The Rugby World Cup Will Be a Crashing Bore

The Rugby World Cup is the Mona Lisa of rugby union. We all pretend to love it but deep down, we all know it’s not really worth the queue.

Former Wales, New Zealand and British Lions coach Graham Henry wrote a watery preview in the Observer on Sunday in which he posited that a team with ambitions to win the Rugby World Cup must have a world-class fly-half. Graham Henry’s own World Cup was won with a fourth-choice choice fly-half, a man so out of the reckoning that at the start of the tournament Stephen Donald was half-a-world away, fishing.

Dan Carter has been acclaimed as the best fly-half in world rugby for over a decade. And his godlike boots were filled by Mr Nobody? Maybe you could win a soccer world cup with some midfield dynamo from Sligo Rovers filling in for Leo Messi, but it’s very hard to imagine it.

The 2011 Final was a poor game, and a fitting conclusion for a poor tournament throughout. France should have beaten New Zealand in the final. The French themselves should have lost to 14-man Wales in the semi-final, and the Welsh should have carved up by Ireland, who had won their group for the first time in World Cup history.

That World Cup will live in infamy as the tournament that saw the debut of the choke tackle. Historically, tackling in rugby was about hitting someone hard and knocking him down. Les Kiss, defensive coach for Ireland, realised that a law change to help adjust to the professional era meant that, instead of having to knock players over, it is now much more to your advantage to hold them up instead.

The law of Unintended Consequences took over. Running into space is now a schoolboy error in modern rugby. When you have the ball you find the biggest clump of opposition players you can find and head right for them, knowing that your own team are right behind you to support you in the inevitable wrestling match that follows. And then you do that for eighty minutes and pretend you’re playing the same game as Serge Blanco and Barry John and Tony O’Reilly.

Rugby, to its credit, has been good at policing its laws. It’s considerably more aware than some other codes that laws have to be constantly policed, to ensure the game is still true to its original ethos and not twisted out of shape by devious and squirrelly coaches. Unfortunately, both the realisation that the choke tackle is killing the game and that there may be a drugs issue – imagine a sport where a sixteen stone man can pick up another sixteen stone man and hurl him about like he was an empty dustbin having a steroid issue! The idea! – have arisen too close to the World Cup for it to be saved.

This means that, not only will we get the pointless empty-rubber games of the group stages, where the ten nations that compete at the elite level use forty games to lose two of their number, but we’ll also get a whole lot of sterile rugby to achieve even that rudimentary level of crop-thinning.

Not only that, but the organisers have managed to make the most tremendous balls of the seedings, that sees only two nations emerge from England, Australia and Wales, while Scotland and Argentina have been handed Wonka-esque golden tickets to the playoffs. They’ll go the same way as Augustus Gloop once they get there, of course, but still. It’s hard not to feel sorry for whichever of the the Pool A seeds that draws the short straw and has to watch that destruction at home.

The World Cup will be won by the team that makes the least mistakes. England are the sensible bet, as they’re on a softer side of the draw if they win their group. Funnily enough, Ireland could go on a run if they can beat France and win their pool. That would have been a big “if” once, but France are in the doldrums like they haven’t been since before the Second World War.

A quarter-final against Argentina awaits the winner of Pool D, and the winner of that faces, theoretically, a semi-final against England. Neither England nor Twickenham would have any fears for the Irish (the way New Zealand might, for instance) and you can expect the hype to hit record levels should that matchup come off.

The hype will be forced, though. Rugby is played in Intel-esque clean rooms anymore, with all spontaneity or improvisation or joy strictly forbidden. Recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty, recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty. We’ll cheer if Ireland win, but we’ll have to pretend we like it.

Foot rushes, props lumbering towards the line with the Enemy hanging off them, Simon Geoghegan or Brian O’Driscoll flashing through the gap – all these are things of the past. Recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty. Repeat ad nauseam. Fare well, glory. Hail to thee, assembly line. Let’s form an orderly queue, everybody. Greatness awaits.

FOCAL SCOIR: This is the 1,000th published post on this blog over 12 years. I don't post as often as I used to, real life having caught up with me, but still. It's a kind of an achievement, nonetheless.

Our Chief of Men - Will Ireland Ever Know Who Brian O'Driscoll Really Is?

Brian O’Driscoll delivered a performance of extraordinary heroism last night, dragging Ireland to a one-point win over England by what seemed like sheer force of will alone. Watching him struggling to get his bearings after another cheap shot tackle it was hard not to think of Cúchulainn lashed to the rock, making one final stand for home and heartland.

At the start of the season there was a clamour to replace Brian O’Driscoll as captain of Ireland with Paul O’Connell, in whom the nation likes to see the embodiment of ourselves. O’Connell is perceived as very much a heart on the sleeve sort of man, whereas O’Driscoll is hardly known to the country at all.

O’Driscoll’s predecessor as Irish captain, Keith Wood, is an opposite sort of character. Wood was clearly devastated by the implosion of Ireland at the World Cup, and he was retired four years from the team. Even now on the BBC, from the comfort of the analyst’s sofa, you can see the agony on Wood’s face when potential Irish weaknesses are suggested to him.

O’Driscoll has never been like that. O’Driscoll does his media duty but he sups with a very long spoon indeed. The real Brian O’Driscoll is hidden far, far back while Public Brian churns out platitudes about how he and the guys are really enjoying their rugby and, you know, if we execute the game plan good things can come from that. This diffidence doesn’t sit well with the nation. The nation likes tears rolling down John Hayes’ face. It does not like fancy haircuts and model girlfriends.

The mask has slipped very rarely. Brian O’Driscoll was interviewed by Marian Finucane at the start of the international season back in Autumn, and he was happily batting back the questions until Marian referred to George Hook. O’Driscoll made a throwaway comment that he wouldn’t consider Hook much of an analyst. Marion seized on it, her nose for a story being always very good, and O’Driscoll spent some minutes under pressure on his five metre line before clearing his lines.

The disdain expressed for Hook was a flash of the real Brian O’Driscoll, the man who hammers into rucks with such fury, who swung Australia’s George Smith around by his dreadlocks, who was exchanging slaps with a precocious Benoit Baby of France at Lansdowne Road some years ago. O’Driscoll has been responsible for two autobiographies but the real man remains resolutely hidden, while an impostor is sent out to tell the media that he’s really enjoying his rugby and, you know, if we execute our game plan good things can come from that.

There’s tremendous goodwill in the country towards O’Driscoll, especially now the bleak ‘eighties are back and we’re relying on the current rugby team as we relied on Ciarán Fitzgerald back in the day. And there’s an unspoken understanding that once Ireland win the Grand Slam we’ll all be able to sit back and say “O’Driscoll? Great player. One of the best ever. Why, I remember back in ’09, he did this, he did that, he did the other.” And this is worrying because the sad fact is that Ireland are not going to win the Grand Slam this year, and the nation will be no closer to knowing this giant who has worn the emerald green with such distinction and such glory for so long.

If they do not win the Grand Slam, Ireland may well still win the Championship, which would still be a considerable achievement. Every other nation bar Italy has won since Ireland’s last Championship twenty-four years ago. It puts things in perspective.

Scotland will be seen as something of a pushover in a fortnight’s time, even though they have won the Championship twice, in 1990 and 1999, since that last Irish win. Ireland should still beat them, as Scotland seem to have adopted worst of the Home Nations to professionalism. But if Ireland do successfully avoid a tartan banana skin, they still have to win in Cardiff to win a Grand Slam and it’s very, very difficult to see that happening.

Wales got cold-cocked in Paris on Friday night. These things sometimes happen. Ask New Zealand what the French can do when their tails are up. But Wales are richly talented, expertly coached, fiercely proud and want the Lions places they were done out of in 2005. The fault lines in the Irish team are becoming more and more obvious and the Welsh at home are just the boys to spoil a party.

Ireland could lose in Wales and still win a Championship on points, and that would be good. I seem to recall the Welsh and Scottish both winning Championships after losing their final games in the ‘nineties, and there are no asterisks in the record books because of it. And when he’s asked at the press conference afterwards if he has any regrets about not winning a Slam, Brian O’Driscoll will tell the media that Wales are a really great team, that he and the guys are really enjoying their rugby and, you know, if we execute our game plan good things can happen.

An then he’ll get up and thank the media for their time and walk off into the shadows, almost certainly into retirement if he chooses not to tour with the Lions this summer, or is too smashed up to do so. And we’ll never really have known him at all, Brian O’Driscoll, this latter day Cúchulainn, this chief of men.





Technorati Tags: sport, rugby, Six Nations, Ireland, England, Brian O'Driscoll

Ireland v England: This Time, It's For Real

Declan Kidney will name his team for Saturday’s game against England at lunchtime today. Unlike the embarrassing hype-fest of two years ago, the game on Saturday evening will be played for huge stakes.

The first reason is because Ireland are still on track for the Grand Slam. One of the reasons why all that blather two years ago was so nauseous was because the Slam had already been lost, when the Irish lost to the French in the first game of rugby played in Croke Park; the pressure was off Ireland, as 2007 was another year when the Golden Generation wasn’t going to deliver.

This year, by contrast, the Slam is more real than it has been in six years. Ireland were a side transformed against France, delivering a performance that gave rise to hope once more that this Golden Generation can get more out of a Championship than a silver medal. By kick-off in Croke Park, the French may have done Ireland a favour – 211 years too late, but welcome nonetheless – and put paid to the Welsh in Paris. If so, the Championship will seem almost within touching distance.

This restoration of the Golden Generation is the second reason that the game on Saturday is so important. People had given up the Golden Generation for dead after the disaster of the 2007 World Cup; instead, Declan Kidney has come in and has somehow breathed life into careers long thought dead.

Brian O’Driscoll, like us all, will never be young again, but he has turned the clock back at least four years. The Munster ethos, so long dormant in the green jersey, is shining through. And the return of the Ulster players seems to have healed the Leinster/Munster rivalry that blighted the national side for so long. If Ireland do manage to win their first Championship in twenty-four years this year, the thanks will largely go to the new coach.

The third reason why the stakes are heightened is because England are that much better than they were two years ago. England have never recovered from winning the World Cup six years ago and have been in a process of either rebuilding or falling apart since. But a combination of immense player resources and bloodlines that allowed a damp little island to conquer one third of the world in their day don’t just disappear. England’s relentless march to the World Cup Final two years ago, before finally falling to a superior Springbok force, is one cameo instance of that. The English performance in Cardiff on St Valentine’s Day two weeks ago is another.

England had the advantage in that World Cup of having Jonny Wilkinson at stand-off half. Andy Goode or Toby Flood don’t really compare, while Danny Cipriani, who cut Ireland to ribbons last year at Twickenham, is out of favour. That makes them vulnerable. You need never look further than the misfortunate Italians to see how much a team struggles without a ten of international quality. Perhaps Martin Johnson will decide that even if he can’t stand him he’s stuck with him, and name Cipriani at ten. That would fairly put the cat among the pigeons.

Johnson. The current English coach is the only man in Lions history to captain two tours, and he is widely hailed as one of the greatest second rows in the history of the game, up there with Eales, Meads, McBride, and the rest. But he will always be infamous here for standing his ground on the red carpet before the Grand Slam decider at Lansdowne Road in 2003.

The significant thing about that is that Johnson successfully bluffed Ireland; he knew that if Ireland caved in, and bent the knee to the red rose before a ball was kicked, that the day would go to the old enemy.

Johnson was right. The only way to respond to a bluff is to up the ante. Ireland should have walked off and make a diplomatic protest about the insult to our head of state. Don’t think for a second that’s not what would have happened had Ireland tried the same stunt before a Windsor at Twickers. Instead, Ireland blinked. England won pulling up, and went on to claim the World Cup six months later.

Two years ago, England were humiliated in Croke Park, and humiliated before it by being made to say a lot of inane pieties about the historical associations of the stadium. That crack wouldn’t wash much with Johnson. Johnson, at a guess, would probably respond to Bloody Sunday the way Dyer did about Amritsar, and only express regret they couldn’t get in the armoured car and do a right job on it.

An Spailpín has written in the past of the horrors of leaving Championships behind. But if Ireland were to lose in Edinburgh and in Cardiff next month it would be worth it if that were the price of beating England on Saturday. The notion of losing to England, in Croke Park, is beyond intolerable. This game is that big a deal. Let it begin.







Technorati Tags: sport, rugby, Six Nations, Ireland, England, Croke Park

Time to Accept the Obvious - England are the Best Team at the Rugby World Cup

Once the penny finally drops, it’s obvious. We’ve spent the past month searching for the best team of the World Cup and they’ve been under our noses all the time.

New Zealand, crying bitter tears at home, are still the best team in the world, just as they always are. The All-Blacks haven’t adjusted to the existence of the World Cup yet, but year by year, now as then, the Silver Fern remains the gold standard. Argentina were brave and heroic, and have a potential genius at stand-off half in Juan-Martin Hernandez, but they were ultimately limited. South Africa are much the stronger team on paper, compared to England, and possess a game-winner in Brian Habana to whose brilliance England cannot hold a tallow candle, but the fact is that since South Africa boxed England’s ears for them in Paris on September 14th, every game for England has been an elimination game for them, and still they march relentlessly on. After a while, it’s not really a co-incidence anymore.

Alex Wyllie is showing poor grace in condemning the English style of play, not least as it’s exactly the style of play that forged the All-Blacks legend. Besides, it’s not as if England are breaking any laws of the game. Consult the rules, and ascertain how many extra points you get for aesthetic impression. None, I think you’ll find. The great characteristics of this England team are their resounding honesty and impeccable bravery. These men do not pretend they are hurt and dive in penalty boxes – rugby is not Steven Gerrard’s game. Instead, they scrum down and maul and ruck with impossible resolution and heroic heart. When the gunsmoke clears and the cannons no longer roar, watch for the white shirts marching grimly on, led by Corry, Shaw and Moody. Martin Corry, who has written such wry columns on the violence of breakdown play in modern professional rugby in the Guardian, is the epitome of the doughty yeoman who conquered at Corunna, Quebec and Cawnpore. He is not for turning.

England, above any team at the tournament, are forged by the events of the tournament; specifically, by the humiliation meted out to them in the Stade de France one month ago, when they were the only team at the tournament to be held scoreless. Once you hit rock bottom you can curl up and die, or you can realise that things can only get better. That’s the exactly the choice England made, to claw their way back up the ladder, rung by painful rung, that team of crocks, cripples and has-beens who don’t know what it is to get beaten.

The Tan burned Cork and hanged Kevin Barry, but he remains, in Kipling’s words, a first-class fighting man. What the Light Brigade looked down on at Balaclava is what England have faced in every game since that mauling under the hooves the Boks, and now they face it again. The monstrous strength of Os du Randt. The best second rows in the world, Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha, the man named for a truck. The shattering and explosive play Schalk Berger, the all-round excellence of Fourie du Preez at scrum-half. And a back three against whom England cannot compare in Habana, Pieterson and Montgomery. Impossible for England to win, so they do only what they can, and what they’ve been doing for this entire World Cup – when Alain Rolland blows his whistle tomorrow night England will lower lance and sabre and charge the guns, just like they do. Theirs not to reason why.

Neil Francis’ condemnation of England’s play in this World Cup on Setanta last weekend was shameful. That he can’t see the pride infusing that team, their refusal to be cowed, is an indictment of the man and he should be deeply ashamed. Pierre Bosquet famously quipped that the Light Brigade’s charge at Balaclava was “magnificent, but not war”; England may not be rugby as Neil Francis’ understands it, but for him to deny the magnificence of the stand they’ve made at this World Cup does Francis no credit at all.

England are only ever one Brian Habana interception away from doom tomorrow – if South Africa score tries, England will be hard pressed to catch them. But if England can impose themselves on South Africa and are still in the game with twenty minutes to go England will win it. An Spailpín has no doubt about that. The ice that runs through Jonny Wilkinson’s veins will grow even colder as he relentlessly directs his men on, rewarding his pack with field position, territory and ultimately points on the board, the sweetest reward of all. Jonny Wilkinson, who looked to have paid for his World Cup medal in 2003 with the rest of his career, has come back from the professional rugby grave to stand on the brink of personally directing England to the first ever back to back World Cups – if you don’t find that awesome and thrilling you should stick to the horror of Tubridy Tonight on Saturday, because you really don’t know what you’re watching. Ask Keith Wood. He sees it too.

If tomorrow evening is a bridge too far for England, it’s hard to deny South Africa the title either. They are a fine and talented team, and Jake White has had to withstand a lot of interference just to keep the show on the road. But for your Spailpín Fánach, England are the story of this World Cup, as they’ve clawed their way back from humiliation on nothing but sheer guts and pride alone. I’m sorry, Tom Barry. Accept my apologies, Dan Breen. Patrick Sarsfield, what can I tell you? I know Cromwell had you poisoned Eoghan Roe, and Oliver Plunkett’s severed head sits in a jar in St Peter’s, Drogheda, as a grim reminder of eight hundred long and dark years, but England are the best team at this World Cup and will win the final, just five days short of St Crispian’s Day. God and Blessed Oliver forgive me.





Technorati Tags: sport, Rugby World Cup, England, South Africa