We Are Not Alone - In Fearing For Rugby's Future

IN WRITING this blog, I have long believed – Scottish Rugby cannot afford full-time, professional rugby. Such is our national infatuation with football, there simply is not a domestic market for paid egg-chasing.

Perhaps we could, as is the case in England, somehow find sufficient mega-rich rugby fans, willing to bank-roll enough professional teams to make a go of it, but, the odds on this happening are ridiculously long. If there had been such men about, they would surely have stuck their heads above the parapet some time between August, 1995 and today.

But, they haven't, so, the SRU has had to divert scarce financial resources towards keeping most of our best talent in Scotland and playing together for Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Next year, 2020, will mark 25 years since the game went open. Right now, World Rugby is arguing about introducing a new World League, at international level, which should be up and running by then. Maybe they should, while they are at it, go further and examine how going open has affected the broader grass-roots game.

Because, we see numbers dropping badly in the game's southern hemisphere power houses. One New Zealand provincial union, North Harbour, is stopping representative rugby at Under-14 level, while playing numbers at schools level in the Land of the Long White Cloud are dropping.

Further up the food chain, the lure of the fabled black jersey is not enough of a pull to prevent younger players heading for the riches of the English and French leagues.

Australian rugby is in a mess, ditto South African. In Europe, the drive for success in France has seen them mimic the management model of the English football Premiership, to the extent good young French players are struggling to get a regular game, and this is impacting on the national side.

In England, only Exeter Chiefs of the top clubs made any money in the last season for which figures are available, and we find, lower down their fiefdom, whole counties are opting-out of a league system which does not fit their needs.

Ireland alone of the major nations, appears to have their act together, but, even here there are rumblings of discontent, while in Wales, the perennial battle for the soul of the game, between those who believe in regionalism as the way to go, and the traditional club men, who are seeing great, long-established clubs such as Pontypool and Neath struggling.

Now, this week, Wales Online reported the possibility of the Welsh Rugby Union scrapping one of their four PRO14 Regions; the suggestion being that Dragons, who were rescued by the WRU last season and Cardiff would be allowed to continue, while the Scarlets and Ospreys might be amalgamated into a West Wales region.

There are also plans, apparently, to augment the North Walian RGC 1404 team into a development squad, with suggestions they would have two regions in the PRO14, and two regions, one of them in North Wales, as development teams.

So, we are not alone in fearing for the future, although to be fair to the SRU, like it or lump it they have a plan – Super-6.

IN MY dotage, I find I need some background noise and diversion when I am working. It's like the background “white noise” of an editorial floor, and it certainly now need that, while beavering away in what my cheeky second grandson refers to as: “The Papa Cave.”

One of my diversions is to have a TV film or a catch-up programme playing; and, of late, I have been working through a new series of ESPN 30 for 30 films, available on BT Sport. And, in doing this, I think I have maybe found the answer to the future of Super-6.

Super-6 will be a development league. The six clubs will draft the best young rugby talent in Scotland, the idea being to take the raw talent, polish these rough diamonds and send them to the PRO14. Now, that is the Scottish rugby equivalent of the American college sports system – where colleges offer scholarships to the best high school talent in the country and hopefully in time, send them to “The Show,” the major leagues.

With this in mind, it is interesting to note how many of the college Head Coaches who have been the subject of some of the ESPN films have been long-reigning, running their programmes for in some cases two or three decades – longevity which compares more than favourably with the short-termism of most areas of sport.

Sure, these guys have to be good coaches, able to organise and motivate their teams, but, perhaps more-importantly, to recruit the right players. And, looking down the road to the future of Super-6, it may be that recruiting will be perhaps the major skill.

Even in the Tennent's Premiership, which is not a rich league, it's all about winning, or at the least, in a worse-case scenario, trying to remain in the league. With Super-6, which is a ring-fenced competition, with no relegation, the requirements are different.

The assumption is, the clubs will be prepared to tolerate a poor season, one in which perhaps a raw team fails to click – if the signs are there, things will be a lot better next season; the kids will mature, results will improve and one or two will make it into The Show.

Just which of the six, young, ambitious coaches who will be in-charge next season goes on to establish a coaching dynasty will be interesting. It's a new development in Scottish rugby and watching how things evolve will, I am sure, be interesting.

And already, one possible coaching dynasty has failed to get off the first tee – with Stevie Lawrie named yesterday as Roddy Grant's replacement as Edinburgh's Forwards Coach – that move, of course, being just about the worst-kept secret in the game. And, if the rumours are true, it will not be the last such change.

Finally, on this, can I suggest the six coaches might learn something from watching some of these ESPN 30 for 30 films.

Our Referees Are Again Getting A Raw Deal From The Dublin Mafia

WITH NO 6 Nations games this weekend, the Guinness PRO14 takes centre stage, with Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors both in Italy, facing Benetton and Zebre respectively. A full PRO14 programme means 28 match officials will be required – seven referees, seven TMOs and 14 Assistant referees – to be drawn from the officials pool, operated by the five Unions involved in the league.

IF there was any degree of fairness about the league, each member nation would have a minimum of five officials rostered for the games. But, as we all know, the PRO14 doesn't do fairness when it comes to match officials. You can be as poor an official as John Lacey or George Clancy, but, if you're Irish, you have a lot more chance of being rostered for a PRO14 game than if you were, say Scottish.

Mike Adamson, the only Scot to be refereeing a PRO14 game this weekend

That fact of life, of how the league is run to suit the Dublin Murphyia is all-too obvious when you look at this weekend's officials roster.

The breakdown of the 28 officials on-duty shows:

• 11 – 3 referees; 5 assistant referees and 3 TMOs are IRISH
  
  
• 8 – 1 referee (Nigel Owens); 5 assistant referees and 2 TMOs are WELSH
  
  
• 6 – 1 referee; 3 assistant referees and 2 TMOs are ITALIAN
  
  
• 2 – referee Mike Adamson and assistant referee David Sutherland are SCOTTISH
  
  
• 1 – referee Stuart Berry, is South African.

Given both South African teams are in Europe this weekend, the lack of South African officials in the officiating teams is hardly surprising. But, the bias in favour of Irish (in particular) and Welsh officials is marked.

And, I absolutely refuse to see why there should be six Italian officials on the roster and only two Scottish ones. This seems to me to be an obvious anti-Scottish bias at work.

Certainly our representatives, Messrs Adamson and Sutherland are on-duty in what is probably the pick of the weekend fixtures, the meeting of Scarlets and Munster in Llanelli, but, you cannot but feel, Scottish officials are not getting a fair crack of the whip.

To me, it really is long past time our representatives on the PRO14 board were kicking arse and agitating for a greater Scottish representation in matches.

The bad news for Edinburgh is, George Clancy has the whistle in their match with Benetton, while Glasgow also have an Irish whistler in Andrew Brace. Also, excellent official though she is, it grates a wee bit that Ireland's Joy Neville has charge of Cardiff v Southern Kings, while excellent Scottish officials such as Lloyd Linton, Keith Allen or Ben Blain are not rostered.

Come on SRU – time to stand-up and fight for our officials.

ON THE basis, you get what you pay for, why should anyone with the remotest interest in rugby bother checking-out the free Guardian or Scotsman websites for their rugby news. Better perhaps to subscribe to those sites with a pay wall – The Telegraph, (for the wit and wisdom of Brian Moore); The Times, (which in Scotland means the excellent Mark Palmer or Alasdair Reid) or The Herald (for the erudition of Kevin Ferrie). Aye well, two out of three aint bad, as they say.

But, to be fair, the Guardian, which is obsessed by England and Eddie Jones did come up with rather a good piece yesterday, when Andy Bull, perhaps the least-annoying of their rugby writers, penned a piece about rugby's Doomsday Scenario.

This is the situation when, the guys you would least like to lose from your starting XV get injured. Bull referenced how the All Blacks made light of losing Dan Carter, his deputy – Colin Slade and third-choice first five-eighth Aaron Cruden, only to pluck Stephen Donald from a fishing trip to still win the 2011 World Cup. The fact skipper Richie McCaw broke his foot in the final, but played-on, was perhaps taking collateral damage to extreme lengths, and still winning.

 Fourth-choice Stephen Donald kicks the winning penalty in the 2011 World Cup final

There's inspiration for Duncan Weir

I suppose, in Scottish terms – and you need never fear seeing Scotland referenced in Guardian rugby pieces – that would be like us losing, at the same time: Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell, John Barclay and Hamish Watson.

If we can learn from such a calamity, who knows, we might just be able to win the World Cup later this year. We are, after all, living through the Doomsday Scenario right now.

THE FALLOW international week in the 6 Nations, and with the two professional sides off to Italy in the PRO14, the rugby landscape in Scotland is free for the Tennent's Premiership clubs to strut their stuff in what will be the final round of regular-season games in its history, this weekend.

I have long wondered about the SRU's commitment to the top tier of the club game; it is the basic fare for most of the season, but, is allowed to peter out early in the year, leaving it almost impossible to summon-up enthusiasm for what many feel is the unnecessary add-on of the play-off semi-finals and final.

Regardless of how things pan out on Saturday, where they are away to fifth-placed Watsonians, Ayr will finish top of the heap, by anywhere between three and eight points, depending on the final games results. This, of course, wins them nothing – they will still have to navigate the two play-off games, for both of which they will have home advantage, to be crowned champions.

Ayr have failed to do this in the pas. But, they have also gone to the home of the favourites in the Grand Final and won, so, anything is possible.

The big question from Saturday's games is, what will be the final order in positions two, three and four?

These are currently occupied by Currie Chieftains, who host improving Edinburgh Academical in their last game, Heriot's, who travel to Mansfield Park to face Hawick, and Melrose, who visit Boroughmuir. Currie are on 63 points, one ahead of Heriot's and two ahead of Melrose.

I honestly don't know what will happen, other than, the mobile phone networks will be buzzing, as the fans and officials try to keep abreast of events in what will surely be an exciting day.

Big Bill A Big Plus For Edinburgh

AFTER PARIS, this is a dark week for Scotland and Scottish Rugby. However, Edinburgh have given us a glimpse of sunlight today, with the news, Bill Mata has singed a contract extension.

Bill Mata - staying at Edinburgh

The above graphic says it all. This is a win-win for the capital club, in keeping one of their marquee players, a player coveted by many richer outfits, at Murrayfield until the end of the 2021 season.

WHEN I WAS playing, rather than writing about Rugby Union, back in the far-simpler days of the 1950s and 1960s, we didn't have official leagues – but we did have the old unofficial “newspaper” championship.

[Come to think about it, there were only 32 teams in that unofficial championship – which was the closest thing we had to a truly National League. Today we have 46 National League teams, and next season, if we count Super-6, we will have 52 National League teams.]

I was unable to find a final league table – I know I have one somewhere in the house, but, could not lay a hand on it while writing this, but, the league table, closest to the end of that 1972-73 season I could find, (thanks to Google News' newspaper records including the Glasgow Herald) had the clubs in the following order;

Boroughmuir

Gala

Hawick

Langholm

Jordanhill

Edinburgh Wanderers

Watsonians

West of Scotland

Gordonians

Leith Academicals

Glasgow High School FP

Melrose

Dunfermline

Ayr

Glasgow Academicals

Hillhead HSFP

Selkirk

Kelso

Jed-forest

Trinity Academicals

Hutcheson's GSFP

Broughton FP

Edinburgh Academical

Heriot's FP

Musselburgh

Perthshire

Aberdeen GSFP

Royal High School FP

Kelvinside Academicals

Edinburgh University

Stewart's College FP

Glasgow University

The winner was the club with the highest winning percentage. In the table I list above, Boroughmuir, on their way to being the last winners, had accrued a 93% winning total, from their 24 games. Not every team played the same number of games, hence percentage of wins being the criteria, but, most of the established clubs had a fixture list of over 20 of the eligible clubs.

From memory, 16 fixtures against “unofficial championship clubs” was the lower entry point and, Broughton FP, for whom this was their only season in the unofficial championship, had only played 15 games in the table I saw, while Perthshire had only played 12.

Twenty-two of the 32 teams in the above table are still National League teams today, although several have amalgamated since then; while Currie Chieftains and Stirling County are nowhere to be seen – in Currie's case hardly surprising, the club had still to be formed.

The Herald files for that final unofficial championship season, I thought, merited further investigation. Their Monday morning results round-up saw the results for 56 all first-team games listed, along with a further 23 games wherein the first team of a lesser club, faced the second  or lower XV of a senior or established club.

The results of 79 games were therefore available to be perused on a Monday morning. Today, assuming every game in the National and Regional Leagues was played, we have a Saturday fixture list of 71 games involving first teams.

If 32 “National League” clubs was good enough for 1972, I think it should be good enough for today. I have said this before, and will say it again no doubt, but, I reckon going to say three – ten-club National Leagues, with everyone else playing “Recreational Rugby” is the way to go.

I am convinced, if the SRU limited the number of clubs of “National League” status, and made them agree to and stick to certain standards of infrastructure and club facilities, it would free-up the remaining Regional clubs to arrange the season to best suit their needs.

It could be, smaller clubs might wish to play some form of “Recreational Rugby,” perhaps not in strict leagus formats, but, in ad hoc tournaments or on a “turn up and play” basis at a central club.

We might also, as has happened in football, see some clubs perhaps opting-out of adult play, to concentrate on youth development.

The demands of regular league rugby already prove too-much for some clubs. A wee bit of thought, and, anathema perhaps to Murrayfield, delegating some of the match organisation work closer to ground level, just might help grow the game, which is, after all, one of the SRU's main purposes in life.

I AM RESERVING judgement, for the moment, on the new-look SRU website. I appreciate the need for speed on social media today, and everything now, apparently, needs to be skewed towards the users of mobile 'phones, rather than us old-fashioned guys who prefer lap tops.

Mind you, as I have long held – the main problems with the SRU's website is what they do, and do not, put on it. As far as I am concerned, the Chief Elf and some of his junior elves are not that good – although one or two are very good at their job.

I will give them a wee while longer to get it right, but, the length of time they are taking to do such basics as get the league tables across, is worrying.

VIRAL VIDEO of the week, if you have not already seen it, is a film, apparently taken on a camera-phone, of the Irish team coach's journey from their hotel to the Stadio Olympico on Sunday.

Their way was being cleared by a police car, manned by officers who were none too subtle in how they cleared slovenly other drivers out of the coach's way. They also had scant regard for the speed limit in Rome.

Irish Coach Joe Schmidt can be heard, at one point, insisting: “This is suicide.” Methinks Mr Schmidt is a hard man to please, he was none-too-pleased by a somewhat slower trip to BT Murrayfield back in 2017.

Have a look at the Rome journey if you can, it is quite entertaining and perhaps gives a flavour of the legendary coach trips across Paris, the Scottish team coach led and escorted by a team of kamikaze gendarmes.

I recall Gordon Brown, over 40 years ago, telling me: “These polis are mad.” Maybe the Italians are only playing catch-up with the French.

Reflections On A Plastering In Paris

LET'S BE honest here – all things being equal, Scotland should finish fifth every year in the Guinness 6 Nations. Whatever way you look at things: from the most-crucial, money, via playing numbers, infrastructure, whatever, fifth is our place.

Sure, we may be blessed with a key number of very good players arriving at the same time, or with a coach able to get the best of those players, but, these stars do not often align to allow us to have a real go at punching well above our weight and being genuine 6 Nations contenders.

IF our big players all play at the top of their game on the same day, and IF our lesser lights play above themselves, and particularly IF our opponents' leading lights under-perform, or they make selection and tactical mistakes – such as England did at BT Murrayfield last season – we can and often do win.

However, these rare successes tend to lead to another particularly Scottish sporting phenomenon – we get carried away – often totally.

We also, it has to be said, and this is happening right now – tend to get carried away when we lose. We love Rabbie Burns, and don't really get Rudyard Kipling. But, maybe:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Then:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

Certainly, some (some might say many) Scots treat Triumph and Disaster the same, going totally overboard either way. No disaster is bigger than a Scottish sporting one (think 9-3 or 44-0); no triumph (the Wembley Wizards, or winning the Calcutta Cup last year, beating the Netherlands in 1978) greater. Either way, we go overboard.

And boy, but some of us have gone overboard since yesterday. I had a quick look at the Scottish Rugby Forum on Facebook, at half-time yesterday. And there they were: posts demanding Gregor Townsend immediately hooks Greig Laidlaw; other posts calling for Toony's head. Get so-and-so off, and such-and-such on – in mid-game FFS!!!

Yes, yesterday was a terrible day at the office for Scotland. Sure, we were a poor second to a resurgent France. But, was losing in Paris so-much of a shock? We haven't won there in 20 years, and indeed, overall, since the end of World War II, we have won just seven times in 36 visits to Paris, with that win in 1999 our only success there since the game went Open.

Why the surprise, there were moments, in the first half against Wales and late on against England, when France showed, they were not that far away from winning. Should we have been surprised, given our injury crisis and our record in Paris, that that win came at our expense?

For me, without being able to argue too-vehemently against the team he selected, I thought what a poor hand fate had dealt Toony. With everyone fit, at least eight – more than half – of our starting XV would, I suggest, not have been on the park at kick-off. You cannot go into a major international with that many second or third choices in your team and reasonably expect to win.

EDIT: I saw this graphic on the Wings over Scotland website, after I had posted, and thought, this sums things up nicely.

I would put Gordon Reid in at loosehead, to fill the vacancy, and Mark Bennett in for Huw Jones,  then, I reckon, the Injured XV would beat the one which did take the field. 

Not that I absolve Toony from all blame for the defeat. Selection is all about opinions, and, while I have mine – I am not picking-up Mr Townsend's large salary to get it right, but, yesterday, he got one or two calls wrong.

I hope he has more first-picks back for the Welsh and English games. I also hope he gets his selection right. However, more-importantly, I trust the players he trusts don't make as-many errors in thought and execution as they made yesterday.

We undid ourselves, as much as anywhere, by the embarrassingly large number of unforced errors we made: passes not given or taken correctly, wrong options chosen. To give you just one: in the lead-up to that last French try in injury time – Adam Hastings, back to the touch line, catches the attempted line kick, but, he has both heels on the line, so, the ball is in touch, France gets the line-out and scores.

Suppose Adam had caught the ball, facing touch, feet in-play, the manner a guy used to playing fullback or wing and being in that situation might, then Scotland had the whip hand. We could have tried a length-of-the-field drive for another try of our own, and a losing bonus point, or, he could have kicked the ball out of play to end the game – either way, still a loss, but, not such a bad one.

International rugby is fine margins, and there was one.

Any way, important though the 6 Nations is, the BIG event in 2019 is the World Cup. I'd rather see us struggling now than then, we now have time to regroup and recover. We can: always look on the bright side of life. But, being Scottish, it will more-likely be a case of: furrit tho' Ah canna see, Ah guess and fear.

Scotland – here's tae us, wha's like us? Damned few, an' they're awe deid.

Even In New Zealand They Are Worried About Player Drop-Out At An Early Age

FURTHER to my recent post about Recreational Ice Hockey as a game we could adapt to rugby, as a means of keeping the less-gifted playing; I read in today's Weekend New Zealand Herald, I am not alone in this advocacy.

Because the North Harbour Rugby Union, one of the newer district unions in New Zealand has scrapped its junior representative programme, in favour of a scheme aimed at increasing participation, and keeping kids playing longer.

North Harbour research has indicated that, when kids fail to get on the Union's performance pathway, which leads ultimately to that All Black jersey, they tend to simply stop playing rugby.

The move will mean North Harbour dropping out of the annual Roller Mills tournament, an Under-13 competition played between the various North Island Unions - Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Counties-Manukau, King Country, North Harbour, Northland, Thames Valley and Waikato, with the venue switching around the unions each year.

 "Pine Tree" Meads, it all began for him in the Roller Mills - when he was a hooker!!

The official Roller Mills website features some of the great All Blacks who were first spotted there, names such as Current All Blacks' captain Kieran Reid, Sonny Bill Williams, Kevin Mealamu, the great Grant Fox, Sir Wilson Whineray,Sir Colin Meads and his younger brother Stan – who was also an All Black, Waka Nathen, Mac Herweni and Ron Rangi – the centre who allegedly invented “the Maori side-step,” he simply ran over his opponent!!

Needless to say, this decision has not gone down well locally, with North Harbour Union General Manager Darren Gibson, a former Auckland Blues and Maori All Blacks scrum-half admitting: “One or two parents have already indicated they are switching their sons to another union.” he admitted.

But, Gibson is adamant: “Harbour's purpose is 'Improving Lives, Through Rugby', and when it comes to our community we want to maximise engagement and grow participation through quality experiences.

"For us this means cultivating a climate of development and fun around our junior rugby programmes and putting the kids at the centre of the experience."

He added: “We will introduce 'rugby development experiences' we are forming in conjunction with the clubs and that will be available to all players. We will also introduce a non-contact Rippa grade targeting boys between 8-13, and girls' under-15s and school grades.”

As part of its review into secondary schools rugby, New Zealand Rugby released figures that showed a sharp drop-off in the numbers of school-age boys playing the national sport. One of the key reasons given for this was that teenagers quickly lost interest if they did not feel they were on a performance pathway.

Bill Wigglesworth, who leads North Harbour's engagement and participation team, said the concept was not without internal debate.

"We had to challenge ourselves on whether this was the correct approach, but in the end the evidence was overwhelming," he said. "[Children] want to have fun, play with their mates, learn new skills and be supported.

"Rugby is a late specialisation sport and introducing performance and rep programmes too early can create behaviours that discourage participation in kids and have a negative impact on their physical and emotional development.

"We are not saying that performance or representative programmes are negative … this is more adjusting the current system and introducing a talent development programme at a more appropriate age."

Looking in particular at Wigglesworth's words, I get the impression, in adjusting their system, so that youngsters get onto the performance pathway at a later age, North Harbour is perhaps falling more into line with how we do things in Scotland, which is encouraging. Here, the performance pathway tends to start a couple of years later than in New Zealand. However, the drop-off in numbers of school-age boys playing is a world-wide fact of life, which rugby has to tackle.

If we can keep kids playing into adulthood, it is a win-win situation for rugby. Not everyone aspires to wear the thistle, of play professionally or semi-professionally, we need to keep-up, and hopefully increase the numbers of those “bad players” that the likes of Iain Milne is so-keen to keep involved.

I WAS in-touch with my feminine side last night, showing that men can multi-task. I was watching the Leinster v Southern Kings game on Free Sports, with the sound muted, while is listened to the Glasgow v Connacht game on the BBC Scotland website on the lap top.

Peter Wright was, as ever, in great form on the radio, but, perhaps not in as-good form as Sam Grove-White, who refereed the Leinster game very well indeed.

Brandon Thomson - Man of the Match for Glasgow last night

That was certainly a very good performance, from an under-strength Glasgow side, to pick-up a bonus-point win against opponents who are never easily subdued. His two tries will do Grant Stewart the world of good, while one or two others of the fringe guys did themselves no harm. I was also pleased to see big Robbie Nairn grab his brace of tries, while Brandon Thomson's Man of the Match performance was also worth celebrating.

After this afternoon's internationals, attention turns to Edinburgh's clash with Cardiff at BT Murrayfield. It is good to see Damien Hoyland back in-harness after his season-long injury issues, but, for me, I am hoping that Mark Bennett gets on and is able to show us he is over his injury.

A fit and firing Bennett could be a key player for Edinburgh over the final weeks of the season, and, if he does as I expect him to, he will surely go to Japan for the World Cup. For me, he is our best 13 and, biased though I undoubtedly am, I hope to see him back in the national team come the World Cup.