England smacked in the face

This was a game in three parts really.

For the first 20 minutes England were full of huff, puff and effort. They were competing, winning even, at the break-down, in the line-out but they weren't really able to pull away - in fact at the end of that time it was 6-6 and and despite the seeming superiority where it normally matters, the All Blacks didn't really look flustered.

Then came the next 55 minutes. NZ stepped up about 3 gears, adjusted on the pitch to what the English were up to, coped and overwhelmed England. Not at every phase - England won line-out ball of New Zealand often enough to say it's an area where they're stronger. Rees kept competing with McCaw, and kept the turn-over count close, but the timing and position of the turn overs was never in his favour - England turned the ball over in or just outside their 22 several times and only once were they not punished by conceding a score - usually a try.

The last five minutes, in fairness belonged to England again. The All Blacks took their foot off a bit, and Donald (impressive though he is) didn't dominate in the same way that Carter did.

37-20 flatters England to be honest. 7 of those points were from a classic "14 point try" to use a cliché. New Zealand were on attack, with a 2:1 overlap about 10m from the line. Ojo decided to go for broke and made the intercept by about half-a-finger's length. With the headstart he had because Tuitavake, the winger on his side, was at full pace in the other direction, Sivivatu was in a tackle somewhere and Muliaina was over on that wing he made it home, totally against the run of play.

The second try to Ojo was at least worked for. Tuitavake was pretty much blameless in the first Ojo try. Henry will not be happy with his effort in the second one - Ojo comfortably beating him to the cross-kick you might get away with, when the opposite winger (admittedly "only" from mid-field rather than the opposite wing) ALSO beats you to the kick, well the coach will question your defensive qualities - probably in four letter words.

On that few inches, you might have had 44-13 or worse. 44-13 would have been a fairer reflection of the game really, although you have to think if the All Blacks had got there, they'd have cracked the half-century too. They really were that good.

There was an interesting comment at the end. The Kiwi public believe that England will come with a big physical challenge, which they did for quite a bit of the match. They also believe that England don't have the imagination to win. Again it would seem they were correct. Very few teams keep up with New Zealand at the turn-over. To do that, and to be stealing their line-out ball appreciably often, and still deserve a thrashing - there's got to be something wrong somewhere. You might choose to point at the forwards for keeping the ball and driving slowly a metre at a time, and being driven backwards by the same amount too. But every time the backs got the ball, really New Zealand looked at least as comfortable defending out wide as they did in close. The other way around, the forwards probably made more breaks, but the backs just ran the white line ragged.

Good and bad display from Wales

Watching the SA v Wales match must have had Shaun Edwards in particular pulling his hair out, or it would have if he had any. Gatland too, to a lesser extent.

Wales neglected to tackle too often, and when they did tackle, they all too often allowed offloads over the advantage line, which the Bokke penalised. Wales also spilled the ball far too much, and conceded too many stupid penalties, particularly in the first half. Even more frustratingly it wasn't the new boys that were to blame, well not specially, everyone was guilty of knocking on, stupid penalties were mostly given up by experienced players.

When Wales managed to keep hold of the ball, they looked threatening, particularly when Stephen Jones was ignored in favour of Shane Williams as fly-half (a move that led to Wales' first try) and again when he was replaced by James Hook. Shane William's try was also well worked, and the rest of the world's wingers will look at the way he wrong-footed Habana with awe. Two minutes later his defence against the cross-kick will have impressed too.

In fairness, doing the core jobs - scrum and line-out - the forwards looked pretty good. There were a couple of poor line outs near the try line that Wales will rue, but overall the line-outs were pretty even (not bad when they've got a lock at 2.08m tall, and they take him off to replace him with Victor Matfield), and Wales really dominated at the scrums throughout.

Gatland and Edwards have a smaller job than the score of 43-17 might suggest. Edwards needs to remind his charges, old and new, how to tackle, and work out how to stop the offloads. Gatland needs to work out how to circumvent the team tackles from the Bokke when Wales do attack, and beat them until they don't drop the ball and don't give up stupid penalties. I'd suggest they might also go with Hook next week - S. Jones looked mostly solid, but made the backs look stolid. But, despite playing at altitude, Wales played until the end, complete with stupid penalties, but also a good gang-tackle on Habana to hold him up over the line and prevent him scoring a try.

I said losing closely wouldn't be a disgrace for Wales. This wasn't really close enough - Wales just gave up the ball far too often and led to their own downfall - but there were enough positive moments, and the scrum and line out worked well enough that it wasn't a disaster at least.

NZ v Ireland

It would be fair to say that the weather played a big role in this match - it was hammering with rain and there was a driving wind pretty much straight along the pitch, against the ABs in the first half, against Ireland in the second.

Despite the UK TV commentators, who both seemed very biased pro-Ireland, a first half that ended 8-8 wasn't bad for the ABs, although with a little luck they could have been further ahead. In the second half their superior fitness and speed off the mark, plus the benefit of the wind, stretched that to a comfortable 21-11 win. Looking at the match, it was never really in doubt as far as I was concerned - really it was only the weather and the referee that kept it down to a 10 point margin.

Now, I'm going to try and restrain myself from slating Chris White. I will admit I'm partial to one of these sides, but it did appear he was too. There was lots of commentary about policing the breakdown, and the changes to the laws. Perhaps they missed the bit where the only change was to make life harder with an offside line, and to alter the nature of the kick awarded from penalty to free kick in all the frothing about how evil the ELVs are? Chris White claimed he was just going to referee the laws as normal - so why did every time the Irish maul was going forward and then piled up, it turn out some evil AB had collapsed it, but in the other direction, it was "just a slip" or similar? Why are men in green allowed to pull the scrum half into a ruck (that's a penalty under both law sets) but a hand in a black sleeve goes near a green-clad scrum half and it's a penalty? That's called bias isn't it? When ROG dived into a ruck from the side - and I mean parallel to the 22 from the side, so offside as well, about 3m away from White as he was looking that way, that's not a penalty. Um, under what laws? Ali Williams hits a green player over the ball, driving up if the fact the players feet left the ground is any indication, in a breakdown and then goes down from the hit. Apparently that's "diving over" and worth a penalty. At least it was to Chris White. OK, that might not sound like I restrained myself, but trust me, I did.

The commentators were worse. When the ABs kicked into the wind, every kick was "terrible" and "that's so short" but when Ireland did it was "great into this gale." Um, no. A little fairness doesn't go amiss.

It wasn't a fully polished performance. Carter wasn't at his best. Neither was Muliaina. Once MacDonald came on, the ABs looked a lot more secure. That might sound like a contradiction to my earlier statement that they always looked under control - but both are true. Ireland didn't really look threatening except that once that they scored their try, but the ABs didn't look totally secure. Once MacDonald came on, they did.

Despite the comments of the experts, my comments from yesterday bore fruit. The Munster pack were outplayed in the loose, at the breakdown, at the edges of the breakdown, in the scrum and at line out. That's every single aspect of forward play and the ABs were just better at each of them. The loose forward "experiment" basically worked. There were a couple of times it might have been a bit creaky, but overall they massively outplayed their opposite numbers. And just for the extra fillip, the first AB try occurred because Smith showed his class and beat BOD all ends up, and in particular for a step and for pace.

It's a shame, perhaps, that the weather wasn't better - it did encourage both sides to keep it tight. Whilst there is nothing wrong with that, some variety would have been nice, but the weather was so bad it was never going to happen - by the time the ABs could have been playing with gay abandon because Ireland were totally out of it, the wind and rain was worse and passing the ball was even harder.

I suspect this has settled some butterflies for the ABs. It's worth saying, by the way, their surprise selection of the Highlander's flanker seems inspired. He was on for Soaialo a couple of times and seemed to fit right in. Ireland might go away feeling OK about themselves, but I suspect the Munster pack won't, and shouldn't, and in a match that was played in such lousy weather, if the forwards can't play, you will always lose - as they did.

Tests down under

It's that time of the year when the Northern Hemisphere sides tour the Southern Hemisphere.

We have Wales v South Africa, Ireland v New Zealand and Australia, and England v New Zealand to look forward to.

Of these, Wales v South Africa ought to be the easiest to call, but is probably the hardest. If Wales could take their full Grand Slam side, given SA rugby has a new coach, new combinations and the like, I'd put my money on Wales. But, enough of the Welsh first choice players are injured that I think it's going to be close. My heart says Wales to win, of course, and my head says they can still win, but isn't as convinced as my heart. I think both the matches in this series will be close, and interesting. Whilst it would be nice for Wales to win, at least one if not both, losing both closely won't be a disgrace under the current conditions, remembering they are away to the current world champions and #1 ranked team.

Ireland v NZ is pretty easy to call. Although NZ are rebuilding, if you look at their squad there's nowhere that suggests it's bad. If you say Conrad Smith, one of the classier centres in world rugby, is probably the luckiest man on the squad to be there, it really isn't bad. It could all fall apart of course - how will 8 and 9 get on? How will 10 and 12 get on? In NZ rugby they're both critical questions. Nonu isn't a Brett or Bateman, but he's grown into a good number 12 as well as a very dangerous all round player. Up against that we've got an Ireland side that is still looking stale and sliding. BOD is looking older by the day, the Munster pack has a mix of age and youth, but you'd say that they haven't really dominated in recent games at a high level. They didn't smash Toulouse out of it, and the AB pack is several levels higher than that. NZ to win that one.

Ireland in Australia is harder to call. Australia will be playing for the first time under Robbie Deans. We know that Robbie Deans is an amazing coach at Super-14 level, but in his first season the 'Saders finished rock bottom. Will he take that long to get Australia playing the way he wants? It's not just a team thing, very much the same team, in an amazing turn around won the Super-12s the next year. But, Ireland will be down after NZ, Deans will have had that extra week to work with his players, so, sadly, advantage to the guys in green and gold.

England v New Zealand should be pretty easy to call. Both sides are rebuilding. One side is mid-season, the other at the end of a season, and with an interim coaching group and all the rest. If Graham Henry's got it wrong and Ireland win tomorrow, England could well pounce and do well as the wreckage descends. But, I don't think the first will happen, and I don't think the second will happen either. England still look like they're lacking inspiration and although they might do most of the basics well, grinding NZ down is never easy. New Zealand will win both these matches too.

Super-Final

I'm sure it won't be, but it would be nice if this final was the thing that took the boring old farts and said, yes, the Super-ELVs were a good set.

It might seem odd for a 20-12 victory, but in a way that the Heineken Cup final never was, this game was pulsating, fast, furious and wonderful. Some of that might be because the score, somewhat at least, flatters the losers: 27-12 or more would probably have happened but for a punch.

In the first half, in fact in the first 25 minutes, the Crusaders had almost all the ball and almost all the territory and yet were 12-3 down. The one real attack that the 'Tahs managed produced a try from a good cross-kick and a matter of millimetres in the difference in the jumps. The second came from an interception and a moment of blistering pace, and from about 80m away. For the next 15 minutes, the 'Saders increased that dominance and managed to get it back to 12-11 and could have been in front if Dan Carter had landed the conversion, albeit an attempt from right on the touchline.

In the second half, the 'Saders were the only side to score, and the only side to look like scoring really, despite having Brad Thorn in the sin bin for 10 minutes for the punch that cost Wyatt Crockett an unlikely long-range try. Despite being down to 14 men, the 'Saders defence was so good that it didn't really look like being punished.

Granted, there were moves in the second half where the 'Tahs got close: there was a memorable tackle on Tiquiri by former team-mate Thorn within a couple of metres of the line for example, but without exception these raids that nearly got home led to turn overs of one variety or another: because the players in blue were isolated, and gave the ball up correctly, or held it and gave up the free kick, or because on a couple of occasions the 'Saders just got more bodies there at the right time and counter-rucked strongly enough to win the ball.

And because of this the game was immensely gripping: good attacks were blunted by amazing, last-gasp defence. Poor but penetrating attacks were blunted, turned over and frequently led to strong attacks in the opposite direction. As you might expect in such a game, the back rows were everywhere. It's probably fair to say that the Number-8's more or less cancelled each other out. That's a testament to their respective skill levels: it wasn't that they were anonymous, they both had their moments, but with the exception of Tuial'i's try, there moments balanced and cancelled, and it was often thanks to their opposite number they were bought down. Given Palu is almost certainly going to be Aussie No 8 that's a fair old compliment to Tuial'i, and might have him in the starting 15 for the All Blacks in the June tests: I don't remember Soaialo doing the same when the 'Tahs and the 'Canes played, and head-to-head last week Soaialo was far from dominant too.

Waugh and Elsom were good, and got around the park and did their stuff. But, you would have to be very one-eyed not to say that they were both outplayed by their opposite numbers. Those critical moments, the essential turn-overs, the critical times for slowing things down, and the critical carries in the right direction all went to Reid and McCaw. Henry may feel Reid is too young and inexperienced for the international stage, although he's not normally shy about putting young players in. On the evidence of the last few weeks, Reid deserves to be in the squad I'd say (but then I don't do the picking and I don't see all the games from over here).

In fact, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that all 15 of the 'Saders could be making up the All Black machine rather than the Red and Black machine in two weeks time. There are Chiefs, Blues, Hurricanes and even the odd Highlander, and certainly fans of those sides that would disagree with me. I don't actually believe it will happen either: Hamilton showed some frailty that Sivivatu doesn't any more, and Sivivatu has blistering pace too. Bateman might miss out at Number-12, and Laulala has struggled on the big stage in years gone by so might have used up all his chances with Henry (although I think he's playing better this year than last and probably does deserve a good look if not a starting spot). If Flynn had played, he'd have more chance than his understudy of starting, Mealamu is far more likely. Who will prop along the line from Sommerville is a fair question, and you'd have to say Crockett is probably going to get tapped, but might not quite make it.

Ellis for the last two weeks has demonstrated a great all-round grasp. I think he'll get the nod for number 9. His only mistake today was a kick that drifted out on the full, and that only just. He chivvied his pack, he passed neatly, he defended like a hero when needed. He made the correct decisions each time, and just slipped that once. He also, playing a side that will almost certainly form the bulk of the Australia side, played a full 80 minutes. I think he did last week against the 'Canes too. That's rare in a scrum-half, and a nice thing to have.

Thorne swapped for Thorn for the last couple of minutes. Deans and Thorne are both leaving, although in different directions. They're both departing as seven times winners in a contest that's only been running for 13 years. I don't think, after last week, anyone really doubted the 'Saders would give them that send off, except for the 'Tahs camp you'd hope, and the 'Saders didn't disappoint. How Deans will do in Australia is something that I rather suspect has a number of Kiwi minds wondering and hearts trembling: He's worked miracles in and around the Christchurch region after all. How the Crusaders will do next year without them both, but particularly Deans, is something we'll have to wait and see: and I'm sure some Red and Black fans are nervous about that too - who do you choose to replace such a successful coach? But for the moment, congratulations to them both, and the rest of the Crusaders. They were certainly the better team on the day. They were the best team of the tournament too, only slipping up twice, and playing poorly a couple of other times, albeit well enough. New Zealand rugby is certainly missing bodies to playing in Europe, but it's got new people emerging to fill the gaps judging from the last two weeks.

Bad refereeing and comparing

What I had planned to write today was my impressions of the Super-14 semi-finals (both exciting matches, even if the decision in both wasn't really in doubt for that long) and the Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup finals. We'd be comparing, more or less, like with like after all.

The trouble is, we're not comparing like with like. The Super-14 semis were both great games. There were errors, attacks, entertainment, tries, penalties and the works. The H-cup final was tense, a try each way (the Toulouse try was probably the best of the weekend) but not hugely exciting for the neutral observer, well not this one anyway.

Close games can be good - Gloucester v Bath (8-6 final score) was a good game because the teams tried, there were sweeping attacks and stout defence throughout. The 16-13 win by Munster didn't have that - it was error-ridden and unattractive. There was also a shocking decision to yellow card Pelous, and although I'm not 100% sure there was bias by the refereeing team in general (I have a lot of time for Nigel Owens normally) I would say that Munster got enough of the rub of the green on other occasions too that I can understand Guy Noves thinking there might have been bias.

The Challenge Cup final was worse. It started looking like there was going to be an attacking, fun game. In moments there were. But oh boy, Christophe Berdos had a shocker. Grewcock should have been sin-binned twice (which would have left Bath down to 14 players for 25 minutes or so). Mears should have been sin-binned. Another Bath player should have been sin-binned. Klaarsens kicked the ball from a mark into his own player in front. Offside? No - take the kick again. WHY? Whether or not it was deliberate, the referee failed to stamp his authority and the game was full of niggle and unpleasantness, and it's hard to think that Worcester wouldn't have managed to do something more if they'd played against 14 men for more than half the match, in fact 13-men for a few minutes.

The IRB and the various competitions need to do something. If the referee has such a shocker, there needs to be some come-back. Saying, as they did, Barnes, Spreadbury and Kaplan can't referee further in the RWC didn't help New Zealand who had been knocked out several shocking decisions. It won't help Worcester if Berdos has his wrist slapped for a bad game. Referees need to be respected and left to run the game. But when a referee has a bad game, there has to be something else done - perhaps particularly when it's so clearly a big game, like a knock-out match or a cup final.

ELVs, bizarre choices and stupid commentators

So, about 10 days ago the powers that be decided, in their infinite wisdom, what the future of the game will look like. The accepted about half of the ELVs that had been proposed. Of course, they couldn't decide to adopt the ones that have been in the Super-14s this year... that would be too easy.

Some of the Super-14 rules have got through, but they've ditched the "most offenses are free kicks" rule. Shame really, there are so many situations where the difference between being excellent play and a penalty is a matter of less than 1 second. Having a free kick in there, and then a penalty for the more blatant or repeated abuses, and a yellow card for the really blatant, bad position or long term repeated offenses makes sense to me.

The one I can't believe they've accepted (that Super-14 wisely IMO ignored) was "it's legal to collapse a maul." Now, I happen to think that rolling mauls are too powerful. There is no defence against them in essence (not even having a big, strong pack) but they are a thing of skill and power - two of the things that make rugby attractive - even if it's only the real purists that would regard them as a thing of beauty in their own right. Having the ability to just collapse the maul - well any idiot can do that, so you're removing an option of skill straight away. Replacing it with things like "as long as you join from onside you can work around the sides of the maul staying bound to attack the ball carrier" would, to my mind, make a lot more sense. Teams can still attack using the rolling maul, but there is a defence that doesn't deny the attacker the skill and power and requires skill and power rather than just the ability to lie down in the way. Obviously that's too easy...

The other reason I can't believe it happened this way: collapsing mauls was ruled out originally not to allow Leicester to score tries that way, but to prevent injury to players as it goes down. Players now have unbreakable necks presumably? Bizarre.

The commentators that I saw were all "OMG it's terrible" and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." They then chose, rather stupidly, to demonstrate it ain't broke by saying the two Heineken Cup semi-finals produced good matches. They did, it's a fair comment. But are semi-finals between four of the best teams in Europe on a good weather day a representative sample? No one has denied that the existing rules CAN produce great games of rugby. But, about 2 weeks before this game an (equally unrepresentative sample of 1 game) produced a stolid 16-9 game with 1 try, lots of slugging it out in the middle of the field. It was a rugby match, but not one that would make me go back to watch another match if I was a newcomer.

The Super-14s, even in some pretty horrendous conditions (driving rain, howling winds, etc.) has usually produced interesting games. The Guinness Premiership and the Heineken Cup produces them as the weather gets better, but produces 9-6 dull, slow, boring games too in conditions not that dissimilar to the weather we've seen in some of the Super-14 games this year, where they're producing 3 and 4 try matches. Comparing overall... well I don't have the stats and some of it is about personal opinion, but Super rugby produces far fewer dull matches in my opinion than either of the big Northern Hemisphere contests that I can see here.

That brings us on to the final thing... who is Rubgy for? The commentators would have you believe it's for them. What crap. Rugby is for the fans at this sort of level. Sure, at the local club level it might be for the pleasure of the players, but they're the sort of people that still pay subs to play for fun. Professional players and clubs almost certainly contain a majority of people that enjoy what they do - but they don't play for that. They play for the wage. The wage comes from bums on seats and sponsorship. But sponsorship comes from TV revenue and bums on seats potential. TV revenue comes from bums on comfier seats. Rugby at the top level is predicated on pleasing the crowd so they keep paying to watch the games. I don't know what the viewing and attendance figures are like, but adjusting the game so it keeps the things that make it good and attractive but so that it showcases them more, making the game MORE attractive is surely a good thing?