Are England Just Too English?

Is this a World Cup of national stereotypes? Spain are building a pass completion rate to strike fear into the most possession-hungry of teams, but all of their dicking about brings them no closer to the goal. Brazil are playing with an almost offensive indifference and are still scoring brilliant goals like clockwork every half hour. The French are capable only of fighting with themselves.

And then there is England, our expectations built up by The Sun’s incorrigible confidence; the EASY headline and the informative News in Briefs that tells us the Churchill’s inspiring oratory in the 1940 World Cup War owes a debt to Cicero (himself one of the philosophers churned out by the Brazilian national team). But much, much more than that Australian-owned rag’s rousing demagoguery, more even than the comforting knowledge that we have been scrounging off the state for too long and the good times are over, we are infused with a warlike sense of mobilisation because a German has had the tenacity to criticise us!

Franz Beckenbauer was caught in one of those classic journalistic snares during an interview with the South African Times, saying that England “have gone backwards into the bad old days of kick and rush.”

Though it seemed harsh at the time, especially given that the move that led to Gerrard’s goal against the USA was one of the best of a fairly dull tournament so far, Beckenbauer’s comment has more weight after a lacklustre performance against Algeria. It is not so much that England were simply held to a draw, but that they looked like they could go on playing for another ninety minutes and still not score – and that that is now a very real possibility.

England played from far too deep. Gerrard was given licence to roam and the only place he wasn’t found was that spot five yards out of the penalty box, or behind a striker edging between the centre-backs. Lennon made the best of a bad hand, having to try and build something on the left-wing. His cropping up had Algeria fooled for a second, but he hadn’t the technique to beat players there. Lampard is totally wasted in that team – he may do things slightly differently to Gerrard, but he does so from the same parts of the field. Rooney and Heskey showed some decent touches and put in a fair amount of graft, but failed to gel at all with their supporting team mates.

Capello’s management style and tactics have received a lot of criticism, some of which has been justified. The problem appears to be that he has tried to start from first principles and to fit a style of play around his workforce. That is ok for a club manager (which is what Capello effectively is), where you spend every day with your players and can have thirty games before things really count. International football is a different environment, however, and it is important to remember that these players are surrounded by very different types of footballers and play in very different systems to the one Capello is trying to use.

Most of England’s attacking players are in a very ‘English’ mould – the big centre-forward, the direct central midfielders and the straightforward beat-your-man-and-cross wingers. But Premiership football is a very different beast. Ronaldo (and Rooney) flourished because supposed ‘wingers’ can pop up infield and make runs into the penalty box, while strikers can drop back or left and still have players running through defenders looking for the ball. The last Englishman to hang so effectively on the last defender as Torres was Michael Owen, but Defoe might just have it.

There is plenty of scope for arguing the relative merits of different players in the same positions – Heskey/Crouch or Joe Cole/Shaun Wright-Phillips/Aaron Lennon. What England lack, however, is the capacity to build a flowing move. They lack the work-rate of a Hargreaves alongside the stationery holding-role that Barry pretty much represents and the ability of Beckham to cross the ball from deep, without racing to the by-line when nobody has had the chance to catch up.

Now that Capello has reached South Africa, there is a sense that the camp is in disarray. Players like Walcott who had been relied on in qualifying were left behind, and players who have been out of favour at their clubs (the lack of fitness of Ledley King is also worrying, but defence is yet to prove truly problematic). Moreover, there are suggestions of player power (albeit, from John Terry – almost certainly still smarting from being stripped of the captaincy) and discord (albeit, from David James – who has perfected the art of considering himself above his profession). Of course, journalists desperate for a story peer into every crack, but the place these divisions matter is on the pitch – and the evidence is damning.

England can still do well in this World Cup. Brazil can be beaten if you play three up front and Spain can be outmuscled. Germany have already lost to Serbia, although they will be dangerous on the rebound and have two strikers in decent form. The Netherlands and Argentina are other threats lurking in the shadows, but their dangers are exaggerated and they can be shown up. To do that, however, England will need to play with more fluency, and if that means throwing caution to the wind and changing the system, far better to do it against Slovenia than Germany or Ghana.

P.S. And if it doesn’t work, it could be time to bring in a quota system!

The Stuff of Champions

Saracens 24 South Africa 23

 

How to describe one of the greatest moment’s in Saracens’ history?  Draw a crowd of 46,000 to Wembley – no problem.  Beat the World Champions and vanquishers of the British Lions – of course, if Leicester can.  But to do so in a style that could put an end to several international careers, and prove the starting point for many more?  To come from behind twice, when the game seemed completely against them, to play enterprising rugby and to dominate the scrum of a famous rugby-playing nation?  Certainly, it was effectively a South Africa A-team, but this was worthy of being called championship-winning rugby.

The first quarter turned out to be an awkward, but end-to-end affair.  For Saracens, defence was primary and Wikus van Heerden led by example, stifling South African attacks.  Unfortunately, he was also typical of Sarries’ occasional attacks, guilty on several occasions of losing the ball in the tackle. The game turned after Derick Hougaard missed an ambitious kick to touch from a penalty.  They began to slip out of the game as South Africa’s greater speed of delivery,  physicality  and lineout began to wear.

First, Earl Rose (continuing a line of South African full-backs with flair) tried a back-hand flip that sat up interminably for Adrian Strauss to run on to.  Then, returning a kick as the crowd began to get restless, South Africa broke down the right wing, their huge lock trading passes with winger Ndungane before charging past Noah Cato, who grabbed hold more in hope than conviction.  The chasing referee signalled that the video referee was needed to judge the score.  Thankfully, Cato had done enough.

Saracens were still absorbing hits of such magnitude as to give the lie to the assumption that both sides would try to avoid injuries at the sacrifice of the spectacle.  Michael Tagicakibau was here an unlikely, but noteworthy hero.  It wasn’t enough.  When de Kock was forced to concede a lineout after a clever kick, South Africa took their chance, drawing in defenders with the forwards before getting the ball out to Juan de Jonge, who slipped through a tackle to dive over.

Fortune then favoured South Africa, when a kick from Rose was knocked on into the path of Jongi Nowke, who ran in the simplest of tries.  The referee had thought that it had come off a Saracens hand.  It was unfortunate, but it favoured the better team at the time and reflected a widening gap between the two sides.  The score, at 6-18 was frustrating, but not necessarily unfair.

Half time brought some relief, and no more than for the audience and a certain cheeky chappy, Stuart Tinner.  News of Tinner’s £250,000 kick and the lift it had given the crowd apparently filtered back to the dressing room.  If it had any effect, it encouraged Saracens to become masters of their own destiny again.

What was more significant was the introduction of Alex Goode at full-back and Rodd Penney for Cato.  These two players turned the game on its head, offering a more unpredictable spark.  First, though, it was the forwards who put Sarries back in the match.  Having dominated the scrum since CJ van der Linde went off early in the first half, Ernst Joubert put pressure of Francois Hougaard’s clearence from a defensive scrum, charged it down, and picked up to return the score to 11-18.

South Africa counter-attacked, but were halted by a superb ankle-tap by Rodd Penney and turned over.  When they kicked again, Tagicakibau secured the ball, allowing Saracens to run from just outside the 22.  The ball was worked to Brad Barritt, who stepped inside and offloaded to release Hougaard.  The fly-half’s chip put the underwhelming Ruan Pienaar under the pressure of Joubert’s chase.  In the next breath, Kevin Barrett, on for de Kock, passed out of the tackle and the ball was sped wide.  Another replacement, Andy Saull, offloaded inside for Penney to race ahead.

If Penney had been able to find Tagicakibau, Saracens would have been level, but they didn’t have to wait long.  A scrum ten metres out gave Barritt the perfect chance to play first-receiver and the combination of his leg-power and Penney’s upper-body strength drove the pair over.

With the scores equal, the game turned into South Africa’s favour again.  Losing a lineout on their 22, Saracens were hit by a swiftly-executed move that saw Ndungane’s forward pass release Nokwe for his second try.  But South Africa’s tendency to live on the margins, shall we say, let them down as the referee began to pick up on their forward passes, halting their attacks.

Meanwhile, the crowd had been roused by the pluckiness on display on the black half of the field.  In a game-defining moment, Hougaard was smashed backwards taking a pass on the loop by Wynard Olivier.  In the next passage of play, Hougaard returned the favour, stopping Olivier dead in his tracks (with a little help from Mouritz Botha). When Hougaard kicked another penalty to make the score 21-24 with ten minutes to go, their was a palpable sense that Sarries might have the final laugh.

Hougaard had been searching for a drop goal since Barritt had levelled the scores.  He had probably missed four or five from the half-way line over the course of the match, so when he tried again with five minutes remaining the crowd were perhaps justified in their chorus of boos.  But as the ball sailed ever so slowly through the posts, the cheers were considerably louder.

The Bokke had been out-fought, out-played and out-sung.  Though a development team, they apparently had less to prove than Saracens, whose ambition and hunger are fast changing the face of English club rugby.  The whole team had proved outstanding, even with a league derby against Wasps fast approaching.  In their desire for the Springbok scalp, Sarries produced one of the great performances in their history, but the way this season is shaping up, victory could prove neither a full-stop, nor even an exclamation mark.  Here’s hoping it’s a semi-colon, and the rest of the sentence is as good.

One Nation, One Team

Playing the Enemy; Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin (2008)

Almost all sports fans know, and perhaps inwardly agree with Bill Shankly’s famous sentiment; ‘some say football is a matter of life and death.  I can assure you, it’s much more than that.’  John Carlin’s book substantiates that wry quip, and advances its meaning, making a fascinating case for rugby being the difference between Truth and Reconciliation, and the Balkanisation of South Africa in the early 1990s.

Many of us could name at least one example of where sport has meant something more than the superficial – the 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin, where the black American sprinter Jesse Owens made a nonsense of Nazism’s racial element; 1990, where a newly reunified Germany bottled the euphoria that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall and sprayed it like champagne; 1995, when Nelson Mandela celebrated World Cup glory with the almost exclusively white South African rugby team.  When sport is used deliberately for political theatre with cynical intentions, it seems hollow.  But when sport, history and politics combine to good ends, it is exalted.

A Bitter Blow

Rugby in many ways mirrored the soul of the Afrikaner – the white, Dutch-descended race of Boers who were responsible for Apartheid.  It could be brutal and it could involve cheating, but it was the religion of a devout people – exacting and fundamentally honest in the way that sport should be.  Its mantra was competition – survival of the fittest.  It was the source of the Afrikaner’s pride, their way of projecting their image abroad.  Isn’t that how we all feel, if a little less certainly, a little less profoundly?

When the African National Congress, amongst other influences, encouraged a boycott of South Africa, rugby became a locus of that effort.  Tours of Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s were met with severe censure from the populations of those countries.  National teams stopped touring.  South Africa was isolated.  

It was therefore fitting that when South Africa emerged from its state as a pariah, rugby was used to heal the wound.  Writing of the World Cup Final, Die Burger wrote that ‘there is no longer any doubt that the Springbok rugby team has united the land more than anything else since the birth of the new South Africa.’

Carlin is no rugby expert, but sport is never his end.  Playing the Enemy (soon to be a film)  is about Nelson Mandela, first and foremost, and his role in the revolution that peacefully ended apartheid and brought the ANC to power.  On the back, the book is rightly classified as Politics/History.  Ultimately, it is a work of journalism, rather than scholarly analysis.  

But if Carlin neglects some of the mechanics of change, he makes up for it in two ways.  South African rugby may be mired by cheating, and its society by crime and increasing political polarisation but Playing the Enemy is a  heroically optimistic work, which almost had me in tears.  Carlin ends the book with a quote from Desmond Tutu on the significance of South Africa’s example.  Tutu’s reply is simple – its significance is that it can happen again.

The second way in which Carlin impresses is with the scope of his investigation. The evil of apartheid is self-evident but its consequences were not all evil, in so far as they encouraged a response that was as noble as all the acts of violence and degradation were abhorrent.  South Africa, like all countries, was not inherently divided into two blocs.  There were militant characters, as well as the fearful, the wronged and the apathetic.  All of these feature in Playing the Enemy.  Recognising this diversity is crucial to understanding the miracle that was the Mandela factor.

The Great Game

South Africa’s peaceful revolution was the best sort – a compromise.  Ultimately, both sides were convinced to be rational rather than emotional about the prospects of their country.  Both sides made decisions to concede defeat on different issues, not asking for the maximum gain for their constituency, not trying to hold on to a system so palpably wrong.  In 1994 elections were held and the ANC formed a Unity Government with the National Party, despite holding a majority of seats.  

Like all good dramas, South Africa’s relied on timing – Mandela’s in secretly starting talks with the government in 1989, Constand Viljoen’s decision to trust Mandela when an extreme right-wing coalition had coalesced under his largely unwitting leadership, and fundamentally in the International Rugby Board’s courageous (if nothing else) decision to award South Africa the opportunity to host the 1995 World Cup when the prospect of civil war was very much alive.

As South Africa progressed through the tournament, Mandela’s policy of supporting the Springbok team began to permeate through the still strained Rainbow Nation.  Whether it due to the opium of victory, what South Africans displayed in trusting each other was good sportsmanship.  They understood that they each had plenty to lose, and plenty to gain by pulling together, rather than apart, and that malice had brought suffering to each side.  Though they might be disproportionate, these wrongs would be rectified under the new regime.  The World Cup Final was the perfect opportunity for black South Africa to show whites that they did not mean to seek vengeance.  In return, and in the process, Mandela romanced white South Africa through their national team.

In truth, sport and politics have a lot in common.  Both are causes that unite disparate groups, be they defined by interest, socio-economic class or origin.  In a fair fight, there is a presumption that the truth, or the strongest side will win out.  Of course, that doesn’t always work out.  South Africa beat France in the semi-final because of a disallowed try.  Which is why, although that strength might seem to be easily measured before commencing the battle, both are reliant on individual agency and the result is never inevitable, but quite often, the better team wins.

Nelson Mandela will be remembered as one of the world’s last aristocratic leaders.  He combined high-birth (Xhosa royalty), with charm, optimism and leadership.  Whatever the wrongs of his life prior to his jailing in 1961, his actions after unilaterally seeking reconciliation with the government was almost irreproachable, if not uncontroversial at the time.  In the highly significant words of Niel Barnard, head of South Africa’s National Intelligence Service before and during the revolution, Mandela ‘knew how to handle power without humiliating his enemies.’

That is, with one exception.  Carlin recounts the story of Mandela’s visit to the All Black dressing room after stoking up the Springboks.  His good wishes were, according to his bodyguard, the ‘most insincere’ of his life.  It was gamesmanship, but coming from a reformed player, certainly not a penalty offence.

Saracens @ Wembley

Saracens 19   Northampton Saints 16

For days the anticipation for this day had been building, far surpassing and more akin to a cup final.  It was, after all, Wembley.  But Saracens’ victory, welcome though it was, didn’t seem as satisfying as it might have been if it had meant lifting a cup.  

In truth, there were two further demands made on Sarries.  The first was the commercial imperative – the very reason for renting out Wembley for a normal league match.  Saracens are one of the ten clubs in this years Guinness Premiership who made a loss last year (Gloucester and Northampton were the luckier ones, and the former are in less rude health this year), and the explicit aim was to attract a more diverse crowd to rugby and increase the regular gate at Vicarage Road.  Whether that succeeds only time will tell.  The turnout, just under 45,000 was good, although there were an awful lot of green shirts and not all could have been South African ones.

Secondly and less explicitly, Wembley offered a second opportunity after last week’s Twickenham match to display the effects of the Venter revolution.  Had Sarries gelled as a team?  Were they capable of dominating a game and could they play attractive rugby?  For both these reasons, as well as sheer rugby ambition, a win was crucial, and an attractive one preferable.

By this strict standard, the performance was disappointing.  But Saracens weren’t bad.  Anyone who has seen much South African rugby over the summer will be familiar with the game that Saracens have imported this year.  Kick the ball, set the forwards on the receiver and take as many points with the boot as possible before letting the opposition back into the game to ensure a tense finish, dependent on resolute defence.  It was the exact style in which South Africa claimed the Tri-Nations over New Zealand yesterday morning, and Saracens saw off Northampton in the afternoon.

The lineout was again excellent, banishing memories of past seasons, and the scrum a vast improvement on last week, despite no changes in personnel.  Indeed, the Venter rotation system has yet to kick in.  Glen Jackson was once more on form with the boot – fortunately, for the game only saw a try apiece.  

If Saracens expect to become title contenders, they had better change their tactics, however.  If the backs outside Jackson looked fairly comfortable with his distribution, it was still a rare sight to see them in full flow.  Indeed, even the forwards were only allowed a few phases before the ball was kicked downfield, often to little result.  Part of the reason was that Jackson’s kicking from hand was poor, as was Alex Goode’s when he switched to centre for Kameli Ratavou’s blood injury, and Derick Hougaard when he replaced Jackson late in the game.  Such tactics ensure that contact is avoided, and puts pressure on the opposition to perform within their half of the pitch, but can hardly provide the platform to command the game from.  In rugby, possession is at least 3/4 of the victory.

The difference between Saracens and Northampton was not only the way the front row carried the ball or the incisiveness of their three-quarters, but most importantly the confidence with which Shane Geraghty ran the game.  He looks an excellent acquisition, intelligently and determinedly bringing both backs and forwards into the game, holding his pass to allow centre Jon Clarke to dive over for his side’s try.  It was only an unnecessarily high error-count that denied Saints.  Indeed, in the last minute they were denied a try by the video referee when the ball was shown to have been lost in a ruck on the Saracens line.

Saracens showed glimpses, but nothing more, as if it were only a brief advertisement for their next home game.  Their try came early in the second half when Noah Cato (who has a lovely singing voice in the all new club song), poked the ball out of the grasp of Saint’s captain Dylan Hartley, out on the wing on the Saracens 22, picked up and ran the length of the field.  It was a dubious try, but one that will no doubt make it onto many a highlights package.  Cato, it might be said, was outstanding in defence as well as attack, wrapping up his man to prevent an overlap in one instance and seeming hungry throughout.  Perhaps he scents an England call, although that will be some jump.

Northampton dominated the second half from their try, scored soon after Cato’s but the game entered its decisive phase twelve minutes from time when referee Andrew Small sent Saracens hooker Schalk Brits to the bin (in the second successive game) for a ‘deliberate obstruction’.  Offside as he might have been, Brits was jogging back, and Lee Dickson earned the ire of Brendan Venter for so blatantly seeking the penalty.

Surprisingly perhaps, Northamton struggled to translate their possession into points, although they nearly did with that tense last recall to the television match official - so much drama it could have been scripted thus.  Nevertheless, Saracens’ pressure told in turnovers and botched set-pieces so that when a final Saints attack was dragged into touch, the free flags were raised and an embarrassment on Saracens’ Wembley debut was avoided.

Man of the Match: The official verdict was Ernst Joubert, and the back row were all very deserving given the defensive effort.  Personally, however, I thought Steve Borthwick was everywhere.  Both his defensive effort, and his leadership of the lineout determined that Sarries would take another four points to go second in the Guinness Premiership.

Club Wembley

In a fortunate turn of events, our cheap season tickets translated into seats in Club Wembley, with (cushioned) seats on the half-way line opposite the tunnel.  And I’m a pie in the stands kind of guy, but the main concourse – which looks mostly like an airport lounge – had rows of Xbox 360s, which meant getting there early was justified.

A Premature End

So far it’s taken several hours to get over the cumulative effect of several pints in tropical heat – now a literal and metaphorical storm – and the most disappointing rugby game I think I’ve ever seen.  Well, to be truthful, the game itself wasn’t a disappointment.  In fact, it has a claim, alongside the 2003 World Cup final and last week’s Test, to be one of the best games of rugby I’ve ever seen.  It’s still difficult to admit that it was a game of two halves, that South Africa offered at least as much as the tourists.  Could it have been otherwise?  

The first half was so perfect.  To be 10-0 up was all the Lions could have asked for in the first ten minutes, and a healthy return on their one-man advantage.  Lots of journalists will call for Schalk Burger’s blood, and indeed, there is a curious logic to sin-binning him for an offence that will certainly carry a suspension, probably for the Tri-Nations.  However, in a way, it was an offence that did not leave a large mark on the game.  Some blood was bound to boil over with stakes this high, and for the most part, it was to the detriment of South Africa, as the Lions soaked up the pressure.

The way the Lions drove the ball over the game-line and kept possession in the loose was sensational.  Everyone was constantly looking to offload – if Gethin Jenkins had successfully, the game could have played out differently.  Try as they might, South Africa just could not push Simon Shaw backwards.  In the wider-context of this series, perhaps the most important result is that the myth that the Southern Hemisphere has a monopoly on skillful rugby.

Over the course of the eighty-minutes, South Africa may have missed three penalties, but they outscored the Lions by three tries to one.  There’s two sides to that statistic.  The most obvious is that the Springboks cutting-edge was much sharper this week.  JP Pietersen took a sublime line on his way to their first-half score and Bryan Habana’s pace was finally of some use.  Moreover, as Stuart Barnes said (insightfully for once), he’s so dangerous without the ball.  

Jacques Fourie’s was controversial but the less obvious point when the Lions were making so many yards was that they were incapable of finding the line – the most significant turn-around from last week.  Therein lay the secret of South Africa’s success.  Last week they showed the physical intensity of their game.  This week, their backs were the difference.

Injuries took a huge toll on the Lions.  In five minutes (64-68), they lost Brian O’Driscoll and Jamie Roberts – the very spine of their team.  O’Driscoll had not had his best game, trying to force the pass too often, but in the tackle and most crucially in organising the defensive line he would have left the Lions below par.  

The loss of Roberts, without announcement due to injury, was equally tragic.  Without him there was no one to take the ball forward outside the forwards, which even if the Lions had been in the ascendancy would have deprived them of their bite.

Of Pride and Men

Where does this leave us?  Some will talk of scrapping the Lions as an institution altogether after seven consecutive Test defeats.  That would be a huge mistake, depriving us of the kind of phenomenal rugby we’ve just witnessed.  Moreover, the British and Irish Lions are an advert for the game in the Northern Hemisphere and an opportunity for the best players of the Home Nations to mix and learn from each other.

The trouble with this tour is that for so many players it will be their last.  That makes the chances of them taking their newfound passion and technique back with them much slimmer.  On the other hand, most of the coaches will and their role in making what was so nearly a dream team out this group of talented individuals could hardly be overplayed.

These brave Lions have fallen just the wrong side of immortality.  However, if Northern Hemisphere rugby emerges the stronger, it will not be in vain.

Second Chances

The Test Team for the Lions’ Second Test against South Africa has just been released, with five changes in total.  Scrum coach Graham Rowntree has almost made good on his threat to make changes in all three rows of the scrum, but McGeechan has restricted himself to two changes in the front-row, which will now be all-Welsh, and the introduction of Simon Shaw into the second.  While Matthew Rees and Adam Jones will add a technical dimension, Shaw’s inclusion is evidently all about ballast.  Hopefully the Boks will find it much more difficult to shift their maul with the twenty-stone, seven-foot giant pushing the other way.

Rob Kearney has come in for Lee Byrne, a shame for the latter, but not a particularly profound change.  However, Kearney will have to be very careful about kicking, or run the ball more than he is used to if he is going to prevent Steyn and Habana exerting pressure on the Lions.  There is still no certainty that Ronan O’Gara fits into the Lions ethos – unless Stephen Jones has a really poor game, I expect him to stay on the bench once again.  Replacing Monye with Luke Fitzgerard was not exactly an expected move, but it is a less risky decision than including Shane Williams from the start.  Fitzgerald is perfectly competent going forward and will link up well with Bowe if either come off their line.  However, I worry that he might struggle defending against Habana, who will, no doubt, be a stiffer challenge he was than last Saturday.  

Williams has achieved a victory of sorts in gaining a spot on the bench for the Test after a sodden game against the Emerging Springboks which yielded a poverty of chances.  In the First Test, Williams might have provided a real spark.  In those desperate last five minutes, it seemed that the Test could go either way.  While Monye doesn’t deserve blame for the teams failure to finish – Morne Steyn did exceptionally by any measure to deny him – having Shane Williams in the arsenal does put the Lions more in charge of their own destiny, provided that the score is still close and Roberts and O’Driscoll continue their practically legendary dismantling of the South African defence.

If only all that was needed was a more perfect run-through of the First Test!  Instead, the Lions will have to cope with a more alert and fitter defence, not to mention the most dominating pack in world rugby.  Some South African commentators considered the first half performance by the Springboks to be one of the most perfect in history.  I certainly agree with regard to John Smit’s try.  If the Lions have to face those waves of attacks over the course of eighty minutes, they will lose.  If however, they can control the game by winning their set-pieces, keeping the ball in the tackle (which they did brilliantly in the First Test) and putting points on the board, they have every chance to win.

 

O.D.:  Here’s something I just learnt about Simon Shaw – he is the only lock in the history of the English Premiership to score a drop goal (against Bath in 2000).  Jeremy Guscott considers him one of the best locks currently playing.  Putting two and two together, you get one million; that Shaw will repeat Guscott’s feat of twelve years ago, winning the Second Lions Test against South Africa with a drop goal.  At least, I reckon the odds are a million to one!