McGeechan appointed Lions coach in 2009
There’s a sense of deja vu - the Lions are touring South Africa, home of the World Champions, led by Ian McGeechan, the greatest Lions coach ever. Can he really do it again?
All we need now are replacements for key players like Johnno, Gibbs, Guscott, Wood, Jenkins. Is it time to start picking those Lions XVs?
Johnson announces squad to tour New Zealand
Martin Johnson has shown the first glimpse of his selection intentions, and thankfully, Iain Balshaw won’t be unleashed on the All Blacks this summer.
Steve Borthwick is named as captain, with uncapped players Topsy Ojo, Danny Care, Jason Hobson, Dylan Hartley, David Paice and Nick Kennedy featuring.
The full squad is shown below. Are there any surprises? Do we stand a chance?
Backs: M Brown (Harlequins), P Sackey (Wasps), D Strettle (Harlequins), T Ojo (London Irish), M Tait (Newcastle), M Tindall (Gloucester), J Noon (Newcastle), T Flood (Newcastle), O Barkley (Bath), D Cipriani (Wasps), C Hodgson (Sale Sharks), R Wigglesworth (Sale Sharks), P Richards (London Irish), D Care (Harlequins).
Forwards: A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), T Payne (Wasps), M Stevens (Bath), J Hobson (Bristol), L Mears (Bath), D Hartley (Northampton), D Paice (London Irish), S Borthwick (Bath, capt), B Kay (Leicester), N Kennedy (London Irish), T Palmer (Wasps), T Croft (Leicester), J Haskell (Wasps), J Worsley (Wasps), M Lipman (Bath), T Rees (Wasps), N Easter (Harlequins), L Narraway (Gloucester).
Introducing Our Rugby Club
Our Rugby Club is giving rugby fans the chance to help a small or medium-sized rugby club climb through the leagues by offering collective financial assistance.
By bringing together a community of like-minded rugby supporters and by pooling our financial resources, Our Rugby Club will make a significant investment to a club which can then purchase state of the art training equipment, attract new players and coaches and provide everything required to transform the club and move up through the leagues.
Our Rugby Club members will pay an annual subscription of £30, every penny of which will be invested in the partner club. With a target number of 10,000 members, Our Rugby Club will be able to offer £300,000 per year.
The venture will not only bring this direct investment, but significant media coverage will result in increased match attendance and opportunities to increase ticket revenue, sponsorship and merchandising.
In return, members will be offered a number of benefits which will be agreed with the partner club. These could include discounted match tickets, opportunities to meet players and coaches, competitions to win International tickets and maybe even the opportunity to participate in a trial match for the club. These will be supplemented by online forums where club members can share views on performance, selection, tactics and other club matters.
The exact nature of our potential relationship will need to be fully discussed and agreed in consultation with the chosen club. The aim is to invest in a club and make it successful both on and off the pitch. Our Rugby Club is run by genuine rugby fans and will not be buying a stake in the partner club - the aim is to make a real success out of an existing club by investing our members’ money and generating additional opportunities for the club to develop.
A number of clubs have already expressed interested in developing a relationship, and members are starting to register their interest in becoming a member. Please visit www.ourrugbyclub.com for more information.
Have your say on the ELVs
There have been several threads about the ELVs on here recently, with some strong feelings among rugby supporters.
The RFU have obviously been reading the comments from Spike, Rob Watson et al and are inviting the rugby public to share their opinions on the proposed law changes.
The web address is below, and without wanting to sway you in your opinion, make sure you follow the link and tell the powers that be not to meddle with our brilliant game!
Feel free to post your arguments here as well, so that people can make an informed decision.
Johnson takes the reins as RFU finally makes a decision
Martin Johnson was finally handed overall control of the England rugby team today after several weeks of speculation. It is a huge relief that a conclusion has finally been reached and the RFU can hopefully stop embarrassing themselves and the whole English game. In truth the appointment has been on the cards for a while but I for one refused to believe it until it was officially announced, as I rather suspected that the RFU would find some spectacular and original way of messing it up.
And so we welcome back the hero and live in hope that the big man can cure all the ills and right all the wrongs which have bedevilled the England team these 5 years. It remains to be seen whether Johnson, with no management experience, can wave a magic wand and transform the England team overnight. What is certain though he that he will be cut a lot more slack than his two predecessors were by the English rugby public.
I found myself slightly shocked at the amount of vitriol directed at Ashton when he never seemed to me to be the root of the problem. His big error was accepting the watered down terms offered by the RFU in the first place. Once he had done that, his hands were tied rather, although that does not excuse some of the more bizarre selection decisions of the 21st Century.
The best news is that Johnson appears not to have stood for any of the RFU’s pussy-footing. He has demanded full control of his coaching team and the selection of the players, and quite right too. He must stand and fall by that and he knows it. This is best for all concerned as there is no room for doubt regarding accountability and, knowing this, Johnson will leave no stone unturned when it comes to getting precisely what he wants. Hopefully he will act as a rocket up the proverbials of the establishment, a la Woodward a decade ago.
The most interesting part of the next few months, barring who is appointed to take the side to New Zealand, will be how Johnson deals with Rob Andrew. There is an ever-growing suspicion that he is not equipped to take the big decisions and that nobody really knows what it is he is supposed to be doing. Johnson has no use for deadwood and will not be averse to making his point in this respect. Andrew’s big job appears to have been to appoint the England Head Coach but he has messed it up twice and on the third occasion the RFU overrode him, told him who they wanted and did not leave him alone until he had got him. If this is the only way to make things work then what is he doing there in the first place? He is in danger of becoming something of a victim being used by the RFU to shield them from accountability.
The RFU must learn from the whole sorry episode. If Johnson is successful, and there is little reason why he shouldn’t be, there is the danger that they will say ‘Well we got there in the end and the end justifies the means’. It doesn’t. Not by a long way. The whole thing has been a disgrace and you strongly suspect that the grandees, were they to find themselves in a brewery with a load of booze, some guests in fancy dress and a set of party-organising instructions, would hold a series of meetings over several months to figure out what on earth they were supposed to be doing. On the day that those responsible for messing up the launch of Heathrow Terminal 5 were handed their P45s, the RFU should remind themselves that in any other field of business, several people would have been fired immediately for such mishandling.
The treatment of Brian Ashton has been beyond the pale. Had they just sacked him after the 6 Nations then that would have been fine, regardless of whether you agreed with the decision. At least it would have been clean and decisive. By leaving him in limbo for so long as they desperately tried to fudge a way to avoid getting rid of him altogether, they exacerbated the damage. Whatever you think of him as a coach, Ashton has been treated appallingly and it is of huge credit to him that he has retained his dignity throughout. He is just about the only person to come out of this with any credit.
So the future has finally arrived, it is ruthless, grizzled, nasty, no-nonsense and a blessed relief. Johnson is a winner, first and foremost. And for the first time in 4 years, England have the right structure in place, albeit that some have had to be dragged there kicking and screaming. I’m excited about it. Are you?
by Stuart Peel
British Lions Itinerary announced for South Africa 2009
The itinerary for the 2009 tour of South Africa by the British and Irish Lions has been announced. It sees 10 matches in a 5 week period, mirroring the last tour to New Zealand. Hopefully it will prove rather more successful than that one.
This will be a crucial tour for the Lions as they seek to confirm that they have as illustrious a future as they have had a past. The first two tours of the professional era produced terrific rugby, even if 2001 was somewhat turbulent. However, as the effects of professional rugby took hold, 2005 was an unmitigated disaster, begging the question of whether a scratch team can really be expected to compete with the best in the professional era. The opposition may have been an excellent New Zealand team (unusually peaking right between 2 World Cups), but the Lions didn’t even compete.
Ian McGeechan is the favourite to be Head Coach and if anyone knows how to win on a Lions tour it is him. The 1989 victory in Australia was fantastic, the 1997 win in South Africa even better. ESPN Classics showed the 1997 ‘Living with the Lions’ programme again a couple of months ago and, despite having watched it live at the time, I could not believe the quality of the rugby the Lions played. It was high tempo and precise with players offloading left, right and centre. And the banter was top drawer. If McGeechan takes the role, he is likely to select the Wales dream team of Gatland and Edwards as his assistants and they have shown recently that they can turn a team around pretty quickly.
Lions’ tours are absolutely awesome. Get the dates in your calendar and bring it on.
The British Lions’ itinerary:
May 30, Highveld XV (Rustenburg)
June 3, Golden Lions (Johannesburg)
June 6, Cheetahs (Bloemfontein);
June 10, Sharks (Durban)
June 13, Western Province (Cape Town)
June 16/17 tbc, Coastal XV tbc (Port Elizabeth tbc)
June 20, South Africa (Durban)
June 23, Emerging Springboks (Cape Town)
June 27, South Africa (Pretoria)
July 4, South Africa (Johannesburg)
Hong Kong Sevens as colourful as ever
Tom Innes and his girlfriend Kate Adams travelled to Hong Kong to celebrate their third Hong Kong Sevens, not to mention a 40th Birthday party for his ‘baby’ sister Lucy, who has been based in HK since 2005. He offered to put down a few thoughts on the event – the Sevens not the birthday party – for The Rugby Blog.
Rugby’s an important part of the mix at the Hong Kong Sevens, but woe betide anyone who prioritises it ahead of the other main raison d’être – partying. Just ask the players of New Zealand and Fiji who were ready to start the second half of their semi final, only for the referee to tell them to wait 40 seconds until the PA had finished playing ZZ Top and the 15,000 people in the South stand had put down their air guitars.
It may not have been a vintage sevens on the field, with a lack of any real doubt about the eventual winners. No-one seriously challenged the Kiwis, whose reputation for choking in big events seems limited to the 15-a-side game. But the party was once again without parallel, and the 40,000 fans packed into So Kon Po stadium wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else.
The traditional Sevens warm-up features the sibling Tens tournament on Wednesday and Thursday, plus an assortment of dinners and lunches. But fears of peaking too early, not to mention flight logistics, meant we arrived at 8.30am on Friday just eight hours before the first kick-off.
We met our regular Old Freemen’s/ Hong Kong connection Simon Gibbs for some warm-up beers at the East End Brewery that caused us to miss the start. But by 6.30pm normal service had been resumed – the South Stand was full, New Zealand had racked up 50 points against Taiwan, and Gibbsy had been soaked in beer thanks to the unsteady hands of the fan in front of him dressed as a Mexican.
Traditional boo-boys France (a love-to-hate scenario) and Australia (the same thing, but without the love) were given a vocal Hong Kong welcome, but won their opening games, and only Tunisia came close to causing a surprise, losing 26-21 to the US.
We encountered a group we knew from Nuneaton RFC, biennial visitors to the Sevens, doing some prodigious early drinking and trying to work out the correct seating plan for their O-N T-O-U-R letters on the back of their shirts. The six of them were joined by four more, L-A-D-S, on the Saturday morning.
Taking a one-day breather from the South Stand on Saturday, we took up our bird’s eye positions in the East Upper just in time to see England brush aside Sri Lanka. The change of seats worked fine, apart from the fact that the stewards who stop fans bringing booze to their seats in this part of the ground had worked out that Pimm’s was alcoholic.
Saturday’s games were more exciting than on the opening day: China beat Scotland and the Australians squeezed past France – the crowd didn’t know who to support.
We sat behind ‘Statto’, a friendly bearded chap who had attended all 33 HK7 tournaments and recorded in his notebook not just the scores, but the number of airings for keynote songs such as La Bamba, the Hawaii 5-0 theme, I’m a Believer and One Step Beyond. I was reminded by my girlfriend not to turn into Statto when I was older. She doesn’t like beards.
The finest game on Saturday was the penultimate one in the pool stages, England squeezing past holders Samoa in an agonising 14 minutes. Ahead 7-5 with a minute to go, England withstood a length of the field break, conceded possession on the final whistle, only for Samoa’s ‘winning try’ to be ruled out for a foot in touch. A very tight squeeze indeed, for which England’s ‘reward’ was a rematch with their opponents, the second seeds, the following afternoon.
Sunday dawned cloudy and humid, and we made the schoolboy error of neither getting a good breakfast down prior to arrival nor bringing something with us. Unable to leave the South Stand for fear of not getting back in again – it’s one-in, one-out after it fills up – we had to endure the South Stand catering that was on the cusp of unpleasant and inedible.
The organisers ha a few teething problems of their own first thing on Sunday: when the announcer took up the mic for the first time he asked the crowd if they were ‘Alright Now’, but the song of the same name wasn’t cued up and there was an awkward silence. Then Zimbabwe took the field for the first match at 9.45am with no opposition, Taiwan entering stage right a minute later to ironic cheers.
The fans’ fancy dress efforts reached their peak for Sunday, everywhere you looked there was another more outrageous set of costumes: cowgirls, Super Mario Brothers, smurfs, Hula babes, sailors, 28 blokes from Melbourne dressed as Steve Irwin, they were all here. We took our seat alongside the Nuneaton ‘LADS’, although the original six had ruled their shirts too smelly to wear for a third day running.
The day may have built slowly but the joint was jumping by the time New Zealand and Wales contested the first Cup quarter final three hours later. The jugs of Pimm’s, Guinness, Sea Breeze and VRB were beginning to kick in.
After the narrow win on Saturday, not to mention a contentious quarter-final victory in 2006, England’s luck ran out against Samoa – this time a foot that might have been in touch was ruled inside the line and a 3-2 try win was sealed.
England’s defeat disappointed many in the crowd, and even more were aghast to see Hong Kong dumped out of the Bowl competition by the quick hands and legs of Zimbabwe in the very next match.
Thereafter it is fair to say that matters off the field were of more interest to most than the various games being played on the pitch. We were entertained by some wag throwing a wooden spoon at the Scottish team as they passed, had a rendezvous with Gibbsy – very well-refreshed by this point – and joined the traditional crowd rendition of Sweet Caroline.
Our new friend Chantal arrived and introduced herself. Resplendent in a red cowboy hat, but very hung over, she told us about her romantic liaison the night before with a 25-year-old gentleman, young enough to be her son and dressed as a tennis player. Love-all at first sight.
The rugby was somewhat predictable – South Africa beat the Samoans but were no match for the Kiwis in the Cup final. Russia took the Bowl for the eight lowest-ranked teams, while of all teams France were the Plate winners. Boos would have been guaranteed in any event, but they were especially loud when the Gallic villains sealed their win over Argentina by ‘dropping’ a penalty goal in sudden-death extra time.
The final finished at 6.45pm and it was time for fireworks and the presentation before revellers headed off to the tented Sevens Village or the bars of Wanchai and Lan Kwai Fong to keep the party torch, burning annually in Hong Kong since 1976, burning for a few more hours.
The final word went to bagpiper John Simpson, attending his first Sevens and playing live in the stadium. Quoted in the South China Morning Post, he likened the event to “a sci-fi convention crossed with a sports event.”
“I have no idea what rugby has to do with men getting about in miniskirts and crop tops,” he said. “But it seems to work.”
Wilkinson poised to join Johnson’s England coaching dream team
Reports emanating from Newcastle this morning have suggested that Jonny Wilkinson is poised to join Martin Johnson’s coaching team if the World Cup winning captain chooses to accept the management of the England team. In an extraordinary development, it is thought that Wilkinson will be installed as kicking coach and as a consultant on back play, including attack and defence. While there will be another full time backs coach who will concentrate more on the skills side, Wilkinson is likely to have significant input into the tactics and approach of the team.
Wilkinson has only been out of the England starting line-up for one game and is certainly not retiring, but this is evidence that he is already thinking about the next stage of his career in rugby. With the emergence of a string of young rivals led by Danny Cipriani, but also including Ryan Lamb, Shane Geraghty, Toby Flood and Charlie Hodgson, perhaps Wilkinson has reconciled himself to the fact that his days at the top are numbered. This would be an extraordinary admission for a man as dedicated and ambitious as Wilkinson but after Cipriani’s performance against Ireland, perhaps he thinks it is time to carve out a new niche for himself.
This news is further evidence of the fact that Johnson appears likely to agree to manage England and that he will have full power to hire and fire as he sees fit. It appears that he wishes to surround himself with trusted lieutenants whom he knows and trusts. Wilkinson will still be available to play but this news also casts further doubt over the future of Brian Ashton. Were Johnson to take over, then the only way Ashton could really be retained is as backs coach. The introduction of Wilkinson, even in a consultative role, may be the thing which leads Ashton to decide that there is no future for him in the set up. It would undermine him even more than he has been already.
Still, the prospect of Johnno and Jonny pooling their vast array of knowledge is an enticing one. What price a role for Neil Back as defence coach to create a World Cup winning coaching triumvirate? If they cannot create a winning mentality then we are beyond redemption.
Stand by for further RFU inaction
Rob Andrew will present his Six Nations review to the RFU blazers today, presumably with recommendations on how to proceed and take England Rugby forward.
There has been speculation that Brian Ashton could be removed, with Martin Johnson taking control and appointing his own coaching team that he’d be happy to work with.
However, I have a suspicion that Andrew will conclude that second place in the Six Nations is the best result since 2003, several players won their first cap demonstrating progress from 2007, and that he sees no reason to remove Ashton before the end of the year.
The worst case scenario would be somewhere in the middle, whereby immediate action is called for but they only sack the chef or the kit man and thus not really changing anything.
What are your thoughts? What would be the best result from the latest RFU review?
Cipriani dropped from England team for ‘inappropriate behaviour’
The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Danny Cipriani, the new star in the England rugby firmament, has been dropped from the England team to play Scotland for ‘inappropriate behaviour’. One wonders how this will affect the youngster in the long term but the most notable short-term impact is the return to the starting 15 of that crowd favourite, Ian Balshaw (well, favourite of the opposition crowd).
At this stage we can only speculate what form this ‘inappropriate behaviour’ took – mooning out of the coach window on the way to the training ground; making Brian Ashton an apple pie bed; doing his ‘elephant impression’ at the team meeting; being found with a voodoo doll of Jonny Wilkinson in a bid to get the 10 shirt?
Reports suggest that he was spotted leaving a nightclub at shortly after midnight last night. If this is the case then the word ‘pillock’ is one which springs immediately to mind. Only a year ago, Andrew Flintoff was dropped by the England cricket team for being seen out 2 days before a crucial World Cup match. Granted he was upside down underneath a pedalo but coaches and sporting authorities do tend to take a dim view of this sort of thing. And before your full debut?
From a purely selfish point of view, I will not be able to say in years to come that I was there when the great Danny Cipriani made his full debut. Instead I suspect I will be reduced to crowing that I was there when the hilarious Ian Balshaw made his final appearance.
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