View from the Southern Hemisphere - Latest reaction
By Jon Bird
Another week of World Cup rugby and yet again we see England failing to perform, in what must have been one of their worst performances in recent years. As well as scoring “nil points” for the first time ever in a World Cup game for England (a testament to South Africa’s discipline), we were out-muscled, out-run and just out-played (excluding Mr Robinson)!
As I turned up to work this week I yet again faced the barrage of abuse from anyone and everyone regarding England’s performance. It’s got to the point where I’m starting to build immunity to any negative press towards the English because even I am losing interest in our lack lustre performances and nomadic wanderings on the pitch.
Perusing the papers during Monday lunchtime I was interested to read how the Kiwi press had viewed the display of South Africa against the “muscle bound pensioners”. The consensus was that England had humiliated themselves more than South Africa had played well. In one paper England were described:
“They are a lumbering and mega-rich mess; an ill-prepared outfit who have stupidly rested on their laurels, England offer nothing in entertainment. Their game is not a style; it’s a method of raising the white flag as slowly as possible. The only thing that stops you wanting to kick them on the way down is the sight of their coach Brian Ashton, because he looks like a kindly old granddad whom you simply can’t admonish, even though he keeps burning the dinner”.
All this written by a journalist who doesn’t like to bag English rugby out of hand but even I agree that he has a point. The national view in New Zealand is now turned from a position of being smug and laughing at the English, to one of pity at how a great rugby nation has fallen so quickly. It’s not good for the game and so far the press has labelled this World Cup the most boring ever, with skill levels having fallen (excluding the New Zealanders of course) globally.
According to the Kiwi press England need to “batten down the hatches” to stay in the competition and a fit Jonny Wilkinson is needed to bolster a team that was said to be close to tears after the nightmare of their record 36-0 mauling. Is the task of turning England’s game around a bridge too far for the great Jonny? I’m reluctant to say he might have met his match.
Another team who got most of the column inches was Portugal. The All Blacks vs. Portugal game being praised for its carnival atmosphere and gutsy performance from the rugby minnows. Titles read “Hey, plucky Portugal…..I like the way you move”, “Demolition far from simple” and “A reason for not reducing the number of teams”.
The Portuguese, knowing they were in for a shoeing, were brave and pretty intelligent in the way they approached the game. They don’t have the resources but the kiwis loved the way they went about the game given their rugby package. Portugal did themselves proud, ran to a standstill and only those with the hardest of hearts would not have shared their delight. In fact it was the press who turned on their own kind describing the All Black display as “scratchy in their execution with too many knock-ons and forward passes”. Being the only team in the World Cup with no professional players in their World Cup squad the Portuguese did themselves or other smaller rugby nations no harm at the weekend.
The press are also keen to point out how the World Cup betrays the smaller rugby nations and gives the established teams an edge in qualifying for the quarter finals with England having with eight days to prepare and Samoa only six. This IRB case of charity to the rich and disrespect for the poor is seen in a very dim light and the NZRFU are keen to back Michael Jones (who is still talked about with the highest regard) to use his status to prevent this happening in 2011.
So the focus now turns towards England’s clash with Samoa. The Samoans, thought to be the team to potentially upset England lost to Tonga and now all of a sudden the English have two crunch matches ahead of them! If England turn over Samoa this weekend then that is only half the job done. In New Zealand there is a feeling that there needs to be an upset to liven the World Cup up, we’ve had a few near misses (Ireland vs. Georgia) but the Kiwis are seriously looking to England to fail to qualify and give them their upset! Who can blame them?
View from the Southern Hemisphere - ‘World’s Apart’
Our man Down Under, Jon Bird, reports from New Zealand in the first of series of articles describing rugby events from a Southern Hemisphere point of view.
Having been a resident in New Zealand now for the past six weeks I have come to terms with the fact that no one does rugby like the Kiwis do rugby. Rugby is everywhere, a way of life and most importantly as a stranger in a new environment, a great topic of debate.
Just walking around Auckland posters of Richie and Dan seem to cover every spare piece of advertising space available and shops have turned what once might have been a clothes display into an All Black shrine and overlooking all this is a big digital clock counting down the seconds to the Rugby World Cup Final. It’s easy to tell that the nation has put all its eggs in one basket and will not accept their players back into the country without the prized Webb Ellis Cup!
Being in New Zealand the match times are highly unsociable with the first match kicking off usually around midnight, then 2am then 4am respectively but either way I wandered down the viaduct at around 10pm on Saturday 8th with vodka red bulls very much being my order of the night for the rugby marathon ahead. With the hopes of the nation riding on the New Zealand players’ backs and their history of choking come World Cup time, I was secretly praying for a less than convincing display from the All Blacks…we all know what happened, it was a rout and the Kiwis were loving it, not the best place to be as the local “pom”.
In fact the first weekend of the world cup was an absolute disaster for northern hemisphere rugby. Not one of the home nations looked convincing, France suffered one of the most embarrassing defeats in their history and Italy were taken to the taxidermist and stuffed. In contrast the southern hemisphere teams played rugby that the northern hemisphere hasn’t seen in years!
The Monday morning did not make good reading for an Englishman, nor any European come to think of it! Papers were covered with any one of the 11 tries New Zealand had scored against Italy. “How’s Hat” read across one broad sheet commenting on Doug Howlett’s hat trick and it seemed that the All Blacks had actually surpassed the expectations of their nation.
The newspapers, although praising their national side also highlighted that the game playing above the equator truly was a “World Apart” from that being played below it. England were perceived to be a “lost” team with no real game plan, aimless passing, poor ball skills (Joe Worsley getting a lot of abuse) and laughable that we had ever been world champions. Andy Farrell is seen as a big joke being described as “one of the slowest centres England has seen and they’ve had a few” and “a workhorse that needs to go to the knacker’s yard”. England are seen to be relying on “the old guard” again and New Zealand love the fact that Lawrence Dallaglio, Martin Corry and Mike Catt (who I rate) have all made the cut considering they are miles off the pace for what New Zealand consider to be required for test rugby.
The Kiwi newspapers (quite rightly) predict damage limitation against South Africa, with Samoa being the crunch game. England aren’t seen as a threat and the papers are picking up the fact that all England has to defend it’s poor results is that “we have the ability to upset the big teams” but no one has seen even an ounce of that ability so no one in New Zealand takes any of the comments seriously.
As the weekend draws near the New Zealand press is focusing on England vs. South Africa as no one seems to have time for Portugal. The locals have been winding me up about this Friday’s (Saturday for me) big game and with news of England not having a specialist fly half (first five-eighth over here) the prospect of England overturning South Africa is highly unlikely and I am struggling to defend the lacklustre performances of late. The New Zealanders (or any rugby nation) love to put the English down and who can blame them, now is the perfect opportunity, but I, like any other patriot, would love to be wrong and see us play the rugby Brian Ashton can make us play and I’ll be at the local sports bar at 7am this Saturday morning shouting “come on the Gland!” like any other good rugby supporter should, even if Farrell is at 10!
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