MANY YEARS ago, I chanced upon a book which chronicled the cock-ups and failures of the expansion of the British Empire. As Captain Edmund Blackadder stressed in one of his more-memorable rants, the British Army has a great record against mobs of “Fuzzy-Wuzzies” and “Towel-Heads”, armed only with clubs and spears; however, now and then, things would go wrong, which generally meant sending-in a battalion of 'Jocks' to sort out the opposition, and, in extreme cases, a Brigadier being shot: pour encouragé less autres, as our French neighbours say.
The thing is, all those centuries of turning the globe pink has meant, to paraphrase another ranting military man: Colonel Nathan R Jessup, United States Marine Corps: “They cant handle failure.”
Hence the reaction to England only reaching the bronze final, rather than the real one of the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The team, which required an awfully-kind draw and some dubious refereeing decisions to get out of their group, before promptly crashing and burning against the first Tier One nation they faced, has apparently performed heroically.
Hell, if South Africa had played in the first 70 minutes, they way they played in the final 10, England's rugby team would have lost as comprehensively as their cricket team did against the same opponents. The truth is, South Africa chose that game to give their worst performance in years – but, they still found a way to get the job done and reach the final.
It will make little difference, their media cheer-leaders will still insist, against most available evidence, to pronounce the failing Gallagher Premiership is: “The best league in the world,” and billionaires with more money than sense will still pay stellar talents such as oor ain Finn Russell, £1 million per season, on an average home attendance of just over 13,000 per game. Or, to put it another way – at least the first £5 of every match-.day ticket sold goes straight into the Gallus One's bank account. Gaun yersel Finn boy!
That's unsustainable, but, don't tell them; because the longer it takes the English to realise they are going downhill faster than Joe Marler on a skeleton sled, the better it is for us on the Celtic fringes.
THE PROPOSED revamp of the international calendar does contain some solid proposals for refreshing the international game, but, as with so much which eminates from Rugby House in Dublin, it is deeply flawed. World Rugby moves with the fleetness of the Titanic in the ice field, and while we will have to hope it can dodge some of the approaching icebergs – such as a possible class action by former professional players now suffering from Dementia and other head trauma, remember, it's Bill Beaumont and not Jason Robinson or Gerald Davies who is carrying the ball.
We will not see any major changes this side of 2030, which gives Rugby's Establishment plenty of time to derail things, should they so choose. I don't agree either with the decision to expand the Rugby World Cup to 24 nations. I feel we should be looking to have fewer rather than more nations qualifying – quality trumps quantity every day for me.
At least, World Rugby got one thing right this week, when they tried to draw a line under the “White Cunt” storm in a glass. Perhaps we can now move on. Mind you, I find it strange that the RFU, as an English institution an organisation long suspected of institutionalised racism and bigotry is the outfit getting upset in this case. Next thing you know, they'll be complaining about Owen Farrell getting hit by a head shot.
Twickenham seems intent on acting all-affronted and not letting it go. The “lost in translation” line made sense to me – they should have let it lie there, but, the current management at Twickenham does the image of English Rugby no favours.
REGULAR READERS will know, I've got a wee bit of a stake in the retrospective capping of Scottish internationalists, so I am delighted to see a further 18 players picking-up that wee blue bonnet.
To cherry-pick one or two, I am chuffed to bits for the Kilmarnock pair, Hughie McHardy and Johnny Robertson; over the moon for Richie Dixon and Bob Haldane too. The capping of Wat Davies rights a considerable wrong, but for injury he would have been capped in his own right. The late Gordon Strachan always rated Wat extremely highly.
There are other good stories in the list and I have to again thank those “Bufties” who made it happen. Ed Crozier was always supportive, but, it has been the Three Musketeers to whom I feel most-credit should go: Iain Barr, Colin Rigby and Keith Wallace, not forgetting the rest of the SRU Council, made it happen, and the next time we are mis-calling the Murrayfield Junta, we must remember this is one time when the good guys at the top won the day and got it right.
It is good too, to know our international referees are also to receive caps. Officials such as Alan Hosie, Jim Fleming, Hollie Davidson and the rest work just as hard on their game as the players. Good too, to see Ian Kenny getting his first United Rugby Championship gig this week-end, another Scot at the top table.
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