Mr. Bulletproof

My last post covered the early history of Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly, one of the most iconic figures of Australian (and, indeed, Irish) history, up until the Fitzpatrick affair of 1878 had landed his mother and two friends in jail. Not only that, but both he and his brother Dan were now wanted men; at his mother’s trial the prosecutor said that, had Kelly been there, he would have ‘given him twenty one years’ (some sources say 15, but that’s really a triviality). Seeing the situation was hopeless, and finally losing their tether at the injustice and aggression of the police, Ned and Dan fled the district and went into the bush, and here we pick up the story.

The police were anxious to finally and properly deal with the Kelly brothers and to close down their rustling racket (although they never had any evidence for it), and a £100 reward (a large sum in those days) was put on both their heads. Ned and Dan saw the need to lay low, and made their way to the Wombat Ranges, where they attempted to raise some cash by means of a whiskey distillery and gold panning. Their plan was not, for the moment, anything criminal, but all that changed in late October when the police learned of their whereabouts, and nine policemen set out to capture them. They aimed to execute a pincer movement, one group aiming to catch the gang as they ran away from the other, but this plan went swiftly awry. As they searched for the Kelly camp (the Wombat Ranges was a large area), one of the groups (comprising four men) made camp at Stringybark Creek, unknowingly less than a mile from the Kelly camp. Ned Kelly, who had presumably been keeping a watchful eye out for the police, saw the camp, gathered his brother, two associates who had joined them (Joe Byrne and Steve Hart) and made for it. At around 5pm, the four men (with five guns between them; Ned carried two rifles) surprised the two officers who remained at the camp (the other two having gone off to explore) and told them to lay down their arms. Although Constable McIntyre surrendered immediately (which was probably the sensible thing, given that he was unarmed), a Constable Lonigan, who Kelly had some history with, went for his gun. Ned Kelly immediately shot him in the head. When the other two officers returned they were presented with a similar demand to ‘bail up’, but instead chose to open fire. Both men were shot dead (one thanks to Kelly), but the ensuing chaos gave McIntyre the opportunity to escape on a horse. Upon his return to his home police station he told of Kelly’s ambush on their party, and the slaughter shocked the whole area. All four men were declared outlaws, to be taken dead or alive.

The police took this idea rather… enthusiastically, and gave themselves emergency powers to, basically, break in to anywhere they liked without a warrant and to arrest any suspected sympathisers. Needless to say this did not endear them to the common folk of Australia, particularly when even these tactics failed to find Kelly. Shock at the Kelly gang’s murders slowly turned to annoyance and resentment towards the police, and sympathy with the plight of the Kellys grew. However, the Kelly gang themselves were in dubious shape; without any money they were struggling to keep themselves going, or to help any of their sympathisers who found themselves in prison. The outlaws needed cash, and fast; and so Ned Kelly decided to rob a bank. What the hell, they could only hang him once.

This first raid, on the town of Euroa, was masterful in its execution; after taking over a building to act as a base and to rest their horses, they marched into the bank, weapons drawn, cut the telegraph lines to prevent any messages getting out, and walked out a few minutes later £2260 the richer, an enormous sum. Many of the hostages were, apparently, surprised and charmed by how dignified and polite their kidnappers were, nobody had to be killed and even the newspapers had to admit the robbery had been a veritable triumph. Some of the sympathy for the Kelly gang turned into veritable admiration as, once again, they disappeared into the bush and left the police floundering in their wake. Several months later, it was the turn of the Bank of New South Wales at Jerilderie, an equally slick and bloodless operation that also included, the next day, Ned reading out a weighty 7391-word manifesto/autobiography to the town’s populace. He intended it to be distributed across the country and the world but, as it was, ‘the Jerilderie letter’ went via a complex route into the government archives, and wasn’t published until the 1930s. It is, basically, the Kelly viewpoint on everything that had befallen them, and his views on why he felt his action was justified and the police were ‘cowards’, among other things; it’s phrasing makes it tricky to read, but it provides a shining insight into the mind of the famous outlaw. This letter is the reason beyond all others that Ned Kelly, more than all his compatriots, is remembered to this day.

After Jerilderie, the Kelly gang disappeared for 17 months, and the police pressure intensified. The price on their heads was upped to £4000, over $2 million in today’s money, and the whole ‘locking up friends and sympathisers’ plan ‘ went into overdrive; a select blacklist were banned from owning land in a certain area, for fear they might provide a safehouse for the Kelly gang. This angered the gang, who were incited to one final act of defiance. After shooting an informer (who the police had intended to use as bait), the gang took over the town of Glenrowan, subduing the occupants, and settled down to wait for the police to arrive. It was also here that the Kelly gang donned the outfits that would cement their reputation in history; home-made, 44kg suits of metal body armour, covering chest, back, head and groin, leaving only legs and arms unprotected. These were the first pieces of bulletproof armour, (sufficient to stop a bullet at ten paces), and must have made the outlaws seem mighty fearsome.

The police coming after them knew about the armour from their inquiries, and upon arrival (a released hostage prevented the gang’s attempt to sabotage the train line from being successful) began a shootout against the Kelly gang; 50 against four. During the 15 minute gunfight, Joe Byrne was hit once and Ned 3 times (it is a testament to their armour’s effectiveness that it wasn’t more), before they retreated to the hotel where their hostages were kept. Slowly, it became apparent that the Kelly gang were losing; some time later that night, Joe Byrne was killed thanks to a stray shot to the groin, and the terrified hostages began to escape to the police line. The next morning, Ned Kelly attempted to ambush the police from behind (or had already been out and went back to rescue his compatriots; stories differ), but they now knew to aim for the legs. After 28 shots to his flesh, and countless to his unpeirced armour, Kelly finally went down, somehow still alive despite horrific blood loss. When the police finally fought their way through into the hotel, they found Steve Hart and Dan Kelly dead. Both had almost certainly committed suicide rather than be captured.

Ned Kelly was hanged less than a month later, but his memory has survived long past that Australian November day more than a century ago. The British have had a long history of being brutally controlling to their possessions, both across the empire and in Ireland (indeed, if you go back far enough we can count Scotland and Wales too), and it was invariably the common people who suffered at the hand of harsh taxation, a near-total lack of care for the welfare of the poor and a brutal legal system. Many thousands of people have suffered at such injustices, but Ned Kelly is a rare example of a normal guy who stood up almost alone against the system- and won. His memory acts as a rallying point for all thoughts of freedom from control, of oppression, of having one’s destiny decided for you. He lived fast, he died young, he represented the fight against some of the worst aspects of Britain’s imperial age. And, even today, that means something.

Plus, a bulletproof suit of armour? SO GODDAMN COOL!!!

Advertisement

The Birth of A Legend

On the 11th of November 1880, a young man in his mid-twenties was hanged in Melbourne, Australia. Nothing particularly unusual about this; Australia was British-owned at the time and took a blunt approach to law enforcement, resulting in many a young man’s death. But this particular young man was something special, as indicated by some (not entirely authenticated) reports that a petition to save his life attracted 30,000 signatories. The man’s name was Ned Kelly, and his story was an extraordinary one.

Some reports claim it was a year later, but Edward Kelly was born in June 1854 to an Irish family in Beveridge, Victoria. He grew into a brave, boisterous boy; aged ten he jumped fully clothed into a river to save the life of a drowning seven year-old, and wore the green sash the family concerned gave him as a reward for much of the rest of his life. His father had been exported to Oz several years ago for theft, and had managed to do well enough for himself to buy a small bit of land; cheap as land was in Australia at the time, such an achievement wasn’t bad for an ex-con at the time. Not that this made life easy for him; the government view at the time was that, since a large proportion of Australians were former convicts, they must all be dirty stinking thieves who shouldn’t be given an inch. This was not conducive to a healthy state of living for Australia’s poor (ie almost everybody), and as such Ned’s father turned to cattle rustling in order to make life that little bit more comfortable. However, the law soon caught up with him, and he was sentenced to six months’ hard labour, which had a permanent effect on his health. Shortly after his return, he died, forcing young Ned to drop out of school to help his mother. His experience with the police during this escapade was not positive, and could be said to have affected the rest of his life.

Still, Ned’s mother Ellen, a famously spirited woman, was still around and moved the family to an area of uncultivated farmland (a lot cheaper than their former freehold home) at a place called Eleven Mile Creek. It was here that Kelly made his first notable forays into the lawless side of things; there was a sharp divide at the time between small landowners (such as the Kelly family) and the ‘big business’ landowners known as squatters. The latter had the police very much on their side and would vehemently ‘protect their interests’ against the hard-up small-time farmers, and a there was something of an undercurrent of resentment dividing the two camps, as there usually is between the rich and poor. The small men, like the Kellys, did what they could to keep their heads above water in this rather messy environment, and a little small-scale rustling was considered part and parcel of the whole business, horses and cattle being exchanged like an alternate currency. Illegality became a way of life for them, and in many ways it was a highly necessary one.

The police, of course, did not take this point of view; the rustlers were, to their mind, nothing more than the basest of thieves, and their patrols were determined to take them down. As ‘The Kelly Gang’ grew in reputation, the forces of law became determined to find some reason, any reason, to take them down, just to keep them under control. After several charges were (reluctantly) dismissed through lack of evidence, he was sent down twice within two years; firstly for assaulting a hawker and later for being caught in possession of a stolen horse. He was sentenced to three years whilst, bizarrely, the man who stole it received just a year and a half. A few years later, he was involved in a fight with police concerning his state of drunkenness (which many thought odd, given that he barely drank; some think his drink may have been spiked), and then came The Fitzpatrick Incident.

In 1878, Ned Kelly’s brother Dan found himself victim of an arrest warrant for horse rustling (the Kelly ring had now grown substantially) and a Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick went to the Kelly house in an attempt to arrest him. He found Dan with his mother and sisters, and agreed to let him finish dinner before coming with him. Some reports state that there had been a scuffle even before this, but what is known is that Ellen Kelly asked Fitzpatrick whether he had an arrest warrant. Fitzpatrick in fact only had a telegram telling him  to take Dan in, and his mother (quite rightly, if my legal knowledge is anything to go by) said that Dan therefore had no obligation to go with Fitzpatrick unless he chose to. Fitzpatrick responded by pulling out a pistol and threatening to ‘blow her brains out’ if she continued to ‘interfere’, to which Ellen made some comment to the effect of ‘you wouldn’t be quite so brave if Ned were here’. Dan Kelly responded in possibly the most clichéd fashion imaginable; telling Fitzpatrick that his brother Ned was coming to get him to look out of the window before jumping up, grabbing him and forcing him to drop his weapon, before releasing him (unharmed, he later claimed).

This is generally agreed to be (at least approximately) the true version of events; however, Fitzpatrick then rode to Benalla and announced that he had been attacked by most of the Kelly clan armed with revolvers, and that Ned had shot him in the wrist. The wound was almost certainly not bullet-induced; it was probably made to look worse than it originally had with the use of Fitzpatrick’s penknife (indeed, Fitzpatrick was later labelled a liar and thrown out of the force), but that didn’t matter to the courts now that they had something to take down Ned Kelly for. Within a few hours the Kelly homestead was surrounded and all present were arrested (Dan had already left to try and find his brother in the bush). Punishments were harsh; based only on Fitzpatrick’s drunken testimony, Ellen Kelly received three years whilst two other men who’d been present in the house (Ned’s brother-in-law Bill Skillion and an associate named William ‘Brickey’ Williamson) got six years apiece. Ned Kelly was furious, and demanded vengeance; a story that we will pick up next time…

The Third Test

Yes, it’s nearly three weeks since the match and yes, I did say I’d try to get this post up closer to the time: travel wasn’t conducive to it, sorry. But the deciding test of the 2013 Lions’ tour to Australia was good enough to have stuck in my mind perfectly clearly since its glorious conclusion, so this is definitely getting an extra-length post as my Lions’ awards season concludes.

I feel I should pre-emptively apologise to any Australians who end up reading this post if it ends up being very Lions-centric, but… come on, you saw the game. The Lions were fantastic.

We begin, as usual, with the FRONT ROW, where (predictably enough) Adam Jones just edges out Alex Corbisiero to take the Yes, It Is Still A Relevant Part Of The Game Award for Best Scrummaging. The Lions scrum has oscillated wildly throughout this test series, from periods of near-total domination to some almost laughable nadirs. It also worth noting that it is most certainly no coincidence that the Lions have scored their points in previous matches during the periods where their scrum was on top. However, in this match the front row combo of Corbisiero, Jones and Richard Hibbard finally managed to deliver on all the pre-tour hype surrounding the scrum, and by ten minutes in they were working like a vice. Indeed, the only period in which Australia were able to exert any form of control (the half hour either side of half-time) came about pretty much solely because there weren’t any scrums.

Much was made of Corbisiero’s contribution in that game, but I’m giving the award to Jones simply because he has been the most consistent of the Lions forwards by a country mile. Jones is undoubtedly the best scrummaging tighthead in world rugby today, and at no point on this tour was he ever seen as the weak link in any sense. He was key to every demolition of every front row he faced on tour, and deserves every plaudit he gets (even those from never-read internet bloggers).

Now, SECOND ROW time, where nobody could hope to challenge Geoff Parling for the Where Did That Come From? Award for Best Tackle. Earlier on in the tour, Jesse Mogg had wreaked havoc amongst Lions ranks with his lines of running during the Brumbies’ win over the Lions, and was rewarded with a place in the Australia squad. He made no appearance during the first two matches, but came on for Israel Folau after 28 minutes in the third and immediately made an impact. Not long after taking to the field, he ran a superb line to split the Lions defence down the middle. With Australia starting to gain momentum at this point, a try could have spelt the end for some of the Lions’ hard won confidence, and as Mogg flew away from Lions defenders in acres of space, a score seemed inevitable.

Parling, however, had other ideas. The bearded Englishmen, showing far more pace than any lock should really be allowed, seemed to appear from nowhere, flying in from Mogg’s right to mount a desperate lunge at the winger’s feet. Somehow, Parling’s giant right paw latched onto one of Mogg’s flying feet, sending him careening through the air and giving grateful Lions defenders time to jump on him and relieve the pressure. It was a truly beautiful moment for a Lions supporter, and one that really deserves more YouTube videos than I found.

Time for the BACK ROW now, where an Australian scoops an award: George Smith, who takes the dubious honour of the Tony O’Reilly Memorial Award for Least Triumphant Recall. The 33-year old Smith, a veritable legend of Australian rugby (if only for the superb hairstyle he sported during the 2003 World Cup, allowing Brian O’Driscoll to become the only international player to be penalised for tackling another by their mullet), had been playing in Japan when he received the call inviting him to join up with the Australian squad ahead of the test series. Whether this was an entirely wise move on behalf of Australian coach Robbie Deans (not to mention, according to some, Smith himself for accepting the offer) was a matter up for much debate online following the announcement, and when he was selected for the deciding test both proponents and critics of his selection lined up with bated breath.

In the end, Smith’s return to international rugby was more slightly sad than especially good or bad. Within just four minutes of his taking the field, he was felled by a bone-rattling collision with Richard Hibbard that saw him taken off the pitch for treatment; perhaps not the best welcoming present for a man only just recovered from a knee injury. Still, there is no field better than a decade of international rugby for weeding out the wimps, and true to form the old soldier Smith was back on the pitch just a short while later. He then proceeded to do absolutely nothing that I was able to notice (although, admittedly, I wasn’t particularly watching) for the next three quarters of an hour, before being replaced by Michael Hooper. Who, it should be mentioned, must have been a trifle miffed at his non-selection after his heroics in the two previous tests.

Next up are the HALF BACKS (yeah, it’s backs and forwards together today), and I’ve got a wealth of options to choose from. All four candidates put in a good shift, with James O’Connor netting a neat try, Will Genia showing again why he’s considered by many the best player in the world and Mike Phillips doing well enough until Conor Murray got on and really got the party started.  However, my choice for an award is Lions No. 10 Jonny Sexton, who gets the Guzzling Humble Pie Award for Making Me Eat My Words. Around ten minutes into the second half, the Australians were continuing their ferocious assault on the Lions’ 22 (with the Lions for their part defending their hearts out) when Toby Faletau stole the ball and it made its way to Sexton. In the bar where I watched it, there was a moment of relief as we anticipated the surely inevitable act of Sexton’s belting the ball to into Sydney Harbour, followed by a moment of high tension mixed with sheer terror as he looked up, turned and poked an adroit chip over the Australian defence. In any other position on the field, I would surely have been praising Sexton’s genius, but pinned back in his own 22 I was less sympathetic. In fact, I recall my words were somewhere along the lines of ‘what on earth are you doing?’.

However, proof, if ever it was needed, was on its way to demonstrate that Jonathan Sexton has a far better rugby brain than I do. Both he and George North had spotted the space behind the Australian line, North hit the accelerator and suddenly the ball was in his hand. A quick pop inside to Jonathan Davies followed by Jesse Mogg being forced to carry the ball into touch and suddenly the Lions had gained eighty metres and lineout ball, both of which were immediately converted to a try thanks to a lovely move set up by Sexton and executed by Leigh Halfpenny. And who scored the try itself? None other than Mr J Sexton himself. Well played sir.

Time for the CENTRES to get their award, which manages to be unique by being awarded to a player who wasn’t actually playing. I speak, of course, about Brian O’Driscoll, who gets the Life Has No Sense Of Romanticism Award for Most Upsetting Drop. O’Driscoll must surely go down in history as one of the greatest players ever to grace a rugby pitch; a veritable handling genius with more than his fair share of pace and a superlative rugby brain, he has enthralled and delighted fans from all countries across his glittering career with Leinster, Ireland and, of course, the Lions. On his first tour in 2001 he had the fans singing ‘Waltzing O’Driscoll’, in 2005 he was chosen as tour captain (we’ll try to forget about Tana Umaga for now) and in 2009 he formed one half (alongside Jamie Roberts) of what coach Ian McGeechan would later call the greatest centre partnership in history. And that wasn’t just idle flattery.

Unfortunately, there are two things that O’Driscoll had, prior to this tour, never ticked off his rugby to-do list; to win a World Cup and to win a Lions tour. At 34 years of age, most agree that he’s probably passed up his last chance at the former, and this tour would surely prove his last bite of the cherry with regards to the latter. To miss out on both would, frankly, be an ignominious end to an otherwise astounding career; he simply had to win.

With such a stellar touring record, it’s not surprising that O’Driscoll was chosen to start both of the first two tests, but in both he did something quite remarkable. He played quite badly. Come the third, Warren Gatland was finally able to bring the previously injured Jamie Roberts into the fold at inside centre, and his mediocre-at-best form (and, cynics would argue, the fact that he isn’t Welsh) meant that O’Driscoll got the chop. He didn’t even make it onto the bench. Yes, Brian O’Driscoll has now, finally, been a part of a successful Lions tour, but it would have been nice if he could have contributed to the riotous victory that really sealed it for the tourists.

Finally, it’s time for me to turn my gaze towards the BACK THREE, where I have chose to offer up my own Man Of The Tour Award. Leigh Halfpenny got the official gong, and I can see why: his performance with the boot was nothing short of superlative and under high balls he was calm and assured. He was just about the only Lions player never to have an off day. Elsewhere, Jonny Sexton proved a metaphorical rock and Adam Jones a physical one for the Lions, Will Genia was Will Genia, and Israel Folau had about as close to perfect a start to an international career as one could hope for. All serious contenders for the title, but my chosen man of the tour is without question the Lions test No. 11, George North. Not just because his personal highlights reel makes such entertaining viewing or because I still go back to the video of him against Fergus McFadden for a giggle now and again, but simply because, in a backline frequently populated by mediocrity, he was the one light that never faded. He combined his natural size and pace with genuine skill to great effect in both bone-shattering defence and electrifying attack, an ever-present threat who the Wallabies were forced to play around for the entire series. He lit up the tour, but more than that he inspired the best T-shirt caption I saw throughout the entire series. It simply ran: “Rugby is a team sport. It takes fourteen men to get the ball to George North”.

Man of the tour? For me, without a shadow of a doubt.

The Second Test: Part Two

Following on from my last post about Saturday’s second test between Australia and the British & Irish Lions, here’s the second part of my alternative awards ceremony. This time, we’re talking about the backs.

First up are the HALF BACKS, where all three Lions scrumhalves (quite impressively, given that one of them didn’t play) take home the Can’t One Of You Just Have A Shocker? Award for Biggest Selection Headache. At the start of this tour, the Lions no. 9 berth looked to be a foregone conclusion: Mike Phillips is a big, abrasive player and hard runner who fits perfectly into the Gatland playing style, as well as being a thoroughbred test match animal. After pulling off some dominating performances in warmup matches, most notably against the Barbarians in Hong Kong, there appeared to be nothing to change this idea- until the first test. Here, Phillips was comprehensively cut to pieces by Ben Mowen and had what has been recognised as one of his worst games on the international stage, and only when Ben Youngs came on to add some pace to the breakdown area did the Lions get a bit of spring in their step. This, combined with a slight knee injury picked up by Phillips, made it a foregone conclusion that Youngs would start this test, and to give him his due he played well, giving Jonny Sexton and his forwards a stream of good possession (even if a few passes were somewhat wayward). However, what was perhaps not as expected was the performance of Conor Murray, who came off the bench just before the hour mark. Mediocre at best during the warmup games, he has been regarded by some as a poor man’s Mike Phillips, but he had apparently not read the papers and refused to play to the script of Will Genia-related domination. Throughout his 25 minute tenure he was sharp, on the ball and played with intelligence, taking every scant opportunity that came his way, kicking well and bringing some physicality to the game that Youngs lacked; he gave the Lions a ninth forward at a time when it was most needed. Now, with Phillips looking set to be fit for the crucial third and deciding test, Warren Gatland has the unenviable task of trying to choose between them. I only hope his eventual choice justifies their inclusion next week.

Now we move to consider the CENTRES,  and since the Lions centres followed last week’s pattern by doing absolutely nothing of note all game (one excellent turnover from Brian O’Driscoll excepted) I shall turn to the Wallabies. Specifically I refer to Christian Leali’ifano, who gets the Following The Script’s For Wusses Award for Not Playing How He Was Supposed To. When Leali’ifano was removed from play after just 56 seconds last week, much was made of how this would effect the Australian playing style. We were gravely told that Leali’ifano’s creative, long passing game would have been key to the Aussie’s expansive attack, playing to the wings, and that his replacement (the defensively-orientated Pat McCabe) would force the Wallabies to restructure their attacking pattern. Given that both Australian tries were scored by a winger targeting the wide channels, clearly their playing style hadn’t been too adversely affected, but nonetheless it might have been reasonably assumed that, with Leali’ifano reinstated for this test, we could expect to see this tactic exploited to within an inch of its life on Saturday. Not so; whilst Leali’ifano certainly played well, his deadeye goalkicking securing the Aussie victory and his hard running proving an effective weapon, he didn’t appear all too interested in the distribution we’d heard so much about. I can only remember two occasions where the Australians attacked the wide channels, seeming content the rest of the time to just batter away at the Lions’ stonewall defence. With hindsight, this could just be providing me with more reason to mistrust everything Stuart Barnes says.

Finally we come to the BACK THREE and, well, no contest really. Whilst Leigh Halfpenny’s pressure kick came close to an award, it’s got to be George North taking home the Do You Even Rugby, Bro? Award for Most Meme-Worthy Moment. North has been the subject of some great YouTube videos during his rugby career, but few lend themselves quite so well to the internet’s sense of humour as the moment of sheer hilarity that graced our screens in the 60th minute. Thrown a through-the-legs pass by Brian O’Driscoll (the second good thing he did that evening), he was quickly enveloped by Israel Folau, and fans across the world sat with bated breath to see in whose favour this clash of titans would swing. However, I don’t think anyone was expecting what was to follow: North dropping a shoulder, picking up the 15 stone Folau and running ten metres with him slung across his shoulder, in what one might have called a dump tackle were North not in possession of the ball. He even managed to bring him down more safely than a lot of dump tackles. You can watch the incident in all its hilarity here. One lucky photographer managed to snap this picture, which inspired the internet to produce this, this, this, this and this. Not to mention this, and this. George North, whatever shall we do with you…

Like last week, I’d like to finish this post with a comment on the game in general. The Lions have come under quite a bit of flak for their showing on Saturday; Scott Gibbs, among others, has said that the Lions underperformed on the big stage and many are of the opinion that it’s now advantage Australia. My opinion is a little more mixed. Yes, the Lions had a golden opportunity to win on Saturday and yes, they did not want to be in this situation. Yes, their attacking game was weak, yes their centre pairing has no real bite and yes, the Australians are playing more attacking, exciting rugby. All of those flaws and more must be addressed by Gatland before next week, for this game has, above everything, revealed that Leigh Halfpenny’s boot isn’t quite enough to win a series on its own. There must be attack to go with the defence. I will also champion the view that, technically, it was a fairly poor game of rugby, dominated by its mistakes rather than moments of genius.

However, that doesn’t mean that that wasn’t one of the most tense, exciting and downright atmospheric games I have ever had the pleasure to watch. To my mind, defence and playing scrappily should always have a place in rugby- I wouldn’t want to watch it in every game, but I still think that you should be able to win like that if you are sufficiently good enough. By way of an example, I point towards 1990, where Scotland won a famous victory over the fancied English (and scooped the entire Northern hemisphere trophy cabinet to boot) by out-tussling their distinguished rivals up front and hanging on to win. Was their rugby good quality? No. Did they play better than their opposition? Arguably, yes, for the Scots remembered that points mean wins, and managed to keep their penalty tally ticking over enough for a historic win. Against Australia on Saturday, the Lions almost pulled off the same trick, keeping their penalty count low and denying Australia all but the most fleeting of scoring chances. In the end it didn’t work, and I’m not sure it’s a trick they could pull off twice. But my god, they came close. Oh so very close…

I am on holiday over the next couple of weeks, so posts will mostly cease for the immediate future. However, I will try to get something written up for the final test next week, although it may be a bit later than usual. We’ll see, I guess.

The Second Test

OK, wow. That was quite some match.

The 2nd test on the 2013 Lions tour proved to be a tense, exciting one; an all-out battle between a committed Lions’ defence and the Wallaby attack. For 76 minutes the Lions offered up one of the best defensive displays I have ever seen on a rugby pitch (and in the process set the stage for the tensest game of rugby I have ever been lucky enough to witness), but finally the Aussies were able to put some speed on the ball for one crucial phase, sending Adam Ashley-Cooper over for the winner. Hair raising stuff, roll on the decider.

Right, now time for the awards ceremony. I think another two parter is in order…

Once again, first up are the FRONT ROW, where Benn Robinson and Mako Vunipola (but predominantly Robinson) jointly take home the Ace Up Both Sleeves Award for Best Display of Cheating. Like it or not, cheating is a part of the modern game of rugby, most prominently by back row forwards (looking at you, Richie McCaw) but also by members of the front row brethren. Rarely has this been shown more obviously than in Saturday’s battle between Australian tighthead Robinson and Lions’ loosehead Vunipola. Whilst Vunipola’s scrummaging ability is frequently underrated, it’s fairly safe to say that he merited his place in the touring party for his work in the loose rather than in the scrum. However, he is nonetheless a very powerful figure, and Robinson (also not a natural scrummager) had clearly decided that, if they were going to have a straight pushing contest, he was not going to come out on top. A decision that must surely have been settled upon entirely when Vunipola began boring in at the first scrum, to complete silence from the officials (although I should add a caveat that I think Craig Joubert otherwise refereed superbly and contributed immensely to a good game of rugby), putting Robinson under all sorts of pressure and laying the foundations for every scrum the Lions won that evening.

However, Vunipola’s somewhat unsophisticated technique did give Robinson quite a lot to work with, and over the next couple of scrums he exploited that to the full. Engaging from a low body position enabled him to get underneath Vunipola at the hit and exert some form of control over him, but if he just remained static in this position then Vunipola could have found time to regain his position (as he did at several later scrums). So, Robinson instead took the opportunity to drive slightly downwards, bending Vunipola completely illegally out of position and negating all his power. Twice in succession Vunipola was penalised for ‘going to ground’ (ie Robinson threw himself at the floor), and even though the Lions pack eventually steadied the ship all due credit must go to Robinson for every sneaky trick he pulled to negate his opponent’s power.

On to the SECOND ROW, where this time it’s Geoff Parling’s turn to take home an individual award: the I Thought You Were Meant To Be Good At This Award for Least Mastery of Area Of Personal Skill. Parling is, as the rugby media like to tell us at every opportunity, a lineout forward, not only skilled in the air but also an authoritative organiser who is well able to call the shots and get his lineout working like a well oiled machine. Not that this was particularly evident on Saturday; the lineout had worked well for the Lions last week by being rather conservative in outlook, and Parling’s efforts to use it as more of an attacking platform didn’t work quite as well as they might have. Three times his bearded visage was seen rising into the air at the tail of the Lions’ lineout, and three times he missed a clean catch and a scramble for the ball resulted. Twice it ended up going to the Australians. Indeed, the Lions got their best results by going conservative, their driving maul proving an effective weapon on at least two occasions. This could be at least partly blamed on a fairly atrocious throwing display from Tom Youngs, but Parling also failed to mount any really major challenge to the Wallabies’ ball either- he was able to disrupt it a couple of times, putting Will Genia on the back foot, but there was never any ball stolen or genuinely challenged. I wouldn’t ordinarily mind but… well Parling is kinda supposed to be really, really good at this. Meh, could’ve been worse still.

Finally for this post we consider the BACK ROW, and another individual award goes to a Lion. This time it’s captain Sam Warburton, proud winner of the Shut Up And Sit Down Award for Most Critic-Answering Performance. Warburton has come under a lot of flak during this tour; upon his being named captain, many (including me) were quick to suggest that, whatever his qualities as a player, the back row was too competitive a position to have one space already set aside for a player who may not end up being the best in his position during the warmup games. I still stand by the idea that Warren Gatland’s choice of captain was perhaps not the most sensible, but I cannot deny that his faith in Warburton’s ability was entirely vindicated by his performance on Saturday. Like all good captains he lead from the front, scoring two crucial turnovers early on and a third, perhaps even more importantly, in the second half. In the midst of a virtuoso (well, for 76 minutes at least) team defensive performance, his individual tackling display also stood out, constantly applying pressure on the Australian runners and frequently forcing them backwards; whilst he didn’t top the tackling stats (that gong goes to our old friend Mako Vunipola, with 15), he must have been damn close. He and Dan Lydiate were the standout defenders for me, and it’s almost a shame that they didn’t end up rewarded for their sacrifices with a win. He made no handling errors or, indeed, any real mistakes that I could see, and but for an uninspired showing in attack (which could be attributed the fact that a) he’s not a particularly attacking player and b) the Lions did a grand total of about 3 minutes attacking throughout the match) his would have ranked as among the standout back row displays all year.

And as for the backs? Well we can deal with them next time…

The First Test: The Backs

Apparently I get carried away whilst talking rugby, so my awards ceremony for this weekend’s Lions match has got split across two posts. This time it’s the backs who get a going over…

First up are the HALF BACKS, both pairs of whom take a Letting The Side Down Award for Most Maddening Gulf In Class Between Key Positions. It has been generally agreed that Mike Phillips, who Warren Gatland had presumably inked in as test scrum-half within half an hour of being told he’d got the Lions’ job, had a bit of a shocker on Saturday; whether it was the attention of Australian flanker Ben Mowen, an inability of his forwards to generate go-forward or just him not playing at his best, Phillips never really got into his natural rhythm. There were none of his surging runs, no sense of control over the breakdown, and he seemed to pass it out to Jonny Sexton at flyhalf only when he ran out of ideas rather than when he’d built a platform. By contrast, Sexton put on a great show, mixing good tactical kicking with some trademark  skill and control of his backline, despite Phillips offering him a decidedly shaky platform.

Australia faced precisely the opposite problem. I’ve never really seen Will Genia play well before, but on Saturday I was treated to a display that came damn close to fully justifying Stuart Barnes’ claim that Genia is the greatest player in world rugby today. Not only did Genia create all the momentum that Phillips didn’t and completely evaded the clutches of the Lions’ back row, the skill he showed to create Australia’s first try was truly breathtaking. When dealing with his forwards, Genia put Australia firmly on the front foot; it was only when he gave it to his fly-half that things started to break down. James O’Connor is something of a jack of all trades, starting his career at wing and moving to the No. 10 jersey via fullback, and his lack of natural instinct in the position showed on Saturday. Much will be made of his three missed kicks at goal, but around the pitch he was virtually non-existent, and his centres only ever got good ball when Genia just gave it straight to them. During the last quarter, Australia brought on a more natural flyhalf in Kurtley Beale; but brought him on at fullback. Given the quality of some of his runs, he and Genia united in the half-backs could have won Australia the game.

Now for the CENTRES, who collectively take the Where The Hell Were You? Award for Best Mastery Of Invisibility. That’s the only explanation I can find, at any rate, for why I cannot remember anything that a centre from either side did for the entire match. Well, that’s not quite true; I remember both Christian Leali’ifano and Pat McCabe getting injured, Jonathan Davies’ run doing said injuring to Leali’ifano (not, I should hasten to add, that I think this is in any way Davies’ fault; Leali’ifano merely put in an appalling tackle and got his head in the wrong position) and Brian O’Driscoll getting penalised early on. But in general play? Well, I presume they made a few tackles, but they never made any incisive breaks and neither side’s attack was focused through their midfield as is more typically the case. Indeed, I seem to remember at least one promising Lions attack getting butchered as Davies ran straight into traffic rather than using his numbers out wide. This could perhaps be blamed on the Lions not playing a natural inside centre (both Jamie Roberts and Manu Tuilagi being injured, meaning the Lions had no go-to crash ball merchant) and the Wallabies getting their main attacking threat at centre injured, but even so that’s not an excuse for being boring.

Finally, we come to the BACK THREE. I could wax lyrical about this lot all day; how sorry I felt for Kurtley Beale after his tragic last-minute penalty miss (and no, Australians, I’m not being sarcastic), how fantastically George North played (and how close he came to scoring a brace), the match-winning kicking display given by Leigh Halfpenny and how both Digby Ioane and Alex Cuthbert both did exactly and only one good thing in the entire match. However, in a side with a surprising number of debutants, it seems only fair that the No One Cap Wonder Here Award for Best Debut should go to Man of the Match Israel Folau. Folau has only been playing the union code for a few months, coming into our fair sport via rugby league and Aussie rules, but he made an immediate impression on the international stage. Just thirteen minutes in, he latched onto a perfectly judged side-of-the-boot grubber kick from Will Genia to run in under the posts, and shortly before half-time he showed his opposite number George North that he wasn’t the only one capable of leaving defenders floundering in their wake. With North having come inside, Folau was left with acres of space in which to work his magic. With one magical step, he left Jonny Sexton for dead and outpaced Leigh Halfpenny for an adroit touchdown; a fantastic score. The battle between him and North in the tests to come will be an intriguing one.

Oh, and I also have one special award to give; Image of the Day. I refer you here, to this video of George North’s superb solo try, but it’s not North who I’m talking about. Once you’ve watched the try (and cackled with glee at the general awesomeness of it), skip forward to 1:07 and watch Berrick Barnes as he flies across to try and see him intercept North. As North slips round him, we see Barnes’ scrum cap-adorned head look up from the floor at the rapidly disappearing red shirt… and then see his face plunge into the ground as the realisation of the score kicks in. I don’t know why, but there’s something in the way he lets his head drop that is simultaneously tragic and hilarious. Depending, I suppose, on which side you were supporting.

I have a few final things to say regarding Saturday’s game. The first concerns referee Chris Pollock, who has taken plenty of flak from Lions fans regarding his refereeing, and particularly his interpretation of the breakdown. Speaking as a referee, I can’t say I agreed with him in a lot of areas: but, he did the most important thing right. He was consistent. Whilst his way of playing rucks and mauls was, to some eyes, ‘wrong’, he was treated both sides the same, and if this style happened to favour the Australians on some occasions then that’s not really his fault. How Craig Joubert and Romain Poite end up doing things is anyone’s guess.

My final message is to the Lions, and although I’m sure Warren Gatland will have told them anyway I want to get this off my chest; you have no excuse for playing like that. The Lions didn’t play badly on Saturday, but they were uninspired and failed to gain any sort of control over Australia in any area, the lineout being a possible exception that nonetheless failed to challenge the Australians for possession. That simply should not be happening. I appreciate the issues of selection, of having to come together in so short a time frame and of injuries that plague all Lions tours, but if ever the omens were pointing the Lions’ way it is now. Australian fans have been baying for Robbie Deans’ blood for some time now over his selection policies, and there was outrage when his Lions squad was announced that many players from the highly successful Reds and Brumbies franchises had been left out. There is a general consensus that this is not Australia’s strongest side, especially without the likes of George Smith (who has been recalled to the squad as injury cover for the second test) an in-form Quade Cooper who, on his day, is one of the best players in the world and combines beautifully with the outstanding Will Genia. Combine that with the fact that the Wallabies are far from the strongest side in the Southern hemisphere, with noted weaknesses up front (although not as pronounced as some think), and there should be no legitimate reason why one of the strongest Lions’ sides in living memory, both physically and skills-wise, should not be giving Australia a far stiffer challenge than they are currently facing. These guys are, for all the difficulties posed on tour, still professional rugby players.

The Lions won on Saturday purely because of bad Australian kicking. If that is what it takes to win the series, then we can hardly claim to be true victors.

The First Test

Right, I think I have just remembered to start breathing again after a far too tense end to the Lions’ first test in Brisbane, and so I think it’s time for one of my alternative awards ceremonies. With only one game to review, I’m not going to give each team a separate series of awards, but rather one each for the key positional groups (across both sides; so both Lions’ and Australian front rowers are both covered under the same category, for example). Some of these will be individual, some will refer to a specific team, and some will just refer to the way the game played out in that position. I will also make a few more general comments at the end, just because there are one or two things I could do with getting off my chest.

OK? Right, let’s get started.

We begin with the FRONT ROW, who collectively take the Reverse Parallels Award for Strangest Resemblance of A Previous Lions Series. The series in question is 1997’s South Africa Tour, the last time the Lions actually won a series, and against all the odds to boot. The South Africans were world champions, champing at the bit for the return of the Lions (who were usually easybeats for past Springbok sides) after a 17-year long apartheid-based drought. Many salivated at the prospect of the giant South African scrum, featuring the legendary 21 stone Os du Randt among others, going up against a comparatively tiny Lions front row, but through a mixture of technique and grit the Lions were able to match their opponents and nullify the South African forwards.

If any of that sounds familiar, then it’s because a lot of people were making bones about it prior to this series, but with the roles reversed. The Australian front row incumbents, Benn Robinson, Ben Alexander and Stephen Moore are noted proponents of the loose but are reckoned to be at scrum time, whereas the Lions’ front row for this test was made up of the tour’s three strongest surviving scrummagers; Alex Corbisiero, Tom Youngs and the scrummaging legend that is Adam Jones. And, indeed, at the Lions’ first scrum, all seemed to be in order; much like on the ’97 tour, the dominant scrum instantly sent the weaker side scurrying backwards and won a penalty, but from then on both the ’13 Aussies and ’97 Lions set about nullifying their opponents’ weapon. Throughout the match Lions fans got excited every time a scrum came along, waiting for a dominant display that never really came. Instead, the Australians used every dirty trick in the book to keep the scrum battle at least ambiguous and that first dominant scrum proved to be the only one. Indeed, as the Lions brought on their substitutes the Australian’s tactical scrummaging began to swing things in their favour, and it’s worth noting that both of the Australian’s last two crucial penalty attempts came from scrums. Whatever you think of referee Chris Pollock’s display (and he gave us plenty to talk about) he should never have been able to give those penalties were the Lions as dominant as they were ‘meant’ to be.

Right, enough about the fat boys; we move on to the SECOND ROW, and Australian captain James Horwill in particular. Horwill takes the dubious honour of the Eyes In The Back Of His Head Award for Being Victim Of The Most Eagle-Eyed Official- but I’m not talking about Pollock. The official in question is whichever sharp-eyed bystander managed to notice, and subsequently refer to the citing officer, an incident where Horwill allegedly stamped on the face of Lions’ lock Alun Wyn Jones (the citing officer presumably thought it was an accident, as he has now been cleared and is free to play in the second test.). You can view the incident here, and I would challenge you to spot what they’re talking about before the camera goes to slo-mo; I watched the match in a bar with around 200 partisan Lions fans in it, and not one of them picked it up at the time. Neither did either of the people I showed that clip to until the replay, and given the lack of reaction from the crowd there weren’t many of them who noticed it either. Whilst the incident has caused (predictably enough) much furore online, I think real credit goes to the one person who actually managed to catch it in real time.

Next come the BACK ROW and another award for an Australian. This time it’s flanker Michael Hooper, who takes the Man Of Many Faces Award for Most Impersonations. Hooper is not a regular fixture in the Wallaby squad, but then again there’s not much he can do about that when the Wallabies’ normal openside is the great David Pocock, and it was a bitter blow to the Aussies when it was announced Pocock was injured and would not be able to take part in the series. The management and those Australian pundits whose opinions I have read refused to betray a smidgeon of concern, confidently predicting that Hooper would be able to fill Pocock’s sizeable shoes. So no pressure there then.

Hooper didn’t play badly, but the game and the refereeing were not friendly to ball-snafflers of Pocock’s mould, as Brian O’Driscoll learned to his cost early on. Indeed, the real star of both back rows was Aussie debutant Ben Mowen, who did a number on Lions scrum-half Mike Phillips and in the process almost single-handedly destabilised the Lions’ entire plan of attack. I will be interested to see how they react in the second test. However, the reason Hooper gets the award this week came around the 60-minute mark, when Australian centre Pat McCabe suffered a neck injury. Low on backs replacements, Robbie Deans took the unusual descision to bring on substitute flanker Liam Gill and give Hooper a run at outside centre. That Alex Cuthbert was immediately sent up the midfield to score a try for the Lions will be laid at Hooper’s feet by some, but given that the move was a Jonny Sexton special I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Certainly, he hardly looked out of place for the rest of the match.

Dammit, why do all my posts turn into two parters nowadays? Ah well, backs next time I guess.

Lions History

Yes, it’s Lions time again and, with Film Fortnight over, I thought it was high time to start talking about the greatest adventure in modern rugby. I’ve already gone on three long semi-rants with regards to the squad selection (and yes, I was rather glad that Rory Best made it onto the tour in the end, even if he hasn’t been playing fantastically well) and was originally going to start off with a nice long analysis of the warmup games thus far. However, I then decided that there was no way I was going to be able to restrict that to anything less than fourteen thousand posts, especially given that the Lions’ penultimate game was played this morning, so I thought I’d just do a post about each test (yes, the awards ceremony’s coming back) and this; a potted history of the British and Irish Lions.

The Lions story begins in 1888, when a group of upper class Britons, (as most rugby players were at the time) decided to go for an extended tour around Australia and New Zealand. There was no national setup at the time in either country so the side played mainly provincial and university sides. The tour wasn’t especially serious, being little more than a very long, privately funded rugby-playing jolly. The next year, two significant events occured; the South African Rugby Union was founded, and a cricketing outfit went down to South Africa and slaughtered every side they came across. This positive attitude to not daring to come anywhere close to challenging the motherland among the locals was attractive to the English RFU, so a couple of years later in 1891 they revived the spirit of the ’88 tourists and sent the first official touring party down. In collaboration with the SRU, a selection of English and Scottish internationals/senior players, captained by Bill Maclagan, set off to South Africa for a nineteen-match tour. To say that they captured the spirit of ’88 can be confirmed by one tourist’s (Paul Clauss, for the record) description of the tour as ‘all champagne and travel’, and like the cricketers they swept all before them. That might be expected when the founders of a sport travel to a company that has only played it for two years, but what might not have been expected was the first match against Cape Town Clubs. In this game Carles ‘Hasie’ Versfeld ‘found an opening, put in a grand sprint and scored a try amidst tremendous cheering’. That this was the only point scored against them during the tour, and that they scored 224 themselves, mattered not; the Afrikaaner population loved the idea that they, despite all the odds, had put one over on the touring side. Hasie Versfeld became something of a national treasure (among the whites at least), and rugby became the white South African’s sport of choice. It’s no coincidence that South African rugby’s Pretoria home is named after Hasie’s brother, Loftus Versfeld. Just twelve years later, when the British came to tour again, they won the series outright for the first time (the score was 1-0, with two tests drawn), and wouldn’t lose another one for 73 years.

A few things had changed in those twelve years; the tour became more of an established thing, and the British Isles team did the rounds of both Australia & New Zealand and South Africa once apiece, and it was during this time that Irish representatives were asked to join the party. Thus was the format of a tour established; every four-ish years, a coach picked some players from all four countries (from 1910 they were selected by a committee of four nations), they headed off to either South Africa or New Zealand and played some rugby amidst general mucking around. As time went by, another fixture of these tours became losing; the Lions lost every single series between 1903 and 1955, and didn’t win one proper until 1971. Even provincial matches, against sides often shorn of star quality, were frequently lost. This wasn’t so much because the tourists weren’t good players, or even because of the issues concerning modern Lions tours of how fast a squad is able to gel or the touring schedule, but really thanks to amateurism.

In our modern rugby age of protein shakes and gym schedules it’s often easy to forget just how dedicated the ‘old farts’ who used to run the home unions were to the concept of amateurism (and not just because it made them a fair old slice of cash). These people didn’t think that ‘it’s not the winning, but the taking part that counts’ was for the losers on sports day- this was the core of their sporting philosophy. These were the days when players could be banned from ever attending a rugby match again just for accepting cash to play, and when the greatest shame imaginable was to be sent off. The score didn’t matter to the home unions in those day; a tour was really little more than a paid-for sporting holiday once every few years, and a Lions tour (as they were nicknamed from 1924 onwards) was no different. Down south, victory was more than just nice when it happened, but something to actively be sought. The southern hemisphere were the first unions to sanction the appointment of coaches (as late as the 1970s, the Scottish Rugby Union couldn’t bring themselves to create the job title of ‘coach’, instead going with ‘advisor to the captain’), and all in all had a more professional approach to the game- and it showed in the results. To be sure, there were several cases of it running close to the wire, but even the creme de la creme of northern hemisphere rugby could rarely manage more than one test win out of four. Of the four (and there were only four) tours the Lions didn’t lose throughout the 20th century, one was in the professional era (1997), one required all the guile of the great Cliff Morgan and all the total inability to kick of Jack van der Schyff just to salvage a draw (1955), and even the famous 1974 tour, in which the Lions didn’t lose a game, came about as a result of pitting the greatest players from Northern hemisphere rugby’s (read “mostly Wales'”) golden age against a South African outfit who were far from their country’s greatest side and whose selectors lost the plot so completely that they ended up playing an uncapped No. 8 (Gerrie Sonnekus) at scrum-half in the third test. Yes, the ’74 Lions may have been, as some put it, the greatest ever rugby side to set foot on a pitch, but they sure as hell could have had trickier opposition. To my mind, of all the amateur Lions tours only the 1971 tour, in which the Lions triumphed over the legendary Colin Meads’ formidable All Blacks outfit, can be dubbed a definite victory from the men north of the equator.

Those days of amateurism are long gone now. Players are professional and on big contracts whilst rugby itself is big business, and the Lions even more so (HSBC’s sponsorship deal for the 2013 tour is rumoured to be in the region of £7-8 million). Nowadays, the Lions face the problems of professional sport when trying to put one over on the southern hemisphere giants; those of forming a team from a collection of individuals in a shortened tour itinerary, injury worries and seemingly always having to play the most on-form of the three. But what I hope hasn’t changed are the things that make a Lions tour, or indeed any tour, so special; the adventure and the stories. Call me an old romantic, but one of the reasons I love rugby is the way its players still manage to enjoy themselves and mess around amidst all the chaos of a professional sporting life, that they can still go out for a drink and still be a bit stupid now and again. Long may it continue- especially on Lions tours.

Lions Squad 2013

Yes, it’s rugby talk again; this time we are specifically talking about the announcement made yesterday concerning Warren Gatland’s squad for summer’s Lions tour (the second aerodynamics post will be along later). I have and have heard plenty of strong opinions in the buildup to this announcement concerning who should and shouldn’t be taken for various reasons, but I’m not about to start slagging off Mr. Gatland’s decisions (not least because he’s got enough people screaming at him on the internet already). No, the purpose of this post is simply to study the makeup of the tour party in order to explain some of the coaching team’s thought processes, make a guess as to what the final test side will be (at this stage; a LOT depends on how people perform in the warmup matches), and to suggest how Gatland intends his team to play.

We begin with the elephant in the room; the question of whether to pick France-based players, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to travel with the rest of the tour party if they were involved in the Top 14 finals. Gatland kept his cards close to his chest on this one prior to the announcement, saying only that he would ‘prefer’ to have the whole side go out together, and it’s easy to see why. Players coming in late (and off the back of one of the toughest domestic seasons in the world to boot) are always disruptive to a tour, but with so few warmup games for the Lions before Gatland has to knuckle down and pick his test side, such players would only have a couple of games in which to justify their inclusion. In the end, he’s stuck to his guns and only picked players who will be able to travel with the initial party to Hong Kong (where they will play the Barbarians as a first warm-up match); Gethin Jenkins (Toulon) has had an unhappy season in France and the club have apparently released him to tour in full, whilst Mike Phillips (Bayonne) is playing for a club small enough (and mid-table enough) that they probably won’t mind giving him up quite as much as, say, Andrew Sheridan (who’s started almost every game for table-topping Toulon). Gatland’s clearly decided that there’s enough talent at home to suit his needs, and… well, let’s get into the individual positions before I start offering opinions.

We begin at fullback, where there are, predictably, no surprises. In Leigh Halfpenny, Stuart Hogg and Rob Kearney Gatland had three of the best 15’s in the world to choose from, and the only real debate pre-selection concerned whether he was going to take all three or leave either the superlatively talented Halfpenny (not a chance), the mercurial Hogg (who some have pencilled in at winger for the test team) or Kearney, with all his dominance of the aerial battle and his experience as a test Lion in 2009 (a tour he was superb on). At winger, however, there was more debate pre-announcement; the Welsh giants of George North and Alex Cuthbert were always going to tour, (even if North has been closed down by defences this season and Cuthbert can only finish, rather than create), but beyond that there was more confusion. Tommy Bowe has Lions experience but has been injured recently, Craig Gilroy, Simon Zebo, Sean Maitland and Tim Visser have great potential but limited international experience, Chris Ashton has been devastating in the past but has hit a run of poor form, and Christian Wade (the outside bet) is an electric attacker in the mould of Jason Robinson (seriously, watch this step from the 2001 tour, and then this from earlier this season. See the similarity?), but some question his defensive abilities. In the end, the Welsh pair have been joined by Bowe and Maitland, a mix that has less searing, defence-busting pace than it does all-round skill and reliability; the safer option. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gatland to pick an all-Welsh back three (he is their coach after all), but personally I think that Bowe and Maitland would be a more complete pair. Or at least, if Gatland makes North and Cuthbert think that’s what he’s doing, they might pull their fingers out.

Moving further forward we come to the centres. The legend that is Brian O’Driscoll joins Jonathan Davies in making up the skilful, running half of the group, and both have a natural gift for creating something; crucial if someone like Cuthbert takes the winger’s berth. Both are out-and-out 13’s so won’t play on the same side, but the Australians would do well to be wary of either. To complement them, Gatland has chosen a couple of traditional bulldozers in Jamie Roberts and Manu Tuilagi. Roberts and O’Driscoll formed a mean centre partnership in 2009, but Roberts has blown hot and cold since then and only performs really well when his team are definitively on top. Brad Barritt may have offered more, especially in defence, but doesn’t run the same hard lines or have the ability to really set a game alight. Tuilagi is a whole other entity; normally he plays 13, and whilst he has a good pair of hands, a mean handoff and is a more varied, complete runner than Roberts, he’s not used to distributing and could struggle if forced to play inside centre. I would be tempted to pencil in Tuilagi and O’Driscoll if I were naming the team tomorrow, but all will depend on how various partnerships click together in the warmup matches.

Onto fly-half, and the biggest selection news of all; only two No. 10s are touring, and neither of them are Jonny Wilkinson. After a dominant performance for Toulon in the Heineken Cup semi-final against Saracens, many expected him to make the plane over his opposite number for that game, Owen Farrell (who was given a masterclass in fly-half play by Wilkinson). However, Wilkinson has since come forward to say that he was approached and, whilst flattered, didn’t think his body would be able to cope with the pressures of such an intense tour immediately after a tough French season. Still, his clinical finishing ability and the fear he puts into the hearts of Australian rugby fans will both be missed. As it is, we have Jonny Sexton and Farrell on the plane to Oz; Sexton has been The European No. 10 for the past few seasons and, whilst rarely massively exciting, he never has a bad game. Farrell is younger and more inconsistent, and will be playing definite understudy to Sexton throughout this tour; but he is nonetheless talented and has the perfect temperament to deal with the pressure of Lions rugby should injury strike (in which case Wilkinson could be called up or, as Gatland has pointed out, Stuart Hogg could drop in). Even better, with Leigh Halfpenny’s boot in the equation Farrell wouldn’t have the responsibility of keeping the scoreboard ticking over to worry about, further settling his nerves.

If my Lions tour were to have only two flyhalves, I would personally try to address that deficit by taking either James Hook (a fantastically talented, creative player much misused by Wales in the past thanks to his ability to play absolutely everywhere in the backs; unfortunately he plays in France so has not been picked) or Greig Laidlaw; not only can Laidlaw play both 9 and 10 very well, but he can kick, has a good pass and has all the requisite skills. However, his traditional scrum-half stature can sometimes him defensively vulnerable, particularly playing at 10, which is the only reason I can think of as to why such a talented player is not in the tour party. Gatland has chosen three scrum-halves: Mike Phillips, Ben Youngs and Conor Murray, and nobody will expect at this stage anyone other than Phillips to start for the tests. Although he lacks creativity and his pass is, frankly, too slow, he is a born big-match player and is fierce and combative enough to act like a fourth back-rower; which would be great if Gatland hadn’t chosen eight very talented back rowers. Murray is a similar player with a stronger pass but lacks Phillips’ sheer dynamism, whilst Youngs offers something different; a highly creative scrum-half who loves nothing more than looking for opportunities. He probably won’t make the test side thanks to his habit of running with it too far before passing, eating up time and space, but has the skill to make the Aussies sit up and take notice should the game need an injection of pace.

OK, so that’s 1400 words on just the backs; I think the forwards will have to wait for next time, along with an analysis of the squad as a whole, likely tactics and how well I think they’ll perform. See you then…

The Six Nations Returns…

…and with it my weekly awards ceremony, as last year, for the weekend’s matches. To be honest, I haven’t had much time to think about these, so enthralled with the actual games as I was (over 150 points and 17 tries scored; absolutely fantastic stuff), but I think I’ll just dive straight in with the first match of the weekend.

First, we must turn to WALES, who take the dubious honour of the Year-Long Nostalgia Award for Most Dramatic Fall From Grace, reclaiming a title they won in both 2006 and 2009. Last year the Welsh, after a proud performance at the World Cup the previous awesome, had their ranks positively blooming with talent and good form. Behind the scrum, Rhys Priestland was still hanging on to some of his outstanding 2011 form, Jamie Roberts was in the kind of hard-running, defence-busting mode that won him three Lions caps in 2009, George North (alongside, to a lesser extent, Alex Cuthbert) was terrorising defences through a mixture of raw speed and power, and Jonathan Davies’ smooth running and handling in the centres was causing him to be mentioned in the same breath as New Zealand’s great Conrad Smith. The team seemed unstoppable, battering, bludgeoning and otherwise smashing all who came before them as they romped home to the Grand Slam.

And then the slide began. Since they took the title against the French 11 months ago, Wales have lost eight games on the trot, of which Saturday’s display against Ireland was only the most recent. After some pretty dire performances against the southern hemisphere sides during the summer, a few traces of hope were salvaged during the autumn from close losses to the likes of Australia. Some of the more optimistic Welsh fans thought that the Six Nations may signal a new return to form for their players; but an opening match against Ireland proved unforgiving. The Irish put 30 points past the Welsh in 50 minutes with only 3 in reply, and although Wales mounted a spirited comback it all proved too much, too late.

On, then, to IRELAND; more specifically to left winger Simon Zebo, who takes the Nyan Cat Award for Most YouTube-Worthy Moment from George North in this fixture last year. Whilst North’s little moment of hilarity was typical of a player whose size and strength is his greatest asset, Zebo’s piece of magic was a more mercurial bit of skill. After Dan Biggar (the Welsh flyhalf) decided, for reasons best known to himself, to aim a kick straight at the face of the onrushing Rory Best, the Irishman managed to gather the ball on the rebound and set off for the line. Realising he was being pushed for space, he elected to throw a beautiful long pass out to captain Jamie Heaslip. If Heaslip were able to flick the ball to Zebo, sprinting along his outside, there was a fair chance that the winger could make the corner; but the skipper was under pressure and could only manage a flick off his knees. The pass was poor; thrown at knee-height about a metre behind the onrushing winger, most moves would have ended there with a loose ball. But Zebo produced a truly magical piece of skill– as the ball seemed destined to disappear behind him, he turned and flicked at it deftly with his left heel, before gathering the ball one handed and continuing his run; all without breaking stride. He may not have got the try, but from his bit of sublimity prop Cian Healy did, and thus Zebo will be forever honoured in the hall of fame that is YouTube.

Onto Saturday’s second match and SCOTLAND, proud takers of the Holy Shit, How Did That Happen Award for Biggest Disparity Between Score and Performance. In all honesty, the Scots were never not going to struggle against their English opponents; Calcutta Cups are always ripe for upsets its true, and there’s nothing the Scots like better than being mistaken for the underdog, but they had not won at Twickenham for 30 years and the current team was probably not in the best shape to break that duck. A new side under a new coach (Scott Johnson), they had taken last place and the wooden spoon in last year’s Six Nations, even losing rather badly to Italy, they reached a nadir during the dire loss to Tonga that ended their autumn series and led old coach Andy Robinson to resign. By contrast, the Auld Enemy were ebullient after their emphatic win against New Zealand in November, and some smart money was being put on them to take the Six Nations title this year. And it showed during the game; for all Jim Telfer’s pre-match comments about the England side being ‘arrogant’, the young English side were clinical and efficient, winning twice as many breakdowns as the Scots and Owen Farrell kicking everything he could get his boots on. Nonetheless, the Scots put in a pretty damn good show when they could; new winger Sean Maitland opened the game’s scoring with a neatly taken try in the corner, and fullback Stuart Hogg not only set up that try with a dazzling 60 metre break, but eventually grabbed one of his own and was probably the best back on the pitch. Johnnie Beattie was sublime in the back row, and if it wasn’t for England’s clinical territory game then they would certainly have managed a scoreline far closer than the 20 points it ended up being. We’ve all played games like that; you think you’re playing well and putting up a good fight, scoring some points, and then look up at the scoreboard and think ‘how did that happen?’

As for ENGLAND, centre Billy Twelvetrees takes the Carlos Spencer Award for Most Impressive Debut Performance (and, incidentally, the Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster Award for Best Name- dunno why, it’s just cool). England have in recent past been rather good at debuts (Freddie Burns last year enjoyed a sound beating of the world champions as his first cap), and much speculation was put forward before the game as to whether the young Gloucester man could fill the sizeable hole left by the injured Manu Tuilagi. As it turned out, he did so splendidly; despite a somewhat ignominious start to his international career (ie he dropped the first ball that came his way), he spent most of the match running superb lines that often threatened the Scottish centre pairing and kept the tempo of the match nice and fast. To cap a great first performance, he even picked up England’s third try, running a typically lovely angle to seemingly pop up from nowhere and slip straight through a gap in the defence. Good stuff, and I look forward to seeing if he can make it a habit.

And now to Sunday’s match, where FRANCE take the When Did I Get In Last Night Award for Least Looking Like They Wanted To Be On The Pitch. France are always a tricky bunch to predict, and their last visit to Rome ended an embarrassing defeat that lead coach Marc Lievremont to dub them cowards; but they’d fared the best out of all the northern hemisphere sides in the awesome, beating Australia and Argentina convincingly, and Frederic Michalak, once the French equivalent to Jonny Wilkinson, was back on form and in the No. 10 shirt. To many, a trip to face the usually table-propping Italians was the perfect warmup before the tournament really hotted up, and it seems the French may have made the mistake of thinking the Azzurri easybeats. It quickly transpired that they were not; Italy’s talismanic captain Sergio Parisse grabbed an early try courtesy of fly half Luciano Orquera, who had a stunning game and lead for most of the first half before a try from Louis Picamoles and some good kicking from Michalak put the French in front. But at no point in the game did France ever look threatening; in the first 25 minutes Italy controlled nearly 75% of the game’s possession whilst France seemed content to wait for mistakes that the Italians simply never made. They seemed lazy, lethargic, even as the precious minutes towards the end of the game ticked away, and never matched Italy’s sheer commitment and drive at the breakdown. Even when they did get good ball, the Italian’s surprisingly impressive kicking game meant they rarely had the territory to do anything with it.

As for the ITALY themelves, they (and Luciano Orquera in particular) take the About Bloody Time Award for Finally Finding A Fly Half. Italy have always had strength in the pack thanks to such men as Parisse and Martin Castrogiovanni, but behind the scrum they have always lacked class. In particular, they have lacked a good kicker ever since Diego Dominguez retired, allowing teams to be ferocious in the breakdowns with only a minimal risk associated with penalties. Kris Burton and Orquera both tried and failed to ignite the Italian back division, growing in strength with the achievements of Tomasso Benvenuti and Andrea Masi, last year, but yesterday Orquera ran the show. He and Tomas Botes at scrum half kept the French pinned back with a long and effective kicking game, whilst Masi’s incisive running from full back and an energetic display from centre Luke Mclean meant the French were never able to establish any sort of rhythm. With their backs to the wall and their fingers not yet pulled out, the French were sufficiently nullified to allow the Italian forwards to establish dominance at the breakdown; and with Orquera’s place kicking proving as accurate as his punts from hand, the French were punished through both the boot and the tries from Parisse and Castrogiovanni. An outstanding defensive effort to keep the French out in the final 10 minutes and two lovely drop goals from Orquera and Burton sealed the deal on a fantastic display, and the Italians can proudly say for the next two years that the frequently championship-winning French haven’t beaten them in Rome since 2009.

Final Scores: Wales 22-30 Ireland
England 38-18 Scotland
Italy 23-18 France