This was a very fine occasion, and a match which offered no easy space and no easy tries. In the professional era, some of rugby’s historical greatness has been pushed to one side, but it can still be distilled to order and the pride and skill on view was worth every penny.
Practically the only bad news of the day was that Ben Cohen fractured a cheekbone in a collision. The England wing will face a race against time to be fit for Northampton’s Heineken Cup quarter-final against Toulouse next month.
The match is expected to raise at least £2m for the Tsunami Appeal and it was graced by four of the wonderful Southern Hemisphere captains in George Gregan of Australia, All Black Tana Umaga, John Smit of South Africa and Samoan Semo Sititi. With so much class and experience available, the South were always going to win. To add to that Southern quartet, we had Lawrence Dallaglio of England and Marco Bortolami of Italy, and Bortolami especially typified the spirit of the game with a storming display, climaxing when he chased a kick ahead in the final seconds and, agonisingly, missed out on the try as the ball trickled dead ahead of his outstretched fingers.
The competitive edge was sustained all day. The North team were on their toes because of the presence in the Southern ranks of the ferocious Brian Lima, the wonderful Samoan wing. The Chiropractor, as he is known, tried to rearrange a fair few Northern bones. The ferocity around the fringes of the two back rows was also remarkable, and neither Dallaglio nor Schalk Burger would give an inch as they clattered around.
And it was far from a meaningless game in terms of catching the eye of the North and British & Irish Lions coach, Sir Clive Woodward. Many of Woodward’s squad would have taken the days of preparation and the match itself as a rare opportunity to impress. Gareth Cooper and Chris Paterson in the backs and Donncha O’Callaghan and Simon Taylor in the forwards, were particularly prominent and the display of O’Callaghan, currently only a bench replacement for his country, illustrated how well off for locks the fighting Irish are.
Of the lesser-known players on the South team, there were striking performances from Sireli Bobo, the Fijian wing from the Parma club and Opeta Palepoi, Rotherham’s Samoan lock. There was also a healthy dose of Southern realism in that Andrew Mehrtens kicked an awful lot of ball in the second half whereas Ceri Sweeney of the North tried to keep the ball in play, often in unpromising circumstances when the back division outside him was being chopped and changed and lost coherence as a result.
It would, of course, be churlish to complain about a refereeing decision on this happy occasion, so I would not point out that the pass from Gregan to Lima that set up the first try of the match for Umaga, was forward. It was definitely not backwards and definitely not sideways and there were cynics around who claimed that it was so far forward that an American football quarterback would have been proud of it. Still, as I say, this was no occasion for carping and Paddy O’Brien is such an outstanding practitioner that we can forgive him most things.
The North managed to live with their more illustrious opposition for a decent period. Bortolami made a surge to set up the first North try, with Andy Titterrell scampering over at the posts after impressive linking from Dallaglio. The North scored again soon afterwards when David Humphreys put up a high diagonal kick, Mirco Bergamasco leapt and tapped it back and Pat Sanderson scored. However, the South led by all of 28-12 at half-time. Lima scored on the cutback and then two excellent passes out of the tackle brought two more tries.
Palepoi flicked the ball up for Chris Latham to score and Toutai Kefu performed much the same function in setting up a try for Burger.
The second half saw the pace of the game fall just a little, but the conviction in the tackling remained. So much so that a long period of North pressure did not actually bring a try. In this phase of play, Ben Cohen showed some of his old appetite and power. He was sprung over the line by a clever pass from Mike Phillips, but a superb tackle by Gregan, which turned Cohen on his back and dislodged the ball, stopped the try.
Sititi added to the South’s lead before Bergamasco scored the North’s only second-half try, the Italian running onto a chip ahead by Sweeney to run on and score.
Cohen had confirmation that it was not to be his day when he went back to defend a high diagonal from Mehrtens meant for the chasing Latham, but the ball bounced horrendously away from Cohen direct into Latham’s pass. At least the Australian full-back had the decency to shrug at the crowd in a rather embarrassed fashion.
By this time, the South had become increasingly disjointed. There was a warm reception for the arrival of Mathew Tait, the Newcastle and England back, as a replacement, but brightness behind the North scrum was no substitute for coherence. The North were picked off with two more tries, one by the South African Jaque Fourie and Sititi’s second. The warmth of congratulations for Sititi from his cosmopolitan teammates showed the regard in which he is held.
There was a joint lap of honour by both teams, and it seemed from the demeanour of the players that they had thoroughly enjoyed it.
These days, charity and festival matches are often swallowed up by the competitiveness of the season.
This was an occasion which stood proud and for it to be staged in the middle of the Six Nations and as the Super-12 springs to life Down Under, was an achievement for which the organisers must be commended.
STAR MAN: Marco Bortolami (North)
Northern Hemisphere: C Paterson; M Bergamasco, O Smith, C Sweeney, B Cohen; D Humphreys, G Cooper; J Yapp, A Titterrell, C Horsman, M Bortolami, D O’Callaghan, L Dallaglio (capt), S Taylor, P Sanderson. Replacements: R Ibanez, C Soulette, O Brouzet, J Thomas, M Phillips, M Taylor, M Tait.
Tries: Umaga 13, Lima 25, Latham 36, 64, Burger 40, Sititi 52, 76,
Fourie 74. Conversions: Mehrtens (6), Latham
Southern Hemisphere: C Latham; B Lima, J Fourie, T Umaga, S Bobo; A Mehrtens, G Gregan (capt); C Hoeft, J Smit, K Visagie, S Maling, V Matfield, S Burger, T Kefu, P Waugh. Replacements: E Taukafa, E Guinazu, S Sititi, O Palepoi, M Raulini, T Delport, S Drahm
Tries: Titterrell 20, Sanderson 27, Bergamasco 61
Conversions: Humphreys, Sweeney
Referee: P O’Brien (New Zealand); Attendance: 36,333
