bulls), C Stewart (Western Province), P Rossouw (Western Province); H Honiball (Natal Sharks), J van der Westhuizen (Blue Bulls); R Kempson (Natal Sharks), J Dalton (Golden Lions), A Garvey (Natal Sharks), K Otto (Blue Bulls), M Andrews (Natal Sharks), J Erasmus (Free State), B Skinstad (Western Province), G Teichmann (Natal Sharks, capt).Replacements: N Drotske (Free State) for Dalton 10, A Venter (Free State) for Andrews 50, O le Roux (Natal Sharks) for Kempson 50.Referee: C Thomas (Wales).. JAMIE MAYER, the coming thing in Scottish rugby, welcomed the prospect of another extended training workout against Spain this week after his hat-trick of tries helped floor Portugal at Murrayfield.

The powerhouse centre epitomised the farcical mismatch that doubled as a World Cup qualifier on Saturday as he scored his first points in a navy blue jersey in a crushing victory.
The Scottish Rugby Union’s decision not to award caps for such an international may have drawn criticism in some quarters, but few could argue that the contest bore any relation to anything approaching a competitive bout.The 5,961 spectators who turned up could at least claim to have witnessed Scotland’s first victory at the national stadium in 20 months. And, following a succession of record defeats and embarrassing reverses during that period, Mayer admitted that such an easily-obtained victory had induced something of a cathartic effect.”It is nice to be able to do that to a side for a change rather than other teams doing it to us,” he said. “We got a bit of space to try things out against lesser opposition and it was almost like a training session in a live game situation. We probably should have got 100 points against them but we started to over-elaborate. But we did play well for the first hour and hopefully we can take that on this week and then into the Five Nations.”The unreal nature of the match was alluded to by their coach Jim Telfer afterwards, who claimed the Scotland forwards had simply become tired in the last quarter from constantly recycling so much ball.Winger Kenny Logan, who claimed two tries himself on a successful return to the side, also acknowledged the different challenge presented against such opposition.”The forwards were winning so much ball and just kept picking up and going through them, it was actually more difficult to get it out wide quickly,” he explained.For Portugal, the real challenge lies in beating Spain on Wednesday, which will see them qualify for the World Cup. “Rugby is not very popular in Portugal, especially with the football team trying to qualify for the European Championships,” their coach, Joao-Paulo Bessa, said.