It's exams season - Foster seeking pass mark
PLUS: The Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be
A funny thing happened on the way to Twickenham…
Ian Foster has wormed the All Blacks into a position to earn a pass mark in 2022. Not singlehandedly, obviously. In fact, if you were going to apportion credit to any one individual for the turnaround it would be Ardie Savea, stunningly ignored by the judges for World Rugby’s player of the year, with the below Welsh tweeter speaking for everybody (bar the actual judges) who has watched rugby this year.
That aside, it’s almost impossible to reconcile the idea that the All Blacks could finish the year with seven wins on the trot after the 18-25 loss to Argentina in Christchurch.
This was a headline on the country’s largest news website in the immediate aftermath of that shock defeat.
“NZ Rugby left with egg on its face after All Blacks suffer historic loss to Argentina.”
If there’d been another loss soon after that, it would have been a five-egg omelette on NZ Rugby’s face. It wouldn’t matter how much faith was placed in Jason ‘Firefighter’ Ryan and Josef ‘Kingmaker’ Schmidt, Foster would have been a lame duck. Instead, he’ll get to strut around West London like the cock of the walk if they win.
Sport is a fickle beast.
England, for mine, go in as slight favourites due to being at Twickenham and catching the opposition at the end of a long season, but the TAB has New Zealand at $1.67 and the hosts at $2.25, so what would I know.
Those odds will play perfectly into the hands of that plucky little battler guiding plucky little England through such fragile times.
Eddie Jones is one of those characters the sport desperately needs, but it makes me wonder about the collective intelligence of rugby folk that they keep taking in his kidology and outright bullshit with barely a challenge.
“There’s a narrative that says England can’t beat New Zealand but in 2019 we showed that if you’ve got the right attitude and the right game plan then history can be broken,” he said this week in comments that were faithfully reported and repeated.
In my best politician-at-a-podium voice, let me be very clear: there is no narrative that says England can’t beat New Zealand.
Technically, that narrative has not existed since 1936 when a prince of the Rurik dynasty named Alexander Obolensky, whose family wisely traded Petrograd for Muswell Hill during the Bolshevik Revolution, ran rings around the All Blacks at Twickenham.
Spiritually, that narrative has not existed since 2003 when England, despite being reduced to 13 men at one point, beat the All Blacks 15-13 at Wellington and then went on to win the World Cup.
Historically, that narrative does not exist given that England have won eight of 42 encounters, a ratio only five test teams - including the Lions and a World XV - have bettered.
Contemporarily, that narrative does not exist given that the last time the two teams met England won in Yokohama by a far greater margin than the 19-7 scoreline suggests.
There is a narrative that says Scotland cannot beat the All Blacks.
England is not Scotland, Eddie.
This has felt like the longest international rugby season on record. The angst and intrigue has been exhausting. A first test against England since the All Blacks’ fault line was exposed at Yokohama feels like the perfect way to kiss it goodbye.
That pass mark that beckons? It could just as easily be a fail. There is no middle ground here.
Eighty more minutes. Strap in.
England v NZ, London, Sunday 6.30am, Sky Sport 1
THE WEEK THAT WAS
Graham Henry sat down with the Guardian for an interview in the post-RWC glow. Henry talks in bullet points these days (he probably always has to be fair), but there were a couple he made that were intriguing.
On the ugliness of the rolling maul (and why it’s not considered as much of a blight in England).
“I think the rolling maul has gotten out of hand… That’s probably not a very appealing part of the game for the spectator. Perhaps in England the number of spectators looks after itself because of the size of the population but in this part of the world it doesn’t. They’re struggling to get people along to watch the games. I think the rolling maul is a negative part of the game from a viewing point of view. It’s very hard for the defensive side to stop it. I think it’s a part of the game we could look at and say, ‘Can we make this a greater contest?’”
I don’t know if he’s right about the reasons the English tolerate watching rolling mauls, but he’s certainly right in his final two sentences. Change needs to happen because they’re as boring, but we also need to take parochialism out of it, not make it feel like we’re punishing a team because they’re brilliant at a dull art.
This was accurately referenced by subscriber Naki Pete, in a comment on a previous edition (edited for clarity).
It’s quite ironic that certain journos in the Herald today had a go at the England team using the rolling maul to score tries .. I’m quite sure NZ scored two tries from the rolling maul. It brings back all those times when our media would have a go at certain countries from the north using dropped goals to win rugby world cups, but when Dan Carter did it to help us win a semifinal he was praised by our own media.
Maybe the problem is actually the rolling maul.
I agree, Naki Pete, it’s the act, not the actors, that is the issue.
The other Henry quote that piqued my interest was this.
“Women are very self-critical. They knock themselves a lot and they want to get it right. As a coach it became more of a job of building their confidence and being really positive.”
Clearly this is rudimentary, extremely generalised gender psychology, but it did make me wonder whether this is the crux of why so many male coaches, even good ones, make a hash of it in female environments.
Where it’s seen as beneficial to the collective to suppress the individual egos of young males - the classic “there’s no ‘i’ in team” philosophy - it might not work as well in female environments. Perhaps in women’s sport it is more advantageous to burnish the individual’s ego to make them understand they’re worthy of being in the collective?
I really don’t know the answer to this, but ol’ Ted at least got me thinking.
Cricket is coming to America next year. It could actually work.
There are more than six million South Asians living in the US and more than two million in Canada. There are also significant expat communities from other parts of the cricket playing world and a smattering of Americans intrigued by the sport.
There’s no suggestion that Americans are going to trade in their Los Angeles Dodgers caps for the LA Knight Riders (yes, most of the franchises will be owned in part by IPL teams), but with T20 and its associated hype, cricket has a chance of cornering a small slice of a massive sports market.
If nothing else, there’s another tournament New Zealand Cricket have to factor into their thinking when dishing out central contracts.
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
Why would you impose a bilateral T20 series upon the players just days, days!, after the end of a World T20. No, it e$capes me, I cannot think of a $ingle good rea$on.
NZ v India, Wellington, tonight 7.30pm, Spark Sport
I sense my disinterest in televised golf (not the playing of it as I’m partial to a nice nine-hole walk in the sun) frustrates some of you. In the interests of your interests, I will do my level best to catch Ryan Fox, who has endured a “scratchy” start, and Lydia Ko, who has fared better, as they try to join senior Steve Alker in winning their respective tours at their year-end events.
DP World Tour R4, Dubai, Sunday 7.30pm, Sky Sport 6
CME Group Tour Championship R4, Naples, Monday 7am, Sky Sport 9
Pete, not Naki Pete, a different one, quite justifiably wrote to me to say that the absence of media coverage of the women’s Rugby League World Cup only reinforces leaguies belief that they’re treated like second-class citizens. I’ll be absolutely honest and admit to having not watched a single minute of the Kiwi Ferns’ campaign live, instead choosing the highlights packages, but better late than never. I’m expecting their clash with the Jillaroos to be far closer than the “other” final.
Australia v NZ (W), Australia v Samoa (M), Manchester, Sunday 2.15am and 5am, Spark Sport
I’m only putting this because I feel I have to. While I feel a bit like Jonathan Liew does, who this week wrote one of the great World Cup paragraphs, I’ll still be transfixed by the spectacle.
Of course, you didn’t choose this. Nor did the players or coaches. A winter World Cup in a tiny desert state with no footballing heritage and a litany of human rights abuses to its name was instead imposed upon us by the 22 men of Fifa’s executive committee, three of whom are now dead. There is, perhaps, a certain dark irony in the fact that the survival rate of the people who awarded the World Cup was even lower than that of the people who built it. But the very existence of this tournament is a reminder of where the power has always resided in this sport. You are of course welcome to turn up, tune in and enjoy. But this spectacle is not yours, and never has been.
My transfixion1, however, does not extend to this absolute stinker, in hype terms anyway, of an opener.
Qatar v Ecuador, Al Khor, Monday 5am, Sky Sport 7
Strictly speaking, not the correct use of this word, but I’ve never used it before and was keen to give it a try.
Well if there was a perfect example for the all blacks season that was it. If there was ever an advertisement for men’s rugby, that game wasn’t it.
We punished South Africa years ago for human rights issues! Now we embrace human rights in the Middle East . Clearly he who has the money calls the tune, sickening isn’t it.
Are all those protesters of the eighties dead?
Ian