For those of you old enough to remember - I never thought I’d use that phrase - there was a song sung by the Spitting Image puppets called “I’ve Never Met A Nice South African....� and never has a truer word been said by the satirical puppeteers!
Of course, that dates back to a time of apartheid when black people couldn’t vote in the country and Nelson Mandela was still locked up in a prison cell. Things have moved on a lot since then, but I still reckon the England players should play it in the dressing room before the game to get themselves in the mood for the fight.
Seriously, I’m sure there are plenty of nice South Africans around, but a World Cup Final is no place for niceties and, just like the Australians and any other corner of the globe we once governed, you can bet the South Africans would like nothing more than to dish out another pummeling to us.
Few people will give England a chance on Saturday. The South African forwards are just as strong as ours, but their backs appear to be superior. They have also beaten us comfortably in our last three encounters, including that 36-0 thrashing in the group stage.
But England have been defying the ‘experts’ (ie people like me in the media) ever since that beating last month and there is no more dangerous side in sport than one that is confident, has already exceeded expectations and knows it has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
That is precisely the situation England are in and, just as Australia did a fortnight ago, the South Africans appear over-confident and over-smug. In other words, ripe for a spectacular fall from grace.
Unfortunately, unlike that quarter-final against Australia I haven’t had one my gut-feelings that England will win, but if they fail to become the first country to win back-to-back World Cups, at least they have done the country proud. That is a damn sight more than a bunch of considerably better-paid footballers have done.
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