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.

England put to shame by the Welsh

by Mike Martin   @thefootietweet

It has been a peculiar Rugby World Cup for followers of England.  With every victory, the temptation to worry became ever more irresistible; the sole defeat, by seven points to a rejuvenated France, gave rise merely to philosophical acceptance.

England have not been remotely good enough to win the tournament – though that did not prevent them reaching the Final four years ago – so there is no great sadness.  Indeed, the though occurs that the tournament is much the better for the absence of a side who have so regularly betrayed their status as professional athletes.

To triumph at any tournament, certain factors are essential.  Preparation, performance and discipline.  The technical aspects of England's tournament are for more knowledgable commentators than your humble author to discuss but there can be no question that indiscipline, on and off the pitch, has punctuated England's disappointingly short sojourn in New Zealand.

Gone forever is the notion that rugby is a somewhat nobler form of football than the 'other codes', at which the fifteen-man game still tends to look down a lofty and often lopsided nose.  The tour has reeked of unprofessionalism.  The appalling penalty count, lack of leadership and dismal decision making have been matched by misadventures between matches reflected the delinquency between fixtures.

Mike Tindall, an decidedly ordinary centre – England excels in their production – who probably never merited his place in the squad even when the paucity of alternatives is taken into account, attracted tabloid headlines for his short excursion between the breasts of a mystery woman, who turned out not be a mystery woman after all once the effects of excessive drinking had worn off to the extent that the England vice captain – vice captain! – could remember where he'd been and who with that night.

Then there was the, frankly, disgusting behaviour of three players who deemed it the acme of wit to corner a young female hotel worker and invite her to carry out an act normally only on offer at a quite different kind of hostelry, to her considerable distress.

Both misdeeds were exacerbated by the bewildering disinclination of anybody among the entourage to take them remotely seriously.  The media storm was described my Mark Cueto as a 'mountain made out of a molehill', when in fact it was a rare example of tabloid outrage being largely justified.  Dare we even contemplate what would happen if three England footballers had behaved in such a way at a FIFA World Cup?  Players have been sent home for considerably more trivial transgressions.

Indiscipline bred indiscipline.  Had Martín Rodríguez's kicking radar been in anything dimly resembling working order, or if first choice kicker Felipe Contepomi hadn't been injured, Argentina would have been out of sight before Ben Youngs's 67th minute try.  Courtney Lawes and Delon Armitage both picked up bans while Dan Cole and Dylan Hartley were both sin-binned, both the result of England's constant, unrelenting infringing at the breakdown.  Only Tonga amassed more yellow cards.

To put it bluntly, England's pack were irredeemably dismal throughout.  Argentina, Scotland and France rucked them to death; the set pieces were poor and the forwards scored just one try in five matches between them.  Meanwhile, balls were constantly dropped, poor passes thrown to bewildered recipients and promising attacking positions spurned.  Even Jonny Wilkinson got the rugby equivalent of the yips.

Ridiculously ambitious penalty kicks were attempted despite the fly half's poor form when kicking for position would have better consolidated possession and territory and, hoping against hope, brought the odd try against England's less obliging opponents.  Ludicrous drop goal attempts, such as the one from Toby Flood against France which dribbled in the vague direction of the posts, also saw possession handed to the opposition.

Where was the leadership?  Not from the coach, Martin Johnson, who faffed around without ever seeming to make a decision about England's starting fly-half, wing or inside centre.  Where was even the thinnest evidence of proper preparation or the setting of boundaries regarding off-field conduct?

What a waste.  Some players shone: Manu Tuilagi was brilliant, doing the work of two centres at once; Mark Cueto remembered what a try is and nobody in the tournament has crossed more times than the lethal Chris Ashton at the time of writing.

Still, at least there's Wales.  Whatever the All Blacks fans might say, the Welsh have been, bar none, the best team in the tournament.  Their running play has been beautiful, they are scoring tries at will and they should, justly, have beaten South Africa.  Their forwards have been menacing, tight and have conducted themselves largely within the rules of engagement, vague as they often are.

Away from the matches, the squad have voluntarily taken to teetotalism, at the behest of the younger players.  Wales have been a great advert for northern hemisphere rugby, as were Ireland, whom they conquered in the Wellington quarter final.  Those two facts may just be connected.  Wales have come to play in a Rugby World Cup, England seemed to come on a jolly old boys' trip out.  It is the Welsh who will go home with something rather more substantial than a headache.

Irish hit right notes amid Australian dischord

by Mike Martin   @thefootietweet

To begin at a tangent, I have finally worked out what it is about this World Cup that seems so much classier than in other recent international sporting championships.  It is the national anthems.

Normally, you will recall, anthems have been 'led' by some panjandrum of an operatic soloist.  At Hampden Park, it is usually some bekilted soul such as Ronnie Browne butchering the life out of Flower Of Scotland – which is a bad enough dirge to begin with – and yelling whatever it is the crowd all shout after 'and send him homeward'.  Elsewhere, particularly at Wembley cup finals, it is usually some up-and-coming 'celebrity' opera singer – the sort who's CDs are available in Asda – with a good future behind them who drench the tune in unnecessary frippery and coloratura before pointlessly going up the octave in the last bar, only to miss the final high note by the width of the Thames.

Not for the Rugby World Cup, who have made the tasteful decision to use the New Zealand Choral Federation 'Anthem Choirs', who have thus far been providing classy and subtle renditions of the anthems as the composer wrote them.  Even the antipodean temptation for throwing in the odd new-agey harmonic confection is, by and large, passed by.

Anyhow, the game.  This was the match every World Cup needs, a contest of the most immersive kind and a result which turns the whole tournament inside out.  There is now the strong possibility that the Tri Nations countries will all be in the same half of the draw come the knockout stage.

The discerning sport fan reserves a particular kind of joy for watching Australia lose at any sport they hold even slightly dear and there was plenty to enjoy here.  Much of the match's appeal was in the familiarity of its features; the useless Wallaby front frow, their crass errors in possession and their dismal scrummaging.

Every four years the rugby world asks itself the same question.  Have Australia finally found, among their 22 million mostly sport-mad inhabitants, finally found themselves any prop forwards who look half competent on the international stage.  Usually, the answer is a blunt 'no'.  This time around it is 'yes; there is Benn Robinson'.  Robinson is injured.

This was a match in which everything Australia holds dear about its rugby union team was systematically, almost ritually deconstructed by a resurgent Irish pack.  (Their backs, though they played perfectly well, were not really the point.)  This was not just about their constant infringements at the scrum.  Australia, undermined at source, panicked and became incapable of making good decisions when in possession.

Will Genia ran into a teammate and Australia were penalized for 'shepherding', or blocking an opponent's tackle without the ball.  A late close-range penalty was run when trailing by nine when a goal would have brought them within winning range.  Several phases of play later, fly half Quade Cooper – tonight not a maverick entertainer but a dunderheaded liability – threw a needlessly extravant flick pass straight into Tommy Bowe's hands.  The Irish wing's interception break did not bring a try but it won the match by taking Australia into their own 22 in the last minute.

Ireland, on the other hand, made sensible decisions that worked.  With Jonathan Sexton's goal-kicking inconsistent, Ronan O'Gara was introduced to slot two second half penalties that took Ireland out of reach.  This was not a gutsy, hard fought narrow win against the odds; it was a straightforward rout.  Had Sexton's radar been better calibrated, the Australians would have been truly humiliated.  The Auckland crowd, in which the natives were uniformly supporting the Irish for reasons which scarcely need outlining here, lapped it up.  In the post-match interviews, broadcast over the statium PA system, Ronan O'Gara was cheered like an All Black hero; Australia coach Robbie Deans was hissed like a pantomime villain.

We can now all look forward to the likely quarter final between South Africa and Australia.  The delicious thing is, one of them has to lose.

Give Rugby World Cup minnows an outlet

by Mike Martin   @thefootietweet

It's been, by common consent, an excellent opening week in the Rugby World Cup.  The minor nations have, by and large, done themselves proud.  They have also all lost, with the exception of Canada beating Tonga, which is not, by world rugby standards, a particularly shocking result.

Certainly, the 'gap' is closing but is it realistic to expect it ever to become narrow enough for every game in the tournament to be genuinely competitive?  How, for instance, can Georgia be expected to beat England if they only play that calibre of opposition once every four years?  As it stands, overtaking Romania as Europe's best non-Six Nations championship side seems to be the limit of their realistic ambitions.

The island nations are always good fun, and Samoa could well surprise Wales just as Fiji did in 2007, but they remain largely uninvolved in the year-by-year international fixture lists.  But the Pacific Nations Cup, which sees Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and Japan compete with New Zealand's 'B' side is not of a standard to constitute adequate preparation.

Romania nearly beat Scotland but in the end lost without even gaining a bonus point because the Scots were better conditioned.  They played for the full eighty minutes and Simon Danielli's two late tries came against opponents who were out on their feet.

It is one thing to see myriad Georgians, Canadians and Argentines playing professional club rugby in Europe but that will not help produce slick, cohesive international XVs.  Only regular, high profile, top level international matches will achieve that.  Yet the major nations will not invite Tier 2 nations to play in the Autumn Internationals, the annual series of invitational Test matches, on anything more than an occasional basis as they are not money-spinners.

The solution?  Play the Rugby World Cup every two years.  In football, there are perfectly sound reasons for the World Cup to be held every four years.  The continental confederations have their own championships to organize, as well as their own qualifiers.  There simply isn't time.  But in rugby union, the 'regional' international championships such as the Six Nations and Quad Nations (which will see Argentina join the Tri Nations, not before time) are annual and occupy a different set point in the calendar.

A biennial World Cup would give the IRB a chance to be more adventurous when selecting hosts, alternating between the safe, wealth-generating tournaments in England, France or Australia, and those which seek the expand the game's horizons.  The 2019 World Cup, awarded to Japan, will be the first held outside the game's principal nations.  Rugby needs a World Cup, relatively soon, in America and one in Argentina.  With the World Cup every four years, the waiting list stretches too long.

Promotion into the Six Nations would probably lead to a hokey-kokey between Italy and Georgia, each swapping places every year, unless Scotland go into a tailspin.  And just try getting the Tri Nations unions to allow Samoa or Fiji to take the place of one of them every other year. 

Twice as many World Cups would mean more money for the IRB to invest in developing nations which, combined with more regular top-level experience, will make the Rugby World Cup more democratic.  More youngsters will be playing rugby in the schools of Tbilisi or Lisbon, Tunis or Montevideo.  They will grow into wiser, cannier rugby players, able to see out matches against good opposition.

Experience is not the only factor.  Look at Italy: have they made any serious progress since joining the Six Nations in 2000?  Few seriously expect them to defeat Ireland and the United States could well give them a good battle.  But Italy have given the major nations almost a century's head start.  Their time will come.  But without more regular Test matches for countries like Japan, Georgia or Russia, the Italians and Argentines could be the only sides to make a serious breakthrough in the forseeable future.

Flat opening game sign of first IRB error

by Mike Martin   @thefootietweet

The 2007 Rugby World Cup began with a bang.  Argentina beat France 17-12 at the Stade de France, providing a result which turned the entire tournament inside out.  Suddenly there were questions.  Would France even get out of the group in their own World Cup?  Could they recover to beat Ireland?  Would Ireland now be the victims of the vact that three into two does not go?

Argentina, for some time, have been the ideal Rugby World Cup opening fixture opponents.  Against Wales in 1999 and Australia in 2003, they were good enough to give the hosts a genuinely competitive contest but not quite good enough to spoil the party.

Unfortunately, the IRB do not 'fix' the World Cup draw and, anyway, Argentina were seeded when the draw for the current championship was made in 2008.  New Zealand, the host nation this time around, were drawn with France, Tonga, Canada and Japan.

The opening game plainly should have been New Zealand v France.  As it was, the game was decided after twenty minutes as Israel Dagg and Richard Kahui ran in tries against a Tonga side so plainly beset by stagefright.  In fact, when Tonga finally started playing in the last quarter, New Zealand looked quite ordinary.  Yet by then the match was decided.

After a spectacular opening ceremony this, alas, felt like an anticlimax.  Indeed, there is an argument for questioning whether the holders, not the hosts, shouldn't be the team with the honour of opening the tournament.  South Africa v Wales in Auckland?  Now that's an opening fixture.

This used to be the way in the FIFA World Cup.  Having an opening game with no home advantage for either side increased the chance of a shock, as Argentina discovered against Cameroon in 1990 and France against Senegal twelve years later.

From the 2006 World Cup onwards, FIFA removed the right of automatic qualification for the World Champions.  Opening match duties reverted to the host nation given the possibility, albeit a slim one, that the World Cup holders would not qualify.  Germany faced Costa Rica in Munich in the first fixture of the tournament: a 4-2 win and a classic but no thanks to the organizers.  Had Germany's defensive line not been preposterously high and slow, it would have been a mauling.

World Cups, be it football, rugby or cricket, need a proper contest in the opening fixture to whet the appetite.  Unfortunately, the suspicion lingers that what the domestic organizers wanted was a guaranteed win for the All Blacks on the opening day.  How the already brittle confidence of a nation used to finding ever more inventive ways of not winning the Rugby World Cup would have fared had New Zealand slumped to their usual shock defeat to France is a matter best left to conjecture; for the rest of us, a chance of such a close contest would have been a fine thing.