If you can believe what you hear on sports radio, then Springbok coach Alistair Coetze managed to find some positives in Saturday night’s record defeat by the All Blacks.
Having not heard Coetze say this in person, this column can only presume he has been maliciously mis-reported.
But such things can’t be left to mere supposition. As TMQB is a meticulous professional, there was only one possible cause of action – a frame-by-frame analysis, shooter on the grassy knoll-style, of Saturday night’s broadcast vision in search of these alleged positives.
No dice. Despite reviewing the match on an 80 inch LCD TV at regular speed at a local Harvey Norman, TMQB was unable to spot a single moment of encouragement. Even repeating the exercise when sober failed to reveal anything resembling confidence-inducing competence.
So, either some ‘reporter’ made up the outrageous claim that Coetze had spotted “lots” of positives, or Coetze had suffered a mild stroke between the final whistle and the press conference, and was unable to correctly comprehend the question.
Or, just maybe, like all great coaches, Coetze thinks outside the box?
What if the positives he allegedly saw weren’t on the pitch, but rather were of a more intangible nature? What if all it took to see positives where others saw Armageddon was to open one’s mind, possibly by dropping a tab of acid and drinking a bottle of scotch?
And so it proved.
Accordingly, TMQB is pleased to present Alistair Coetze’s list of positives:
1 “At least it wasn’t Japan.”
2 “I haven’t been sacked yet.”
3 “Nobody knows who I am, so I probably won’t get blamed.”
4 “If 3 wasn’t true then most of the people reading this would have realised that my name isn’t Alistair Coetze. It’s Alister.”
5 “Cotzee.”
6 “Okay, it’s Coetzee, but I’m getting it changed by deed poll and moving to Botswana anyway, so who cares if you now know my real name.”
7 “I’m not coaching Australia.”
8 “Nelson Mandela didn’t live long enough to witness this.”
9 “It’s been 30 minutes since the final whistle and I still haven’t been sacked. Remarkable.”
10 “I’ve now got a long list of positives.”
11 “11? Are you taking the piss? We were good but we weren’t that good.”
