Samoa defeat leaves Wales on the edge

Oh dear.

In a way, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised.  Beating Wales at rugby union in Cardiff is a national pastime for Samoans, so Friday night's 26-19 victory at the Millennium Stadium could be construed as par for the course.

But who are we kidding?  Look at the relative resources of the two rugby countries: Wales should be beating Samoa at home.  Yet the final score here did not do justice to Samoan superiority.  What has happened to Welsh rugby since the Six Nations grand slam triumph in March?  The domestic game is haemorrhaging its best Welsh players to the French championship and, with selection policy in what might kindly be called a state of flux, Wales have looked inept so far in the Autumn internationals.

"Wales's forwards could hardly have been more ineffectual had they picked a front row of Katherine Jenkins, Neil Kinnock and Kimberley Nixon."

Sam Warburton, the talismanic captain from last year's World Cup, was dropped after the comprehensive defeat to Argentina last Saturday but it made little difference.  Samoa won the physical battle; the Welsh forwards could hardly have been more ineffectual had they picked a front row of Katherine Jenkins, Neil Kinnock and Kimberley Nixon.

The half-back combination is also up in the air; Dan Biggar had a torrid time and was replaced by Rhys Priestland before half-time.  With full-back Leigh Halfpenny now the principal goal-kicker, if the fly-half is not providing attacking creativity, there is nothing else to fall back on.  Still, at least Wales did not undermine themselves by leaving out Mike Phillips, easily the best British scrum half of the last few years, for having the temerity to miss the Polish training camp in order to, you know, play some rugby in France.  Intense physical conditioning is all very well, but picking your best players is still the most important thing.  As Martin Samuel wrote after the Argentina match, in which Tavis Knoyle wore the number 9 jersey, Wales "…seem a little like the Royston Vasey XV: a local team, for local people."

Perhaps the Six Nations was the anomaly.  For all the furore over Wales's escapades in New Zealand last year, the fact remains that they lost every match against substantive opposition save the quarter final against Ireland and were whitewashed in their summer tour of Australia.  Yet at least those defeats to the powerhouses of the international game had silver linings; Wales showed character and promise in the semi final defeat to France, in which they were comfortably the better side despite spending over an hour a man short.  The last two performances have been irredeemable.

The Six Nations is increasingly looking like the second division of international rugby.  Things have come to a pretty pass when, to see how to score tries against capable opponents, Wales are obliged to look to Scotland.  Or, even more depressingly, England; the nation who for years have created the impression they think rugby can be played even if nobody brings a ball.  England begin today's matches as strong favourites to defeat Australia.  Wales are now clinging on to a place in Pot 2 for December's World Cup draw.  With Argentina resurgent, a result against Australia or New Zealand may be needed to do so.  Good luck with that one.

Wimbledon fans must not be divided over FA Cup tie

The press are variously describing it as a 'mouth-watering tie' and a 'grudge match' but neither are really accurate.  The FA Cup second round tie between Milton Keynes Dons and Wimbledon is not really a grudge match as there is simply no history or heritage of the fixture, and for a very good reason; there is no history or heritage of Milton Keynes Dons at all.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that Wimbledon supporters are savouring the opportunity to beat MK Dons and settle any scores.  This is not a rivalry, this is a principle.  For almost all Wimbledon supporters, MK Dons is a football club that simply should not exist; a club which stole Wimbledon's place in the league by dubious means and who ought not to be recognized at all.  This is a match many are simply dreading, as they never wanted it to happen.

When Saturday Comes, the excellent monthly magazine, still does not officially recognize MK Dons.  Their annual season preview supplements, in which supporters of the other 91 league clubs in England answer questions on the season ahead, simply has 'No questions asked' in the MK Dons section.  For some, this now appears archaic and petty; for many others, it is a perfectly reasonably adherence to a consistent stance on the issue.

The key issue for Wimbledon fans is now whether to go to the match.  Many have vowed never to set foot in the pretentiously titled stadium:mk, some even lobby other clubs' supporters not to go to away matches there, a request which is acceded to by many.

But there are others who feel that they simply want to support their team, whoever they are playing.  There is no reason why going to support Wimbledon away at MK Dons should be read as acknowledgement of the latter club's 'legitimacy'.

The most important thing, therefore, is that Wimbledon fans respect each other's choice.  The match has to be played: Wimbledon would face severe sanctions if they refused to play.  The alternative is to be divided and conquered.  Those who go are not 'scabs' crossing a picket line.  Both positions have a certain logic behind them, it is simply a question of personal conviction.

What of other supporters?  With the predictability of day following night, ITV Sport have chosen the match for live Sunday lunchtime coverage, so we will all be able to intrude on private grief.  There is, though, talk of the away end being filled by a kind of 'Fans United' assembly, with supporters of other clubs turning up, in their colours, to support Wimbledon against 'Franchise FC'.  A show of unity in the face of what many perceive as being the face of all that is wrong with modern football.

This has a certain appeal but a personal view is that this would miss the point.  The issue here is identity and legitimacy, which transcend the game.  Wimbledon beating MK Dons will not settle any scores, just as MK Dons would not gain the moral high ground if, as is likely, they win through to the third round.  The result is, in many ways, an irrelevance.

Nadal the unknown quantity in new tennis era

Men's tennis does rivalries rather better than most sports.  With the top players meeting so regularly, the major duels – McEnroe-Connors, Becker-Edberg, Agassi-Sampras, Federer-Nadal – build up a sense of continuity and a sizable body of work.  Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have played each other ten times in Grand Slam tournaments alone, 28 times in total.  How many times did Muhammad Ali fight Joe Frazier?  Three.  George Foreman?  One.  Not really the same, is it?

The Federer-Nadal era, though, is over.  When Nadal handed Federer's backside back to him on a silver salver at the Australian Open earlier this year, it had the feeling of a curtain call for tennis's most engrossing rivalry of all time.

And yet it was Federer who won Wimbledon, with Nadal crashing out to Lukas Rosol.  Indeed, that balmy night when the unheralded Czech blasted Nadal off centre court – has there ever been a match when a player simply hit the ball so consistently hard? – remains Nadal's last tennis match of note.  It is testimony to Federer's genius that, even on the wane, he came back to win Wimbledon, despite the fact that Andy Murray played so well in the Final.

With Federer aging gracefully, what of Nadal?  Has his left knee turned into blancmange?  To miss half a year's tennis will leave doubt in the mind of even the most dedicated of the Spaniard's disciples.  Perhaps the French Open, comfortably the least interesting of the four majors in recent years due to the sense of it being little more than a two-week coronation, will be competitive at last.

Perhaps, then, it is time to acknowledge that, in place of Federer-Nadal, we now have Djokovic-Murray.  That the latter pair are now the two best players in the world is becoming harder to refute.  Murray has been a different animal since the Olympics, which looked and felt like the fifth Grand Slam championship that, if the ATP have any sense, it will officially be – in ranking point terms – come the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.

Inferiority complexes are everywhere in sport.  It doesn't matter how good Germany are, they will always lose to Italy.  Murray never used to quite believe he deserved to be contesting best-of-five Finals with Roger Federer, which is probably why he won just one set in the first three.  The Olympic Gold Medal Final, though, was a rout.  Even against Nadal in that Melbourne semi final, Federer never looked quite so inferior as he did in the Wimbledon re-match.  The poverty of his performance was staggering and, were it not for a patriotic desire to see Murray win gold, would have been a little heart-breaking.

Murray or Djokovic will almost certainly win the 2013 Australian Open; their best chance of avoiding each other in the Final seems to be being drawn in the same half.  Federer will be there or thereabouts at SW19 but, when talented but decidedly second-tier players such as Tomás Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are capable of knocking him out in the quarter finals, he is far from the favourite.

Murray-Djokovic has the potential to be every bit as totemic a rivalry as Federer-Nadal.  Both players have their best years ahead of them and their meetings are now genuinely in the balance.  Who won matches between Federer and Nadal often depended on which surface they were playing.  On grass and hard courts, Djokovic and Murray look pretty much neck-and-neck.  Clay tournaments are a whole different story and the fitness of Nadal looks like being the key question in men's tennis in 2013.