The role of the (national) coach

Understand that I have absolutely no direct experience of this: I am judging by looking at the examples around us and how we see them acting in their roles.

Clearly one of the important roles is selecting a match-day 22 and setting up the strategy for each match. He's probably not alone in that role; there is a whole team of coaches and the like involved and they will probably have feedback into setting the strategy.

Another critical role in the last 22+ years is building towards each RWC. We can see in Australia and New Zealand two formerly great players: Smith and So'oialo reaching the end of their careers. Both sides seem to have found good replacements, possibly great ones. South Africa have done something a bit different with the Lions tour this summer - Smit amongst others has stayed when he might have otherwise retired to play against the Lions. You can never be sure with PdV but presumably there is some plan in there to replace those players and blood them next year in the Tri-Nations in preparation for 2011. The midweek matches on this November tour are probably the start of that.

Another role must be managing, to some extent, the players in the team and the players around the team. The young All Black lock, Donnelly, who played many Tri-Nations matches was told to stay at home and bulk up, get stronger. I'm sure he was disappointed, but it has let Boric come on tour and learn from that which is good from the squad's perspective and it has given him clear goals about what to do and what they want from him. Nothing wrong with that at all - coaches have to make these sorts of decisions and if the players understand them, then it's all good. Similarly it appears the Australian team and Robbie Deans had been butting heads but they sat down and trashed things out. Giteau was understandably disappointed to be passed over for captaincy but seemed in several interviews to understand the decision and to be mature enough to set aside his disappointment because he understands that the coach considers it to be better for the team. In one interview he quite clearly said he agreed it was probably the best choice for the team. That's all good.

Part of the former role must be being seen at the matches. Obviously there will be choices: you can't be at every match and for some coaches it's easier than others but planning a schedule where you get to see all the teams reasonably often and to spot talent has to be part of it. Saying to the players that aren't in consideration yet but might be next year that you, the coach, is aware of them and maybe saying "this is why you're not there yet" should be part of the game.

Then there is the dubious delight of interviews. The media, ex-players and others, all look for a bon mot. A reaction to the defeat or the victory. A comment about progress. Something that is fairly true but diplomatic and suitable for a tea-time family audience.

It has occurred to me, whilst writing this, that there's actually very little rugby knowledge needed. You'd need enough to have the ability to communicate well using the right words. Certainly the skills coaches, defence coach, scrum coach, backs coach etc. need to have the technical skills too and determining the best players in each side requires an interest and probably more technical knowledge than I think (I don't have the technical knowledge and experience but would like to think I can spot a good player at most positions). Graham Henry may or may not be the greatest coach in the world (he does have a stellar record and has kept his side right at the top of the world rankings for the last 6 years) and whilst he taught rugby, he was a teacher - someone used to communicating. OK, he has a rugby-mad population and great player base to choose from too but is it a coincidence I wonder?

Final weekend of November internationals

What have we really learnt?

Well, South Africa were very tired. This tour plus the Lions plus the Six Nations was too much for them. Their match against Ireland was niggly and nasty on both sides and Ireland had to play to win, but the Boks didn't really want to play so much as scrap. Nevertheless it will worry their faithful - the aura of the world champions is well and truly gone. You would think that, after a good summer on the beaches they will do better next year but.... there's just that doubt that the mix isn't quite right, that Smit is reaching the end of his career, that maybe Matfield and Botha are too.

The fans of PdV will doubtless not believe a word of it but a little bit of me wonders if he's starting to have enough influence to disrupt that "Do it for Smit" feeling that has pervaded the Boks for 4 years now and that Jake White harnesses and used to the benefit of both of them. Sadly for SA "do it for de Villiers" doesn't seem to work.

New Zealand have stuttered and spluttered most of the year. They suddenly kicked into gear against France, against a willing France too, and proved that they're worst their number 1 ranking. Although I have yet to see the game, it sounds like they suddenly clicked and produced that wonderful rugby that they can so often. All of their fans will be happy to see that the cobwebs have gone.

Australia... it's a bit harder to say. I think they suffered from the fact that the gulf between them and NZ and SA seemed huge during the Tri-Nations. But they had a better result against Ireland than the Boks and a bigger win against Wales today too. I think they're improving. There is enough belief in Deans and enough people trying to play the way he wants that they're starting to look like a cohesive side again. Everything clicked for them yesterday, and every side has that capacity you hope, but it will give them something to build on for next year too.

Wales... Wales seem to have gone backwards during the series. However, a part of me considers this might be unfair on further reflection. They do still, seriously, need to work out how to take the chances that they make. But yesterday, losing Halfpenny and Williams within 20 minutes, and with Hook at 15 instead of Byrne they certainly lacked that cutting edge and those players to exploit the chances and line breaks that they still made. That isn't really a criticism of Hook - he's not a full back and he actually had 3 very good and 1 acceptable match playing out of position. Technically he was sound, even today. His problem is that he just doesn't have the speed that you need in an international full back. That means he can't always get into position in time and he can't be that cutting, incisive extra attacker either. If you watch him play at 10 and 12, he's a jinking, creative play-maker, not a slashing speed merchant. Great full backs add that slashing attack too.

Ireland still look like they might be the form side of the Northern Hemisphere. Sexton looks like the real thing as a replacement for ROG, and about time too. You have to wonder just how long the rest of the "O" generation can keep going - BOD, POC, DOC etc. But as long as they do, Ireland will be a force to be reckoned with. You have to wonder, well I do, how good the replacements are. Sexton looks good, but can they find a replacement for BOD?

Scotland - I've seen less of the Scotland matches to be honest. They have proven that, on their day, they can mix it with the big boys. Then they come crashing down to earth again against Argentina. I know Argentina are higher in the world rankings, but they've really suffered from injuries and a very inexperienced back line and Scotland still lost. Oops.

France have sounded good, and were certainly up for the match against the All Blacks from all I've read. Is it a disaster? No. But sometime soon Lievremont has to start moving towards a solid first choice 22 for the next RWC you have to think.

Argentina... hard to say. They've blooded a load of new backs. They have seemingly grown into it and that's got to be good for the future of the side and the RWC and the Four Nations when that takes off.

England... oh dear. England look as likely to score as... well Scotland did a couple of years ago. They have the creativity of a bunch of snails. They have the imagination of a bunch of crushed snails. They can defend, sure, and that can make them look less embarrassed on the scoreline than they were this time last year but it doesn't really show progress as a rugby team, it shows that the players don't want to be embarrassed and booed off the park.

I think, for the 6N, Ireland are the side to beat. France and Wales will be in the mix. Then Scotland and England and finally Italy. In a different year, Italy might not be destined for the wooden spoon but they've just lost Parese and that's a big blow. Of course in 5 games each the odd result - the Scotland beating Australia - can make a big difference. But all of Ireland, Wales and France can defend and attack - they can not only strive not to lose, they can attack too. Scotland and England still lack that incision - and without it will rely on the weather and the prayed for inability of their opponents to finish off any chances to win. They might get lucky, but not that lucky.

Wales win comfortably. England escape humiliation

Wales performed well against Argentina. In fact, their scrum and line out looked better than England's had last week. Their backs weren't quite on song, but Hook is growing into his role as makeshift full-back, the Ryan Jones-Cooper-Stephen Jones axis is working well and Shane was back to his twinkle toed best. Tackling against an uninspired back line was always good, often ferocious and brilliant.

In a way that, all too often, only the All Blacks really manage when players were "out of position" such as Shane joining a ruck, they generally joined and contributed.

The game wasn't perfect - there were a lot of turn overs at breakdown and there were certainly too many handling mistakes at critical times but it was a step in the right direction AND an important win.

England, on the other hand, will take what I suspect is false hope from this result. There were three frantic tackles, one of which certainly stopped Muliaina scoring after about 20 minutes, the other two of which probably stopped tries too. And Carter, very unusually, left 13 points on the pitch, 2 missed penalties that he should have got and a try that he fluffed with bad hands. Guildford had an unlucky one too, when a ball that could have gone back into Muliaina's hands and given him an unopposed run in under the sticks went forward from his hands instead.

Let's not detract from England's defensive efforts, the All Blacks could easily have scored 20 more points with a bit more luck and being on song and if they'd taken those, who knows how many they would have taken?

And the positives that came out? England can sell themselves on defence if they think it's worth it. They apparently didn't last week or the week before - will in the Six Nations? Simon Shaw is a great player. No problem with saying that, he and Moody, plus Cueto at the back again, shone in this match. Of those three Shaw certainly, and possibly Cueto and Moody who have both had runs of injury and might again, are unlikely to make the next RWC. If Cueto misses out, Monye, Armitage and ... well who? make up the back three. Banahan looked willing, but actually usually ineffective on defence, and he looked terrible on attack. If Shaw misses out, who is the obvious lock replacement? Jordan neglected to play for a couple of weeks and has to improve a lot to step up again. If Moody misses out... England are in trouble - he was everywhere, spoiling and fighting for the ball (legally it should be said). Without him... England would be in a much worse place than they are today throughout this series.

Graham Henry must be quietly pleased. He's had the worst year as AB coach that he ever had, but it looks like the AB will finish the year on top of the world again. He's brought a team under fire together and whilst he might not have the doubling up of quality players at all positions he had for the last RWC yet, he's starting to show there's a lot of cover and young talent coming through.

And to end with the final heresy - Johnson must consider dropping Wilkinson. Kicking from hand today was conservative but better than last week. That's not saying it's good mind. Kicking from the tee was fine. But running the game, giving his backs a chance - no. He was deep, slow and laboured. England threatened the AB try line twice - once from a charged down pass and once after Geraghty came on and when he was playing in the 10 spot.

Under fire? Revert to boring type

With the exception of anonymous Deacon for hard-bitten Shaw, a step that would seem to make sense in the short term whilst making no sense in terms of building for the next world cup - less than 2 years away now but would you except a 38 year old lock to be playing at that level? - Johnson's choices make a coherent if dull sense.

Geraghty, the only back that even tried to be creative, gets chopped for the much bigger and more stolid Erinle. Geraghty was pretty anonymous because he hardly got the ball, ever. On one of the few occasions he did he created the try that was the difference between Argentina and England last week. Erinle is there to try and stuff up the mid-field against Nonu.

Croft, a good lineout jumper but otherwise fairly quiet has been replaced by Worsley. Worsley is another player like Shaw who probably won't be going to the next world cup but is a quality player, no doubt there. How will Moody, Worsley and Haskell stack up against McCaw, Thompson and Read? Probably, in fairness, better than Moody, Croft and Haskell at the breakdown but certainly worse around the park.

And where is the consistency of selection pressure? Banahan has singularly failed to impress. He scored a try, yes. He scored a try that was made thanks to a string of good offloads from forwards moving dynamically inside for the first time in the match, then Geraghty sucking in the defender in the 12 channel and passing to Moody in the space between 13 and 14 rather than the line of 13, so the winger had to make a choice about who to take... Moody or Banahan and he took the choice of the immediate threat - Moody, making space for a try that any competent winger, even lower than Premiership level, should have been there to take.

Johnson has chosen to pick a side full of big lumps and old dogs. Big, defensive old dogs. He's accepted, although he won't ever admit it, that he can't win this match. He's chosen a side that is there to try and limit the damage. And if the All Blacks side clicks as history has shown just all of it can and will on the big occasions it won't be enough. Australia, a side that struggled this June/July/August ripped England apart almost at will. New Zealand, a side that beat them FOUR times this year won't have to think about defending against this stolid, unimaginative, defensive side, and whilst it might take a little while to break the patterns, they will break the patterns and run riot.

Expect egg all over papier-maché Twickers.

In the mean time... Discussing the other sides seems fairly pointless. Wales - Wales know what they have to do. They have to run better supporting lines on attack and finish off the chances they make. They might struggle against Argentina this weekend because they're down a world-class prop on one side with Adam Jones out of it and Argentina have a monster pack. If they can get enough ball their backs should hack through Argentina's and should have the time to run the support lines and finish the opportunities.

Ireland are looking both good and stable. I think they might struggle with the age of their players for the next world cup. BOD, ROG, POC, etc. in fact the whole "O" generation are getting old. They may or may not make it all the way. (My money is on BOD making it, the other two not.) This year, though, the money is on Ireland staying good this year. Scotland well... who knows. They still look limited to me. France... who knows. Who ever knows? If they play like they were reported to have played last week, Six Nations championship is theirs. But who ever can tell from week to week with Les Bleus?

This weekend:

England to get hammered. New Zealand to click. 50+ points. At least one coach to get fired. Wishful thinking? Maybe.
Wales to beat Argentina fairly comfortably. 15 points or so.
Australia to rip Scotland apart.
South Africa to FINALLY click on tour and stuff the Azuri.

England, ha, ha, ha

Well I've just wasted 80 minutes of my life watching a really dismal England performance. I also watched an error-prone Wales performance on Friday. Here's hoping Ireland v Australia is a bit better.

But let's think about it a bit more deeply. Wales changed 5, and ran out a new number 10. It showed at moments, but you have to try these players some time. Welsh errors apart from that were players knocking on, not passing properly etc. in strong attacking positions - the errors were basically all errors of finishing, taking your chances. If Wales can fix that, they will rival everyone.

England went out with a relatively novice pack against Argentina and the scrum and lineout was dominated through the game by Argentina. The breakdown was a bit more even, but shaded by Argentina. I'm sure if I was Martin Johnson or the England forward's coach I'd be disappointed and make them work harder because there was stuff to work on, but I wouldn't be that disappointed because the Argentinian pack was tough.

Argentina's backs, on the other hand, contained 4 amateur players making their international debuts. England, at least out to 14, probably had their first choice backs out there. There are a few people around that could challenge for inclusion if healthy but there's not clear alternatives except Armitage at 15.

So why, pray, did the Argentinian back line make all but 2 of the fluid attacking moves? Why, when England attacked, could even I look at the lineup and say "Ah, he's going to run the ball that way" and, EVERY time be correct - the amateurs from Argentina did the same and scythed the ball carrier down with aplomb.

And the blame has to go upstairs. There was, clearly, a rigidly imposed structure. It said "You must kick for position and then kick for points." In fairness this worked for South Africa in the Tri-Nations. But Steyn kicks from hand better than Wilkinson, and kicks from the tee further than Wilkinson too. SA could, and did, punish any mistake from anywhere in your half, and from about the 10m line in their own too. Wilkinson was missing from the 10m line in Argentina's half; that's a significant extra chunk of territory in which mistakes get punished by points. Is this, therefore, a good strategy for England? Not sure, but looking at Rob Andrew, chief architect of 10-man England in early professional era, and Johnno, who was always quite happy playing in a 10-man structure for England and Leicester through his career are you really surprised that they play this way?

If you're going to do that, why do you pick a 6 who is more of a dynamic, attacking player than a 6 who is grinding, defensive brute (who you had on the bench)? Why do you pick not 1 but 2 scrum halves who are renowned for good delivery to 10, but more than anything for picking their moments and running through the spaces. Why do you pick a 12 who is a play maker to have something like that Kiwi first and second five-eighths if you are hardly ever going to let him touch the ball?

New Zealand must be licking their lips for next week's match. Gatland talked about New Zealand losing that aura of invincibility before last week's match. Fortress Twickenham? More like the Twickenham Alamo!

World two and three canter home

First Australia snuffed out England 18-9 at Twickenham, then New Zealand did the same to Wales 19-12 in Cardiff.

Australia were unlucky not to have a bigger margin of victory to be honest. This time next year they will have that bigger margin as the nerves and stutters that have plagued them this year, plus a couple of poor decisions each of which cost a try won't be made. Worth noting that both players that made them had generally good games too. The notable exception to that was George Smith. He still has the experience but his days are looking numbered unless he starts playing better.

Although the NZ-Wales scoreline was closer, and actually that intercept could easily have led to a try and a draw, the All Blacks just looked far more assured and comfortable. A brilliant bit of work for Shane Williams stopped one almost certain try, and the knock-on that denied a try in the first half looked like a penalty try to me - it was a knock-on because of an illegally lying there Welsh arm. That's speaking as a proud Welsh person too.

Martyn Williams, again, proved just what a class act he is. McCaw seemed to be more anonymous as the match went on. That wasn't really due to Williams, more due to the sudden upping of the tempo and the possession and the sweeping attacks that New Zealand launched throughout the second half. He was still there clearing rucks, moving the ball back, carrying the ball around, but there was no need for his skills at the tackle and subsequent breakdown because the All Blacks hardly had to tackle. But M. Williams slowed the ball down often enough that the All Blacks didn't romp away with it, and turned it over a few times too - notable that in the game's only try "M" couldn't get across the field fast enough to hit the rucks. Not his fault, the ball went half the width of the field each time, quick as rocket, and the rucks were barely formed before the ball was out and moving again.

Australia will face bigger challenges - both Wales and Ireland will be bigger challenges than England - but have gone some way to proving to themselves that the reason for a torrid Tri-Nations is that SA and NZ are just that much better at the moment, not that they're a bad side. A different order of play could have been a disaster for their confidence but this will help them grow into the tour.

Wales - well Wales have some positives as well as things to work on. Their back three, under the high ball, were found lacking. Particularly Halfpenny and Hook. The balance of their 10, 12, 13 might need some work. Jones, Hook, Roberts might work better than Jones, Roberts, Shanklin. Not that Shanklin isn't a good 13, but certainly 12 and 13 are then both big, smashing centres and Jones isn't a natural runner and jinker and the soft hands and side-step that Hook would bring them should be considered. The scrums, line outs and defence were all good throughout though, except for the high balls.

England - it's hard to know. Monye doesn't look comfortable as a full back, that was clear. Borthwick dominated at line out time, an area where Australia are frankly still in need of work, but they make up for it at scrum and tackle. The side was such a scratch side that it's hard to know if the dull, pedestrian attacking lines were typical, or just the result of not knowing each other well. It is clear that England's autumn scratch side are not likely to threaten the All Blacks in two weeks. Argentina, with a bit of luck, might well take them next week too.

Good game

The question of what makes rugby a good game keeps coming up. As, to be honest, it should. I'd still watch rugby under most rules but I'd like to watch a good game if I have the chance. The rules of the game need to support the idea of rugby as an entertaining spectacle - that helps get people watching, gets money into the game, helps the game spread itself internationally and for the future.

Rugby is a game with many skills - scrums, rucks, mauls, line outs, tackles, pick and go, running with the ball, passing the ball, kicking from hand, catching kicks and passes and kicking from the tee. Added to that you can see different philosophies of rugby. Do you shut up shop, play tight and defensively, or play more expansively and run the ball at the opposition. Whilst both those philosophies may (particularly the second) have times when you play in the other style (defensive, tight play often stays tight when it should expand and move the ball) because the circumstances demand it - although there are some incredibly memorable tries scored when someone behind their own try line decides to give it a go and run with the ball.

A good game should have skill and intent. Defensive battles tend to be less attractive to me but can make for close games. That's not to say there's not a great level of skill in a defensive battle, but the play is more limited and you don't see the whole range of skills being offered and that's important too.

One thing in there that needs to be made clear is that, for most of the elements it's a team game. Not every player may be in every move, but most players have a role to play most times. And that too is a critical element of rugby.

So, if I was tweaking the rules I'd start from a position of wanting to encourage attacking intent, and emphasise the team aspects of the game. That means discouraging kicking, both from hand and the tee, and encouraging attacking rucks - although it should also encourage turning the ball over in defence ideally.

How might you do that? Well one obvious way is to reduce the points for kicking at goal. Any kick, one point, penalty, drop goal or conversion. Does this reduce the risk if you cheat? Maybe - although it reduces it evenly since both sides will have the same points so it doesn't make it unfair. And actually, it doesn't make you less penalised - sides will change their mind about how they use their penalties. You'll be less likely to waste a minute and kick for goal when you could kick for the corner and go for the line-out and try.

That sort of tweaking we've had before - when I was young, tries were only 4 points, now they're 5. In the 30's (and the origin of the word try supposedly) the scoring was the number of goals scored (each 1 point) and a try let you try to kick a goal. Down to one point seems like a big step but I don't care to watch one guy spending a minute kicking at the goal several times in the 80 minutes... so get reduce how attractive it is.

The law around rucks needs to be cleared up. It's currently a mess and inconsistently applied. Let's get rid of "going off your feet" and "handling in the ruck" and have some slightly simpler rules. Not going in from the side is good. Not sealing the ball off is good. Not playing if you're on the ground is good. But the situation where a player bridges, gets pushed off his feet by his own player and gives a penalty away when both players are trying to do the right thing - that's stupid. I'm not sure how the wording for sealing the ball off should be written - but something like putting your head, torso or legs over the ball so the opposition cannot play it when it is within their reach should do nicely. As the ball moves back in the ruck you don't move, so you're not putting yourself in the way and the ball is moving out of reach... no worries.

Want to get rid of the ping-pong kicking? Several choices - turn marks into penalties would be one. Unless players start kicking goals from the 22, it won't give points up directly but it will punish sides that kick too deeply more significantly and reduce the use of the tactic. Alternatively (or additionally) let players mark the ball out to the 10 metre line or even anywhere in their half. If you're going to change the marks to penalties you might want to have two types of mark... one within the 22 as a penalty and one further out as a free kick. It's not hard to do - we already have lots of laws about different things at different lines after all. There are attacking kicks - the "pass kick" to the winger who runs in and the grubber kick through the line. The former can't be marked unless the attacking side screws up the technique... in which case tough! The latter can't be marked because it's bounced first.

Will these changes change the sport? Of course they will, every change will. There are, almost certainly, unexpected consequences to the changes. Teams will work out ways to use the new rules to their advantage and I can't work out what those changes will be without seeing the game being played. But what they might do is tidy up the breakdown a bit, without radically rewriting the rules; reduce the desire to play dull rugby and take the points from penalties and never attack; and get rid of the ping-pong kicking game. What's not to like?

Law changes

The IRB are a bunch of wimps. They experimented with the laws to make rugby more entertaining and decided they didn't like and so a side that plays really dull 10-man rugby comes to be the top team in the world.

I'm not protesting that South Africa deserve to be there, they're playing the same rules as everyone else and they're playing them exceptionally well at the moment so good luck to them.

But as a fan and watcher of the game, 10-man rugby is a nightmare. I'm not saying get rid of the lineout - there are times that, in both attack and defence - it's the right tactic. But the ELVs were apparently criticised for removing mauls and making the game too much a running sport - odd for a sport that is all about running with the ball - the current rules make it too much a kicking and jumping sport and remove other aspects of the game.

One thing that would help is to reduce the number of penalties. 10-man rugby suffers with fewer penalties because the sides become more in need of running the ball the score the points. There would be other impacts of course but that would be changed.

So the question becomes how do you do this?

I can think of a couple of ways.

One probably doesn't have much impact, but if a change of emphasis in the offside law would help. Offside "in front of the kicker" should be a scrum, not a penalty. Offside "not retiring when in 10m" can remain a penalty because that's a specific and different thing. I'm thinking of mistiming when the fly-half kicks across field and the winger has slightly mistimed the run for whatever reason (worth pointing out that it could be due to the scrum half passing not quite right, the fly half fumbling the catch a little as well as pure bad timing). It makes an aspect of the attacking game quite high risk, so reduce the risk so teams try it more often.

Another is a trickier one. The breakdown is a complete mess. There are those that suggest that the side that takes the ball in should have more of an advantage - but that just denies the work of the likes of McCaw, Smith, Brussow, Williams. But one thing that's bad is the fact that one second you're legal, the next, in particular thanks to a referee's call that you may or may not hear, you're giving away a penalty. The law should be changed to make that a scrum or perhaps a free kick - it's an accidental offense. It's pretty simple too, if the person you are penalising was performing a legal action that by dint of the actions of OTHERS becomes illegal in the moment, that is considered an accidental offense. If, for example, you're driven to your knees and release the ball that's no problem, if you're driven to your knees and over the ball, that's a scrum - you didn't dive, you were driven over. If you kneel and try to take the ball that remains a penalty because you're kneeling and you can't play the ball. If you're the tackler and the tackle becomes a ruck as you're picking the ball up, it's a scrum not a penalty - you didn't form the ruck and if you'd been a second earlier you'd be a hero (for your side anyway).

Some will doubtless winge this is a "cheats' charter" but it's not. It's a change to the laws so that those that attempt to play well and turn the ball over legally are not pinged to the point that they give up trying. It might, somewhat, increase the number of people that try to turn the ball over in the tackle and this will reward the sides that can protect their attacking ball as well as getting defenders to the breakdown. Why is that good? That generally means more forwards tied in and a bit more space for the backs to run the ball.

And rather than introducing 30 changes at once, it's a change to how two existing offenses that already rely largely on the interpretation of the officials are penalised. To some extent the officials will always be interpreting what they see of course but a ruck becomes a ruck because the referee shouts "ruck" and suddenly you're giving away a penalty for doing what was OK before he expressed his opinion - it happened today at least once - changing that strikes me as a good move.

The Tri-Nations

I know it's not finished. And it still seems wrong to sum up so many matches in one fell swoop. The trouble is that the sides have something of a sameness about them this year, or had until Saturday.

The All Blacks have looked like a team trying, but failing. The return of a certain Dan Carter to the number 10 shirt, and the benching of a number of old faithfuls, So'oialo and Nonu in particular didn't instantly weave its magic, rebuilding a backrow and an 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 combination took a while but once they'd sorted it all out it suddenly looked like an All Black team of old. The ruthless power at the breakdown was there and the silly mistakes were gone. The passing was slick and dangerous, the support running was suddenly back and working, and frankly Australia were lucky with at least one of the disallowed tries which prevented them being drubbed.

The Wallabies though... OMG! WTF?! Robbie Deans suddenly looks mortal. I don't believe he's suddenly become a bad coach but I suspect he's suddenly found a rugby ethos that doesn't suit his style. It's remarkably hard to argue with the structures and system he put in place for the Crusaders. They're not quite uniformly used in New Zealand Rugby, but close to, and they're used at All Black level too. It's hard to argue that they're pretty good there, this year notwithstanding. But Australian rugby seemingly won't, or can't, use these patterns. And I think that's the real problem here. They buy into the game plan in training, but put them under the pressure of a match situation and some of them manage, largely, to continue the game plan, some of them revert to old school aussie rugby. One or the other might work, but the mix clearly doesn't, and it makes them look confused and clueless because if 10 and 13 are playing to one playbook, and 9 and 12 to another, no one is in the right place.

The 'Boks. What to say about the Boks? To be honest they're the main reason I haven't written before. PdV has rediscovered the dark days of 10 man rugby. If you've got a line out with Matfield and Botha it's brutally efficient. But it's so boring! In the previous match their #13 touched the ball once. ONCE. Their wingers, who you'd have to say on current form are probably both in the top five in the world, ONLY touched the ball if the other side kicked it to them. What on earth are you doing? The completely dominated all their matches on South African soil and didn't score tries that were sitting their begging to be scored - never an issue for the AB or the Aussies when they were on top - quite content to keep going until there was a mistake and slot the penalty. This week though, all of that changed. I don't know if there was a rebellion or it was a cunning plan, but suddenly the backs were running the ball, running their angles, cutting the opposition to shreds and running in tries for fun. And when you get to see that, the times when they hammer the ball into the corner and compete at the line out become fun too. Because it's a part of the game, it should stay a part of the game, but it has to be a part, not 100% too.

It's ironic, before this Tri-Nations I was chatting to a friend about it. I'm an AB fan, he's a Bok fan. We both agreed we thought that this would be Australia's year. We quibbled about who would be second (I have to say I was right about that bit I think, I just can't see Australia winning this weekend). But how wrong we were about Australia. I wonder if they can keep on being this bad, and if not, who will pay the price?

Relief and frustration

So, the Lions finally won a match. Hooray! And the series, I think, is better for it.

But, although it's so easy with hindsight, I've said since the beginning that I'd pick Martyn Williams at open-side. In the match when they final do, the Lions get fast ball from the breakdown, clean ball from the breakdown, and even turnover ball.

Whilst in some positions it's easy to point the finger and say "they were second choice players" the Bok's open-side was the leading player who'd tormented the Lions at the breakdown in the first two tests, and Martyn Williams beat him hands down.

Vickery managed to tame The Beast, which I'm sure is a relief to him on a personal level. Shane Williams found, at long last, just enough space to run at the opposition, torment them, support his mates and score two tries. If the rest of his team-mates had been awake he'd have made one two in the first half with that chip inside after a twinkling run down the line.

After a series in which on all aggregate stats save the most important one, the Lions won, how crucial was the decision to leave M. Williams out? How crucial the decision to play ROG as a reserve and put him on in the second test? Of course we'll never know, but it would be nice to know WHY those decisions were made, in particular the Williams one. What did Wallace add that Williams didn't? What do the coaches think Williams could add that Wallace didn't, and why didn't they want to use it (particularly after the first test, when Wallace didn't stand up get counted)? I'm not a rugby coach, I never will be one, but on this Lions tour it feels like they did everything about restoring the players' faith and support in the team and concept (which I think was vital after SCW's disaster in New Zealand), but they did so at the expense of winning the series, surely also what it's all about?

Lions lose - ROG to blame!

Ah, the irony.

In my last post I talked about ROG being a safe choice, Hook being a more risky one if needed, but that I'd go for Hook. If only Geech had listened to me!

O'Gara came on to fill a hole left by the departure of Roberts and O'Driscoll. He's not half the centre that either of them is, he's not half the centre that Hook is, and Hook isn't half the centre that Roberts and BOD are. What happens? ROG misses a tackle, the boks score a try to pull level. Would Hook have made it? Maybe not, but he's a lot more likely to have made it than ROG you'd have thought. Would the boks have scored a try anyway? Maybe, but we'll never know. So, the boks draw level.

Then, in a moment of madness he kicks the ball, chases it rather than kicks it out AND fouls the bok player in the air. Steyn steps up, on his home field remember, and casually slots a 55m penalty and the boks win. Whilst the first one can be argued, the second can't really. It was ROG's fault from start to end.

As The Rugby Paper headline screams "Lions in heartbreak as O'Gara goes ga-ga." Very true.

Next week, I think a bigger margin for the boks. I was thinking that the Lions might sneak that win, but Roberts (broken thumb), BOD (possible concussion), Jenkins (fractured eye socket), D. Jones (dislocated shoulder) are all out of contention it seems. That's the attacking and a big chunk of the defending force of the backs gone, and two-thirds of the front row that turned the scrum from a disaster 8 days ago into a strong positive yesterday. Some of that credit goes to Shaw too I'm sure, but next week we might see how Vickery + Shaw stand up against The Beast, and I think it might be a painful area for the Lions again. Vickery and Sheridan will not contribute around the park in the same way as Jenkins and Jones - in fairness they've never really had to, but they just don't. Vickery is better than Sheridan at it, but the Welsh props are in a different league.

I hope that the boks didn't target those players, I don't think they play that dirty, but it is curious that 4 of the best 6 players on the Lions side are injured and probably can't play next week.

I've also read criticism of S. Jones for a quiet game. I have to wonder what game they were watching. He kicked from hand and tee beautifully, and his kicking from hand was almost always the right choice both of time to kick and positioning of the kick. The rest of what he did could be dismissed as "he handed the ball to Roberts and BOD" and he also very occasionally ran at the line. That would ignore that lovely off-load for Kearney's try, and the fact that he regularly put BOD, Roberts or both into space at speed. When you have possibly the best current centre partnership in the world outside you, as a 10 surely your job falls into "we need to kick" or "I need to pass to them" unless you have the magic and majesty of a Carter at his best and the skill, speed and confidence to use them both as decoys and go yourself. S. Jones isn't a Carter. Even Giteau isn't a Carter. Good tactical decisions and good passing from a number 10 on a world stage - letting the Lions build their lead after all, quite comfortably - can you really say he had a bad game?

I think Kearney was unlucky not to get MOTM. He got mine. I don't remember a mistake all match and having him catch everything and dominate the air must have given everyone else (except ROG) huge confidence. I still think he's not as good as a fully fit Byrne, but yesterday he was immense. Shaw? Obviously the commentators saw something I didn't. I don't think he had a bad game, but I don't think he was that good either. Oh well.

Lions v Emerging Boks

So, we had a draw, 13-all.

Actually, despite the doom and gloom that surrounds the press reactions, I'm quite positive. I expected the Lions to lose, because the gulf between the dirt trackers (in general) and the test Lions is quite large, and I thought the emerging Boks would be a bit better than they proved to be.

What did we learn? They're not going to pick Martyn Williams to start. Fools. He's not necessarily as good at some parts of being an open side as the Irish guy, but he will compete, and compete well with the fetcher for the Boks, better than his rival does. Apparently that doesn't matter, and again the Lions are going to struggle at the breakdown and could lose the match because of it. Geech - you're starting to make me wonder why you left Wasps and if you're getting a bit old and tired.

The other Williams, Shane, is still not quite at his best, but I think he had a better game under far worse conditions that Monye. His defence was good, he was fast and smart to the breakdown, chasing the ball and the like. I guess, since he played the full match he won't get a nod either. Fitzgerald is an interesting one - he's sharper in attack than Shane, but sloppier and weaker in defence. I think Fitzgerald will get the nod because whilst a winger's defence errors can cost a match, there are lots of other defenders too, but a winger's attacking frailties can cost a match as Monye showed last weekend.

Hook and O'Gara got a run out. O'Gara kicks tactically better (or at least more consistently) than Jones or Hook, although all three can and do kick well from the tee and from hand. Jones engages and uses his backs more aggressively than O'Gara though, making the attacking side work better, and tackles better. Interesting choice there. Hook, as well all know, is a much better attacking option. He is also quite inconsistent - he varies between sheer genius and really quite mediocre (for a high class international). I might pick Hook for the bench. Under a range of circumstances needing to introduce him to change the nature of the game (for example in the last 10 minutes of last Saturday's match if he'd been there) is a gamble worth taking. If the Lions are ahead of course, and Jones is injured, he might have a rush of madness and give the game away but such are the choices you have to make.

Vickery probably had his last run out in a red jersey too. He demonstrated quite nicely that he's still a quality prop. Whatever the impact of the beast was on him, it's hard to argue that it was one of those things where the techniques of the two just meshed in a way that gave a huge advantage to The Beast, and hence the scrum fell apart. It doesn't make Vickery a bad player, it just means he's got a specific weakness that the other guy (unlike a lot of other high quality props in the world) can exploit.

I'm sure they'd have liked a win. The draw doesn't rebuild momentum that much. But they didn't deserve a win the way they played. Looking ahead - it's a hard call, until you remember the venue. Anywhere else I think the come-back, the end of the last test, and that need to win to keep the series alive would mean the Lions stood a real chance. But at Loftus? Bulls' country... fat chance. I think it will stay close, but the Boks to win by 7 to 10 points.

Lions v South Africa - first test

Although the game isn't over, the story of the game can really be written - and thanks to the laptop I can type AND watch the rest of it.

The game hinged around Mears and Vickery having a shocker, in particular Vickery who got mauled by The Beast and thus the scrum turned into a source of endless penalties for the Boks. Vickery off, Jones on, and the penalties basically stopped. Mears actually didn't do a bad job of his hooker duties when allowed to, but that extra bit he brings, of ball-carrying and off-loading around the park was never there. It's hard to be sure why, because when Rees came on he did get the ball and get to run it around the park. He's not the off-loader that Mears is, but he got the ball far more often.

Just as I was to write about the awesome defence of the Boks too, Steyn disposed Monye as he should have crossed the try line to bring it to 26-19 with a kick to come. It's 26-14 still, and yet if the Lions had scored all the tries they made that would have made it 33-26 to the Lions with the kick to come. Someone (Pienar?) made a spectacular save in the first half on Monye. Botha knocked the ball out of Phillips' hand as he was stretching for the line. Steyn bounced Monye... three tries that without heroic defence would have been scored.

The rustiness that I, and a lot of people thought might make this a win for the Lions, is suddenly starting to show in the last 10 minutes though. Apparently the boks had been training 25 minutes on, 25 off against their emerging counterparts. But 40 on, 10 off, 30 on at test match intensity seems to have run the tank empty.

The prospects might be grim (assuming the Lions don't score again in the last 3 minutes - another chance gone on an interception this time) for the series, but the Lions are not entirely without hope. The Lions backs made line breaks, opened holes, moved the ball around nicely. Monye just dropped it... and Bowe did too in fairness. Roberts and BOD were awesome and destroyed their opponents regularly. With Jones and Rees the scrum was much better, and provided the platform for the Lions' third try. My team selection shows Vickery and Mears, but for next week, I'm thinking an all Welsh front-row. I really didn't think I'd be writing that for a Lions tour. Jenkins was great too, how often have you seen a prop tackle Habana in open play?

The Lions need to finish better, and give away fewer penalties, and they have a chance. The Boks have to play for 80 minutes. Interesting times.

Lions v Southern Kings

The management squad may have said they weren't going to decide until today, but yesterday's run proved why there are dirt-trackers and test players. Not that being a Lions' dirt-tracker is an insult in any way shape or form - selection for the All Blacks might be tougher, but that's probably the only selection that is.

This tour, however, the gulf between the two sides seems larger that I remember in years gone by. In the test squad, assuming (not very radically) that my predicted test XV is pretty much the right one - might not be Fitzgerald, but the rest look about right - the players and the combinations have all clicked. Roberts and o'Driscoll in the centres in particular, have never played together but have a partnership that looks like it has been together for years. Martyn Williams is used to linking with Roberts for club and country, Phillips and S. Jones for country and is still, by far, the best fetcher that the Lions have taken with them.

The Kings played a tough game, borderline illegally rough in fact, and knocked the Lions about. Not only Murray and Hook who might not play again on tour having left the field injured, but they largely dominated the tackle and the breakdown with that physical presence. The Lions didn't seem able to react to this, not helped by having no real fetcher - Worsley at open side is still a jammer not a fetcher, Hines is a decent blind side, but he's in the muscular fast-lock, slow-blind-side category (a bit like Chabal) rather than a fetcher. This meant the Lions couldn't really clear the rucks at speed, and didn't, and so the Kings could dominate.

In part because of that the Lions failed to shine. No clean ball made the backs look laboured and slow, and the forwards never supplied fast ball. The cross-field kick became a good option, but O'Gara's precision from hand hasn't quite been there all tour, and wasn't there again today, despite his precision from the tee. Monye's try was, I think, a try - but I wouldn't have been shocked if that decision had gone the other way, and with it the match. Darcy and Flutey don't have the presence of Roberts and O'Driscoll, so the Kings, despite being somewhat limited in attack, had a slow 7, a weak-tackling 10, and small, creative 12 and 13 to run at as they liked. Avoid Powell, outflank Worsley and make metres easily - even if as the defence organises this becomes harder to repeat.

Saturday's run out should look like a very different side, but so will their opponents. Prediction? I still think the Boks are underdone and will struggle against good combinations and game-fit players. Lions to win, by about 10.

Lions v Western Province

Western Province is essentially the Stormers, and a bit like the Cheetahs before them proved a challenge that the Lions eventually rose to overcome.

I'm sure the Lions' management are quite happy though: scrums were better, breakdown was largely better and I suspect in their books, and definitely in mine, the final names were put onto the team sheet.

Sheridan may have had a chance of beating Jenkins out, but after too many dumb penalties at the breakdown, he's blown it. Vickery, on the other hand, has cemented his place on the other side of the breakdown. Williams proved faster and more able at open side, as expected, and linked nicely for both the tries scored early by the Lions. I think Croft, Williams and Heaslip would be my loose forwards, but Worsley, Williams and Powell played really well as a unit and could be the starting trio.

Monye is going to be unlucky, but it's still Fitzgerald and Bowe for me. Byrne was already inked in, but any doubters only need to look at both Kearney's mistakes and the fact he was substituted for Hook before the end of the match to realise it will be Byrne.

Ellis, Hook, probably D. Jones, the Welsh hooker from yesterday, Monye, Shaw and Powell for the replacement's bench.

Lions test side

I don't quite have XV yet, but with Halfpenny and Ferris going home, I have 13 starters. I should point out that O'Connell is in PURELY because Geech has him as tour captain. In my original selection of a touring party I had POC as a starter, now I'm not sure he's that quality any more. In all his games so far he's been rather anonymous as a player and not really showed clear leadership, at least not on TV. I rather have the impression that being Lions captain is inhibiting him, but then I'm not Geech and I'm not there...

But my starters are:

Jenkins
Mears
?

Wyn-Jones
O'Connell

Croft
? (Probably M. Williams but need to see him play)
Heaslip

Phillips
Jones
Fitzgerald
Roberts
O'Driscoll
Bowe
Byrne

If Williams gets the 7 shirt, I wouldn't be stunned to see Powell in the 8 shirt to start - they're used to working together and give you some sense of partnership, and I think Croft would compliment the pair of them, but I think Heaslip is probably a more generally solid 8 than Powell. Ryan Jones needs a mention... but probably not for the first test.

I would probably shift the captaincy to BOD and have the Scottish lock in for POC if I could. This would weaken the line-out for the Lions, but as New Zealand have proven time and again you can beat the Boks in South Africa without a really strong line-out. I think it would strengthen the Lions around the park, and the telling stats these days are not possession any more, but turn overs and penalties. Look at the matches that the All Blacks (and others, but the ABs have been doing it for a few years now) have won with <35% of the possession. When they get the ball, they're clinical and score, the rest of the time they trust their defence to stop the attack, get them turnovers and the like. It's hard to say it doesn't work when they are the #1 ranked team in the world so consistently. Leinster did it to Leicester and Munster in the HC too...

Lions v Sharks

What to say?

The Sharks were gutted, half their team was missing, and it was pretty much have one, skip one, have one, skip one through the side so their combinations were off. Despite that, for the first half, the Sharks tackled their guts out and whilst they never looked good for the win, they looked promising to keep the scores down.

However, the tackling started slip with fatigue, the Lions managed to get some fast ball from the breakdown, and started to score. The 39-3 final result might be thought to be flattering, but given the amount of pressure the Lions exerted it was probably a reasonably fair reflection of the game.

Also of interest was the refereeing of the scrum. It was noticeable in the first half that Kaplan pinged Jenkins every time. In the second half, once he moved around and looked at what was going on, he pinged the Sharks every time instead. I think there was a perception amongst referees that the Lions were cheating, and Kaplan's actions have, hopefully, changed that - he came to realise that the Lions weren't cheating and that will spread through the other officials I think.

Of concern - the breakdown still. The Lions should be praying that Martyn Williams is fit and can get a run on Saturday and see if he can do a better job. I'm not sure if he will, but it will be hard for him to do a worse job.

See next post for a Lions starting group.

Lions v Cheetahs

This was a frustrating match to watch. I watched it with a South African friend who was also frustrated.

The Lions after their performance on Wednesday should have shone, but didn't. Whilst the match was going on there were two obvious problems.

Firstly there was no fetcher - no one like McCaw, Martyn Williams etc. This meant, after the Cheetahs settled in to the game at least, that they could slow the ball down at the contact area most of the time, and force the Lions into giving up penalties. This they duly did, and Hook (who had sparkled with faster ball) fell back into having fewer choices. One level I'm pleased for him, because he showed he can play that kick-the-corners dull, slow game if needed - something that was lacking a year ago, but it did make for a dull game. I'm not going to blame anyone beyond Geech for no fetcher - when Martyn Williams pulled out, Worsely is NOT the ideal replacement. He's a blind-side that can switch to open, but he's not a fetcher. When he's played open-side he's either had an even better blind-side (Betsen) playing, and a fetcher at 8, or a fetcher at 6 instead of 7.

The other thing - where were the offloads? OK, Shane offloaded and gave away an intercept try, but Williams, Hook, and Byrne were the only players looking for the offloads. Earls didn't, Fitzgerald didn't, Halfpenny didn't (but he was fixed out on the wing without players outside him, so less problem there). But it made defending easier because the Cheetahs could just hit the player and know there would be no change to the point of attack - makes the defence pretty easy you'd think, and as it showed. And, to go back to point one, after the tackle, because the Cheetahs knew there wasn't going to be an offload and there was no fetcher they could flood in and slow everything down, and even turn the ball over. If you can't recycle the ball quickly for whatever reason, surely it's not the work of genius to work out you don't give collision areas? Wales won a grand slam doing that after all!

The highs and lows of scratch rugby teams

The Lions, after a couple of weeks together, played an invitational Royal XV. The top players from Britain and Ireland played a side in which only two of them had any Super-14 experience, and that for "bad" Super-14 sides like the Cheetahs who are always in the bottom two or three places.

The Lions, eventually, won. They didn't really deserve to though. There were a lot of new combinations on the pitch, and you would have to say that they didn't work. None of them. The front row creaked, the second row folded, the back row struggled on the back of that. 9, 10, 12 didn't work too well - I know I'm down on ROG, but I'm blaming him again. Both scrum halves expected him to be further forwards than he was. This left him reaching for the ball and kicking and passing off-balance. You can argue that a 9 should be passing to the 10, but in the heat of the moment they pass to where they expect him to be (The Baa-baas v England had a couple of great shots of this, and Marshall to Jackson it worked like a dream) and my gut feeling is the passes were OK, but O'Gara runs slightly slower in a match situation than training, hence the passes looking bad.

Because ROG was scrappy, Roberts got a lot of dump-off ball. He coped admirably, and had a pretty good game, but because it was dump-ball he struggled to be really creative with it.

Earls had a shocker. I feel sorry for him, the youngest player, started nervously and got worse, not better. Some of the blame for that must go to POC too, who ignored him early and let it get worse.

The back three had a pretty good game. There were odd mistakes in there, including a howler from Shane Williams, but everyone makes mistakes every now and again, and that's probably it for a big one from Shane for the tour. They were really the only players that shone, plus Roberts. I'm not sure what the coaches learnt, but what I learnt is that the Lions have to really pull their socks up quickly, or they're stuffed come Test time.

In contrast two not-scratch sides faced in the Super-14 final. The Bulls crushed the Chiefs. Some of that was the exhaustion factor; the Chiefs played two tough matches, then flew from New Zealand to Pretoria, and played the Bulls. The Lions won't have that. But the Bulls, before the last 20 minutes and racking up the score, were still clearly in the lead. They stopped, almost completely, the most efficient attacking unit in Super 14 rugby. They scored comfortably, and were dominant all round the pitch. The Bulls, with a leavening of Sharks, Stormers, and maybe the odd Lion and Cheetah, will make up the Boks, and they will play a LOT better than the Royal XV.

And then the Baa-baas v England. A really scratch team - they only met last week - ran England ragged for 60 minutes. Their lines were sublime, their experience showed, and it didn't show that they were a scratch team. England, who admittedly were also somewhat fresh-faced in many positions, didn't have a clue, until changes to players and fatigue meant that the lack of established partnerships and patterns meant the defence of the Baa-baas creaked, groaned and cracked and England clawed their way back to make it close. Justice was, however, served as the Baa-baa loose forwards pulled off another big tackle, another turn over, and ran the ball into touch to end the game.

The Baa-baas were a more experienced group than the Lions, but there were fewer experienced partnerships on the pitch, which ought to make a difference. But they played sublime attacking rugby, and good defensive patterns and really deserved to win by more. This match, and hopefully next week's against Australia, are wonderful examples of why the Baa-baa matches remain popular. Attractive running rugby, high skills, good spirit and the names of last year, or the year before, showing the young pups they've still got it. Glorious - and beating England even better of course!

Penalty shoot-out

I have to say, in common with a lot of the commentators and fans I didn't like the penalty shoot-out to end the Heineken Cup semi-final. The first few kickers, OK, they're all skilled, practised kickers - it's a fair challenge of a skill they're meant to be good at. Past that... Williams v Crane taking penalty shots? Farcical. It did produce a winner, but in such a fashion that even die-hard Leicester Tiger fans feel it wasn't really a fair way to decide the match, and it resting on the "failure" of one of the best players on the field for the previous 100 minutes (and in the world in his position) to execute a skill that is basically not required for him is cruel.

Apart from Jordan Crane, who is young and cocky and wasn't rubbing Williams' nose in to be fair, a lot of the Leicester players went to commiserate with Williams, kudos to them and the whole sport that this should be their first thought in the situation.

I hate people that criticise without suggesting an alternative, but this time I might just have to do that. I can think of several possible solutions and they all have swings and roundabouts.

I'd like to see a sudden-death extra time, but the pressure on the officials and on the fitness of the players would be immense. Similarly, reducing the players on the pitch to allow the game to reach a conclusion sounds exciting, but (say) 5 minutes of 7's after 100 minutes of 15-man rugby - the players today are fit, but that's insane levels of fitness required. And, of course, who knows how many cycles of extra time would be needed? You would run the players into the ground. It's in the spirit of rugby, but these days recovering for an important match the following weekend (Leicester are playing in the Premiership play-offs this Saturday after 100 minutes on Sunday, ouch my aching limbs just thinking of it!) has to be considered too.

Sudden-death overtime probably won't work then. So we're faced with some other contest. How about a different kicking contest? You can have whoever you like take the kicks - no rotating the kickers unless you want to. Start on the middle of the 22, then the 15m lines on the 22, then the 5m lines on the 22. Then, if necessary, repeat the distribution across the 10m line. Then the half-way line.

You aren't faced with Martyn Williams missing a kick he's got no business attempting at any other time - you are faced with trained, experienced goal-kickers doing their business. It continues until one makes a sufficiently serious set of mistakes to let the other side "win" the match. If they miss, it's still a big loss for the team, but teams and kickers are used to coping with that. It's not a "spirit of rugby" solution in the same way as playing some sevens would be, but it's far fairer than this foolish import for soccer - at least it's challenging a skill that those executing it have practised.

Lions choices

Yesterday's Heineken Cup semi-final made one choice for the Lions coaching staff: Stephen Jones is going to be the starting number 10. It's possibly left them with a decision too - Quinlan went, quite clearly, and gouged the Leinster captain's eyes. If he gets the ban he should for it, he won't be touring, so who will replace him?

ROG was a great fly-half. He is still a good one, but something has changed. Two years ago, if Munster or Ireland were under pressure, ROG was unflappable, and would kick the ball down the field and relieve the pressure. He hardly ever made a mistake, and if he did it was never in a critical part of the field. Yesterday, however, Leinster put the pressure on and ROG crumbled. To my mind, and recorded in this blog, he looked rather like that during the 6N too. I don't know what it is, maybe he's just old enough he's lost a step or two and so he's getting hit more, maybe he's just accumulated enough bumps that his rhythm is off, but whatever it is, that imperious control has gone. It can come - as it can for anyone - when the people around him are playing well, but when they're playing less than brilliantly he looks frail. Playing against the Boks in South Africa you know the fly half will be under pressure. He'll be under pressure to tackle, to kick, to cope with bad ball, and more and he's just not delivering. If McGeechan et al are insane enough to write his name in that slot the 6, 8, 10, 12 in green will be rubbing their hands together and hammering through that slot knowing that ROG will crumble, and if you can kill the number 10 then you stop the whole team playing at once.

Jones can have a bad day of course, but the question is more, can ROG have a good one, can he really be exposed in the hope that he'll suddenly have a good one, when the other way round it's probably less likely that Jones will have a bad one than it is that ROG will have a good one.

The actual Lions - how did I do and thoughts?

Props 2/4 - 2 more Wasps than I'd have taken! They're taking 5, but I was picking a smaller squad remember, so here and on down, I'm marking my inclusions in the squad.
Hookers 2/2 - I guess I'm surprised Rees is the 3rd hooker: Wales's line out wasn't great and that's not always the hooker, but I think it was this year, mostly.
Locks 3/4 - Shaw of Wasps over Gough.
Back row 5/6 - first real shock here, no Ryan Jones!
Half-back and centres, 8/8! - Fitzgerald in the actual squad a bit of a shocker, I think he was rather anonymous throughout the 6N.
Wings 2.5/4 - Although I mentioned Halfpenny I went against him in the end. WTF did Monye come from?
FB 1/2 - I went for Armitage who doesn't even make the squad, over Kearney, who really struggled against a big aggressive back line (Wales for example) and the Bok backs will be small and timid won't they?!

Overall: 23.5/30. 78% - pretty good really. 4 more Wasps than I'd have picked if memory serves!

Lions predictions

I should say, before I dive into this, that what I'm doing is picking essentially an A and a B squad - 2 full teams and so 30 players. I suspect the Lions squad will be bigger and have a different balance - more forwards than backs. In most places there will just be a group of players, e.g. four centres, but sometimes there will be indications of starting players and sometimes discussion of who's not there or more than one for the remaining spot. That will be where I think the choice of the player depends on the way they want to play, and Iain McGeechan is a far better coach than me!

Props:
G. Jenkins (starter)
A. Jones
D. Jones
Here the mix becomes awkward, but I'd probably take Julian White. Sheridan will be too easy for the Boks to counter, Ireland's scrum creaked too much up front. I don't remember the Scottish props which isn't a good sign!

Hookers:
Mears
Flannery

Locks:
Paul O'Connell (starter, possibly captain)
Alan Wyn Jones (starter)
Gough, Shaw, Donacha O'Callaghan are fighting for the other two places. Probably (just) Gough and DOC - Shaw doesn't offer enough extras around the pitch, and DOC and POC have a good working relationship.

Back Rows:
The Welsh and Irish 6 Nations back rows please!
Martyn Williams is the only starter from this lot.
Powell is probably an impact sub.
Possible surprises in here: Worsely might get a shout, although he's rather too similar to the Bok loose forwards to challenge them. Stephan Armitage might just get a look in - he offers something rather different.


Scrum Half:
Phillips
Leamy

Danny Care was close, but that stupid yellow card counts against him - scrum halves are too important to do that.

Fly Half:
S. Jones (starter)
Ronan O'Gara
Hook, Flood and Cipriani all miss out here, two for not enough international time, one for not being good enough. This could be a "surprise" area - if the coaches decide not to confront the Matfield-Botha axis in the line out ROG might miss out and Cipriani (who plays for Geech at Wasps after all) sneak in, although I rate both Flood and Hook ahead of him. Nicky Robinson as a real outside shout - not in the Wales mix, but running Cardiff Blues nicely in the EDF final and HEC quarter final.

Centres:
BOD (starter and MY choice for captain)
Shanklin
Roberts (Roberts really gets in on the mix and partnership with Shanklin, plus a good EDF final)
Then there's a few in mix: Flutey, but I'm not sure about his defence if the pack struggles, Horan, Tindall at a stretch. Flutey on the Wasps ticket just.

Wings:
S. Williams (starts)
Bowe (starts)
T. Evans
The fourth wing spot is between Halfpenny (also a good EDF Final), Ojo and maybe Sackey. Probably Ojo.

Ful-back:
Byrne (starter, outside shout as captain)
D. Armitage.

Breakdown by nation:

England: 5
Ireland: 10
Scotland: 1
Wales: 14

No surprise there's a lot of Irish players.

Even I'm rather surprised at the predominance of Welsh players - but Wales played essentially a second squad against Italy and played France at their brilliant best, and could have denied Ireland the Grand Slam with the last kick. England were gifted 21 points against Italy and played France at their absolute worst. Points difference tells lies sometimes in a short season! Wales finished fourth, but the depth of the squad and that narrow loss suggests they're better than they look. Simultaneously, although winning the slam is a great achievement, Ireland didn't really do it as a team, they had a few players really shine at the right moments - all of who have been picked - but the rest of their side looked like supporting actors for the stars.

That might just be justifying my pro-Welsh bias, but I don't think so.

Team of the 6N

Unlike last year, when winning the grand slam gave me an almost all Welsh team of the competition, this year there's more of a mixture. That is, in part, because most of the teams chopped and changed a number of players and there's a bit of a bias to those that impressed against everyone. It is also because Ireland had bits that worked really well - line out, BOD - and players that really didn't click - ROG - and a few where their players were good but others were better overall.

Like last time, I'll do this in chunks.

Fullback - Lee Byrne, absolutely no doubt. He made about 2 mistakes all tournament, ran gorgeous attacking lines, caught every ball and kicked sensibly as well as running back bad kicks.

Wings - This is a harder call. Williams was expected to be a wizard and at times was, but he wasn't the same twinkling feet as last week. Médard, Malzieu and Heymans all deserve a mention, except for that debacle against England. Tommy Bowe outplayed Williams on the day, but didn't really shine throughout. Halfpenny had a storming start, but then didn't get picked for the last two games. Sackey looked good in an England side when it didn't fire, but seemed to become anonymous the rest of the time. Malzieu and Williams, get the nod, just.

Centres - BOD is as nailed in as Byrne in the 15 shirt. Shanklin, Flutey, Roberts, and maybe if Byrne hadn't limped off Henson are the contenders for the other shirt. Henson looked wonderful but only played 90 minutes in the centres. Ireland and France changed too much. Flutey looked better as the rest of the side got better, which makes me wonder how he would do in a tough game. Shanklin played more minutes, Roberts played in 12... but I think Shanklin just edges it.

Half backs - Stephen Jones is nailed on in 10. ROG was too inconsistent and he's too shaky to defend his channel well. No one else controlled the games well enough or played enough to get a look in. At 9 O'Leary was good, but not quite there. Phillips was solid and played throughout. England's scrum halves were largely anonymous except for yellow cards. Mike Blair seems to be a commentator's favourite, but didn't shine to my mind. Stringer probably looked the best, but played off the bench. Phillips I think just edges it - for his partnership with Jones and because he's often an 80 minute player which is rare at 9 these days.

Back row - Parese of course. Dusautoir of course. Martyn Williams of course. Powell, Worsley, Ryan Jones are all unlucky here, but those three shone throughout.

Second Row - Paul O'Connell is a shoe-in here. Ireland's line out never faltered and attacked the others, and it's most due to POC. DOC was looking good for the role until he got a yellow card and couldn't keep his mind on the job under pressure. Up, to my mind, steps Wyn Jones who was close against POC several times, good the rest of the time and adds ball carrying to the mix. The other line outs tended to stutter, scrums didn't dominate and ball carrying was dull by and large.

Props - tough call here. No side was consistently dominant at the scrum, but Italy, Wales' first choice and England all get a shout here. Gethin Jenkins never looked flustered and made some spectacular tackles above the call of duty, so he gets one slot. I think Califano just gets the other slot. White and Jones to the bench.

Hooker - Really has to be Flannery for his throwing at the lineout and his partnership with POC. Mears is unlucky - his throwing was good, his hooking was good and around the park he's better than Flannery but that relationship with POC just edges Flannery in. Mears on the bench could be devestating in the last 20-30 minutes.

Wales 15 - 17 Ireland

Congratulations to Ireland on their second grand slam ever. And despite finishing fourth, congratulations to Wales for producing, with the exception of the Italy game and in my opinion, the best games of a rather turgid 6N.

This game was in many ways the culmination of a bad spring. There was tension, there was willingness to try and attack from both sides (something England until last week, Scotland and Italy, and Ireland for most weeks) seemed to lack. There was ferocious, committed and mostly very successful defence. There was passion (possibly too much in a few players), and it all came down to the very last kick of the game. If Stephen Jones had kicked it 5m further, Ireland wouldn't be celebrating in the same way tonight.

The Irish "golden generation" has finally delivered as well.

If you look at the stats one thing that will leap out is handling errors. If you haven't watched the match as well, you'd think it was a really scrappy game. But, if we steal a stat from tennis with forced and unforced errors, the unforced error count was really low - about 2 on each side, everything else was caused by the weight of the tackle, tackles that hit the ball and so on.

Ireland, again, had an inspired 10 minutes after the break, in which they scored 2 tries and laid the foundation for their win. Wales chipped away with penalties and a drop goal - leading 6-0 at half time, and pulling back to 15-14 in front until ROG found a drop goal, and then Jones missed that last kick.

The game wasn't a classic in the sense of making a memorable match that I'd want to watch again and again, but was still gripping and by far the best of the bunch this year.

France v Italy, Scotland v England

What on earth happened to France last week? Two matches ago they beat Wales who had been looking fairly imperious. This week they stuffed Italy and 50-8, Italy's worst ever 6N result, is a stuffing. Last week they weren't there.

There's not much to say really past that scoreline. France played sublimely, as you might imagine they would have to rack up that sort of a score. Several of the "villains" of the piece last week - particularly Chabal - shone this week. Chabal is a decent 4, 5 or 8, but he's a muscular 8 rather than a speedy one, and he's just not fast enough to be an international 7. A bit like Bergamasco at 9 was the coach's fault, you would have to say that Liévremont must bear some of the blame for playing Chabal in a position that doesn't suit him.

Parese, for the first time really, looked pretty ordinary. He's still consistently the best number 8 in the contest, possibly in the world, but carrying the team against France in this mood was too much even for him. He was, by far, Italy's best player still, but still looked mortal for the first time in several years.

As for England v Scotland - Scotland's inability to score tries showed: at various points they created chances and managed to find ways not to convert them. It could have put them in front with 10 minutes to go and who knows what would have happened then? England's "green shoots" that I talked about last week are a bit stronger than I thought last time, and I'm sure in public they'll be talked up BUT...

In the second half, England seemed to forget what they'd done in the first half. Sometimes, of course, that's desirable when you want to totally change the plays that aren't working, but when you've got a plan that has you 15 points ahead and looking comfortable you don't throw those plans out do you? You might tweak the odd bit, but England seemed to tweak everything. This led them to reverting to aimless kicking, bad running lines and the like. If England are going to rise back up the IRB rankings and seriously compete next year in the 6N and in 2011 in New Zealand they're going to have to root that bit out of their game. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Wales, and even Ireland and France on a decent day will be close enough after England's good spell to exploit the bad spell and win the games that matter.

England smash France in first half

All the old clichés need to come out for this match - it was a game a two halves, the better side won, there's an element of "you only play as well as your opposition let you" as well.

In the first half France were as bad as in the match two weeks ago against Wales they were inspired. They showed the flair and talent of a bunch of teenagers seeing a rugby ball for the first time, and that let England play well. In fairness to England they played better than I've seen in a while, there were good running lines, some decent support, slick passing and the like, and whilst some of that is because France just let them, some is due to England improving.

However, those green shoots of recovery are fragile, as the second half showed. If you go in 29-0 up, then in the second half you'd expect a romp to develop, at least up to 40+ points, probably 50+ points. But, France turned around and won the second half 10-5. They started to win the contact areas, they started winning on the penalty count (and it's notable that there was only one side warned about yellow cards, even though none were awarded - and that side was England). England went back to providing slow ball and having mostly clueless looking backs.

France won't be this bad for a long time again. England might build from this and move forward once more. But Frank Hadden won't be shaking in his shoes after the second half. He can turn around, point to the second half and say to his players "If you play to your potential you can do this to England, if you play down to their level, you can lose like that..."

Wales and Ireland on collision course

Wales won in Italy, no surprise with the result, but they didn't look at all good. Ireland won in Scotland, which also really doesn't surprise me, but it was a close call, probably closer than anyone expected.

The reasons for these "not being good" were different I think.

With Wales there were two things. In particular 5 changes in the pack, mostly in the tight, disrupted the scrum, and to some extent the speed of ball from the ruck too. That pretty much stopped Wales getting quality ball most of the time, and that dragged the game down into the mire.

But, in addition, I think that all-important balance was missing too often. Hook and Powell in particular should be identified here. Don't get me wrong, they are both seriously high quality players. But, for both of them, they have a wide standard deviation - they have moments of sheer, dazzling brilliance, but they have moments of mediocrity too. One player like that in that 8, 9, 10 axis is OK, probably desirable even. Two players like that, there are too many ways things can go wrong and throw the rest of the team off, and that certainly contributed to the poor performance.

Ireland, on the other hand, looked like they choked. I think Declan Kidney is lucky that his side went in down by a few points - Scotland really should have been further ahead - but also he could turn around and say "If you carry on playing like this, you'll be another Irish side that isn't good enough to be the second Grand Slam winners" and then let his players go out and know that they had to perform to win the game, whilst knowing at the same time they were close enough to manage it.

And, of course, if England lose tomorrow, France aren't out of it either. If Wales win next week, which is certainly possible, they need to win by 13 points to beat Ireland on points difference: that's doable if not necessarily likely on today's performance. But, if France stuff Italy (certainly possible too) they could well be ahead at the end of the weekend. Fun, fun, fun.

Yawn, snooze... Oh, I mean Italy v Scotland and England v Ireland

After a thriller yesterday, we have two of the dullest, most turgid and forgettable matches it's been my misfortune to see in my life. Particularly sad since the Super-14 matches today, with their full-strength ELVs also produced two wonderful matches, one in terrible conditions - but of course the stuffy morons that run the game up in the NH won't think of the spectators...

Italy v Scotland was at least cleaner than Italy's last match. They try to play like England in many ways - 10-man rugby and shut the opponents down and turn it into a arm-wrestle. Last time out Ireland were good enough to get the ball out and score, next time you've got to believe that Wales will be that good too. Scotland just about managed it, but infrequently enough that the match was grinding and tedious as phase play more or less vanished in a welter of scrums, penalties, free-kicks and the like. Scotland let themselves get pulled in too often, and gave away their own share of silly penalties too.

And then there was England v Ireland. England seemed to have a mission to break BOD - and despite that he was one of the few players on either side to really shine. Carney had a stormer too in fairness. But, other than that, Ireland didn't fire, and although that's rarely down to one player, you would have to point the finger at ROG today: he was, again, out of sorts - kicking poorly, passing poorly and running poorly. Failing on all parts of the number-10 curriculum (although tackling well sometimes). The Irish pack creaked and groaned at times, the props can be beaten and England worked them over a few times, but mostly the scrums were balanced - at least in part because the English props cheated to try and force the upper hand and Joubert (who was blind about hits on BOD, some of which looked pretty penalisable to me. Flutey might be lucky to escape being cited for what looked like a shoulder-charge to the head rather than an attempted tackle for example)) spotted the props playing silly buggers and blew it up.

I rather suspect the headlines will be full of the England yellow card trouble. After the Wales match someone in the England coaching set-up suggested that the referee had been one-eyed against England. I'm biased but didn't agree - Paddy O'Brien (the referee's boss) said he was disappointed to hear such comments, particularly since Kaplan's performance had been independently rated as good. I would agree. If the idiot opens his mouth this week, he will be even more one-eyed than Brian Moore at his worst. England again got hit with two yellow cards. One was for repeated (I think it was the fourth or fifth) penalty in the 5m out from the try-line area in a couple of minutes. You really can't complain about that, except to wonder if the referee could have gone to his pocket sooner!

The other was for one of the more cynical and stupid hits that you'll see on a rugby pitch. A prop was standing up from a ruck, and in contact with another player, twisting his back and opening his ribs. Danny Care for some reason decided to run in from about 7m out and wallop the guy in the back with his shoulder when he was totally defenseless. Care went off looking startled that he'd even been penalised. He should be more startled it wasn't given as a red card!

So, again, England play 20 minutes with 14 players. And this time they lose by 1 point to a very out of sorts Ireland. You have to wonder how well they'd have done if they'd kept all their players on the pitch. You have to wonder, as well, what the players, particularly Care were thinking of. The Vickery card you can argue was one of those times it was worth taking the card (although Ireland did score their try moments later), because he was clearly stopping a try and it wasn't guaranteed his side would give one up in the time he was away. But the Care card was just stupid.

One thing that was interesting though - Austin Healey's commentary a couple of times. England had a couple of attacking looking moves that ended up petering out. His comments about why were biting, players not off-loading in set moves when they should know where their support is, players all clustering to the wrong side despite the move having opened a blind side and so on. Quality backs, and at international level you'd expect the forwards to do this too to some extent surely, should be able to pass having drawn the man to someone they know is there shouldn't they? If you've got a move that's run from your right to left, and has the 11, 12 and 15 all going that way, pulling the opposition's defenders across, is it too much to expect that 9, 10, 13, and maybe one of 6, 7, 8 cut back to the left? They all failed to do this - cramming 15 players into half the pitch. Ireland defended that side with 12 players, because their front row was lurking trying to defend the other side. Can 9, 10, 13 not beat 1, 2, 3 for pace in half a pitch width? Well, we'll never know because they were too dumb to find out.

Lions watch? Still no white shirts. No obvious blue shirts. BOD beats out Shanklin on this weekend's performance. Welsh front row, Irish/Welsh second and back row. Tommy Bowe might beat out Leigh Halfpenny, and BOD beats out Shanklin from an otherwise Welsh backline. Stephen Jones didn't play that well, but is still head and shoulders the best of the 10's from the home nations.

Unless Scotland pull off an upset next time out - which is certainly possible - Wales v Ireland will be to decide the championship, and to see if Ireland can win their second ever Grand Slam. If France beat England, certainly possible, they might be in the mix too, able to rack up the points difference with a win over Italy, but only if Wales can win in Ireland.

France 21 - 16 Wales

Wales' hopes of back-to-back grand slams and equalling and then exceeding the continuous games winning streak record came to a shuddering, but still glorious, halt last night.

Predicting the outcome of games against France is always tricky... and yesterday showed just why. France were in disarray with no recognised goal kicker (which showed), a crash centre trying to play the touch position of first five-eighth (which showed in some respects) and so on.

As with last week with England, there was a plan to try and stop the Welsh three-quarters firing. It was different to last week's plan, but even more effective. Unlike last week, there was also a plan to deal with Wales' defensive alignments and the likes of Heymans were more than capable of exploiting the gaps created by their interior players. Then there was Harinordiqy, who doesn't always play well, but yesterday was immense, unbelievably immense. Powell, who didn't have a bad game in terms of runs, tackles, covering play etc. was completely eclipsed on the night by his opposite number. Given Powell is probably going to get a Lions invitation in the summer, high praise indeed. In fact, after last night when he had a good game even when his opposite number was playing probably the best game of his life, just makes him more likely I'd think.

The slightly worrying thing? Wales failed to have a Plan B available and executable. Plan A, to the TV audience at least, was clearly not working - so where was Plan B? I can't believe it looked like Plan A was working on the field either and failing to adapt to that, particularly when there had been a 13-3 lead, is criminal.

France clearly wanted it more on the night. But, in the process will they make Wales a strong side for the next year or two? Learning how to cope with defeats like this should be part of the building of any great team. It happens to all great teams (think NZ in the RWC) so it's not a disaster as long as they can learn from it and go forward with confidence.

France 22 - 13 Scotland and Wales 23 - 15 England

Two victories as expected for the home sides.

Scotland improved. France still played in patches, but only in patches - but were still good enough.

The commentators are saying "England improved" but I'm not sure they did. England desperately spoiled, spoiled again, and again, and some would say they were lucky there were only 2 yellow cards. Wales were good enough to defend against the pressure that England did exert - in that sense they were better than last week, they did manage to exert some pressure - and England despite trying desperately to prevent Wales' attacks weren't actually good enough to do that throughout the game and so weren't able to stop them scoring. The fact that the game was as close as it was is basically due to Joe Worsley tackling his heart out all day long. But he can't be there to tackle every time, he wasn't there to tackle every time, and Wales scored on that basis.

On today's showing there's still a lot of red shirts going for Lions' shirts. Joe Worsley might get one. But Worsley is a player near the end of career. Good luck to him for extending it another cap, but he's not going to the next RWC. Who will replace him?

There are always hard games in a Grand Slam. England v Wales is always harder than it looks - the fact this is the first time Wales have beaten England three times on the trot for the first time is a good indication of that. But, Wales v France doesn't hold much in the way of terrors after today's performance. Wales v Italy shouldn't either... The question really, will be can England or Scotland lift enough to beat Ireland or will it be a GS decider at the end for both sides?

Scotland 13 - 26 Wales

At several points I thought my prediction (Wales by 20 points) was going to be dramatically wrong in the opposite direction. For the first 50 minutes or so Wales were utterly dominant, and Scotland looked like they'd forgotten how to play the game. If Wales had been ruthless and kept playing to their peak, it could easily have been a 40 point margin.

As it was, Wales took their foot off the accelerator, Martyn Williams got sent to the sin bin in a decision I still think was borderline whether it was even a penalty (but I will admit to bias) and that let Scotland start playing faster and looking more dangerous. They found a bit more space on the park, and exploited it, although only once. However, that foot-lifting really only happened once the match was put away, and although there was one moment when the space was exploited and another when it was close, the defence suddenly clicked back into gear and although Scotland tried to attack they lost the ability to penetrate the red line.

Wales also destroyed the Scottish scrum, routinely and often.

Unlike either match yesterday, this was dominant rugby played by a skillful team. They stopped Scotland playing in a way that none of the teams of yesterday managed against their opponents. it didn't make for a match that engaged the neutrals in the way that Ireland v France did, but it did suggest that Wales to win the 6N is a good bet, and a grand slam repeat isn't that unlikely.

Oh, and for the red Lions shirts in the summer? On today's performance expect a lot of players used to wearing red, some used to wearing green. Blue or white your colours? Oops.

Ireland 30 - 21 France

Well, I predicted this one to be close but the other way - France by 5 was my guess.

Unlike the previous match, this was exciting, entertaining, creative, and good. The lead swapped hands several times, and until the last couple of minutes it wasn't clear who was going to win.

Both sides played, at times, imaginative, fast attacking rugby. Both sides, most of the time, defended well when the other side were attacking well, but there were just enough cracks, particularly of French discipline at key times, for the scores to build up. But, although the defences played well, the tackles were usually made and so on, the attacks generally remained well considered and fast and always looking like they could have been successful.

Chabal had a massive game, in the line outs and in particular running with the ball in-hand. Ireland played, overall, better as a team and with that bit more discipline (they gave away no penalties in the first half for example) to deserve the win, but this was a match that, as a neutral, I'd love to watch again - it was pulsing, fun, entertaining. Well worth watching, and really highlighting the deficiencies of England's performance. If England play like this throughout the 6N there won't be any English Lions, and England will only win one match.

England 36 - 11 Italy

Oh how a scoreline flatters to deceive. England were woeful, and Italy for quite large parts of the second half at least, looked like the only creative team on the pitch.

The problem? England scored 1 try (their last) with a simple passing pattern from a line-out, and only just made that. Their other 4 tries came directly from mistakes, sometimes a string of mistakes, made by Italy where, to be frank, my mum and I could have scored.

Pointing fingers in rugby is often not that easy but, sadly, you would have to say Mauro Bergamasco deserves to be on the end of the finger pointing for two tries all on his own. (He may also have made mistakes in another one by being out of position.) Mauro is a very good flanker, playing at scrum half he had a disaster - passes going awry, getting into rucks and letting the ball pop out to an England player and the like. You've got to admire his courage to step up and give it a go, but he isn't a scrum half, and you would probably have to say that this decision cost Italy a chance at winning.

But, Italy weren't the only team at fault. England were slow, incredibly slow, at getting the ball from the ruck. They had the creativity of a wet paper bag, and so would run in a desultory fashion a couple of phases, each one actually letting the Italian defence organise BETTER, and so be forced to kick the ball away. Not every kicking decision was a good one - they got into the habit of kicking and so kicked earlier and earlier, but many of them were good at that point. England made them good though by being so unimaginative.

Brian Moore, a commentator I usually love to hate came out with two very quotable moments. "Tickets here cost £85 don't they? I want a refund" and "It doesn't matter how much you tweak the rules, if the players don't want to play rugby, you can't force them." And that's really how bad England were.

The final touch - when the commentator asked Moore to name the man of the match, my immediate thought was Parese. Moore named Ellis, and I don't have a problem with that, but when the first thought is for the losing captain, it says something about how bad the winning side were.

Wales next week for England. I'm sure they won't be thinking of it yet, but when they watch this, the Welsh will be rubbing their hands, licking their lips and looking to rack up a big score.

Building a team

When you think about a rugby team, and many other teams to be honest, you think about the mix of roles to be filled. Some are obvious - you need a tight-five, a back row, half backs, back three and centres.

If you want to think of it that way, they're the posts you've got to fill.

But watching Gloucester crash out of the Heineken Cup yesterday and last week against Cardiff it's obvious that there's a different way you can consider it.

You have a number of roles that you need to have available to the team. Some of these match closely to the positions - it's very hard to play good rugby without a good tight five, and propping, hooking and locking a scrum, and without someone to get the ball off the ground out to the next player quickly, which is classically the scrum-half's job.

But you have some roles that are more flexible. You need a number of crash-n-bash or hard yard carriers of the ball. In the All Blacks of last year, Kaino, Thompson, Soaialo, Sommerville, Hore, Meealamu, Nonu, Thorn, Muliaina, and somewhat surprisingly Sivivatu fulfilled this role at various times. McCaw attempted it, but it's not his thing to be honest. You need the fetcher role, where McCaw rules supreme, but Soaialo, Thompson, and very surprisingly Smith showed up regularly in this role. You have a tactical kicker role - Sivivatu, Muliaina (of course, job description), Carter (of course - goes with the job description), Cowan (also of course and goes with the job description), Smith all filled this role admirably and expectedly, but Williams and Soaialo kicked often enough and well enough that it wasn't a shock by the end of the year, but it's very unusual for people in those positions.

Most sides have a second ball-starter - the person that shifts the ball from the ground out to the first receiver position. That's typically done by the scrum half 90%+ of the time of course, but sometimes the scrum half is injured, has been tackled and is in the ruck or otherwise unavailable. Wales have Shane Williams who played scrum half to a high level and still trains for the role. French sides usually use the fly-half and scrum-half interchangeably in such situations. The All-Blacks seem to use everyone EXCEPT Carter in such a role, although Carter has filled in on occasion.

Some jobs go on merit - it's usually a 10 that kicks goals, but it can be a 12, 15 or other positions - memorably Eales who played lock was Australia's best goal kicker for a number of years for example. Some jobs now go with the role - why do hookers always throw in to line outs? When I started watching rugby the French were in the process of changing from scrum-halves throwing in to hookers throwing in. I agree it makes sense to have someone in a single-digit number at the thrower, but if your best thrower is a number 6, why not have him do the job and the hooker as a lifter (or more rarely a jumper?).

There are, of course, defensive roles too, but this post is getting long enough.

But, on to Gloucester. Gloucester's problem was a lack of bodies able to do the smash-n-bash yards successfully, combined with enough defenders to stop the other side doing it well. When it comes to playing in the cold and wet, you need probably more of those than normal, in both offensive and defensive roles. You know the other side are going to pick and drive, pass one-out to a big runner who will crash into your line, hopefully over the gain line, and set the ball up to recycle it. The conditions (driving rain, deep mud and all) don't really make for regular use of flowing moves along the back line (although to be fair Biarritz tried them and scored on the back of one, as did Gloucester). But Biarritz wone because they could try the high risk moves when the situation meritted it, but could get the ball and smash it forward a metre or two at a time for phase after phase after muddy phase. They weren't likely to score from this (and they didn't) but they were perfectly positioned to stop Gloucester scoring, because of course Biarritz kept the ball, and to make it less likely that Gloucester would score when they got the ball back - and Gloucester didn't score in the second half - because they were tired, slow, and rarely given the ball in a good position to counter-attack. Biarritz could, and did, grind the ball forwards and choose whether to keep grinding or whether they'd got the ball far enough they could pin Gloucester back and let their wingers chase the ball forcing a hurried kick that ended up with Biarritz most times gaining yards, throwing in to the line-out and starting again...

It wasn't a great match to be honest, but the conditions dictated it was never going to be. But Biarritz could play rugby suitable to the occasion, and that let them, when the circumstances permitted, to also break out and score. Gloucester, who play such a nice game when the conditions are good, couldn't adapt to the mud, and you would say were really fairly lucky to be able to score the 10 points they did. It's telling they came in the early and middle part of the first half whilst the players were still energetic, warm and willing enough to throw the ball about successfully - an extra 10 minutes of grind from Biarritz (who scored 17 of their points in the first 15 minutes, and the other 7 from a charge-down) meant they never looked like threatening for the rest of the match.

There are problems at Gloucester - until Spring is sprung (and Tom Lehrer fans are poisonoing pigeons) and the ground gets harder again, they're vulnerable. They won't always be playing in cold, wet bogs of course, and they won't always lose, but they'll always be at risk.

Interesting side note here - If you look at most of the current good international sides: Australia, New Zealand, Wales and lets throw France into the mix too they all have a number of players who play well in multiple roles. They all play well in their expected role-positions, but it's a rare player in their squads who ONLY plays the roles expected of their position (Woodcock would be an obvious example, but he plays superbly in his role). The other sides don't have that unexpected range of skills. South Africa tend not to do this, but have good-to-great players in all roles and work well as a team, the 2003 England didn't do it either, but the bulk of the sides that can do it well keep their team work of course, but can suddenly, unexpectedly do things well from the "wrong" places. You're not going to drop your back three each time Williams gets the ball in a kicking position, unlike when Carter gets the ball, but perhaps you should. Of course if you do, and Williams also gets tackled and offloads, (which he can also do quite nicely) then you've got an AB winger with space to run too...