England v Ireland with Statler and Waldorf

Let me tell you about Stuart who you may have met in two previous blogs – the trip to France and Camp Dick. I have known him a long time. He is one of life’s gentlemen, a beacon of values that are fading fast in the rest of society.

He likes things that are built to last, is suspicious of change and remains implacably opposed to what I might call the “disposable society.” Instinctively I know that Stuart would have no problems with a charge on plastic bags.

He is wearing the same Tricker's shoes he was wearing thirty years ago and has a Morris Traveller that is nearly as old as I am, that is still driven regularly, and that still works just fine. “The mechanics like to work on it because it has bits of familiar machinery that remind them of a real car,” he says.

We were sitting together high up in the east stand at Twickenham for the England v Ireland match. Stuart’s match commentary was fairly predictable, demanding that I take note of various nuances.

Rule changes

He didn’t approve of the move from the amateur to professional codes. Now he worries that Australian and commercial influences could further undermine the game he knows and loves. The Australians are favouring rule changes that will dilute the power of the scrum. Indeed some believe they would happily do away with the scrum altogether.

The danger here, says Stuart, is that we could be left with two teams of powerful running athletes, much as you have in Rugby League. This would be the beginning of the end for the slower, scrapping, forward who, he argues, has been the stalwart of club rugby throughout the history of the game.

So yesterday, when, after two or three phases of play, Stuart was spotting forwards such as Lee Mears and Phil Vickery, standing in ball-receiving positions, he was almost apoplectic. Why weren’t they in the rucks where they should have been?

Inflated prices

Meanwhile a couple of chaps in front of us were up and down like jack-in-a-boxes to visit the bars that are now open during the game. This never happened at one time but corporate greed now loses no opportunity to sell beer and pies at inflated prices while play is carrying on.

This meant that each of these two so-called supporters was missing large chunks of the game. But it wasn’t the beer drinking that upset Stuart. After the second England try, the man in front of him - a big bloke - rose out of his seat and started jigging from side to side. Stuart (who is not a large man – he played at scrum-half) tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to sit down.

The big man took umbrage at this and argued, with some justification perhaps, that he had not obscured our vision while the try was being scored. Then the big man’s friend joined in, shouting abuse at Stuart. It was starting to get ugly. Stuart was wearing a thin smile that had nothing to do with laughter. This was bad news for me since the first rule of mates is to stand by your mate. So I adopted the role of appeaser, saying “let’s calm it mate,” to the man who was not my mate.

Football supporter

But Stuart had taken against them. He didn’t like the way the jeans of the big man were hanging around his bottom. Neither did I. In fact the man was marked, in oh so many ways, as a “football supporter.” His hair was cropped short. He had too many gold rings on one finger. Indeed, he looked like he had never seen a piece of Tweed, never mind worn one.

Stuart does not approve of the behaviour of football supporters - you know the sort who bare their chest at matches - and is fearful that their ilk will invade our precious game. I share his fears. Fortunately our new friends did the football supporter thing and left before the end of the game. I noticed too, with some satisfaction, that they remained seated for the third England try.

By that time the match had been changed by a whole string of replacements. The game has allowed far too many substitutions. When fewer were allowed there used to be high scoring finales as the sides tired and made mistakes. Today the result is usually apparent within 10 minutes of the end of play.

Old farts

Of course such sentiments and criticisms mean that we and every other member of our small but happy group who go to the rugby internationals have become died-in-the-wool “old farts.” But if the older generation does nothing to educate the latest one, how will we preserve traditions of good behaviour?

As it is, few people know the words to songs anymore, not even Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. I struggle with some of the longer songs so have taken to using a song-sheet. Even this risks censure from those who think that knowing the words should be mandatory.

But I cannot hope to remember every verse of American Pie and there are times, such as during our post match singsong in the Prince Blucher, when you find someone who does know all the words and who needs a bit of help. Personally I prefer folk or classic pop themes, such as this one, to some of the baser rugby ditties, but there is a time and place for all things. It turned in to an excellent sing song (Simon, one of my fellow songsters provides a short history of Prince Blucher here).

Cheeky girls

So what about the game? Well, predictably the sports writers concentrated on personalities, overdoing the superlatives reserved for Danny Cipriani, and doing so in a way that belittled Jonny Wilkinson when both men played well and played well together. It was a vast improvement on the Scotland v England match that was ruined by the conditions.

I worry about Cipriani though. If you want to stay out of the tabloids, stay away from trans-sexuals and the Cheeky girls. Was this a sign of things to come? I probably came across him when he was a youngster when Robert, my middle son (now 21), was playing for Chobham. We often played Rosslyn Park where Cipriani played. Each of those junior teams had their star players and it’s nice to see one or two breaking through in to the international game.

Sadly the French did not beat the Welsh who can be insufferable in victory. At least the Welsh have a new hero in Shane Williams whose rugby is outshining that of Gavin Henson as much as Henson’s tan outshines the pallid (but authentic) complexions of his team mates. His skin is so orange I’m surprised he isn’t sponsored by Outspan.

Drinking vouchers

One last moan: the ticket prices at Twickenham have risen to ridiculous levels. My ticket cost £40 but the two middle-tier tickets I had for two of my sons each cost £68. When you have subsidised their drinking vouchers for the occasion it’s a costly day out.

On the other hand, at least going to the match means that we don’t have to listen to the discordant outpourings of Eddie Butler and Brian Moore, the Statler and Waldorf of sports commentary. We more than make up for that with our own.

Meanwhile down at the Red Cow

Down to the Red Cow in Richmond to watch the rugby union World Cup final. The pub was heaving. One thing I thought odd was that people behaved just as they would if they were actually at the match, applauding good passages of play and cat calling the referee when there was disagreement with a decision. Who's going to hear them?

The outcome of the match hinged on one very tight decision over whether or not Mark Cueto's foot touched the line as he went over to ground the ball in the corner after a dazzling run by Mathew Tait.

The match official with the video monitor certainly spent time scrutinising the play before ruling out a try. So we couldn't complain even though it looked good from the angles I saw. And that's one of the things that makes rugby such a great game - so much better than football. The players didn't complain or whinge about the decision after the match; none of the "we wuzz robbed" remarks you get in soccer, simply an acknowledgement that South Africa deserved their win.

But I wouldn't go so far as to say they were the better side on the day. England didn't suffer a beating, they simply didn't get the rub of the green this time. Decisions can make so much difference, as New Zealand found when they lost out to a French try scored from what looked like a clear forward pass.

Consistent rugby

Over the whole tournament, however, South Africa played the most consistent rugby and did so by concentrating on their defence, punishing other sides when they made errors as they did against Argentina in the semi-final.

England succeeded because they went back to basics - to the things they do well - scrummaging, fighting for the ball and protecting it when they get it. In the final they made two costly errors. Jonny Wilkinson should not have passed out to Tait that led to a slip in front of the posts, then a penalty for holding on to the ball. Lewis Moody should not have tripped a South African player that led to another successful penalty.

Big commitment

They also lost the ball in one or two situations when they had South Africa under real pressure. On the other hand they defended well themselves. The great thing about the final, as a rugby fan, is that, as you watched the match you felt that every player on the field was giving their absolute maximum commitment.

So we left the pub disappointed with the result but not by England's performance. I'm happy for the South Africans if the win lifts their country. Their team will be going in to transition in the next few years due to political pressures to field more black players. This may lead to a weaker side in the short term but hopefully will produce long term benefits in building rugby excellence within South Africa's black population.

The danger is that the political ramifications create so much upheaval that it damages the South African game and its administration. Sometimes political correctness can go too far. Talk of removing the Springbok emblem because of a perceived association with apartheid in some quarters seems silly.

Laissez fair management

As for England, there will be transition there too. Some great players are retiring but there is enough experience in this side to be optimistic about the changes. One thing that may need to be addressed is the laissez fair management style of England's head coach Brian Ashton. Was it justified by the results? I'm not so sure. But that shouldn't mean talk of dissmisal. It just needs sorting out.

Another issue for the game's administrators is the success of defensive rugby and territory-grabbing kicking in this World Cup. It didn't make for many great passages of running play in the tighter games. There was plenty of excitement in the tenseness of it all but it meant that we didn't see much flowing rugby in those matches. Overall, however, it was a great tournament, made so, in many ways, by the lesser sides that are improving all the time. It leaves plenty to build on.

Kilmainham Gaol, Croke Park and rugby union

It's always good to go to Dublin for the Ireland v England match. This year was special because of a change in venue. Ireland's Lansdowne Road stadium is being refurbished so the fixture was taking place in Croke Park run by the Gaelic Athletic Association.

But Croke Park is not just any old stadium. It's a very well appointed modern venue, the third biggest sports stadium in Europe with a capacity of more than 82,000. Yet hitherto it has confined itself only to Gaelic sports such as the all-Ireland Gaelic football and hurling championships.

There is a reason for this since in 1920 Croke Park was witness to one of the most notorious events in Ireland's long struggle for independence. The ground had already achieved some symbolic significance in the use of rubble from buildings wrecked in the 1916 Easter rising to construct one of the terraces, thereafter known as Hill 16.

Bloody Sunday

Then, on Sunday, November 21, a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary was brutally interrupted when police auxiliaries entered the ground and began firing on the crowd. The police were responding to a co-ordinated series of killings that morning when agents working for the British military had been murdered by hit squads loyal to Michael Collins, the Irish Republican leader.

Whether or not the shooting was a deliberate act of reprisal, or whether it was triggered by a nervous response to shots, real or imagined, from somewhere in the panicking crowd, is still far from clear. But at the end of the shooting some 14 people: 13 spectators and one player, Michael Hogan, the Tipperary captain, were dead or dying. Confusion in the aftermath was very similar to that after the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in Londonderry when members of the British Paratroop Regiment shot 13 people dead during a civil rights march.

Ancient history? Not in Ireland. There was a great deal of heated debate before the Croke Park administrators agreed to host the six nations rugby internationals. Some in the press had predicted crowd trouble. But only those who have no knowledge of rugby or its supporters would conceive of such nonsense.

I travelled over with six friends - seven of us and six tickets, not the ideal combination, but a better position than the group of twenty England supporters we met who had a single ticket. They wouldn't part with it to make their misery and our happiness complete. Irritatingly we had been covered for tickets but due to a mix up in communications a couple of tickets had been let go elsewhere.

At some stage we would need to draw straws. The last time it happened, some who had put tickets in to the kitty had lost out when the names were drawn out of a hat. This time there would be only one of us out of luck. Everyone had fingers crossed.

Firing squad

We spent the Saturday morning at Kilmainham Gaol where, in May, 1916, fifteen of those who had organised and led the Easter uprising were taken out in to the prison yard and shot by firing squad. One prisoner, James Connolly, dying from a serious leg injury that had turned gangrenous, was brought from his hospital bed and strapped to a chair before he was shot.

I can recommend the prison tour for those who seek to get a better understanding of the events surrounding the Irish rebellion. The story of the prison was harrowing enough without any need for embellishment by our tour guide, Ciaran, who delivered an excellent and even-handed narrative.

Walking to the ground - yes I was one of the lucky ones - we saw two men standing with a poster in memory of Michael Hogan. There was a delay before the British National Anthem as Mary McAleese, the Irish President, was shown to her seat. The press reported that the mainly Irish crowd was respectful of the National Anthem. That was an understatement. I saw some wearing the green who were singing God Save the Queen and at least one in front of me removed his cap - more than I managed to do.

There was near silence on the few occasions when Jonny Wilkinson kicked for goal. The rest of the time the home supporters were raising the roof as the Irish ran up an embarrassingly convincing win by a thirty point margin: 43-13.

Hen parties

As others have said, there is a new spirit in Ireland that may not have forgotten the past but which no longer feels weighed down by history. That's a good thing. The slightly sad aspect of this, however, is that the centre of Dublin on a Saturday night is a succession of hen and stag parties dominated by the alco-pop crowd whose appreciation of history extends to last night's TV.

The singing pubs and their singing clientele seem to be disappearing in the trendier parts of Dublin where gastro-pubs are beginning to compete with the drinking only bars. Our post match sing song was confined to the trip back to the suburbs on the Dart railway ahead of an early ferry the next day.

We always sing, win or lose, but after a loss like that we might have been excused if the chariots were not on fire that night.

Jonny Wilkinson discovers levitation

England v Scotland, Twickenham, 2007 : a match that will linger in the memory for those who follow the English Rugby Union team through thick and thin. There has been more thin than thick of late but this match made up for all those miserable performances in the last couple of years.

The pre-match preparations in Richmond were as intensive as ever. Early doors in the pub, money in the kitty, serious drinking then down to the bus, top deck, and the start of the singing, including a few Scottish anthems in tribute to the visitors.

This was the first game back in an English shirt at Twickenham for Jonny Wilkinson since he kicked the winning goal in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Some of us wondered whether he would last the first half but as soon as we saw the familiar bum-jutting, leg-jiggling ritual ahead of his first penalty kick the memories came flooding back.

Wilkinson doesn't miss many kicks. His ability to put them over from the touchline and rack up the points gives confidence to forwards and backs alike. His tackling and positioning stiffens the line and this time his battered frame stood up to the punishment. New cap Andy Farrell still feeling his way at inside centre, must have been glad that there was someone to share the attention.

It wasn't just Wilkinson either. Jason Robinson was back and, even without too many of his trademark jinking runs, still managed to score two tries. But it was the strength and punch of Harry Ellis that had us talking after the match, that and Wilkinson's precision kicking. OK, he might not have quite mastered the art of levitation, as it seemed he had with his one-handed try in the corner, but he was walking on water as far as we were concerned.

Post match we always sing, win or lose, but this was one of the classic sing songs with everyone standing on their chairs in the pub singing, "We're climbing up the sunshine mountain." There's still a big mountain to climb before the World Cup but it's nice to enjoy some sunshine at last.

The Scots tested England with some penetrating kicks and two deserved tries but really there was only one team on the day. Ireland at Croke Park will be something else. England will need to play out of their socks to beat an experienced Irish side on their own patch. But if Wilkinson can stay injury free, and that's a big "if", anything can happen. A new season, a new coach and everything has changed.

Former coach, Andy Robinson, said he would not have played Wilkinson. Few would have criticised him for that. But sometimes - as new coach Brian Ashton might argue - sometimes you have to take risks and sometimes you just get lucky. Whatever happens for the rest of the season after this 42-20 win, this was one for the memories - the day that Jonny Wilkinson returned and all of us fortunate enough to have had a ticket will say: "I was there".