A Nod To Blazing Saddles For The Old Farts

I GET no kicks from Champagne, mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all, but (when I see England's media cheer-leaders scuttling around trying to find something positive from an England defeat. Well, then: I get a kick out of you. (Apologies to Cole Porter).

Dear Gerard Meagher, is a Barbour-wearing English fan with a lap top - he's one of the down-table rugby writers at The Guardian  - was in full deflection mode on Sunday, when he breathlessly repeated England Coach Steve Borthwick's third or fourth plea in mitigation from Saturday: “At least, our scrum improved as the match went on.” Aye Right!!

I've been writing,ever since they first broke through that Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler simply cannot scrum. In the world of modern elite-level rugby, the ability to get down and do the grunt and shove stuff is not the necessity it was when I was a boy. Such is the skill level at the sharp end of the game today, even props can give and take good passes, so, the game today sees far-fewer scrums than we used to have.

So, we should perhaps not be surprised that the mastery of the dark arts of the scrum which made the likes of Ian McLauchlan, Tom Smith, Sandy Carmichael or Iain Milne so special have rather fallen by the wayside.

But. Let's look at Borthwick's view of the game. We have to accept, Genge and Sinckler are England's go-to props. It is also widely accepted in the South that Dan Cole is their best scrumming tight-head. However, for my money Cole and Mako Vinupola, the English back-up loose-head are, like the two starters, over-rated when it comes to the basics of their position – the ability to scrum.

On Saturday. Scotland were minus their regular starting tight-head, Zander Fagerson, and while bench-warmers Jamie Bhatti and Simon Berghan were not as poor as the English-slanted reports might indicate, their place in the squad is, I would suggest, as much down to injuries to Rory Sutherland, Allan Dell and the elder Fagerson as to form (although both have been going well for Glasgow).

What I did notice from Saturday was, without exception, when the ITV Director allowed us to see pictures from the overhead 'Spider Cam' at scrum time – it was obvious that the English props were cheating – by not pushing straight.

A couple of times, they managed to con referee Paul Williams, (who had a generally good game) into giving England penalties they didn't deserve. However, over the piece, England was a poor second in the scrums.

I've long been calling for the Television Match Official to have access to the 'Spider Cam' footage at set scrums. If this was brought in, I am certain it would clean-up this particular set piece and make for a better game. To me, it's that simple – it would be a really stupid prop, and props as a general breed are not that stupid, who didn't push straight when he knew he was under television scrutiny.

AS AN old Rugby World hand – I had my first by-line there back in the black and white days of the early 1970s – I get a tad morose when I see how it has dumbed down to meet the demands of the short attention span 21^st century.

When even the game's “bible” uses phrases such as “The Captain's arm-band” I want to get out my trusty AK47 and go to work on the current editorial staff. However, after last weekend, the dear magazine, to my mind, went irredeemably over the edge – when they wondered why Italy wore their “away” strip against France.

The young Me, given a chance to do the only job I ever wanted – be a Sports Writer, well maybe I was lucky. I didn't learn my craft by going to college, or to a specialist course. No, I learned at the coal face – covering Ayr v Kilmarnock games, where I had almost a full page to fill; and I had to get my copy past a sub-editor who could spot a split infinitive at three miles and wanted the report to follow the paper's style guide.

Accuracy was everything and the readers wanted facts rather than opinion – how old-fashioned that seems today.

I kept “a black” of my raw copy, so I could, when the paper came out, see where the sub had changed things. I learned to only use the minimum of words, to cut out the flashy stuff and to keep things tight.

Later on, I had a weekly battle with the great Steve Wolstencroft's production team at The Scottish Sun. They would maybe order a 300 word report for the Monday edition, then cut it to 250 for the actual paper. My aim was to send them a report which they could not cut, without losing something vital. After two or three years, I could do this.

Today's sports writers seem, more and more, to come out of the school of fanzine writers. Nothing wrong with that, I am all for talent being given its chance. The trouble is, the bean counters on the management floors have so-decimated the ranks of the solid, experienced subs who can make even the dullest raw copy sparkle, that pish is being published.

Then there is the fact, today, “Sports Writing” largely means “Football Writing.” 'The Beautiful Game has laid waste to a great craft, if it cannot be translated into football speak, apparently the desk jockeys ruining today's papers think their readership will not understand it.

Thus we get “the Captain's arm-band” and home teams wearing their “away” kit. For a start – no Rugby Union team captain has ever worn an arm-band to signify he is Captain; and, it isn't a case of “home” or “away” kit – it's “first-choice” and “alternative.” Rugby Union has always worked on the principle of – where there is a colour clash, the home team changes – in football, it's the away team that changes, so, maybe the conception is, that's the protocol for every game. But, when writers on Rugby World go down that road – slowly shakes head and silently weeps.