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Thu 4 Oct 2012 | 10:38
DTH van der Merwe beats defender, pulls hamstring, sets up try

29
Comments

Glasgow Warriors beat Italian side Zebre 22-19 in Friday night's RaboDirect PRO12 game, but suffered another two injuries as both DTH van der Merwe and Moray Low limped off. Van der Merwe did it in style though, setting up a try in the process.

Zebre came close to picking up their first PRO12 win but Canada wing Van der Merwe had a big impact on the game, scoring an acrobatic try in the corner before setting up Graeme Morrison with an great bit of play down the wing.

He beat a would-be tackler, pulled his hamstring, but kept going and drew in a few players before offloading the decisive no-look pass to Morrison, who was up in support.

Scotland back Max Evans actually played a large part in you watching the clip right now, as he alerted RD about it via Twitter after watching the 'must see bit of skill' from his former teammate.

Van der Merwe, who is expected to be out of action for up to six weeks, kept his humour about it, replying that it was a great move and he 'might try it again sometime'.

As with what Max did, if you're watching a game and see something you think should be shared on Rugbydump, please don't hesitate to drop us a quick tweet, or email.

Credit: BBC Alba
Please note: The match was broadcast in Gaelic

Posted By: Grant Constable

29 Comments

  • jimter10
    8:31 AM 06/10/2012

    i agree, but he played on enough to set up a try so they were within their rights to try to stop him

  • pretzel
    1:27 AM 06/10/2012

    Hmmm, I think you're right, having watched it again, I see the only way for him to actually have gone down before the tackle, he would have had to have something snap instantly... tendon, leg, etc etc.. I don't think he could have lowered himself as JR did. I do think the hit from the back looked a bit late, but as I said maybe it was a last yard desperate effort to hit Dth and make him knock the pass on or knock into his team mate etc.

    It did look a bit late though...

  • reality
    10:28 PM 05/10/2012

    Well, when I said 'Gaelic when it's Scottish' I was talking about the Scottish variety of Gaelic i.e. Scottish Gaelic. Anyway, there seems to have been a misunderstanding. I wasn't trying to reproach or educate; I was trying to understand. Most people abroad refer to Irish as Gaelic, but then you have the Scottish variety of it, which evidently people also refer to as Gaelic, but calling both by the same name seems like madness to me.

  • reality
    10:17 PM 05/10/2012

    I'm inclined to agree with both of you here. Pretzel, I don't think he could have gone to ground like Robinson did, because you see in the video that his muscle goes, he hops along for only a few steps, and then passes it. He couldn't have just gone to ground, because he was running far too quickly to immediately go down. Even Robinson slowed himself down first before hitting the deck.

    Having said that though, from Zebre's perspective he was still playing, even if he was struggling, and in a situation like that where it's 2-on-1 and a try will decide the game, I can understood why the Zebre didn't want to just leave him be. Although, maybe the second guy was a bit late.

  • 8:37 PM 05/10/2012

    Neither, actually. His family emigrated to Saskatchewan, and he later moved to BC.

  • stroudos
    1:04 PM 05/10/2012

    Ah, then perhaps you can clarify what the bloke meant at 40 seconds in when he said:
    SHITTER!!! Shit verraal gamaakh verall Ahmed.

  • tex15
    1:00 PM 05/10/2012

    Or you could refer to it as Gaidhlig (the Gaelic spelling for it) this is my dads first language as he grew up on the isle of lewis and i may be one of the few people to actually appreciate coverage in this language!

    To clarify for people it is a different language from irish gaelic, sort of like spanish and portuguese but closer.

    Would be great to see even more Pro 12 clips

  • katman
    7:53 AM 05/10/2012

    Is he from the Ontario van der Merwes or the Quebec clan?

  • rugbydump
    7:34 AM 05/10/2012

    Senlac, I'll see if I can grab your email from your guest comment and figure it out. The chances are you didn't receive your registration activation email for some reason.

    Re. the language and @Reality, it's a Scottish home team, the game was on Scottish channel BBC Alba, the language isn't English and isn't Italian, so one would assume that most fans don't randomly guess that it's Irish Gaelic.

    Some interesting points though nevertheless, and next time we'll include the 'Scottish Gaelic' term to make sure it's one hundred percent clear.

  • 3:29 AM 05/10/2012

    I thought the same thing when I first viewed the video, that the second tackler was a little late and over exuberant. But then I thought about how fast the game is played at this level and how difficult it is to pull up when you've committed and how frankly as pointed out dth was still attacking the line. As the Great tana said, this ain't tiddly winks.

    As for the Gaelic discussion, here in Canada, which has a Gaelic university, it's never referred to as Scottish, but just Gaelic. I've heard the Irish prefer Irish to Gaelic and obviously we know what the welshies like.

    Still easier than to understand than cockney

    Ps u r all nerds and I love u dearly

  • pretzel
    1:41 AM 05/10/2012

    "Have a word with yourself" Lol, been a while since I've used that phrase. I'm not trying to suggest it was a pleasant experience on his part, and I sure as hell am not suggesting that player should blindly go flying in to tackles. However he did continue playing and did make a brilliant offload which set up the try. So as I said what do the opposition players do? Render him untouchable on account of his injury?

    As I said with JR he saw flying boks and hit the deck quick ruling himself out of the game.

    Whereas DTH saw the try was on, and still continued play..

  • reality
    10:52 PM 04/10/2012

    And Pretzel, they're mutually understandable to an extent, but they are different languages at the end of the day, so they are fairly different.

  • reality
    10:50 PM 04/10/2012

    Eh, right. Like you said, it's Scottish Gaelic, i.e. one language from the Gaelic language family. So since it's one language of that family, my question is why is the name of the family of languages used to talk about it, and not the language itself.

  • canafrikaaner
    8:51 PM 04/10/2012

    To be able to maintain focus after pulling a hammy would take a lot grit. Nicely done.

    Canadian/Afrikaans hybrid rugby players? Mmmm excellent

  • stroudos
    8:10 PM 04/10/2012

    Apart from the "Scottish" language you refer to is also called Gaelic - or sometimes Scottish Gaelic. Usually pronounced "gallic" (in contrast to the Irish "gay lick", but it's the same word.

  • stroudos
    8:05 PM 04/10/2012

    0:40 - SHITTER!! Shit verraal gamaakh verall Ahmed.

  • stroudos
    8:01 PM 04/10/2012

    Have a word with yourself. I know we can't hear him on the video but I imagine he made at least some kind of yelp - as if suddenly stopping running and hopping along grabbing your hamstring isn't enough of a clue that you've just fucked your hamstring.

    And I hardly think he was drawing the defender, he was probably thinking "what the **** do I do now?", then he'd have heard Morrison calling for the ball and shovelled it away as quickly as he could. Or as the commentator so eloquently put it: "kha chk shlendikh cgha shakha da balle de Graeme Morrison, na Morrison na loooozhk"

  • pretzel
    7:52 PM 04/10/2012

    Is there much difference between the dialect in Scotland and Ireland, the "Gaelic" dialect...?

  • pretzel
    7:51 PM 04/10/2012

    I'm not sure about those guys tackling, I mean when you see the Jason Robinson video.. JR knows he's done his leg in, he hobbles and stops the defence were confused initially and then sort of regrouped and JR dropped to the ground himself as a bok came charging in.

    Contrary to this video where DTH continues to run/hobble... now in theory, if they had left him and not touched him, would he have hobbled his ass to the try line? I mean he set up a try whilst injured, that alone to me is reason enough to keep aiming for the guy with the ball unless of course he renders himself out of the game. For instance a game I played, an opposition player was running with the ball and a team mate came flying in for the tackle and caught one of the guys legs from the side and broke it, but didn't hang on, so technically the guy was free to, well... continue running, if it was possible with a broken leg... He yelled out "shit ref broke my leg broke my leg" and hit the deck like a sack of spuds, of course the sound alone was enough to tell us something was bad, but my point is, if that player had not shouted out, we may have gone piling into him. So in some sense if DTH had just yelled out or something and hit the deck, players would have thought well somethings not right, and probably stopped, but DTH continued on, drew the player and gave the pass...

    I watched the video again and yeh maybe the 7 was a little mistimed there, but I think his intentions were to try and knock DTH as he passed it, to try and dislodge the ball...

  • 7:16 PM 04/10/2012

    You do have a point.

  • reality
    7:01 PM 04/10/2012

    Isn't saying that the broadcast is in Gaelic when it's Scottish like saying that other broadcasts are in Germanic when in English, or Romance when in French?

  • reality
    5:12 PM 04/10/2012

    Really? I just watched the video, and it looks like Butch James stamped on Robinson's legs after he went down.

  • facepalm
    4:49 PM 04/10/2012

    Just seen it in the related posts!

  • facepalm
    4:48 PM 04/10/2012

    Agreed. I seem to remember in the '07 World Cup Jason Robinson did something similar and I was very impressed by the sportsmanship showed by the South Africans. Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

  • juggernauter
    4:46 PM 04/10/2012

    Been a fan of DTH for a while now. He's quite a good player, I think many canadians were kinda sensations in the World Cup (Kleeberger, Carpenter, Sinclair, McKenzie, Pritchard, DTH, O'Toole, to name a few).

    Now that the IRB has launched its plan to give us Tier 2 and 3 nations more competition I hope we'll see more players from different countries playing at the top level. Canada will play against the Maoris in Oxford and Portugal is coming to Chile! Also Japan are touring Georgia and the USA will go to Rumania.

    Glad that the participation issue is being taken care of.

    Cheers!

  • stroudos
    3:55 PM 04/10/2012

    Out of order of the defenders to follow through with the double tackle on him. Surely they could see he was injured? Don't think you can argue you're already committed when he's take three hops already. Maybe they thought he was just pissing about, but that's hardly likely is it.

  • nabort
    3:34 PM 04/10/2012

    Try what? Tearing your hammy? Can't say I'd recommend it - feels like you've been shot in the back of the leg.

  • 3:29 PM 04/10/2012

    DTH is quite the player, and absolute class in person. Here's to a speedy recovery, DTH!

  • katman
    3:13 PM 04/10/2012

    Don't understand a word of it, but match commentary in Gaelic sounds pretty cool.

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