Social Pundit

Here at Social Pundit, I am scratching my head and trying to make sense of a weekend’s worth of entertaining and surprising rugby. I’m still catching up with it as I type; thanks to my night shift and playing commitments, I missed a fair bit of it and am now relying on the BBC iplayer and making sense of the results I saw. Since I’ve mentioned it, I am very disappointed there are only highlights of the England woman’s game, not the full thing. It looks like a very entertaining match for everyone who’s not Scottish, who I feel for – a day at Twickenham would surely have been the highlight of many of their careers, but right now I bet they were all wishing they’d got concussed and couldn’t remember a thing.

 

My weekend started with the Wales – Ireland U20 match. I’m going to go on a tangent here, I love watching age grade rugby and while credit to Sky for having the England match on at all I guess, I wish there was a way it could have been on terrestrial. Even some highlights. Look on the BBC site and you’d never even know the match was played. So instead I enjoyed watching Ireland U20 spend large swathes of the game dominating and creating everything, including Wales’ first try, before suddenly running completely out of steam. Wales should have won except for Matthew Morgan’s bizarre decision to give the ball back to Ireland with seconds to go. Ireland scored, and then would have won except for Paddy Jackson’s conversion drifting onto the post at the last possible moment. Both sides probably asked themselves afterwards how they didn’t win, but have plenty of answers. Personally, my main question is how on earth Ireland are so bad at unearthing scrum-halves. I think McIlroy’s one of the better young Irish scrum-halves I’ve seen but his pass still flies as well as a hippo. Watching him next to Jackson and Morgan, both of whom made mistakes but ooze class ball in hand, was mildly embarrassing. What is even more surprising to me is that in the entire Irish Exile Poaching system, they haven’t found some decent scrum-halves with Irish grannies. There’s going to be some potent backlines in red and green in a few years though. Ireland’s looked better (particularly the Ulster core of Magners capped players), but that’s largely because Wales’ best young backs were unavailable. Forwards might be more difficult to come by though.

 

Then to the main course. I’m currently watching Italy – France to find out what exactly provoked my laughter on Saturday. I’ve just seen Clerc’s try. How can a team with that sort of attacking quality lose to Italy? Although how did a team that so routinely mucks it up win a Grand Slam last year?

 

Wales – Ireland is even worse in the “How and Why” stakes. I’d previously been excited about this game, possibly the most even in the Championship, until I looked at the team-sheets and was reminded why this is. Is Mike Philips really that bad a scrum-half, or does Wales’ tactic of never protecting their rucks make him look like a fool? How does Kidney manage to reduce Europe’s best domestic back-line into such inadequacy and inanity? And the starter for ten, how exactly will Peter Allen and Kaplan defend the decision to award that try? Oh, and when did Rory Best remember how to throw? A very welcome return. Admittedly, he play his part in the penalty machine that allowed Wales to draw away, without which Paddy Wallace would have done the sensible thing (instead of another ‘Why’) and it will be interesting to see if Kidney holds good to his threat about the axe. Although it would have helped if Sexton could kick his goals. Or they hadn’t passed to an isolated  Cian Healy for the last play of the game. Although most of these pale next to Lee Byrne getting charged down 10m from his own tryline in the first 20 seconds of the game. A true “the side that makes the least mistakes wins” game, and very entertaining for it, although I doubt either side will feel that optimistic for it.

 

Which leads me onto England – Scotland. I did expect a tight, gruelling game with Scotland throwing the kitchen sink at England but I was surprised by how little England seemed to be up for that physical battle up front, save for Brand Haskell whose rebirth as a genuine international flanker has been awesome to watch. God bless whoever persuaded him to graft like a nutter and on a pitch packed with quality back-rows, he was the best except maybe for Shontayne Hape. Still can’t distribute though. England, to a certain extent, got lucky with the big calls – Barclay’s yellow card, Poite’s injury and hauling off Ruaridh Jackson. Dan Parks was probably the most helpful thing England could have asked for in closing out the game except for people conceding kickable penalties for St. J. Of W. We are of course much obliged to the Scotsman who did so.

So what now for the final weekend? Part of me thinks/hopes Scotland – Italy will be the tie of the weekend, but pessimism says a game where the forwards are the standout part of both sides are rarely that entertaining. My prediction would be that Chris Patterson beats Mirco Bergamasco. Meanwhile in Paris, the French players will be trying to persuade Lievremont they should remain in the squad… or rather, Lievremont’s successor, as surely the maddest rugby coach in the NH can’t survive that much longer. I hope that when his time comes, fate is kind and he is given a chance to work with de Villiers. Preferably for Wales.

 

And in Dublin, we will see if this England side has the cojones to take the Grand Slam at the first time of asking. To me, thats an easy no. As the pressure has mounted England have gone backwards. Not by much, and long term the experience gained of keeping their nerve and grinding out these wins will be fantastic. But I think, with a home crowd baying for no English slam on their first visit to the Aviva, it would take a very special team to throw that away. Happily, we may just face that in Declan Kidney’s Ireland. They look short on confidence and short on discipline and more than slightly clueless as to how they should be playing. They have got the players to be very dangerous, but they are only getting chances very intermittently. So although I’m backing Ireland to pip us in Dublin, I feel an awful lot more optimistic about the Grand Slam. And if it doesn’t happen, I shall console myself with the knowledge that England are in the right direction, with plenty of good young players – and that includes an U20 team that should complete their own Slam over Ireland, particularly with Ireland’s backline robbed of most of their best players.

 

And if that fails, at least we can celebrate the woman’s team.

Social Pundit is the work of a man playing low level, social rugby in London which therefore clearly qualifies him as knowing better than any other man in rugby. This blog has been started as a platform in which to air these views. Social Pundit’s loyalties are to his club, Park House, to England and for various reasons to Ulster, mainly to expose just how poor his rugby judgement really is..

2nd Feb 2010: Skill over size

So I had written an article. And then binned it in favour of some mild bile in line of recent selection choices.

You see, I have a problem with modern rugby, and that is the current cult of size over skill.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that size and strength (which aren’t the same thing anyway) are important and the good big man generally beats the good little man. But size is just one part of the equation, and the most important word should be “good”, not “big”. This problem seems mainly to exist in England (I suppose this is traditional) but can be seen elsewhere. Take Gert Smal, whose favouring for big forwards where possible has prolonged Tony Buckley’s international career for far longer than is justified. The end result is Ireland are now blooding Mike Ross just before the World Cup, rather than having him well settled – presuming that Kidney and Smal don’t get all over excited when Tony “Rollerskates” Buckley returns from his injury. And Tomas O’Leary (and Mike Philipps to a lesser extent) continues to get away with having service like Manuel from Fawlty Towers simply because he’s like an extra flanker.

But despite our Celtic cousins’ attempts to cheer me up by committing the same mistakes, this does seem mainly an English disease. I don’t think any other nation on earth would have looked at Matt Banahan and thought “that the man to replace Mike Tindall”… if only because none of them would still be using Mike Tindall. Or if they did, they’d make someone he had someone next to him with pace and passing… not Shontayne Hape. Meanwhile Jon Clarke and Anthony Allen presumably leave Saxons training to go muck around in the Anglo-Welsh cup. They’re only two of the form centres in England over the last few years. Clarke doesn’t play for Leicester and Allen’s small so he can’t be good enough. Anthony Allen has been playing consistently well for Leicester since he arrived without major weaknesses in his game. I know he’s not even 15 stone, but can we please try him? Pretty please? He’s physical enough for the Premiership. He’s physical enough for Richard Cockerill for crying out loud. That’s Richard “ABC Club, Enjoys Winding up All Blacks, My Wingers must be able to play Flanker” Cockerill to me and you. If he says Anthony Allen is hard enough to play 12 for him, he’s hard enough to play 12 for anyone. I don’t know if he’s good enough. I’d love to find out though which unfortunately is not going to happen unless someone takes a steroid needle to him.

Meanwhile, Chris Robshaw leads out the Saxons. This is clearly understandable as all the back-rows picked are bigger than him. The only problem is he happens to be a better player. And has been for some time. Any team picked on Premiership form would start with Chris Robshaw at 6 – even if Tom Croft was available. Now, I know domestic form doesn’t always run true (hello Louis Deacon) and you can’t ignore what Croft has done, but that’s ok – Robshaw can play 7. Just get him into the team. He carries, he rucks, his tackle count is absolutely insane. He even takes a bit of line-out ball! He does everything except be 6’4” so clearly, not international material. Luke Narraway is another talented, in form back-row. He even has regular time at 8 which makes him an absolute rarity for England these days. But again, he will be mucking around with the Saxons while bigger, inferior players line up for the seniors. I would happily swap Narraway and Robshaw in for any of the players named to play Wales (preferably Haskell and Worsley though).

I’m going to stop there before I reach the subject of James Simpson-Daniel and Matt Banahan. Suffice to say I think they’ve got that one wrong.

I am aware this won’t sway the minds of the powers that be. I am afraid nothing save defeat will, or better yet getting Jim Mallinder to do the job. Or Richard Cockerill. But it feels good to vent. It makes me a little happier about the likely result of Sam Warburton vs. James Haskell. Or what will happen next time we ask Tindall or Banahan to try marking those tiny wussy outside centres like Smith, Ashley-Cooper and O’Driscoll. And I don’t even get to expect any Jauzion or Ferris-esque moments of incredible strength in compensation. Because, you know, those players are good as well as big.
And, as I’m afraid England are about to be reminded, big alone is not enough.

10th Dec 2010: Revolution’s a waitin’ in the wings

This article starts with a confession. It’s not much of a confession, in that most people I know and who read this probably already know it, but the subject matter feels so sordid and wrong that I cannot think of a better word. So I must now shamefully confess that I’m a winger. Well. Part-time anyway. It’s my second – wait, no, third position. Let’s not take this too far. I still think of myself predominantly as a flanker but by now I’ve played so often on the wing as a stand in I think of myself as a winger as well.

It’s one of those cases of repeated actions shaping the psyche, like the gradual death of shame that will happen after drinking near the front row too often. Most of my team mates actually. And so every now and again I think winger thoughts. Not the more extreme ones, like ‘if I stay out here my shirt will stay clean’ and ‘try time’, but stuff like positioning and timing kick chases to hit people in the ribs. And thinking fondly back to breaks from the 22. That was pure luck mind.

Now, I’m not a very good winger, on account of having little gas and little agility but as that hasn’t stopped Ben Cohen from securing a pay packet in his dotage or Ian Dowling from getting Ireland caps, it hasn’t stopped my various captains from plumping me down on the wing either. And thus another scabby winger is born. So, naturally, when I read the headline of a Telegraph article – that went “England wing Chris Ashton will revolutionise world game” my winger instincts were immediately intrigued.

Actually, that’s not quite true. My first reaction was to think ‘bloody hell, that’s a bit of hype even by the media’s standards”. Seven caps and he’s going to change the way we all play? Even for the average rugby controversialist in the papers that’s a bit of a leap. But after that.

The long story short, for those who can’t be arsed to read it themselves, is people are saying that Chris Ashton’s rugby league tendency to come infield looking for offloads and other try scoring opportunities will lead to people completely rethinking the way wingers play. Hmm.

This is a popular seeming conclusion around the England camp at the moment. Cueto’s most recent paper interview, from during the AIs, talked about the need to find opportunities in field because pace around the field makes it harder to score tries out wide.

Personally, I think there’s more honest excuses for Cueto’s poor try scoring record; they’re just not very flattering (can’t outpace a fly-half) or diplomatic (look at who he was playing with). But it is a very interesting insight into the way England are thinking.

And given the way Smith is insisting on big lumpy centres who can offload but do little else, I think I might have just cracked England’s plan for the backs. But is this the way everyone’s going to go? It is of course no innovation having your wingers come into the line; just remember Tommy Bowe’s Lions tour or any other number of wingers. It’s as set a part of rugby canon as playing the really fast kid who can’t catch out there by now. But that’s usually to break the line, not to finish off line breaks.

Even Australia, who probably have the most imaginative, most multi-talented and most rugby league influenced back line going, doesn’t see much of the wingers coming inside for those vital pops. Instead, its the centres and back-rows running those support lines, and the wingers stay wide – and do very well out of it. Drew Mitchell’s hat-trick against France springs to mind.

Hosea Gear is another winger who has announced himself on the big stage through the old traditions of staying wide and scoring lots of tries. The man’s nearly on a try a game for crying out loud. But then I’ve named two sides that are seemingly light years ahead of England at the art of moving the ball and creating space for wingers to thrive in out wide. Or any spare loose-five forward in New Zealand’s case. For them, there is no need to have wingers constantly pile into the middle of the park like a pack of starving dogs chasing the butcher’s boy. But could it be helpful on occasion? It certainly fits with the move towards attacking with two lines of backs we’re now seeing from, well, everyone.

Having a winger like Ashton, who naturally runs lines from deep looking to come in off the shoulder as players make a half-break, seems ideal for this. But if he’s doing that, he’s not offering the line breaking option itself. The real question then is what coaches want their wingers to do in such situations. I suspect from first and second phrase play not a lot’s going to change – they’ll still be a line-breaking option, although possibly less so as the straight inside ball option.

But once the defensive line starts to shift under the phases, might they prefer to have their best finishers waiting for those opportunities and leave the line breaking to forwards? It makes a sort of sense. But only if you think the best opportunities will come from continual offloading in narrow channels, rather than using that to create space to get the ball out wide to exploit mismatches and overlaps. And this is where I think this is all much more revelatory about England than general wing play.

Because my prediction is teams with the handling ability to do so will continue to look for their opportunities out wide. Which makes wingers like Ashton useful (let’s not forget he’s got the full range of skills either), but not pivotal. Not like he is for England with the Tweedlebosh centre combo. But then maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. After all, the wingers will probably get a say as well. And it might just be the deciding one because, given a choice between doing the hard work of gaining yards or swanning around doing sweet fanny adams but waiting for an opportunity for try time, what’s the average winger going to pick?

Maybe Chris Ashton will revolutionise world rugby after all.

30th Nov 2010: Well that’s it for another year. We are all out of internationals and so I’m going to ramble on about what I saw and what it means for the Home Nations. I apologise in advance for paying relatively little attention to doings outside the Home Nations. If nothing else, we learnt relatively little new about our friends from the south. I was a little surprised Argentina had so little other than their scrum while Samoa and Fiji looked the usual bunch of excellent individuals and maybe not quite there but whole hearted players who could be very deadly together with time we know they won’t get.

We already knew South Africa had an awesome pack, an interesting back line and an insane coach that made the back line as dull as possible by insisting they emulated the mighty Joe Worsley. We already knew Australia were the opposite – amazing back line, generally dodgy pack despite a few stand outs and a coach that somehow managed to turn this into a gameplan for winning rugby.

The best comparison I can think of is one of those movie scenes where a hopelessly outmatched protagonist (Australian pack) grimly clings on and takes its battering while they wait for the hero (Australian backs) to come rescue them. Like one of those plucky Bond girls while James readjusts his tux. This might be the only time you will ever see a rugby analogy where the backs are the Man’s man and the forwards the little girls. Nothing else truly expresses the bizarreness that is Australia right now. Of course the logical thing for them to do, particularly as New Zealand’s world cup triumph seems to edge ever close, is to merge into one disturbingly powerful unit, united by their love of barbecues.

I almost hope they think of it. And we knew the All Blacks are the world’s best team and that none of the home nations stood a chance without switching their boots for clown shoes. Their ruthlessness and ability to execute the basics remains peerless. This said, there did seem to be occasional glimpses of weakness. Are the Home Nations better than we think? Do the Kiwis have a fatal flaw of complacency? Or are they just so gentlemanly they refuse to embarrass their hosts (except Scotland – they clearly hate Scotland)? This was for the Home Nations their first home series since getting used to the new interpretations, and their last real crack at the South before the World Cup. It’s also their last game time before the Six Nations which is looking to be absolutely wide open this year.

England and Wales seemed to be the sides taking best advantage of the invitation to run ball in hand. Conversely, Ireland, champions under the old kicking game, appear to be adapting with the sort of glacial slowness usually seen only in the presentation of nature documentaries. The same goes for counter-attacking where they’ve either kicked aimlessly or watched Rob Kearney do his best to emulate the Andy Powell game plan (see blood and mud). In fact, Kearney seems to be a poster boy for their malaise after the rules changes.

Even Scotland seem more alive to the rules changes despite possessing a backs line that Joe Worsley would add spark to. But Ireland did show signs of what they were capable of in the New Zealand and Argentina games and in particular people will be worrying about the regular sighting of Heaslip and Ferris storming down the wide channels together. Its not coincidence either that those two games saw Ireland’s best scrums (thanks to Tom Court, Mark Lawrence, Roncero’s injury and Tony Buckley in about that order) and in Peter Stringer, possibly the only Irish scrum-half who realises he’s on the field to pass.

Whether Tony Buckley will establish the same level of dominance again come 6N against Jenkins, Sheridan, Jacobsen et al remains to be seen but should he resume his tower of jelly impressions Ireland’s task got a lot harder. Needless to say Robinson is hoping Buckley will get pulverised by Jacobsen as that’ll make the task of collecting the needful penalties for victory that much easier.

Scotland’s back line has improved but it’s still about as threatening as a Roman Legionary in Asterix. Their pack is impressive, and has dragged them to some impressive victories, but will face some massive battles when it faces the various form of southerner on offer. The Welsh pack in particular has been monumental at times which makes their poor record all the more baffling.

Possibly this is because I lied slightly; the tight five have been monumental, but if it wasn’t for Lydiate and Warburton, Wales’ back row would now be a very grim menagerie of the once were and never were. And Martyn Williams.

Possibly it’s because of the injuries in the backs. Possibly it’s because the half-backs were by and large, as organised and with it as the average student at the end of fresher’s week. Them and Gatland, who must be very relieved he’s got his contract renewal before that.

This leaves England. At times the most breathtaking of the home nations, at others ordinary as the back line failed to find its spark. The savage man-shaming handed out to our pack by the Boks was probably exacerbated by losing Tom Croft but was still worrying. I think it was a bit of a one off and feel confident they’ll show come 6N time but everyone else will be lining up for a repeat.

In particular it was a lesson in what happens when a dodgy line out wobbles along on one outstanding jumper. Nothing pleases or encourages Victor Matfield than a shaky line out in which to crush his enemies, hear the lamentation of their women and later get all greedy like a winger and butcher tries. The line out is bad news which gets worse when you realise who might get recalled as a consequence.

Anyway, I expect there to be more days like that; it’s a test team built around a young core of players who are still learning. But every one of those moments where metaphorically England need their nappy changed after a game is another step along their return to rugby’s top table. So where does this leave us all?

I think England have shown more of a top end, but everybody’s shown they can play as well as everybody else – or as poorly for that matter. In particular the idea of running straight, drawing your man and passing to maintain the overlap seems as dead everywhere. It’s saddening when the best example of how to do it from a Home Nations team came from Connacht’s A team against Samoa.

Quite why the 20 year old Eoin Griffin knows to do it and the likes of James Hook and Ben Foden don’t is one of those questions normally asked by a school teacher studying for his masters in sarcasm.

This leaves both teams somewhat dependent on individual brilliance. This is perhaps a better situation than Scotland, dependent on Dan Parks’ boot, and Ireland, who can chuck it around but are dependent on the worst ball winning unit you’ll see in a long time. Their scrum and line out problems are well documented but the really worrying one is the complete inability to secure a restart.

This lack of basics sometimes makes the 6N seem like a tallest dwarf contest; all I can say is it wouldn’t take a very tall dwarf to secure a restart against Ireland. These are the things that will need to be improved in the 6N if any of us is going to seriously compete at the World Cup. But I am very much looking forwards to it, flaws and all. I’m particularly looking forwards to full England games on the Beeb again, even with their mildly ridiculous slightly nature documentary like opening credits.

Actually, I’m going to let myself get distracted. There we are, with all this bellicose, stirring (well, supposedly) imagery… and then we get to Ireland, and we are treated to the sinew stiffening sight of a load of shamrocks.

Really?

Did they do the Irish bit on Friday afternoon? Or give it to the work experience kid to do as a reward for learning out how to work the coffee machine? I’m sure they could have done better. Leave your suggestions. And now, I will finish this with my impressions of who played particularly well and where the strength is, in the shape of my British & Irish Lions side to play tomorrow.

• 1 – Gethin Jenkins – Fit? Well, that’s simple.
• 2 – Matthew Rees – Difficult choice as there’s a lot of good but not great hookers, but Rees is probably the most reliable.
• 3 – Adam Jones – Would have been Dan Cole until I was reminded he still had a bit of learning to do
• 4 – Bradley Davies – Probably already the best powerhouse lock in the British Isles despite his age. Really, how did Wales crap up so much?
• 5 – Courtney Lawes – Finally! Not a taff. Would lose his place if Paul O’Connell was fit, but he isn’t so I’ll take Courtney.
• 6 – Stephen Ferris – A very difficult decision until Croft solved it by getting injured. I’d still love to see them play together, but then there’d be no space for…
• 7 – John Barclay – Really, really deserves the recognition. Hard lines on Warburton.
• 8 – Jamie Heaslip – I was thinking of Easter, but then Easter had a curate’s egg and Heaslip returned to form.
• 9 – Ben Youngs – Delivery’s not quite perfect, not quite perfect under pressure but the best in these Isles on form.
• 10 – Toby Flood – Controversial choice I know, but his goal kicking was saintly and his distribution very good.
• 11 – Chris Ashton – Would prefer 14, but I have a candidate. Can’t be left out.
• 12 – Anthony Allen – I was trying to pick AI players only. I really was. But none of them impressed me with an all round game, so I picked someone from outside.
• 13 – Brian O’Driscoll – Far from impressive either, but then so was everyone else and he still has inherent class even if it surfaces less and less.
• 14 – Tommy Bowe – Quiet autumn, but enough form shown to pick a clearly very good player.
• 15 – Ben Foden – Lee Byrne’s possibly a better player, but I’m not certain and Foden is in better form.

Coach – Andy Robinson – Clearly has to be doing something right if I think his players are that poor.

24th Nov 2010: There are surer ways of starting a spate of hissy fits and spite amongst rugby fans than the subject of poaching, but not many. I refer not here to the way you might be encouraged to cook your food if you want to stay out of the front row but rather the picking of dual-qualified players at international level. In an attempt to help defuse these arguments, I’ve decided to present a little guide to poaching around the world to help clarify some of the more wild arguments going on. Unsurprisingly, given it does involve taking what belongs to someone else, England are major proponents of the art. In fact, England have so many poaches we sometimes have to pick which one we want to play. Happily Martin Johnson has a handy wall chart in his office for such occasions, giving him a simple list of criteria for judging poaches on. Old is good, minimal ties to England better yet and the cherry on the cake is when they’ve been capped in Rugby League for another country which is a sure sign of England potential. As you can see, England’s poaching system is run on strict, logical lines and I’m sure the rumours it all started so Martin’s missus could cheer on some of her countrymen as well when he dragged her to Twickenham are complete lies. Neither is it true that Johnson has held meetings with the England Cricket Board to learn how best to integrate a whole bunch of South Africans into your national line up – he prefers Kiwis. England doesn’t just poach Rugby League converts though. Be it ancestral ties, immigration or coming here for some education and dodgy home made porn videos in public schools – England welcomes all! But England aren’t the leaders. As with all things rugby, you need to look at New Zealand for that. And with the typical sneakiness we’ve come to associate with NZ rugby, it’s all under board. Rather than England’s cheery openness, the All Blacks have actually persuaded many a Pacific Island family to move to New Zealand just on the off chance their 2 year old kid might be good at rugby. And if he isn’t, well, he’ll grow up and have kids too. You never know. Although this might strike some as unsporting, clearly we must salute the All Blacks for their endeavour. After all, it’s not every rugby team who reach out unseen to manipulate the economic and demographic make-ups of entire countries just to improve their pool of rugby players. This practice has allowed them to move away from their previous, blatant policy of scouring the Islands for teenage boys who could play a bit. On such determination and subtlety is built the foremost rugby nation in the world (World Cups excluded). Of course, Australia won’t be missing out on any sort of sporting advantage either. Their search for that little edge is so great I’m surprised Sports Scientists haven’t started playing a game of seeing who can make an Australian do the most ridiculous thing. Or maybe they have and that’s the story behind the Rugby League player and the dog. In which case, I salute science. Anyway, Australia are always eager to copy best practice, and have copied New Zealand’s model to a certain extent – although they occasionally outright just poach Kiwis as well. But its ok, as New Zealand have been known to poach from Australia as well (although stealing props from them is just cruel). It is therefore mildly ironic that both countries give so much to other countries in terms of poaching. Obviously, the likes of Samoa do well out of Kiwi eligible players and England have to fulfil their foreign ex-rugby league player quota from somewhere, but the Irish and Scots also enjoy a good poach. Quite why they poach so many English players and so few Ozzies and Kiwis is a mystery roughly akin to breaking into houses when you’re a highly paid professional athlete in terms of logic. In fact, the Irish are so enthusiastic about their poaching, they reserve a spot at every province for poaching projects and have an organisation solely dedicated to poaching players from the rest of the UK. All I can say is thank god it hasn’t occurred to them to set up the same thing in New Zealand, or we might never win the 6N again. Then we get to Italy and Argentina. Or should that be Argentina and Argentina? Most Argentines have at least a smidgen of Italian heritage and the Azzuri have exploited this to the hilt. Argentina have been hailed for their progress, but the question of how much better they might have done with the likes of Martin Castrogiovanni and Sergio Parisse is an interesting academic question. But then, Italy have quite an advanced poaching culture, with no end of Aussies and others hanging around their national squad. Unfortunately for Argentina, the poaching instinct was not taken with them by Italian immigrants. At the low, almost honourable end of the poaching scale, you have South Africa and Wales. In fact, if you consider Zimbabwe as part of South Africa, they do virtually no poaching at all. Which has caused friction between the SARU and South African government recently, as the South African government know geography. Wales get by with only a spot of light poaching on the English, enough to make sure they don’t feel left out. There is of course though the case of Toby Faletu. Now, Faletu might be a good allies name for all I know. I don’t know if they have allies in Tonga. But it’s interesting, nay, encouraging, to see the North take on New Zealand at their own game. What’s more, as most Pacific Islanders in the British Isles tend to be rugby players anyway (or soldiers), we’re being far more selective than they are! We’ll close the gap yet and without having to do a smidgen of that pesky training. Although it has left me slightly confused. When someone like Josh Matevesi is picked by Fiji, were we trying to poach him from them or are they poaching him from us?

Seriously?

To take the subject more seriously, this is an increasingly small world with increasing levels of movement. The number of dual qualified players is only going to go up – and they’re already pretty high when you consider the very localised nature of rugby union. This shouldn’t be an issue and only is to the ignorant, the hysterical and those going on fishing trips. These sides represent nations and the truth about most major rugby nations, particularly the English speaking ones, is their histories and cultural identities are heavily tied up with immigration. To say the likes of Jerome Kainio shouldn’t represent New Zealand is like saying Shane Geraghty shouldn’t be allowed to play for England. This argument would work well for England I admit (no offence Shane) but it’s completely illogical. Yet there is no question that not every international selection is a logical choice to represent their chosen country. I know I’m not the only Englishman squeamish at the possibility of a centre partnership formed up of one New Zealand Maori player and one New Zealand rugby league player. I’m at a loss as to how they represent my country or indeed anything other than the burning desire to play international rugby. Which is fair. I’ve considered swanning off to live abroad elsewhere at times just to get an international cap, even if it for Luxembourg. But just because they want to do it doesn’t mean we should. And yet, many people move to a country late in life and never leave. Hendre Fourie’s recent interview, in which he talked about coming back ‘home’ from a holiday in South Africa, is such an example. His home’s in England which does make him at least a little English. Admittedly, the RFU were hardly going to allow an interview with him talking about how he can’t wait to jet back to the sun with his international caps to be published ( “’ere, why’s this England player talking in Afrikaans?” “What you think is Afrikaans is really an obscure Yorkshire dialect, honest) but I am willing to believe there are players out there like him who genuinely feel part of their adopted country.

Peat’s Poaching 15

1. Tendai Mtawarira – How can you ignore a man who’s such a blatant poach even the country’s government objects to it? 2. Dylan Hartley – Born in Rotorua and so good that Johnson didn’t mind he had’’t played rugby league 3. Ben Franks – Australian born, plays for the All Blacks who don’t need him nearly as much as the Ozzies do. 4. Dan Tuohy – Quite why England let one of the fastest locks in the NH swan off to Ireland I don’t know, but I think they might regret it. 5. Nathan Hines – Born in Wagga Wagga, played for the Lions as token Jock. Thank god for poaching or it might have been a real one. 6. Jerome Kainio – The list just wouldn’t be complete without a New Zealand Samoan. 7. David Pocock – Zimbabwe would have a pretty decent rugby team if South Africa would stop nicking them all, but they lost McCaw’s heir to Australia instead. 8. Sergio Parisse – Probably the best 8 in the world. Probably the hottest wife in rugby. Definitely the biggest loss for Argentina rugby. 9. Will Genia – His brother plays for Papua New Guinea, which is a polite way of saying he’s not as good as Will. 10. Quade Cooper – Imagine how good he’d be if he’d stayed in New Zealand? Probably no different actually, but he might have learnt to tackle. 11. Manu Tuilagi – Border control tried to sling the Samoan out, but the Blazers managed to talk them out of it so he could play for England U20 12. Riki Flutey – Not many people play both against and for the Lions, so kudos for that… I guess. 13. Shontayne Hape – Aka Beyonce. Used to play with Sonny Bill Williams. Some idiot clearly signed the wrong rugby league player. 14. George North – Good news bad news for England – we’ve found a quick 6’4” winger of quality, but he thinks he’s Welsh. 15. Luke McClean – Sounds Scottish, actually Australian, thinks he’s Italian. Born to play against Simon Danielli.

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