France Deserved It

They scored more points ... still, our loss is great and our grief cannot be mended.

Laban, 2 days ago :

My worry is the kicking. We have no Jenkins or Thorburn, Parks or Paterson - Leigh Halfpenny's the nearest we've got and I wish he'd take more kicks. When Wales beat France in the U20 quarter finals two years ago his kicking was excellent.

Say what you like about Henson - arrogant and unpleasant is what I say - he seems nerveless when faced with a pressure kick.

Poor Hook. Like Gavin Hastings, those kicks will hang round the neck like the proverbial albatross. And Hastings only missed one ! It must feel even worse when you know that the rest of your colleagues stepped up to the plate magnificently after the sending off. Mind, Phillips could have tried to get under the posts a bit more - shades of Martyn Williams against Fiji four years back. Why didn't he devote a bit of energy to getting a yard further in, instead of waving in celebration? He knew what our kicking was like!

A great shame, especially as Wales are probably one of the top two teams of the tournament. For a team that would have graced the final to miss out like that is a real pity. But they had it in their own hands to win - even with 14 men.

Good luck to the French - they'll need it. I bet the Aussies and All Blacks are breathing a sigh of relief - and rubbing their hands.

They'll Be After Revenge ...

Wales v France in the U20 World Championship 2008 (they were beaten 31-6 by the Baby Blacks in the semis) ... in a remarkable finish they keep the ball alive to win the game on 86 minutes after being awarded a penalty try with a few minutes left. The French aren't too pleased... lots of now-familiar faces on the field.

I Prophesy ...

Laban, last night :

I don't know why anyone's discussing this game, which pales beside the titanic encounter some two hours earlier.

Game 1 - two teams in great form and closely matched. Frightens me to think about it. A tragedy that one team must lose.

Game 2 - one team that's "good enough", one team having a 'mare of a tournament. Unless the frogs can come out of the blocks and get ten points up very early, England should win and a couple of French be sent off. A tragedy that one team must win.

Well, the Frogs did come out of the blocks - although if England had scored just before half time, rather than dropping the ball twice, I still think they'd have won. As for the Welsh - well, the first-half pace of that game was unbelievable. Ireland believed they could break them as they'd broken Australia, choosing to go for the corner with kickable penalties. A reasonable call but as it turned out a wrong one. But few teams could have survived that Irish first-half onslaught and only conceded three points - that half was scary to watch in its pace and intensity. Along with Shaun Edwards, whose work on the defence has worked wonders, the Welsh fitness coaches deserve great credit. The missed Irish tackles when Jonathan Davies scored looked like the work of tired men, magnificent though Ireland were. Wales were still putting in a huge workrate up to the whistle.

Well, what a game. Now glory awaits.

On current form, Wales must be favourites. But you can never write off the French in a World Cup. Ask New Zealand. Ask them again.


UPDATE - I really ought to mention Scotland. Best World Cup performances I've seen from them since when - 1991 ? Should have beaten both Argentina and England, played some fine rugby. Just needed a line-breaker or two - without tries a team won't go that far.

Wales have the other problem - they've not had a truly reliable kicker since the days of Thorburn and Jenkins. A Chris Paterson or a Dan Parks - Scotland are well off in that department. If the Welsh defence continues to prove robust, it could be that kicks would decide.

And the form man there is New Zealand's Piri Wipu. 7 out of 8 today ain't bad.

There's always a chance on current form that the cup could be decided by the ref. Bryce Lawrence was not very good today - it takes a lot to get Laban supporting SA, but right up to the end, when he ignored Aussie tackling round the neck right in front of him (and in front of the posts) a lot of Oz transgression went unpunished. I hope Wales have studied all the refs well - there seems to be a big difference in interpretation between Southern and Northern refs regarding when the tackler should release, and when the tacklee should release the ball. Fair play to the Aussies though - 17% possession and they won ! Almost unheard of.

Sunday Sadness

Left, the monstrous East Stand, an Eighties addition to a previously open terrace which ruined the view of the pitch from the landings of Swansea Prison, seen in background. Front, a gaping void in the North Bank, the large terrace which could hold 10,000-plus fans in pre-Taylor Report days.

They're finally demolishing the Vetch Field, former home of Swansea Town, which has been standing empty for six years. The turf trodden by Ivor and Len Allchurch, John and Mel Charles, Terry Medwin, Cliff Jones (not to mention Dave Gwyther and Tony Millington), will become a 'landscaped area'.

Someone's pinched the clock.

There's something awfully sad about an abandoned football ground. I felt the same about Park Avenue, which for years remained empty in Bradford 7, the posts gone and the grass growing a yard high.



















Photo by ronaldaroo on flickr.

"Where now are the coaches and people ? where is the rattle a'rattling?
Where are the shirts and the scarves and the two sides battling?
Where is the roar and the chant, and the toilet roll throwing?
Where is the hand round the pint, and the cigarette glowing?"

The sporting landscape of a Swansea childhood is vanishing - at neighbouring St Helen's, the disappearance of the Mound Stand destroyed one of cricket's great pleasures - the ability to watch the sea and the shipping between deliveries. Then the old East Stand, recipient of a couple of Gary Sobers' six sixes, was demolished and replaced by what looks like an aluminium bus shelter. The stand overhung the Mumbles Road and was supported by pillars on the pavement, giving a cloister effect and shelter from rain. During the early Sixties wave of Welsh nationalism, the letters F R E E W A L E S ! were painted on the pillars. Within weeks some wag had painted out the W, and the pillars advertised free ales until demolition.

Hard Times

Somebody needs to tell the Irish and Welsh Rugby Unions that there's a recession / recovery on. There must have been 10,000 empty seats at the Millennium Stadium for Australia this afternoon (£70, £65, £60, £40, £25 - no reduction for kids and all the cheap (?) ones sold) - and there's a fair bit of space at the strange-looking new Lansdowne Road aka "Insurance-company-formerly-known-as-Norwich-Union-now-with-bland-and-meaningless-name Stadium", where the IRU hiked ticket prices by 21%, then added insult to injury by only selling the tickets in packages of four - one for each of the autumn internationals - at 430 euros i.e. over £320.

After an outcry they agreed to sell them in packages of two, but still at the same overall price. Result - no sell out against the world champions in a 50,000 seater stadium, when Ireland regularly sold out 82,000 Croke Park.

Most odd-looking stadium. One stand (North, replacing the old open terrace?) seems to be almost entirely executive boxes - like the west stand at Gloucester. I bet the atmosphere there is terrific. Capacity at 50,000 is only 2,000 more than the old Lansdowne Road, although it's now all-seater. But as with Wembley, what's the point of spending all that dosh for something that's no bigger ?

The WRU have got many things wrong over the years. One massive thing they got right was paying 'only' £120m to increase capacity from 53,000 to 73,000 all-seated, plus snazzy sliding roof - one of the great stadia of Europe. I love the way you can arrive at Cardiff Central station and it's right there in front of you, at the heart of town - the historic Castle directly to the North and only "Chip Alley" between the ground and the shopping. Cardiff on a rugby Saturday is a great family day out - Techniquest for young kids in the morning, a quick look at the Castle, the game and an excellent shopping centre for those who don't like rugby.

I don't know what the ratio is these days between the gate receipts and the TV rights, but the Welsh and Irish unions need to make sure the grounds are full for big games - and if that means reducing prices, so be it. You're selling an image - a premium event - as well as a game when you sell to TV - and if the fans don't appear to want to see it live, why should the viewer ?

It's wrong that Wales only have junior tickets available for the less popular games. Those are your future adult followers. But in any event, people will be less likely to fork out £200-odd for an afternoon's family rugby for the next few years. Like everyone else, the Rugby Unions are going to have to 'drink water and walk slowly'.


* Note - none of the above applies to Twickenham, where the return of hefty City bonuses will doubtless ensure full car-parks come February.

Dies Irae 2 - Bill McLaren

Another great British icon gone. Teacher, Cassino veteran, and an enthusiast whose love of the game went straight to the heart of the listener.

Miiaaooww !

The Very British Dude on the Commonwealth decision to expel Fiji :

It seems that the driving force behind this expulsion is the New Zealanders yet again. It has had another hissy fit over Fiji and its lack of democracy. Well New Zealand, you could always invade and restore it. That is you could once you've bought and trained the Air Force you scrapped to fly them there.

Oh, and made sure that your bullets have nice safe rubber tips so you don't injure your future All Blacks starting XV.

So Soon ...

Can it be Six Nations time already ? And can it really be four years since our Murrayfield trip ?

And more to the point, can it only be this time last year that Wales went in at half-time against England hanging onto the ropes at 16-6 after a first-half battering, with Boks coach Jake White predicting the opening of the floodgates in the second half, before ten disastrous, error-strewn minutes saw England hand the game over ?

Not that I'm sanguine about today's game - you just can't tell with the Scots, capable of anything on the day and with a pretty good recent record against Wales at Murrayfield.

We're not going this year - because next weekend we're off to what will hopefully be the best Scottish skiing for twenty years or more. Snow is coming down by the ton over the Highlands - even Glenshee, the most extensive Scottish area but with (I think) the worst snow record, is plastered with the stuff. I've just checked the sites - Cairngorm's had another two feet at car park level, while snowploughs are still clearing the roads to the Lecht. At this rate we'll be looking to hire cross-country skis.

Trouble with Scotland is that since climate change kicked in, you can have good skiing one week and it can be melting the next - especially on the lower slopes like the Lecht and Glenshee, or the westerly areas, Glencoe (my favourite) and Nevis, where south-westerlies can bring rain. Only Cairngorm is high enough to keep its snow - and there the trouble is often high winds. But surely this lot can't all have gone by next week - especially given the forecasts.

Nonetheless it's been terrific value over the years - although most of the landlords have now realised that they can raise the house prices by a good 30% over half term. Seven or eight years back they still hadn't cottoned on - I used to budget £200 for a house, £200 for ski hire, £200 for lift passes - not bad for six people. It's a fair bit more now - not least because our children are a lot older.

Let's just hope we can find somewhere decent to eat !

Words Fail Me ...

Welsh AM Adam Price. Give me David Pryce any day.

What I actually suggest is that this touring ‘home nations’ occasional side is superseded by a standing European team which would play a series every two years, alternately home and away, against a Southern Hemisphere XV: a sort of Ryder Cup for rugby. I have to confess that my motivation for this is half sporting, half identity-politics. For me, it’s difficult to identify fully with a Lions side which even with the name change in 2001 is something of a (crooked line-out) throw back to a by-gone imperial age ...

This kind of posturing really gets on my wick. This son of Rhys is AM for Carmarthen East, a constituency which, like all of South-West Wales, is being transformed by English refugees moving along the conduit of the M4. Culturally, linguistically, demographically, the area is being changed - becoming less and less Welsh.

This guy is supposed to be a nationalist. One who doesn't care about what happens to his people or their land, but thinks its really important that the Lions shouldn't be 'British'.

And if you can't identify with this (no matter that I'd like to see more Welsh players) then I don't think you actually love rugby.


(via Sam Tarran)

England - Special Training Regime For Second Test

Wow ...

Everyone who's interested in rugby knows about the greatest try in the greatest game (and what's second to that ? France v New Zealand in 1999 would be my choice).

But I'd forgotten about this huge Paul Thorburn penalty. Pretty impressive.

Cretin

If there's one thing that gets my goat, it's highly paid sports stars acting like prats in public. When Morris, Lampard, Gudjohnsen and Terry disgraced themselves in front of American tourists on the night of 9/11 I was disgusted.

When Gavin Henson hammered Mat Tait and kicked a huge penalty against England three years back it looked as if Wales' next great star was born. Unfortunately two big tackles and a kick don't make a career, and, afflicted by a nagging groin strain, he spent the next few years in the gossip columnns rather than the back pages. Wales left him out of the World Cup squad.

Yet in the last game against South Africa I was pleased to see that inside the celebrity there appeared to be a decent rugby player trying to get out.

Oh dear.

The teacher, who asked not to be named, said, “They weren’t inebriated, they were extremely drunk. They couldn’t stand, they absolutely reeked. I found them loud and abusive and there were children in there. They were playing a card game with forfeits, the most significant was that they had to drink one and a half bottles of beer and if they didn’t Gavin Henson clenched his fist and he hit them in the face. I saw it happen at least once but the boy was happy for him to do it. Another boy said afterwards he was desperate for a pee and did it on the floor. A lady started speaking to them and they became abusive.

Then I felt I had to intervene and they began swearing at me, using the ‘f’ word, the ‘c’ word, and they called one lady a ‘fat bitch’. Their seats were soaked and they spat on the table. Some forfeits included holding their heads back and pouring beer down each other’s throats.”

The woman said a train conductor tried to defuse the situation but said she did not have the authority to take the alcohol away.

"I got very, very cross, as did other passengers and I said to Gavin Henson, ‘This will do wonders for your image and the police will be waiting for you when you get off.’ This seemed to sober him up a bit, and he tried telling them [to calm down]. But one boy was so angry he was spitting when he spoke. I was offered a DNA test by the train manager because I had saliva on me. We had 1¾ hours of hell. One lady was profoundly disturbed by the incident. I cried when I got home but she was sobbing as she got off the train".

Gavin Henson is 25. By the calendar. And he's a disgrace to Welsh rugby.

A Game For Hooligans ....

My twelve year old came home from school rugby yesterday rubbing the side of his face where he'd been headbutted by an opponent - who got sent off.

Bathtime tonight :

"How's the head - does it still hurt ? ... anyway, why did he headbutt you ?"


"Well, you see ... I think he thought it was me that bit him on the leg"

Ray Gravell 1951-2007

Times

Telegraph obituary

BBC tributes 1

BBC tributes 2

He died 35 years to the day after Llanelli's 9-3 victory over the All Blacks.

Our Culture

Sunday morning, and Radio 5's Rachel Burden is interviewing kids at Farnham rugby club, Jonny Wilkinson's old team.

"So unlike your parents, you're all clear-headed this morning"

I love the casual assumption that every English adult with an interest in rugby was drunk on Saturday. No wonder most Muslims listen to their own-language stations or watch satellite.

"Are you passionate about what you do ?" - this to some poor 12-year old. For God's sake, woman, you're not interviewing a potential Housing Support Officer at Camden Council. Radio Five seems to have an inexhaustable supply of middle class idiot presenters.

England 12 Australia 10

Took the Welsh hat off for the afternoon. You wouldn't have thought it was the bunch who faced South Africa. The forwards dominated to such an extent that an English knock forward in their 22 was nearly as good as an Aussie one, because their scrum just couldn't stand against them.

And Sackey, who we thought couldn't tackle very well, made a try-saving tackle facing a 3-on-1.

Wilkinson kicked poorly, looking tense and wound-up, or England would have had more to show for a first half which they dominated. The backs were pretty anonymous except in defence. But a heroic performance all round. The Aussies looked shell-shocked at the end - as you would.


UPDATE - better and better. Not a great game - all that kicking in the first half - but I had a fiver on France to win ! If only Fiji and Scotland can win tomorrow to make it four underdogs out of four. After Argentina beat France I said they'd meet again in the final. Still possible.

Woe

Although I support Wales - more in hope than expectation - I cheered on England in the last World Cup once my beloved Land of Bastards had been knocked out, and I wanted them to see off SA last night as they'd done in 2003.

Blimey. They were dire. I thought Wales were pretty poor against France in the last warm-up game - but at least they put a few points on the board. England were - well, I felt so sorry for those supporters.

What happened to the traditional England game ?

1) establish forward dominance in the first fifteen minutes. Pressure the scrums, get a few rolling mauls on the go, keep recycling the ball and wear them down until the penalties come. Get to the breakdowns quickly and in strength.

2) from this platform of dominance, the holes will emerge for the backs to exploit.

I know they'd lost key players, but not a single kickable penalty ! Farrell continually kicked long, finding SA backs in acres of space and all the time in the world, whereas every high kick by SA found the receiver with the sound of onrushing boots in his ears. It must be said the SA kickers had one of those miraculous nights when everything comes off, while Catt's failed to find touch penalty set the tone for subsquent England kicks. Only Jason Robinson (and maybe Nick Easter) seemed to want to take SA on - and both sides supporters recognised that in the ovation he got when he came off.

In 2003 England seemed set to dominate northern hemisphere rugby for the foreseeable. Where's it all gone ?



UPDATE - well, it could have been worse. But if you don't take all your chances against a team as good as Oz you'll regret it. Just as in the 2003 England game, Stephen Jones missed a couple of kickable penalties in the first half - at 6-3 to Wales it could have been a different game. Twice kicks that failed to make touch led to Australian tries. But they scrapped away and won the second half, though the gap was just too big to claw back. More idiosyncratic southern hemisphere reffing - how Gareth Thomas and Latham avoided cards I'll never know. And you always felt there was some creativity on the field - last night when Robinson went off you couldn't see the SA line being broken if the ref played 25 minutes injury time.

A Soggy Night In Newport Town

Well, the Dragons beat Glasgow 13-3, but it was easily the worst I've seen them play this season. None of the usual fire - maybe the pools of water all over the pitch and the non-stop downpour had something to do with it. Despite the water, the pitch was in tremendous nick and cut up very little. But it was comedy rugby, with handling difficult and both teams kicking and hoping for a defensive error. There were plenty of those, but no-one could take advantage as time and again the ball held up in the lakes (you could have drowned at the bottom of some rucks) or slipped from hands.

3 up for half the game, Glasgow battled superbly against subdued Dragons and deserved a draw, with their forwards more than matching the Dragons pack, even when Beattie was sinbinned. It must have been a heartbreaker when they conceded a penalty with a minute left, Ceri Sweeney kicked it and then played a cross-kick to the left corner for Aled Brew to score unopposed with the clock on 81 minutes. 13-3 didn't really reflect the game.

I've noted before the wonderful prices for children (I took six last night) at Rodney Parade - £3 each. Noting that pretty much every male on the terraces had pint glued to hand, I thought maybe a Guinness would ward off winter chills and keep the rain out. £2.20 a pint ! Has earth anything to show more fair ?

Underwater Rugby ?

Rodney Parade

A cold Friday night, left work early to watch my youngest play rugby (lost, alas) - what better way to spend the evening than packing the car with children (£3 for kids - absolute giveaway) and heading across the border to Newport?

I don't think it's being unfair to say that the town's had a reputation as a) not being the most scenic bit of Gwent b) having some pretty rough boys - and girls too. But watch out - yuppification is coming. I havn't worked out where the marina and its associated flats will be, but the whole west side of the river is a mass of diggers and traffic cones - with the east side, including the Parade, next up. Close to the M4 corridor - I see another Cardiff or Swansea-style future for those with the money.

I must admit I rather like the old Parade as it is. Interesting layout - you enter through an area which once looked to have been a banked cycle circuit, with a bowling green (there once were tennis courts) in the middle, as seen in this old photo. There was until recently a cricket ground at the far end, too - where Glamorgan used to play.



Gwent Dragons beat the amateurs of Bucuresti 66-10, though the game was marred when the Romanian No 8 Cosmin Ratiu was taken off with what looked like a serious neck injury. The latest report from hospital last night was that he had regained movement in the upper part of his body. "He's not moving" said my son within seconds of him going down. Hope he'll be OK.

If we can get tickets we may well be back for the Bristol game on 12th Jan.

It was worth the trip just for Kevin Morgan's terrific running from fullback and to see the great Colin Charvis, Welsh icon and son of Sutton Coldfield. Apologies for the picture quality.