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6 Nations: Ireland counts its chickens

… Well before they're hatched. You could see the pundits, the press, the public doing their calculations in the days prior to the game. Would Ireland win by enough to make the ultimate game of the Championship - France v England - mathematically significant in terms of the destination of the title? The Triple Crown seemed of little interest to a side, a nation, sated by 4 Crowns and a Slam in recent times. For those of us who remember the victories in 1983 and 1985, and the wait that preceded those victories, the Triple Crown will never be a consolation prize. Every victory is to be savoured in what is a ferociously competitive competition. The chance for 5 Crowns in 7 years should have been seen as the opportunity to cement the team's place in the annals. They came out as though determined to cement it through a performance of Barbarians-style flair. They forgot that Scotland has supplied a fair few Baa-Baas of its own. The Scots’ defeat in Rome may have concealed the potential of the current flowers. They could and should have won in Cardiff but for some erratic decision-making in the final minutes. They drew with England in a game that could have gone either way. With a little more luck, it could have been Scotland picking up the Triple Crown. Ifs, buts, and maybes perhaps. That is certainly the way it ended for Ireland.

By Charles le Roi

2010 SIX NATIONS PREVIEW

February 6 sees the start of the first of QoS's Big 10 for 2010 when 2009 Grand Slam champions Ireland host perennial wooden spoon candidates Italy at Croke Park to kick off the 6 Nations.  Wales travel to Twickenham to face England, and France's visit to Murrayfield completes the fixtures on the opening weekend.  But in six weeks time who will be throned as Kings of Northern Hemisphere rugby?

QoS takes an impartial(ish) look at the contenders...

FRANCE

Start as tournament favourites but this is perhaps more a reflection on their club sides' Heineken Cup form than the national side's recent results. Their Autumn international victory against Tri Nations champions South Africa was followed by a humiliating 27-point defeat against New Zealand.

Marc Lievremont has named a squad big on stature but perhaps missing a little of the flair of teams of years gone by.  We can expect a strong challenge from France and it would certainly be a surprise if they did not at least equal last year's third-place finish.  

Key Player:-  William Servat - Has edged out Dimitri Szarzewski as France's starting hooker and, with what is likely to be a dominant pack, his ability to marshal the rolling maul and find his jumpers in the lineout will be essential if France are to win their crucial home games against Ireland and England.

IRELAND

2009 was a special year for Ireland who managed to avoid losing a single game throughout the year. The Grand Slam champions have a reasonable chance of retaining their crown but away games at Twickenham and Stade de France may prove too much of a challenge this year. 

Key Player/s:-  Ronan O'Gara / Jonathan Sexton - Ireland's strength lies in the 3-quarter line and the wearer of the number ten shirt can either enable or disable their greatest weapon.

WALES

There is a fine line between success and failure and Wales' 4th-place finish in 2009 is a case in point. The game against France finished with Wales camped on the French line but failing to cross it whilst against Ireland Stephen Jones had a kick for victory with no time on the clock but did not quite have the range.  This was achieved despite a misfiring Shane Williams who of late seems to have rediscovered his form.

Key Player:- Martyn Williams - If Wales are to repeat their 2005 & 2008 success they will need to win their share of ball on the floor and there is nobody in the northern hemisphere superior to Williams in the 'dark arts'.

Latest news:  Jenkins & Rees missing from Wales front row.

ENGLAND

2nd place in 2009 flattered England but they have become a hard side to beat and should not be underestimated.  The selection of Matthew Tait at outside centre is brave given that he will be trying to stop Wales' marauding inside centre Jamie Roberts in the first game.  Hopefully this is the beginning of a three or four game run for Tait who has, in my opinion, never been given the chance at international level to prove himself.

Key Player:- Riki Flutey - When Jonny finds himself yet again buried at the bottom of a ruck, England need a number 12 who can make decisions and influence games from inside centre, and there are few true 12s better than Flutey in this respect.  

Latest news:  Flutey out for Wales game.

 

SCOTLAND

Victory against Australia in the autumn looks better on paper than even the most devout haggis-eating, kilt-wearing, Lorraine Kelly-supporting Scot would claim it looked in reality.  The appointment of Andy Robinson (and his decision to steer clear of Hadden's big yellow anorak) has given the Scots a fresh impetus but nonetheless the future looks bleak and the game against Italy may well prove the most crucial.

Key Player:- Rory Lamont - The Scots have sporadically played some very good rugby in the last couple of years but have lacked a player who can finish off some of the opportunities created.  If Scotland are to progress Lamont needs to be that man.

ITALY

6th place looks very likely.  Parisse aside, this is a team that would struggle to match any other 6 nations side's 'A' team.  With Parisse sidelined for the entire tournament, Italy will be short of leadership and backrow power.  

Key Player:- Craig Gower - The former Aussie rugby league international may be the first genuine replacement for Dominguez at fly half.

Invictus: A movie about Mandela. And rugby.

“Invictus” is one of those rare beasts: a rugby movie. There was “Alive” – about a rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes – but that was more a tale of grim survival than of rugby union. In fact in many ways “Invictus” is not really a movie about rugby either. It is more properly described as a movie about a quest for national reconciliation told through the prism of the 1995 rugby World Cup in South Africa. It is a quest headed by a man – Nelson Mandela – who believes in rugby’s potential as a unifying force in the post-apartheid era despite the fact that many of his countrymen resent the sport for its associations with white rule. Mandela (Morgan Freeman) finds an ally in Boks’ captain François Pienaar (Matt Damon) who is receptive to his vision for the new rainbow South Africa. And so the story unfolds.

For those movie-goers who do not already know the outcome of the 1995 World Cup, we will not reveal too many spoilers. Rugby fans will not need any reminder. Suffice to say that, with Mandela supplying the moral fibre as the country’s President, a nation becomes gripped with excitement as the South Africans advance through the tournament toward what is hoped will be an improbable victory, racial barriers being broken down along the way.

Placed in the wrong hands, this is a movie that could have got it horribly wrong – and been far too clumsy. Indeed, it is perhaps not totally immune to the latter charge at times. But under the direction of Clint Eastwood it is a thoughtful treatment that does not become overly pompous, nicely combining the politics with several (more or less convincing) rugby sequences and a fair few lighter moments, laced with a lingering undercurrent of potential threats to Mandela’s personal safety. Mandela is also treated tastefully – giving him a proper sense of historical gravitas, and many a word of wisdom, without resorting to an excessively indulgent portrayal.

At times the movie even succeeds in overcoming its most unavoidable weakness: the suspension of disbelief required to see Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, rather than just Morgan Freeman. The accent comes and goes but it’s probably as good a job as any actor could have done on a figure of such immense recent prominence. (Mandela had apparently named Freeman when once asked which actor he would want to play him). Damon meanwhile bears an adequate passing resemblance to Pienaar and manages to pull off a decent South African accent, though again a certain suspension of disbelief is required.

By the end the picture is arguably a little too rosy, as if to suggest that all the country’s ills have been cured overnight. But the movie is what it is – a cinematic description of a certain period in time – and perhaps it would be fairer to say that it does not purport to do more than convey a sense of joy and hope: a beginning, one might say, as much as an end in itself. Having seen “Invictus”, this reviewer was left looking both back and ahead. Back, wanting to get my hands on a DVD of the original action from 1995 so that I could re-examine it with a sense of historical context that I probably missed at the time (the complacency of youth); and ahead, to this year’s soccer World Cup in South Africa, which will be a key litmus test of the actual progress made since those heady days of 1995. That the movie achieves this much confirms it as a success.

 

“Invictus” has already been released in several countries and will come out in the UK on 5 Feb 2010.

Sports calendar: The Big 10 for 2010

Having taken advantage of one or two quieter moments over the festive season to scour the schedules for the year ahead, quantumofsport.com is proud to present its brand new “Sports calendar 2010”. As ever, it will be a busy 12 months in the world of sport, with a range of top events competing for our attention. The calendar represents our (non-exhaustive) selection of what to look out for. We’ve also picked out – here below – ten of the biggest sporting occasions of the year, restricting ourselves to one entry for each sport we cover on a regular basis: it’s The Big 10 for 2010. Let’s hope there’s plenty of drama in store…

Feb 6-Mar 20, Six Nations rugby (for N. hemisphere fans at least!)
Feb 12-28, Winter Olympics, Vancouver, Canada
Apr 17-May 3, snooker World Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
May 16, Formula 1 Monaco GP (or any other between Mar 14 and Nov 14!)
Jun 11-Jul 11, soccer World Cup, South Africa
Jun 21-Jul 4, Wimbledon tennis
Jul 3-25, Tour de France (starting in Rotterdam and Brussels)
Oct 1-3, Ryder Cup golf, Celtic Manor, Wales
Oct 3-14, Commonwealth Games, New Delhi, India
Nov 25->, Ashes Test cricket series Australia v England

For the full calendar, click here.

Rugby: getting too big for its boots?

As rugby union’s autumn internationals got underway at the weekend, questions were being asked about whether the size of the modern player has something to do with the large number of injuries you see in the game. The issue has been brought to the fore most recently by the astonishingly long list of injuries affecting the England squad. The BBC and others have carried pieces making the link between player size and what appears to be the chronic injury problem facing the sport.

There can be little doubt that players are a lot bigger – as well as taller, stronger and faster – than ever before, and significantly so compared even to just a decade or two ago. The impact of a rugby tackle is invariably likened to some form of car crash. Is England’s predicament symptomatic of a systematic problem or just an unlucky one-off? It’s difficult to say. But if you do accept that player size is causing an alarming number of injuries, the logical conclusion is at once fascinating and disturbing: probably for the first time, a sport has evolved, physically, to the point where it has become unsustainable - and unplayable.

It would be easier to dismiss the concerns were it not for the attention that the issue of player welfare is receiving at an official level. The inaugural International Rugby Board (IRB) Medical Conference, which starts tomorrow in London (November 12-13), bringing together rugby physicians and administrators, will have player welfare at its heart. The statement announcing the event does not specifically refer to the word “size”, but it does say that “the physicality of the game” will be among the key topics of discussion, along with issues including catastrophic injuries and player burnout.

Assuming there is a grave problem here, what can be done to address it? After all, there is only so much you can do as a team or player to ‘manage’ the physical side of the game. A sustained bout of kicking can keep a game docile for a time, but sooner or later your star fly-half/goal-kicker and others are bound to get in the way of a big hit or two – necessarily so, because this is a contact sport. Attention has already been paid to cleaning up the contact areas - scrum, ruck, tackle - and this could perhaps be subject to further scrutiny. (It is surprising, for instance, how many high tackles still go unpenalised). But you can’t afford to denude the game completely of its physical element. And a hit can be a big one, fair or foul. What about players wearing extra padding? – Maybe, but then there’s the “false sense of security” argument, and you don’t want everybody looking too much like an American footballer.

Another idea that won’t appeal to the traditionalist is to reduce the number of players on each side – to 13- or 14-a-side, perhaps. One problem with the modern game is that defences are so difficult to break down that, unless you put boot to ball, often the only option is to try to batter your way past the gain-line, risking multiple heavy impacts. Having fewer players on the pitch could free up a bit of space and promote more of a running game.

But maybe something yet more radical is required: how about imposing a daring reverse evolution on the game by introducing height/weight limits on players, perhaps as an average across team or squad? This could lead to intriguing scenarios where coaches would be forced to find a balance between colossi and smaller players in their selections – something that at a stroke could make rugby much more physically inclusive as well as, in theory, less dangerous. Once again, you heard it here first (at least, we assume you did). Desperate times call for desperate measures, they say.
 
Meanwhile, the announcement for the Medical Conference points out that, while it is not a decision-making forum, “any conclusions will be put forward to the IRB Executive Committee for consideration”. It’s going to be very interesting to see what those conclusions might say.