Well, sure heavy rain is always something of a leveler but there is much more too it. I don't want to come across as making excuses or taking away from what was a typically dogged performance from AArgentina.
Heavy rain? Dude, I was in Pretoria on Saturday, and it was a Hail-Monsoon! I have never seen so much rain fall so suddenly, and that says a lot as I was in Florida when Hurricane Katrina went through there!
I think everyone is underestimating at how poor the conditions was to play rugby. the hailstorm in the beginning of the match didn't had an effect while it was still falling, as we saw with the only try from the game. but then as it turned into rain, the hail started to soften, making the field a cold, slippery, icy surface. It's almost as difficult as picking up a wet bar of soap from your shower's floor.
Handling was terrible, and I don't blame either team for kicking it away every chance they got. As the Supersport Commentators said at the start of the game, with a storm like this, all gameplan tactics go out the window and you just try to put the other team in a more pressured situation.
And not to downplay the great Argentinian scrum, but that first one was a bit meh. Directly after that scrum, Bismarck asked for new boots with longer studs as he could stand properly at scrum time. and as the match progressed it was pretty much equal at scrum time.
I'm just happy we won. The atrocious weather conditions made it a level playing field, and took basically all the benefits out of having home ground advantage. Oh and as for the empty stands. I'm partly to blame here, Me and my family were supposed to go, we had tickets, but when that freak storm came out of nowhere, we turned around as many others did, and went to a pub to watch the game where our car was also protected from the hail.
