For Martin Johnson, the end of this world cup cannot come soon enough. For he simply needs to be put out of his misery and England desperately need a new coaching team that has a vague inkling about what it is doing.
The Argentina game was a shambles. A predictable disgrace and the blame can be firmly placed at the foot of Johnson and his useless staff.
As always, let me start by saying Johnson was a great player. Arguably our finest. And a wonderful, inspirational captain. But as I have already said and explained in previous blogs, being a great player does not make you a great coach. Johnson has been badly, badly found out. Heads must toll at the RFU for choosing Johnson. No question they bowed to media pressure and the likes of the morons in the MSM like Stephen Jones, Chris Foy and Mick Cleary.
Johnson had zero, ZERO coaching experience. How on EARTH he was deemed to qualify for the highest coaching role in the land is anyone's guess. But picked he was. And he was given the brief to build a side capable of winning the world cup.
Well I'm sorry, but Johnson has failed miserably. And the Argentina game encapsulates exactly why.
His stated captain, Lewis Moody was not even on the pitch - he was injured, as any follower of the game will know. Moody for all his many strengths, is injury prone and will never, ever last a world cup. He should never have made the squad and making him captain was a foolish error.
Andrew Sheridan has been injured for months. Yet he was picked and EXACTLY as The Chairman predicted (see earlier blogs), he is now on the first flight home. I feel sorry for the bloke. He is clearly a good lad and when firing (which sadly is never enough) is a good player (though again as I have oft stated he will always be found out by technically superior props who do not give away significant strength). Sheridan's departure is a terrible indictmet of Johnson's clueless selection policy. When this commentator can quite clearly accurately predict Sheridan would not last a world cup, how can the man in charge on 350k? He needs to take responsibility for his actions.
The starting winger for the England game was a player who never plays there. One assumes he knows how to play the position, but at London Irish, Armitage playes full back, and very occasionally OC. I know this. Why doesn't Johnson? He picked a player playing out of position.
Our starting openside, arguably the most critical position on the pitch, was a player who does not play there for his club. Haskell playes blindside or No. 8 for Stade. This is simple fact. Yet Johnson, due to his rank attempt at selection, didnt have a specialist openside to call on. Not even Moody is a specialist openside for god's sake. So Johnson has selected a squad in which there is not one specialist openeside flanker. And he still draws his salary?
I have not got the energy to moan about the centre partnership again, but just to remind people, Johnson cobbled this together 2 weeks ago in pure desperation. An ageing slow Tindall asked to play out of position (is there a theme emerging here perchance?) next to a Samoan 20 year old with 20 first class games under his belt.
Is this acceptable to you? This is pre-schoolboy stuff - asking the big lad to play OC in the hope he may scare some of the opposition. Its embarrassing. This is international rugby where opposition players to not scare easily. We need an IC centre who can pass and an OC who has a teeny bit of experience and who preferably doesnt want to play for a different country. Should Tindall get injured, who replaces him? A kiwi reject who is even slower and even less creative. Hape is nowhere near, NOWHERE NEAR international class. Johnson furiously defending the player was really about defending himself wasnt it? Johnson has been badly caught out.
A lot of people keep shouting at the Chairman to come up with solutions - to pick his own team.
"Come on then Mr Chairman - who would you pick?" they scream from behind their keyboards.
But they fundamentally and embarrassingly miss the point. I am not paid 350k a year to do it. I have not been coaching England for 3 years, tasked with finding a suitable combination in the centre to help england achieve something. And its not about what I think. I am criticising Johnson's inept coaching and even worse, strategically redundant selection policy.
Some of the Chairman's readers say it is not Johnson's job to create centres out of nowhere. Of course its not you DOLTS. Johnson's job is to find the right combinations and develop them at the international level, ideally more than 2 weeks ahead of a world cup.
ANY premiership player is capable of playing international rugby. This is a simple fact. Johnson's job is to find the right combination - one which works together, players who complement each other. I can't say who they are at the moment, can I? I have not ben tasked for 3 years with finding this combination. Johnson should have done this 2 years ago. But he didnt. He ended up panicking due to his own incompetence and picking a player out of position and a 20 year old Samoan.
I have used cricket as a good example of a proper selection strategy. The cricket selectors are now getting the consistency needed for international selection. Some england payers have dodgy county records. But the selectors see through bare statistics to find combinations that work. Its a science. Johnson just thought he could roll up and look menacing and suddenly England would win a game. Well its a bit more complciated isnt Mart? His arrogance offends me. He should never have taken the job and he is being found out. But he couldnt turn down the wage could he? I dont blame him.
How about the second rows? Lawes is a youth. His losing his head v Argentina was predictable - again I blame Johnson. Second rows need real depth of experience. An ability to read the game and take the right action at the right time. They dont need to be kneeing players on the head. They also, I would argue, need to be sure of their place in their club side. Louis Deacon? Please.
I'd like to see a winger who is fast. Call me old fashioned but that is my first requirement for a wing. It seems to work well for every other country. By picking Cueto and leaving Simpson Daniel, Sharples, Benjamin and former bloody Lion Monye at home shows the rank incompetence of the man. Watching Cueto play, having to cut inside every time is frankly dispiriting.
I like my SHs to be able to pass without taking 2 steps. Johnson appears not to mind, so he picked Care.
I like my back rows to be fit. So he picked Nick Easter, who isnt, unless it escaped your notice.
The Argentina game was an embarrassmsnt. The Argies are not the team they were 4 years ago and are missing some of their best players, while others are clearly ageing. Yet time and time again, England were slow to the breakdown, gave away silly penalties, offered NOTHING in the backs and nothing going forward. They were confused, slow, a rabble. They looked like they had just been put together, which given Johnons haphazard selection policy, they basically had.
It is too painful to watch. Of course England will beat Romania, Georgia and Scotland. Its not hard is it. Even this England shambles will get past these minnows. But come the knock out rounds and England's total ineptitude under this god-awful coach will be fully exposed.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Some thoughts on New Zealand and the World Cup
I have long given the kiwis grief. Which is odd really. I love the country. I have many kiwi mates. A beautiful place with, in the main, friendly people. A country which punches above its weight and which despite its youth (my house is many many years older than New Zealand) deservedly has real national pride.
But...
I cannot stand their arrogant attitude to rugby. Their sense of entitlement. The ridiculous posturing of their players and the rank and hateful attitude of their rugby fans. Their picking and choosing of pacific island players but offering no support in return.
Ask any former pro where they hate touring most and it will be New Zealand, for the relentless hostile attitude towards the mother country and the myopic rugby fans littering the otherwise deserted country. Their ability to apparently cheat at will with offsides and forward passes and a desire to win at all costs which clearly affects the integrity of the game in New Zealand and its officials. Yes, I am saying New Zealand officials cheat (step forward the hateful, belongs in jail Steve Walsh).
Mostly, I can never, EVER forgive the whole kiwi attitde towards the Lions and the quite deliberate taking out of BOD by that hired goon Tana Umaga. The most hateful incident in the history of the game. In fact, just thinking of that game now and the whole tour, gives me heart palpitations. The kiwis need the Lions more than the Lions need the kiwis. But the Lions were faced with hate, aggression and bare faced foul play at every turn. The whole tour was a disgrace for which New Zealand rugby will forever be held in my contempt.
And I have not even started on the bloody "haka" yet.
I simply dont have the energy to write about it. It has already been all over the bloody UK press. We cant get away from it. This grotesque macabre dance, with less cultutral credibility than a Morris Dance. A sponsored choreographed insult to both the teams which are forced, yes forced by IRB regulations to stand and watch 20 grown men shout and spit in their faces, and to the culture it claims to represent.
The pure spine tingling arrogance of the kiwis who insist on the opposing team standing there compliant while they are screamed at and dont let them do anything in return, lest they sulk and go and do the pointless dance in the underground carpark of the stadium, to a blank wall, thereby rendering the entire thing even more pointless than it was before.
The haka is an abomination. A fully paid up creation of the Addidas brand. Souped up by Wayne Shelford and refined further by McCaw, a second generation kiwi with as much Maori blood as me. Laced in bogus myth and politically corect Maori mumbo jumbo, the haka is an irrelevant insult to the history of New Zealand. And the morons like the monosyllabic Nonu, seeking to find insult in even the most benign of responses to the haka personify the problem.
The kiwis have been given a sense of entitlement in the game that no other team in no other sport can match. And the haka is the worst of it. This nonsense that it is part of the game is patently untrue. Its only been around in its current form for a matter of years. Check youtube for how it used to look before Shelford go hold of it. Its not traditional. Its a waste of time. A tourist trap gone global. When Brian Moore writes he enjoyed the "challenge" or whatever crap he comes up with, he writes it out of fear of offending. How can anyone enjoy being shouted at? Its farcial. It makes Rugby look like a joke.
"Ah yes Chairman, but its all part of the theatre of sport"
No its not. If rugby has to rely on a bunch of preening buffoons like Piri Weepu screaming for 5 minutes while his colleagues kneel down holding their forearm (bizarre) before the start of an international match, then the game really is in trouble. Frankly we should just knock it on the head.
"well its standard in schools - they do it before all school matches and everything Chairman"
This is also a lie. Hakas have been introduced at school level in the past 5 years. It was never done before it became this giant it has become under the current Kiwi leadership. A combination of superb marketing and the overwhelming political correctness of the kiwis, hand wringing and desperate not to offend. Can you imagine anything more ridiculous? Watching pre-pubescent kiddies doing a haka before a game of football? This is what happens now, all in the name of political correctness.
"well opposing teams need to face the challenge"
What drivel. Sing your anthem and kick off. Play rugby. Dont waste my time having to watch grown men prance about doing throat slit gestures or sticking out their tongues like a gurning 1980s clubber. Its not a challenge. Its a one way street, as demanded by the kiwis. Do as they say, or they'll run off and sulk.
And yet. And yet...
Despite all this, I can safely say the kiwis will win the world cup and they damn well deserve to. They are the best team by MILES. As the every excellent Brendan Gallagher in the Telegraph today reports, there are 45 kiwi players in the world cup, NOT in the NZ side. That is incredible for a nation of over 4 million people. About the same population as that cesspit of hate, Birmingham.
The kiwis are frighteningly good. They (and I simply do not undersand how this is the case) are bigger, stronger, faster, fitter than every other country. How do they do this? How do they consistently produce this extraordinary convyer belt of outrageous talent? I've been to NZ many times. Auckland is deserted. There is no one there. A few teeny tiny Chinese students learning English. Where on earth do all the rugby players live?
This is a tiny country, which has proved to be the best team in the game every year. A combination of bad luck and poor decision making has cost them the last 4 world cups, but it wont happen again. I dont buy this whole "chokers" tag which the Aussies have unwisely attached to them (by the bloody sports minister no less!). They are just too good. And much as I am already dreading the final, when we are sure to see hundreds of maori folk in fancy dress prancing round the pitch doing hakas, the kiwis will deserve to win this tournament and I will offer them my congratulations.
But...
I cannot stand their arrogant attitude to rugby. Their sense of entitlement. The ridiculous posturing of their players and the rank and hateful attitude of their rugby fans. Their picking and choosing of pacific island players but offering no support in return.
Ask any former pro where they hate touring most and it will be New Zealand, for the relentless hostile attitude towards the mother country and the myopic rugby fans littering the otherwise deserted country. Their ability to apparently cheat at will with offsides and forward passes and a desire to win at all costs which clearly affects the integrity of the game in New Zealand and its officials. Yes, I am saying New Zealand officials cheat (step forward the hateful, belongs in jail Steve Walsh).
Mostly, I can never, EVER forgive the whole kiwi attitde towards the Lions and the quite deliberate taking out of BOD by that hired goon Tana Umaga. The most hateful incident in the history of the game. In fact, just thinking of that game now and the whole tour, gives me heart palpitations. The kiwis need the Lions more than the Lions need the kiwis. But the Lions were faced with hate, aggression and bare faced foul play at every turn. The whole tour was a disgrace for which New Zealand rugby will forever be held in my contempt.
And I have not even started on the bloody "haka" yet.
I simply dont have the energy to write about it. It has already been all over the bloody UK press. We cant get away from it. This grotesque macabre dance, with less cultutral credibility than a Morris Dance. A sponsored choreographed insult to both the teams which are forced, yes forced by IRB regulations to stand and watch 20 grown men shout and spit in their faces, and to the culture it claims to represent.
The pure spine tingling arrogance of the kiwis who insist on the opposing team standing there compliant while they are screamed at and dont let them do anything in return, lest they sulk and go and do the pointless dance in the underground carpark of the stadium, to a blank wall, thereby rendering the entire thing even more pointless than it was before.
The haka is an abomination. A fully paid up creation of the Addidas brand. Souped up by Wayne Shelford and refined further by McCaw, a second generation kiwi with as much Maori blood as me. Laced in bogus myth and politically corect Maori mumbo jumbo, the haka is an irrelevant insult to the history of New Zealand. And the morons like the monosyllabic Nonu, seeking to find insult in even the most benign of responses to the haka personify the problem.
The kiwis have been given a sense of entitlement in the game that no other team in no other sport can match. And the haka is the worst of it. This nonsense that it is part of the game is patently untrue. Its only been around in its current form for a matter of years. Check youtube for how it used to look before Shelford go hold of it. Its not traditional. Its a waste of time. A tourist trap gone global. When Brian Moore writes he enjoyed the "challenge" or whatever crap he comes up with, he writes it out of fear of offending. How can anyone enjoy being shouted at? Its farcial. It makes Rugby look like a joke.
"Ah yes Chairman, but its all part of the theatre of sport"
No its not. If rugby has to rely on a bunch of preening buffoons like Piri Weepu screaming for 5 minutes while his colleagues kneel down holding their forearm (bizarre) before the start of an international match, then the game really is in trouble. Frankly we should just knock it on the head.
"well its standard in schools - they do it before all school matches and everything Chairman"
This is also a lie. Hakas have been introduced at school level in the past 5 years. It was never done before it became this giant it has become under the current Kiwi leadership. A combination of superb marketing and the overwhelming political correctness of the kiwis, hand wringing and desperate not to offend. Can you imagine anything more ridiculous? Watching pre-pubescent kiddies doing a haka before a game of football? This is what happens now, all in the name of political correctness.
"well opposing teams need to face the challenge"
What drivel. Sing your anthem and kick off. Play rugby. Dont waste my time having to watch grown men prance about doing throat slit gestures or sticking out their tongues like a gurning 1980s clubber. Its not a challenge. Its a one way street, as demanded by the kiwis. Do as they say, or they'll run off and sulk.
And yet. And yet...
Despite all this, I can safely say the kiwis will win the world cup and they damn well deserve to. They are the best team by MILES. As the every excellent Brendan Gallagher in the Telegraph today reports, there are 45 kiwi players in the world cup, NOT in the NZ side. That is incredible for a nation of over 4 million people. About the same population as that cesspit of hate, Birmingham.
The kiwis are frighteningly good. They (and I simply do not undersand how this is the case) are bigger, stronger, faster, fitter than every other country. How do they do this? How do they consistently produce this extraordinary convyer belt of outrageous talent? I've been to NZ many times. Auckland is deserted. There is no one there. A few teeny tiny Chinese students learning English. Where on earth do all the rugby players live?
This is a tiny country, which has proved to be the best team in the game every year. A combination of bad luck and poor decision making has cost them the last 4 world cups, but it wont happen again. I dont buy this whole "chokers" tag which the Aussies have unwisely attached to them (by the bloody sports minister no less!). They are just too good. And much as I am already dreading the final, when we are sure to see hundreds of maori folk in fancy dress prancing round the pitch doing hakas, the kiwis will deserve to win this tournament and I will offer them my congratulations.
Monday, August 29, 2011
GB Athletics - Heads simply must roll
Halfway through the world championships, and what a thoroughly disgraceful performance by the lamentable british contingent.
There is a cultural problem with GB athletes, which for me at least, is symptomatic (and symbolic) of a much wider british cultural malaise. The performances of the British athletes at these championships has been an utter disgrace. They should have funding pulled and given to those who do give a monkeys.
Let me start with that lanky weed Martyn Rooney. This is the idiot who refuses to take off those ridiculous shades every time he runs, no matter how stupid it makes him look. A runner who at his best is good at European level and can get under 45 seconds. Well last night, he jogged over the line in over 46. He GAVE UP. That is club level. It is a disgrace he is paid for this dirge. He was flown, at MY expense to Korea only to serve up that. A shambolic, careless performance. Cut him.
But this is really just scratching the surface. Poor old Dwain Chambers falls victim to the ridiculous one strike and you are out rule. Lisa Dobriskey fails dismally. Mo Farah, for whom I have a lot of time as he has clearly improved dramatically in the past year, sadly showed why he will never, ever win a global gold medal. There will always, always, be someone with a faster kick than him.
I can go on. The utterly ridiculous Christine Ohurougu. Save us the waterworks Christine. You are a disgrace. That false start was pathetic, and possibly planned. Ohurougu's 2007-8 performances are starting to look very, very shady indeed. She cannot now even break 53 seconds. She has no place on an international running track. I am sick of the sight of her frankly, dragging her heavy legs around the track and almost coming to a standstill at 350 metres. Jesus - I assume she manages to complete the odd 400m in training? There is always, always an excuse. Some random "injury" or other. She should be put out to graze as there is no way, NO WAY, she will get into an Olympic final. Cut her.
Its not that these athletes do not win gold medals. That really would be harsh. Its that they have failed to get even close to their PBs. At a major championship, there is simply no excuse for that. These people should go out and get a proper job and stop scrounging off the national lottery. If they are unable to show improvement or potential, then why should they receive funding of any sort? The list of national lottery scroungers in the GB team is vast, and captained by Ohurougu.
Marlon Devonsih will never, ever be able to reach a world final. He is not even close to breaking 10 seconds. So get rid of him. Holly Bleasdale didnt even record a height in the pole vault. And then we have Lee Connell, that weirdo Scotch woman, who lollops around the track like a shire horse. Sorry, but she is plain rubbish.
Like so many of the ageing GB team, she is going through the motions. Enjoying the life of the athlete, with foreign training camps, glamorous venues and the fact they dont need to go to an office every day, but failing to meet their side of the bargain - improve. Connell is using her funding as a get out clause from real life and it simply must stop. We all know, she will never, ever make a global final. In fact, Connell wont even make a euro/commonwealth final. Yet there she is in a GB tracksuit having a wail of a time and no doubt looking forward to getting pissed in the Olympic village next year.
GB athletics needs a top to bottom overhaul. The huge acerage of deadwood needs to be chopped, so funding and training facilities can be focused on those with the will and talent not to abuse it. Step forward the wonderful Jessica Ennis.
An absolute disgrace.
UPDATE: Oh no. Now Ennis has caught the bug. A shambolic performance in the javelin. I am crushed.
There is a cultural problem with GB athletes, which for me at least, is symptomatic (and symbolic) of a much wider british cultural malaise. The performances of the British athletes at these championships has been an utter disgrace. They should have funding pulled and given to those who do give a monkeys.
Let me start with that lanky weed Martyn Rooney. This is the idiot who refuses to take off those ridiculous shades every time he runs, no matter how stupid it makes him look. A runner who at his best is good at European level and can get under 45 seconds. Well last night, he jogged over the line in over 46. He GAVE UP. That is club level. It is a disgrace he is paid for this dirge. He was flown, at MY expense to Korea only to serve up that. A shambolic, careless performance. Cut him.
But this is really just scratching the surface. Poor old Dwain Chambers falls victim to the ridiculous one strike and you are out rule. Lisa Dobriskey fails dismally. Mo Farah, for whom I have a lot of time as he has clearly improved dramatically in the past year, sadly showed why he will never, ever win a global gold medal. There will always, always, be someone with a faster kick than him.
I can go on. The utterly ridiculous Christine Ohurougu. Save us the waterworks Christine. You are a disgrace. That false start was pathetic, and possibly planned. Ohurougu's 2007-8 performances are starting to look very, very shady indeed. She cannot now even break 53 seconds. She has no place on an international running track. I am sick of the sight of her frankly, dragging her heavy legs around the track and almost coming to a standstill at 350 metres. Jesus - I assume she manages to complete the odd 400m in training? There is always, always an excuse. Some random "injury" or other. She should be put out to graze as there is no way, NO WAY, she will get into an Olympic final. Cut her.
Its not that these athletes do not win gold medals. That really would be harsh. Its that they have failed to get even close to their PBs. At a major championship, there is simply no excuse for that. These people should go out and get a proper job and stop scrounging off the national lottery. If they are unable to show improvement or potential, then why should they receive funding of any sort? The list of national lottery scroungers in the GB team is vast, and captained by Ohurougu.
Marlon Devonsih will never, ever be able to reach a world final. He is not even close to breaking 10 seconds. So get rid of him. Holly Bleasdale didnt even record a height in the pole vault. And then we have Lee Connell, that weirdo Scotch woman, who lollops around the track like a shire horse. Sorry, but she is plain rubbish.
Like so many of the ageing GB team, she is going through the motions. Enjoying the life of the athlete, with foreign training camps, glamorous venues and the fact they dont need to go to an office every day, but failing to meet their side of the bargain - improve. Connell is using her funding as a get out clause from real life and it simply must stop. We all know, she will never, ever make a global final. In fact, Connell wont even make a euro/commonwealth final. Yet there she is in a GB tracksuit having a wail of a time and no doubt looking forward to getting pissed in the Olympic village next year.
GB athletics needs a top to bottom overhaul. The huge acerage of deadwood needs to be chopped, so funding and training facilities can be focused on those with the will and talent not to abuse it. Step forward the wonderful Jessica Ennis.
An absolute disgrace.
UPDATE: Oh no. Now Ennis has caught the bug. A shambolic performance in the javelin. I am crushed.
Monday, August 22, 2011
A farcical England Rugby squad
So Johnson has finally selected his squad. Regular readers will know my general thoughts on the quality, or lack thereof, in this dismal squad. It is laughably bad. The worst world cup squad in living memory. A squad devoid of a basic backbone, of speed, of flair, creativity and one creaking at the seams due to patently unready members. For all this, I blame Martin Johnson, who is now sinking into the mire of his own arrogance and incompetence.
Before I attract the ire of too many readers, I have no personal axe to grind with the man. What a wonderful player he was, but the qualities he brought as a player are simply not translating into the coaching world. Of course we know he was patently unqualified for the job and was ultimately selected by the media while the RFU itself was disintegrating.
Johnson's qualities as a player were a single-mindedness, refusal to compromise, a one track approach to the game.
It is precisely these same qualities that has lead him to get himself into the shithole he now finds himself. A refusal to compromise has lead him to sticking with the beyond useless Hape and Tindall. The same single mindedness means he picks liablities like Moody and Sheridan. And his one track approach to the game means no place for true high quality players like Simpson Daniel.
His strengths as a player are his weaknesses as a coach. It is as simple as that.
A fit and firing Youngs, Moody and Sheridan will of course get into the England first team. But they are not fit. As sure as night follows day, Moody will get injured in the first game and will be fit again if England make the semis. Sheridan, as I have oft stated, the most delicate man mountain in the world game will never, ever last a world cup, let alone a full game.
But Youngs' selection is even more disgraceful. The bloke has not played a minutes' rugby in months. He is recovering from shoulder surgery. His form dropped dramatically before he was operated on. And for this, he makes the England team? Johnson needs his head examined. It is a disgrace that Youngs has been selected for the RWC squad in his current state.
The squad is full of players picked on hope. MJ hopes Moody will be fit. He hopes Youngs will recover. He hopes that yob Tuilagi (it sticks in my throat to see him playing for England) will suddenly develop into a world class centre at the age of 20, one season in to his premiership career. He hopes, somehow that Hape/Tindall will be able to strong more than one pass together and Cueto may find his way to the line.
This reliance on hope shows Johnson has failed. He has failed to develop a squad worth the name. He has failed to pick the right players and failed to find a midfield capable of finding the tryline.
This litancy of failure is sadly symbolic of the decline of rugby lead by its spineless governing body. The sooner we have a clear out in the post world cup inevitable disaster, the better.
I am dreading the Ireland game.
Before I attract the ire of too many readers, I have no personal axe to grind with the man. What a wonderful player he was, but the qualities he brought as a player are simply not translating into the coaching world. Of course we know he was patently unqualified for the job and was ultimately selected by the media while the RFU itself was disintegrating.
Johnson's qualities as a player were a single-mindedness, refusal to compromise, a one track approach to the game.
It is precisely these same qualities that has lead him to get himself into the shithole he now finds himself. A refusal to compromise has lead him to sticking with the beyond useless Hape and Tindall. The same single mindedness means he picks liablities like Moody and Sheridan. And his one track approach to the game means no place for true high quality players like Simpson Daniel.
His strengths as a player are his weaknesses as a coach. It is as simple as that.
A fit and firing Youngs, Moody and Sheridan will of course get into the England first team. But they are not fit. As sure as night follows day, Moody will get injured in the first game and will be fit again if England make the semis. Sheridan, as I have oft stated, the most delicate man mountain in the world game will never, ever last a world cup, let alone a full game.
But Youngs' selection is even more disgraceful. The bloke has not played a minutes' rugby in months. He is recovering from shoulder surgery. His form dropped dramatically before he was operated on. And for this, he makes the England team? Johnson needs his head examined. It is a disgrace that Youngs has been selected for the RWC squad in his current state.
The squad is full of players picked on hope. MJ hopes Moody will be fit. He hopes Youngs will recover. He hopes that yob Tuilagi (it sticks in my throat to see him playing for England) will suddenly develop into a world class centre at the age of 20, one season in to his premiership career. He hopes, somehow that Hape/Tindall will be able to strong more than one pass together and Cueto may find his way to the line.
This reliance on hope shows Johnson has failed. He has failed to develop a squad worth the name. He has failed to pick the right players and failed to find a midfield capable of finding the tryline.
This litancy of failure is sadly symbolic of the decline of rugby lead by its spineless governing body. The sooner we have a clear out in the post world cup inevitable disaster, the better.
I am dreading the Ireland game.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Shanaze Reade wins a race!
So, a week or so after finding yet more excuses for failing to win a race, despite being the most lavishly funded female bike rider in the world ("err, my pedal slipped"), the ever lovely "Shanaze" Reade has actually won a race - the Olympic test event in London. Well done Shazza.
She then has the temerity to moan about the track. As usual, our Shaz appears to have forgotten her manners, innit.
But honestly. BMX? BMX? Is this a joke. If I wanted to watch a bunch of tattooed/teenage yobbos ride their push bikes round a field or up a small hill, I'd go to any council estate in our hellhole country. That BMX is deemed an Olympic sport, while a game such as squash is not, is not just absurd and ridiculous, it is offensive.
And as for Shanaze, I am sick of the site of her. She is pathetic. She falls apart at the first sign of pressure and competition. There is no way she will win gold in the Olympics, if she even manages to reach the final of this ridiculous sport, where if you are first going into the first corner you win. Every single time (go on, watch it). Its scandalous she gets the exposure she does, for being a serial under achiever in a ludicrous "sport", while proper sportsmen (like squash players for example, or kayakers etc.) scrabble around trying to get sponsorship.
What a farce.
She then has the temerity to moan about the track. As usual, our Shaz appears to have forgotten her manners, innit.
But honestly. BMX? BMX? Is this a joke. If I wanted to watch a bunch of tattooed/teenage yobbos ride their push bikes round a field or up a small hill, I'd go to any council estate in our hellhole country. That BMX is deemed an Olympic sport, while a game such as squash is not, is not just absurd and ridiculous, it is offensive.
And as for Shanaze, I am sick of the site of her. She is pathetic. She falls apart at the first sign of pressure and competition. There is no way she will win gold in the Olympics, if she even manages to reach the final of this ridiculous sport, where if you are first going into the first corner you win. Every single time (go on, watch it). Its scandalous she gets the exposure she does, for being a serial under achiever in a ludicrous "sport", while proper sportsmen (like squash players for example, or kayakers etc.) scrabble around trying to get sponsorship.
What a farce.
Monday, August 15, 2011
The Chairman knows best VI
I hate to say it, but 2 days after the Chairman's diatride over the disintegration of English society, yobbos smashed various city centres to smithereens making off with a nice plasma TV. A few days after my rant at the rancid quality of England rugby, they were thoroughly humiliated by a very, very mediocre Welsh team. Admittedly, my call on Stuart Broad has goen badly wrong, but this does not change the fact that...
the Chairman knows best.
the Chairman knows best.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Martin Johnson is hopeless
Time for some plain speaking. English rugby is a farce. And Martin Johnson simply must be held accountable. Not for all of it mind. That lies at the foot of the hateful Premiership Rugby, the governing body of the premier league and its vain self interest, and the rudderless RFU, which Chairman regular readers will know all about.
MJ's remit is the England team. And he has pointedly failed since his entirely bogus appointment. Make no mistake, Johnson was hired not by the RFU, but by the media. And now for the media the chickens are coming home to roost. MJ had no qualifications whatsover to be appointed coach of England. NONE. Apart from being a world cup winner and having a "brooding presence" or whatever tired cliche the hacks choose to use on any given day. Since he has come in, England have regressed. They are a worse side than the one he inherited. This is simple fact that no amount of comments like "ooh, Toby Flood is a great fly half and controls the game" changes.
As I have oft stated, I do have a certain amount of sympathy. Rugby as a game in England is swimming against the tide. The tide of relentles health & safety dogma, pikey lazy scared parents who don't want little jimmy (or whatever ghastly monicker the hopeless child has been lumped with) hurting himself (but are quite prepared to watch him loot the local JD Sports no doubt) and a vacuous crippled generation of cowardly layabouts who are too chicken shit to play a contact sport. Meaning the pool of players goes down all the time. Again, simple fact.
The Premiership Rugby (like the FA) is complicit in the destruction of the game. PRL cares noting for the national game, spitting into the face of the RFU which has done all it can to provide a basis for national achievement. Like football, rugby now suffers from an ever dwindling England qualified player base as the country is flooded with cheap foreign imports (where have we heard that before!) and tight budgets mean no youth player development worth the name.
But none of this, NONE of this, excuses that lamentable performance against Wales.
Wales! This is a country with even more problems than England. A bloated tired pointless nation state, addicted to its neighbours forever generous teet. And all England gets in return is hate. A simple thank you would suffice welshies, rather than the oh so predictable false fury and rage which seems to great any England team playing there.
But we should thank Wales who thoroughly deserved to beat their much bigger, better funded neighbours. England were shown up by what they are: a team with no verve, no skills, no ability to score tries whatsoever. Just imagine, IMAGINE, if England were playing those humourless kiwis... A massacre is far too polite a word. It would be total capitulation.
And Johnson MUST be held accountable. All this drivel in the media about his "silence" after the game as if that was supposed to magically make Hape have a slightly more convincing case to be playing international rugby union, or excuses Cueto from being in the national side. Its laughable. This isnt Leicester in 1995, when a few angry words from Johnson might have mobilised a couple of players. These are highly rewarded professional athletes and they are being lead by a donkey.
But if you can indulge me for 5 minutes, I would like to be a bit more forensic about the performance and the players. I should note that nothing I say below is unusual and its nothing personal (apart from with Armitage, who is a well known cock of the highest order). The chat boards on the Telegraph website are all in total agreement. Yet, the one person who matters is watching not just a different game, but it seems a different sport.
In no particular order, I would like to kick off with Danny Care. This bloke is by some distance the worst SH I have ever seen in and England shirt, possibly ever. I am shaking my head in disbelief just thinking about it. He is diabolical. His pass is slow and weak. He cannot pass without taking 2 steps first (this used to be coached out of a SH at the age of 7). He single handedly slows down an entire game by waiting for forwards to arrive, looking around before deciding what to do. Care is the fulcrum for this pathetic England team. Why is he not told to work QUICK ball? Why does he think that it is a good idea to wait to release the ball to let the opposition defence organise? This is pre-schoolboy stuff. Its no good moaning about Stephen Jones on twitter Danny Boy. You are key to the problem. What chance does Flood or Hape have playing outside you? By the time the ball arrives the opposition could have played a game of chess.
Flood? Flood? Is this really the best England can produce at FH? It simply beggars belief. He still looks like the schoolboy who has got lost and suddenly found himslef playing international rugby. How did this happen? Physcally he is tiny. He is remarkably slow for a small lad. His kicking from hand abysmal at this level and his place kicking average at best. His distribution slow and without vision. His tackling weak. He is as far away from test standard rugby as Arwel Thomas was all those years ago. And at least he was quick. Flood's selection is as damning indictment of the quality of English rugby as anything else I can think of.
"Hape". I dont want to focus on his nationality but I have to. He is not English. He is a kiwi. Complete with comedy kiwi accent and comedy kiwi tattoos. He is a mercenary. Rugby is about pride and passion (and courage). Hape has none of those things. He openly wears his kiwi identity as some perverse badge of honour. This is a bloke not good enough to play union in NZ. Yet he now lines up with the red rose on his chest? His presence offends me. When he faces the ridiculous dance the kiwis do, what will he be thinking? It's lamentable. But not as lamentable as his rugby. Big and strong? Certainly. But slow. He has nothing, NOTHING going forward. This was equally true at Bath as well. His selection is entirely without merit. Its no good MJ sticking up for him and coming out with cryptic bullshit like "he does things you dont see". This is inexcusable. Hape has no place on an international rugby field. How can MJ be the only one on the western hemisphere who seems not to notice this? With Hape at IC, england will be starved of scoring opportunities. This is not a matter of opinion. This is a statement of fact.
Tindall? I mean honestly. How on earth is he still playing international rugby? I refuse to believe his heart is in it any more to be honest, now he's bagged a bloody priness. Money worries over for Mike. He needs some cash he can pop off to Hello magazine and flog some pics of their beastly future sprog. After all, he tried to sell the wedding pics didnt he (I give it 3 years).
Tindally seems, amazingly, to be dining off his 2001-3 performances. Which let us not forget, came while he played outside a certain Will Greenwood, who did know how to play. Just as most the useless bone idle pikey England football players seem good playing for their ghastly clubs alongside really talent imports, so Tindall looked good alongside Greenwood. Now outside Hape, Tindall is utterly exposed as an ageing, slow lump with truly terrible hands. If the ball magically reaches Tindall after the age it takes to get from Care, Flood and Hape, then the move will almost certainly come to an end.
But he might have to pass to Mark Cueto... honestly. How on earth is he still in the side. He cant believe it himself can he? There was much written about that lean scoring patch he found himself in while Ashton was scoring for fun at club and international level. Yet no one seemed to ask the obvious question. Why is Ashton scoring tries while Cueto isnt? All sort of excuses were found for him and Cueto himself remained bullish. But it was all nonsense. He didnt score tries becasue he is far far too slow for a wing and isnt very good. Its not rocket science is it. The stats are revealing. Why did MJ not stop for a moment and think: "hmm, maybe Cueto just isnt very good". It is simply not good enough. Johnson is like a rabbit in the headlights.
I regret the same can be said of Bannahan. A big guy, but size is not enough at the highest level. Bannahan has been repeatedly exposed at the top level. He should go back to club rugby and bully the smaller chaps there. I like him. I like the obvious pride he takes in representing his country and his pride in his pilot grandfather. But I am fierecely proud of my grandfather who fought in WWII and I dont pretend I should be selected (though the Chairman is available for selection).
Much is made of Foden, but he really does fancy himself a bit doesn't he with that ridiculous pop star girlfriend, tight t-shirts and poxy youtube videos. Does'nt he wear jackets with the sleeves rolled up for god's sake? But as to his rugby, the boy is nowhere near, nowhere NEAR as good as he thinks he is and he is nowhere near as good as the idiots in the MSM claim he is. He's ok.
But before the ball gets to the backs, it has to get out the back of the scrum. And to do this, it needs to filter through the fat legs of Nick Easter. Now, I like Nick Easter and I hear from very well placed sources he is a good bloke. But being a good bloke does not make him a good rugby player. Otherwise the Chairman would be on his 100th cap by now. Like Flood, Easter's selection is damning indictment of the quality of England number 8s. Isn't it just depressing? Look back at history. Richards, Teague, Dallaglio etc. Easter would not get a look in. Easter is a relic of the amateur age. He is out of shape. How this has passed the highly paid fitness bods at Pennyhill Park I do not know, but looking at him in a tight England jersey is a disgrace. He is carrying weight. Compare him to the back rows of any major rugby power and it becomes embarrassing. Easter is fat, slow and his attitude is, shall we say, on the lax side. I want my number 8 to be an enforcer. If the kiwi back row comes out fists flying, Easter will be on the other side of the pitch, mark my words. He's as hard as a jelly. As an aside (and not that I endorse teh tedious punch throwing of the saffas and Argies), when did you last see Easter get into a scrap?
Now. In Cole, Thompson and Sheridan, England have an acceptable front row. But they don't do they (go with me here)? For despite his size and obvious strength (though he was taken apart by Hayman), Sheridan appears to be as delicate as a little teeny bird. He gets injured at the drop of a hat. And then when he gets injured (say, he cuts his toe nail), he then seems to get some life threatening disease. Never have a I seen such a man mountain with such a delicate proposition. The simple truth is Sheridan will never, ever last an entire world cup, as he will get injured. There is no doubt about this. So why select him? Corbisiero is ok, but hardly in the mould of classic frightening england front rowers. Hartley flatters to deceive. Louis Deacon has been around for years and is nothing more than a club player. Lawes is young and desperately over rated. Tom Wood was badly found out again.
I have run out of energy now.
Its all very well trying to find excuses for MJ. I have read a few. But player selection is HIS job. And he was pointedly failed to find an England midfield which is even club level. While he continues to pick old, slow players in the backs and out of shape players in the forwards. This is simply unnacceptable. I find it offensive having to watch Easter huff and puff around the field, and watch Cueto cut inside as he has no pace.
It personally offends me to watch the desperate quality Englans rugby has been reduced to. And I place much of the blame at the foot of MJ.
To make matters worse, after yet another disgraceful performance, what does MJ and his squad do? Bugger off for a week's holiday. Yep, that is sure to help the backline strong more than 2 passes together.
The whole thing is truly depressing. Almost as depressing as the fact Stuart Broad thinks he is a world beater having bounced out a few bored Indians.
MJ's remit is the England team. And he has pointedly failed since his entirely bogus appointment. Make no mistake, Johnson was hired not by the RFU, but by the media. And now for the media the chickens are coming home to roost. MJ had no qualifications whatsover to be appointed coach of England. NONE. Apart from being a world cup winner and having a "brooding presence" or whatever tired cliche the hacks choose to use on any given day. Since he has come in, England have regressed. They are a worse side than the one he inherited. This is simple fact that no amount of comments like "ooh, Toby Flood is a great fly half and controls the game" changes.
As I have oft stated, I do have a certain amount of sympathy. Rugby as a game in England is swimming against the tide. The tide of relentles health & safety dogma, pikey lazy scared parents who don't want little jimmy (or whatever ghastly monicker the hopeless child has been lumped with) hurting himself (but are quite prepared to watch him loot the local JD Sports no doubt) and a vacuous crippled generation of cowardly layabouts who are too chicken shit to play a contact sport. Meaning the pool of players goes down all the time. Again, simple fact.
The Premiership Rugby (like the FA) is complicit in the destruction of the game. PRL cares noting for the national game, spitting into the face of the RFU which has done all it can to provide a basis for national achievement. Like football, rugby now suffers from an ever dwindling England qualified player base as the country is flooded with cheap foreign imports (where have we heard that before!) and tight budgets mean no youth player development worth the name.
But none of this, NONE of this, excuses that lamentable performance against Wales.
Wales! This is a country with even more problems than England. A bloated tired pointless nation state, addicted to its neighbours forever generous teet. And all England gets in return is hate. A simple thank you would suffice welshies, rather than the oh so predictable false fury and rage which seems to great any England team playing there.
But we should thank Wales who thoroughly deserved to beat their much bigger, better funded neighbours. England were shown up by what they are: a team with no verve, no skills, no ability to score tries whatsoever. Just imagine, IMAGINE, if England were playing those humourless kiwis... A massacre is far too polite a word. It would be total capitulation.
And Johnson MUST be held accountable. All this drivel in the media about his "silence" after the game as if that was supposed to magically make Hape have a slightly more convincing case to be playing international rugby union, or excuses Cueto from being in the national side. Its laughable. This isnt Leicester in 1995, when a few angry words from Johnson might have mobilised a couple of players. These are highly rewarded professional athletes and they are being lead by a donkey.
But if you can indulge me for 5 minutes, I would like to be a bit more forensic about the performance and the players. I should note that nothing I say below is unusual and its nothing personal (apart from with Armitage, who is a well known cock of the highest order). The chat boards on the Telegraph website are all in total agreement. Yet, the one person who matters is watching not just a different game, but it seems a different sport.
In no particular order, I would like to kick off with Danny Care. This bloke is by some distance the worst SH I have ever seen in and England shirt, possibly ever. I am shaking my head in disbelief just thinking about it. He is diabolical. His pass is slow and weak. He cannot pass without taking 2 steps first (this used to be coached out of a SH at the age of 7). He single handedly slows down an entire game by waiting for forwards to arrive, looking around before deciding what to do. Care is the fulcrum for this pathetic England team. Why is he not told to work QUICK ball? Why does he think that it is a good idea to wait to release the ball to let the opposition defence organise? This is pre-schoolboy stuff. Its no good moaning about Stephen Jones on twitter Danny Boy. You are key to the problem. What chance does Flood or Hape have playing outside you? By the time the ball arrives the opposition could have played a game of chess.
Flood? Flood? Is this really the best England can produce at FH? It simply beggars belief. He still looks like the schoolboy who has got lost and suddenly found himslef playing international rugby. How did this happen? Physcally he is tiny. He is remarkably slow for a small lad. His kicking from hand abysmal at this level and his place kicking average at best. His distribution slow and without vision. His tackling weak. He is as far away from test standard rugby as Arwel Thomas was all those years ago. And at least he was quick. Flood's selection is as damning indictment of the quality of English rugby as anything else I can think of.
"Hape". I dont want to focus on his nationality but I have to. He is not English. He is a kiwi. Complete with comedy kiwi accent and comedy kiwi tattoos. He is a mercenary. Rugby is about pride and passion (and courage). Hape has none of those things. He openly wears his kiwi identity as some perverse badge of honour. This is a bloke not good enough to play union in NZ. Yet he now lines up with the red rose on his chest? His presence offends me. When he faces the ridiculous dance the kiwis do, what will he be thinking? It's lamentable. But not as lamentable as his rugby. Big and strong? Certainly. But slow. He has nothing, NOTHING going forward. This was equally true at Bath as well. His selection is entirely without merit. Its no good MJ sticking up for him and coming out with cryptic bullshit like "he does things you dont see". This is inexcusable. Hape has no place on an international rugby field. How can MJ be the only one on the western hemisphere who seems not to notice this? With Hape at IC, england will be starved of scoring opportunities. This is not a matter of opinion. This is a statement of fact.
Tindall? I mean honestly. How on earth is he still playing international rugby? I refuse to believe his heart is in it any more to be honest, now he's bagged a bloody priness. Money worries over for Mike. He needs some cash he can pop off to Hello magazine and flog some pics of their beastly future sprog. After all, he tried to sell the wedding pics didnt he (I give it 3 years).
Tindally seems, amazingly, to be dining off his 2001-3 performances. Which let us not forget, came while he played outside a certain Will Greenwood, who did know how to play. Just as most the useless bone idle pikey England football players seem good playing for their ghastly clubs alongside really talent imports, so Tindall looked good alongside Greenwood. Now outside Hape, Tindall is utterly exposed as an ageing, slow lump with truly terrible hands. If the ball magically reaches Tindall after the age it takes to get from Care, Flood and Hape, then the move will almost certainly come to an end.
But he might have to pass to Mark Cueto... honestly. How on earth is he still in the side. He cant believe it himself can he? There was much written about that lean scoring patch he found himself in while Ashton was scoring for fun at club and international level. Yet no one seemed to ask the obvious question. Why is Ashton scoring tries while Cueto isnt? All sort of excuses were found for him and Cueto himself remained bullish. But it was all nonsense. He didnt score tries becasue he is far far too slow for a wing and isnt very good. Its not rocket science is it. The stats are revealing. Why did MJ not stop for a moment and think: "hmm, maybe Cueto just isnt very good". It is simply not good enough. Johnson is like a rabbit in the headlights.
I regret the same can be said of Bannahan. A big guy, but size is not enough at the highest level. Bannahan has been repeatedly exposed at the top level. He should go back to club rugby and bully the smaller chaps there. I like him. I like the obvious pride he takes in representing his country and his pride in his pilot grandfather. But I am fierecely proud of my grandfather who fought in WWII and I dont pretend I should be selected (though the Chairman is available for selection).
Much is made of Foden, but he really does fancy himself a bit doesn't he with that ridiculous pop star girlfriend, tight t-shirts and poxy youtube videos. Does'nt he wear jackets with the sleeves rolled up for god's sake? But as to his rugby, the boy is nowhere near, nowhere NEAR as good as he thinks he is and he is nowhere near as good as the idiots in the MSM claim he is. He's ok.
But before the ball gets to the backs, it has to get out the back of the scrum. And to do this, it needs to filter through the fat legs of Nick Easter. Now, I like Nick Easter and I hear from very well placed sources he is a good bloke. But being a good bloke does not make him a good rugby player. Otherwise the Chairman would be on his 100th cap by now. Like Flood, Easter's selection is damning indictment of the quality of England number 8s. Isn't it just depressing? Look back at history. Richards, Teague, Dallaglio etc. Easter would not get a look in. Easter is a relic of the amateur age. He is out of shape. How this has passed the highly paid fitness bods at Pennyhill Park I do not know, but looking at him in a tight England jersey is a disgrace. He is carrying weight. Compare him to the back rows of any major rugby power and it becomes embarrassing. Easter is fat, slow and his attitude is, shall we say, on the lax side. I want my number 8 to be an enforcer. If the kiwi back row comes out fists flying, Easter will be on the other side of the pitch, mark my words. He's as hard as a jelly. As an aside (and not that I endorse teh tedious punch throwing of the saffas and Argies), when did you last see Easter get into a scrap?
Now. In Cole, Thompson and Sheridan, England have an acceptable front row. But they don't do they (go with me here)? For despite his size and obvious strength (though he was taken apart by Hayman), Sheridan appears to be as delicate as a little teeny bird. He gets injured at the drop of a hat. And then when he gets injured (say, he cuts his toe nail), he then seems to get some life threatening disease. Never have a I seen such a man mountain with such a delicate proposition. The simple truth is Sheridan will never, ever last an entire world cup, as he will get injured. There is no doubt about this. So why select him? Corbisiero is ok, but hardly in the mould of classic frightening england front rowers. Hartley flatters to deceive. Louis Deacon has been around for years and is nothing more than a club player. Lawes is young and desperately over rated. Tom Wood was badly found out again.
I have run out of energy now.
Its all very well trying to find excuses for MJ. I have read a few. But player selection is HIS job. And he was pointedly failed to find an England midfield which is even club level. While he continues to pick old, slow players in the backs and out of shape players in the forwards. This is simply unnacceptable. I find it offensive having to watch Easter huff and puff around the field, and watch Cueto cut inside as he has no pace.
It personally offends me to watch the desperate quality Englans rugby has been reduced to. And I place much of the blame at the foot of MJ.
To make matters worse, after yet another disgraceful performance, what does MJ and his squad do? Bugger off for a week's holiday. Yep, that is sure to help the backline strong more than 2 passes together.
The whole thing is truly depressing. Almost as depressing as the fact Stuart Broad thinks he is a world beater having bounced out a few bored Indians.
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