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Where were you the day Andrew Mehrtens flipped the bird at the Loftus crowd

Dirty old Mehrts

Jamie Wall looks back on the infamous Andrew Mehrtens middle finger incident of 1999.

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It’s a derby-free weekend of Super Rugby, with teams from every nation involved crossing oceans to complete round 11. One of the more notable is the unbeaten Crusaders visiting Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria to take on the Bulls. It was in this fixture at the same venue in 1999 that one of Super Rugby’s most infamous acts of poor sportsmanship was perpetrated by a guy who looked like his mum still cut his hair.

These were simpler times for what was then the Super 12. The Crusaders still had the ‘Canterbury’ on the front of their name, and played in the first iteration of an armour-design jersey with white shorts. They were also stacked with All Blacks.

The Northern Bulls had slumped from being a semifinalist in Super 12’s first season to being a veritable shitshow by its fourth. By the time this ninth round fixture came around, the Bulls hadn’t won a game all season. They did however have one of the more memorable South African sponsors in clothing chain Mr. Price, whose arrangement with the teams it sponsors stipulates that the skipper must give his post-match interview in a Donald Trump-MAGA style hat.

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On this day in 1999, the lowly Bulls somehow managed to fight their way to 28-27 lead over the defending champions with time fast running out. But they made the costly mistake of allowing a midfield scrum and opportunity for Andrew Mehrtens to kick a drop goal, which sailed through the rarified high veldt air and between the sticks for a classic snatch-victory-from-the-jaws-of-defeat moment.

Then Mehrtens showed the Pretoria crowd exactly what it meant to him to beat their team.

Maybe someone in the crowd had said something mean to him during the game. Maybe he remembered he had in fact been born in Durban, making the win over the rival Northern team extra special. Or could it be that he was just using his fingers to remind everyone of the final margin of victory?

Whatever the reason, Mehrtens’ raised middle fingers and ‘shove it up ya’ exclamation point to the main stand at Loftus went down in history. Either as the act of a rebellious scamp who just wanted to show a bit of passion, or as a classless piece of foolishness from a senior All Black who really should’ve known better. How you see it probably depends on which team you support.

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Since social media didn’t really exist yet, the fallout from Mehrts’ salute was confined to newspapers, TV news and reenactments around schools and workplaces the following Monday morning. The first five received no official sanction for the gesture, which these days would probably incur a hefty fine and fake tearful apology.

The scandal didn’t seem to do much to the Crusaders on-field performance, with the team going on to successfully defend their Super Rugby title by beating the Otago Highlanders at the old Carisbrook ground in Dunedin.

Andrew Mehrtens kicked a drop goal in that game, too, but he left his hands in his pockets for the jog back to halfway.

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Flankly 0 minute ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 9 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
N
Nickers 39 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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