South African coach Heyneke Meyer yesterday apologised to the nation and accepted full responsibility following that loss to Japan. His wikipedia has underwent some gentle editorialising in the past day, replete with exclamation marks and suggestions he may not survive.
Aside from the abuse meted out to the coach and the odd tweet demanding that the team immediately return home before they cause any more embarrassment, the response seems surprisingly measured. Considering the scale of the shock, South Africa seems to be taking it in its stride.
The main pundits on South African TV (the South African A-Team, if you will) of Nick Mallett and Colin Charvis were measured in their post-match comments. However, the third figure on the panel, former out-half Naas Botha had disappeared from the studio at full time, leading many to speculate that he couldn't hack dealing with the result. It transpired that he had merely left for London where he is to be inducted into the Rugby Hall of Fame today.
On the same Super Sport channel, Kaunda Ntunja ran the rule over the contenders prior to the tournament, devoting some time to assessing the challenge posed by Samoa and Scotland. The threat posed by Japan and the USA didn't detain him too long.
Japan and the USA are there on holiday so we don't have to worry about them...
We shouldn't be too harsh on the Super Sport boys. It was expected that South Africa would dispose of Japan without any aggro.
The poor man was suffering after the full-time whistle yesterday.
No chief. I'm of no use right now. The energy has been drained out of me. I'm still like, what the f??? https://t.co/LM4UJQ8ZG8
— Kaunda Ntunja (@kaundantunja) September 19, 2015
