Man finally wakes up after Springboks’ maul-fest put him to sleep
Maybe he was falling asleep after fighting to stay away awake while South Africa mauled for 80 minutes, maybe he was fainting at the sight of a Springbok back actually scoring a try, or maybe he was just slipping, but a photographer took a mighty fall in the final minute of the Springboks’ Rugby Championship round six match against Argentina.
After watching the Boks score one pushover try from a scrum, one from a driving maul and get two penalty tries from mauls, it is hard to blame anyone for falling asleep in that match. Equally, most of the rugby world were close to fainting when the Boks actually worked the ball wide for their winger Kurt-Lee Arendse to score on 80 minutes. But after almost two weeks, the photographer has woken up from what experts have described as “a sleep only the Springboks could put someone in.”
Take a look at the moment it happened:
To be fair to the Boks, if teams could maul as well as they could, they would. And in a match where they needed to win by a margin over over 40 points to win the Rugby Championship, the best course of action was to turn to what they know best, and though they did fall short in the end, they gave it a good stab.
The Boks are now lining up their northern hemisphere tour, in what will be a hugely testing four weeks where they will take on Ireland, France, Italy and England. South Africa also confirmed this week that they will face Wales next August in Cardiff, just a few weeks before the 2023 World Cup.
“Wales have always proven to be tough competition for us and our results against them in the last few years are evidence of the quality of the side they are,” said head coach Jacques Nienaber.
“The Rugby World Cup is one of the toughest competitions in the world, and you have to be at your best every week to reach the final, so it’s vital that we test ourselves against quality opposition in the lead-up to the competition.
“With Wales being in the top 10 in the world and holding a good win record against us in Cardiff in the last few seasons, we have no doubt this will be a strong character test and fantastic preparation for us going into the World Cup.”
