Saturday, February 27, 2010
Six of the best
The Six Nations is so good it shouldn't have a table. The ranking list introduced by John Inverdale minutes after the finish of the latest epic provided no interest, in a competition - a battle is a more adept description - in which there is no such thing as finishing second, and even finishing first is defined not by picking up the trophy but by winning every game - or, closer, somehow managing in five fixtures not to be beaten.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Love the loser
I’ve been told I’m a bit of a sucker for the cliché, so I’ll start as I mean to go on. Bob Paisley used to say: ‘First is first and second is nowhere’. The American football version comes in the form: ‘Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing’. Parents everywhere counter, reassuring the kids picked last in the playground with: ‘it’s not the winning, but the taking part that counts.’
They’re all wrong. The way I see it, the real glory comes in falling at the final hurdle, being defeated having given everything; in losing.
For spectators in the stand – or, more often than not, on the settee – there are two types of loser (and I use ‘loser’ in a literary and not derogatory sense, mindful of how I wince when reading that San Marino’s qualifying campaign was ‘pointless’). The first kind are those who we know will not succeed, who will always be the bridesmaid and not the bride, and yet we rejoice in their gallant failure, the hard-luck story; we wouldn’t know what to do if they actually won. The England football team, Tim Henman, and Jimmy White.
‘The Whirlwind’ reached the World Championship Final six times without winning snooker’s most prestigious title. Stephen Hendry was his arch-nemesis, the cool Scot defeating the more exuberant White four times in the early nineties. Jimmy had his chances, but could never get over the finishing line. By the time he was at the table, on a break, in the deciding frame of the 1994 final, you knew what was going to happen. White missed an easy black, Hendry stepped in to clear up and take the title, but not the crowd’s affection. Of course, Jimmy was back on our screens last month, in the ‘I’m a Celebrity…’ jungle, and nearly went all the way. He finished… third.
The prize for 2009, though, goes to Andy Roddick. The American was beaten by Roger Federer in successive Wimbledon finals, 2004 and 2005, and returned to face the Swiss in this year’s decider. The comeback tale was sweetened by the way he’d overcome persistent injuries and a real stagnation of his career, rejuvenated by the support of new wife Brooklyn and new coach Larry Stefanki, and playing the tennis of his life to beat British hope Andy Murray in the semis. The American took the first set in the final, and led the second set tiebreak 6-2, missing a straightforward backhand volley as Federer found a way back. Sets three and four were traded and the decider went with serve. Roddick – whose serve hadn’t been broken for the entirety of the match – served eleven times to stay in it from 4-5. An eventual Federer victory was inevitable; obvious to everyone it seemed, except the man on the other side of the net. His defiance heroic, Roddick finally faltered in his 37th service game after four hours and seventeen minutes. He had given everything he had, and somehow it wasn’t good enough. The victor’s achievements looked at best anticlimactic, at worst repellent. Roddick looked a broken man. To us though, he was triumphant in defeat.
Influential literary critic Northrop Frye pinpointed four archetypal narrative patterns: romance, irony, tragedy and comedy. The reader, viewer, spectator is able to identify with hints within the plot that lead them, through the inevitable twists and turns, toward a finale in line with one of the four genres. Othello was always going to be a tragedy, Shakespeare’s protagonist built up and up to fall from a greater height. You learn to recognise a rom-com, and guess the plot (boy meets girl, they fall in love, something happens that makes them break up, they get back together with a wonderfully over-the-top kiss) pretty early on. Sport is the finest of dramatic narratives because, so often, the narrative isn’t decided until the last breath; its protagonists’ definition as winner or loser is so far from formulated. The second kind of loser is he or she who is not supposed to lose. It doesn’t end how it was meant to.
Champions League Final, Moscow, May 2008. The script seemed written. The much-maligned far-from-special-one Avram Grant was to succeed where Jose Mourinho had failed. Pantomime villain Cristiano Ronaldo saw his penalty saved. Our leader, Mr Chelsea, John Terry stepped up to win the trophy. A Chelsea fan, I’d written this story a hundred times as a kid, and I knew the ending off by heart. But he missed, and after Edwin van der Sar saved from Nicolas Anelka, Manchester United had won.
Sport allows us almost unparalleled views into the character of its professionals. They say that you learn the most in defeat. As Terry, the puff-out-your-chest, body-on-the-line superman, sat on the pitch, desolate, tears streaming down his face, he became, to me, more heroic than ever. You love the girl’s imperfections, not in spite of the funny little freckle above her lip, but because of it.
They say that nobody remembers who came second. But in years to come, nobody will remember who came first at the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry. Tom Watson, leading going into the final day, leading going onto the 18th green, was to become the oldest man to win a major, aged 59 and with a replacement hip. Watson had last won a major 26 years before, and his remarkable success provided inspiration to aging golfers – aging people – everywhere. He raged, raged against the dying of the light, leaving younger men in his wake. The week was all about him. Yet he missed an eight-foot putt to bogey the final hole, and succumbed by six shots in a four-hole play-off, to Stewart Cink by the way.
As Watson himself said: ‘The old fogey almost did it. It would have been a hell of a story.’ But, somehow, eventual failure made Watson’s achievement a greater one. When memories of noble victories fade away, heroic defeats will linger long. Every great tale is a tragic one.
They’re all wrong. The way I see it, the real glory comes in falling at the final hurdle, being defeated having given everything; in losing.
For spectators in the stand – or, more often than not, on the settee – there are two types of loser (and I use ‘loser’ in a literary and not derogatory sense, mindful of how I wince when reading that San Marino’s qualifying campaign was ‘pointless’). The first kind are those who we know will not succeed, who will always be the bridesmaid and not the bride, and yet we rejoice in their gallant failure, the hard-luck story; we wouldn’t know what to do if they actually won. The England football team, Tim Henman, and Jimmy White.
‘The Whirlwind’ reached the World Championship Final six times without winning snooker’s most prestigious title. Stephen Hendry was his arch-nemesis, the cool Scot defeating the more exuberant White four times in the early nineties. Jimmy had his chances, but could never get over the finishing line. By the time he was at the table, on a break, in the deciding frame of the 1994 final, you knew what was going to happen. White missed an easy black, Hendry stepped in to clear up and take the title, but not the crowd’s affection. Of course, Jimmy was back on our screens last month, in the ‘I’m a Celebrity…’ jungle, and nearly went all the way. He finished… third.
The prize for 2009, though, goes to Andy Roddick. The American was beaten by Roger Federer in successive Wimbledon finals, 2004 and 2005, and returned to face the Swiss in this year’s decider. The comeback tale was sweetened by the way he’d overcome persistent injuries and a real stagnation of his career, rejuvenated by the support of new wife Brooklyn and new coach Larry Stefanki, and playing the tennis of his life to beat British hope Andy Murray in the semis. The American took the first set in the final, and led the second set tiebreak 6-2, missing a straightforward backhand volley as Federer found a way back. Sets three and four were traded and the decider went with serve. Roddick – whose serve hadn’t been broken for the entirety of the match – served eleven times to stay in it from 4-5. An eventual Federer victory was inevitable; obvious to everyone it seemed, except the man on the other side of the net. His defiance heroic, Roddick finally faltered in his 37th service game after four hours and seventeen minutes. He had given everything he had, and somehow it wasn’t good enough. The victor’s achievements looked at best anticlimactic, at worst repellent. Roddick looked a broken man. To us though, he was triumphant in defeat.
Influential literary critic Northrop Frye pinpointed four archetypal narrative patterns: romance, irony, tragedy and comedy. The reader, viewer, spectator is able to identify with hints within the plot that lead them, through the inevitable twists and turns, toward a finale in line with one of the four genres. Othello was always going to be a tragedy, Shakespeare’s protagonist built up and up to fall from a greater height. You learn to recognise a rom-com, and guess the plot (boy meets girl, they fall in love, something happens that makes them break up, they get back together with a wonderfully over-the-top kiss) pretty early on. Sport is the finest of dramatic narratives because, so often, the narrative isn’t decided until the last breath; its protagonists’ definition as winner or loser is so far from formulated. The second kind of loser is he or she who is not supposed to lose. It doesn’t end how it was meant to.
Champions League Final, Moscow, May 2008. The script seemed written. The much-maligned far-from-special-one Avram Grant was to succeed where Jose Mourinho had failed. Pantomime villain Cristiano Ronaldo saw his penalty saved. Our leader, Mr Chelsea, John Terry stepped up to win the trophy. A Chelsea fan, I’d written this story a hundred times as a kid, and I knew the ending off by heart. But he missed, and after Edwin van der Sar saved from Nicolas Anelka, Manchester United had won.
Sport allows us almost unparalleled views into the character of its professionals. They say that you learn the most in defeat. As Terry, the puff-out-your-chest, body-on-the-line superman, sat on the pitch, desolate, tears streaming down his face, he became, to me, more heroic than ever. You love the girl’s imperfections, not in spite of the funny little freckle above her lip, but because of it.
They say that nobody remembers who came second. But in years to come, nobody will remember who came first at the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry. Tom Watson, leading going into the final day, leading going onto the 18th green, was to become the oldest man to win a major, aged 59 and with a replacement hip. Watson had last won a major 26 years before, and his remarkable success provided inspiration to aging golfers – aging people – everywhere. He raged, raged against the dying of the light, leaving younger men in his wake. The week was all about him. Yet he missed an eight-foot putt to bogey the final hole, and succumbed by six shots in a four-hole play-off, to Stewart Cink by the way.
As Watson himself said: ‘The old fogey almost did it. It would have been a hell of a story.’ But, somehow, eventual failure made Watson’s achievement a greater one. When memories of noble victories fade away, heroic defeats will linger long. Every great tale is a tragic one.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Sexton's game, ATP shambles and inside sport
I realise that it’s most definitely not summer anymore, but I’ll use this for chatting rugby, tennis, cricket…
Wednesday night’s Inside Sport provided a fascinating insight into depression in sport, an issue brought into tragic focus by the recent suicide of German international goalkeeper Robert Enke. Gabby Logan interviewed several high-profile sufferers, posing questions and posting tentative conclusions on how sporting success does not make you invincible against mental illness, and indeed the pressures of the modern game can bring it on.
The analysis of the effect of sport on the mind got me thinking about the more readily tangible effect of sport on the body, after watching a slimmer Rafa Nadal fall to three successive defeats at the ATP World Tour Finals in London. Whilst I do not wish to compare Nadal’s sporting plight to the human tragedy of Robert Enke, the young Spaniard – who has come to epitomise the innate physicality and athleticism of the twenty-first-century tennis player, sportsman even - was a sorry sight this week. It was not so much that Rafa looks ‘a shadow of’ the man who so gloriously beat Roger Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon Final, but rather that the Spaniard’s current frame wouldn’t come close to filling his former shadow.
2009 looked like being Nadal’s year. He began it is as World Number One, holding three of the four Grand slams after winning the Australian Open in January. But then tendinitis in his right knee, a recurring problem which has seen him wearing heavy strapping ever since I can remember, saw Nadal pull out of Wimbledon in June. He returned to London this week, sporting a new sleeved t-shirt that did little to hide the absence of his biceps that used to bulge out of the trademark sleeveless vest. It seems that quite simply, Nadal’s knees – put under enormous pressure by his relentless playing style – can’t hold his weight, and so he’s been forced to shed a great deal of muscle, and with it the power that was his greatest weapon.
Why was Nadal’s body in unnatural shape in the first place? Because, with the ball coming off Andy Roddick’s graphite composite racket at 150mph, such physicality is needed to get it back. Racket and player performance technology have led tennis’ development from a once delicate game into a slugging match. Nadal – and I really hope I am being helplessly premature here – would not be the first tennis player to play their best tennis before hitting 25. Martina Hingis – who won three Grand Slams aged 16 and retired at 22 – springs to my mind, whilst my dad talks of Tracy Austin – who won the US Open aged 16 and was finished as a top player before she turned 21, suffering from recurring back injuries. Switching sports, you find the burn-out of Brazilian striker Ronaldo, and, in a slightly different direction, a number of serious spinal injuries suffered in rugby union.
This is an issue worthy of much broader analysis, but does modern sport demand too much from its competitors? How long can players continue to drive themselves into the ground before something changes?
The ATP World Tour Finals became a shambles on Thursday, thanks to confusion over the rules for progression from the round-robin stage, labelled ‘embarrassing’ by Boris Becker.
Juan Martin del Potro was left waiting on court to see if he had qualified for the semi-finals after beating Roger Federer, eventually learning he had done so by only one game in the ATP’s games won percentage (after del Potro and Murray finished level in terms of matches and sets won). Murray himself had to have it explained to him on court earlier on.
I’d moan about how the final round of matches should have started at the same time, so that del Potro and Federer didn’t have the unfair advantage of going into the final match knowing exactly what they had to do, but in fact it was all so bloody confusing that nobody had a clue.
The maths behind one-day cricket’s Duckworth/Lewis method is complicated, perhaps even unfathomable to the layman, and has resulted in some farcical and comical situations (the South Africans don’t find it so funny). But D/L is there to decide matches whose regular course has been shortened by the weather. The ATP actually set the groups up like this, failing to anticipate a group of four would almost inevitable end up in everyone level on points. Before next year – sort it out!
After a miserable autumn of miserable rugby, Ireland’s victory over South Africa this afternoon was worth waiting for, every second of a 15-10 win at Croke Park thoroughly absorbing. There were a number of interweaving narratives – from the selection of Jonathan Sexton over Ronan O’Gara as Ireland’s fly-half to unfinished business after the Lions tour, and the game was predictably niggly early on. But that was all part of the fun! Bryan Habana getting dumped onto the seat of his pants was a favourite, while Schalk Burger – booed by the home fans after disgracefully gouging Luke Fitzgerald in the summer – celebrated his try by aggressively kicking the ball towards them. It was brutally physical, both teams showed a willingness to run the ball from deep, Ireland ruled the line-out, South Africa exerted pressure at scrum-time, and there were turnovers galore.
Despite the Irish eight going backwards in the scrum, Jamie Heaslip always seemed to be in control. Actually, his performance was nothing short of monumental. My confidence in an early prediction (see July 8th 2009, ‘Lions Tour Review’) of his future captaincy grows. Rob Kearney again proved he played a hell of a lot of catch as a kid.
Brian O’Driscoll had a pretty awful game by his standards, knocking the ball on the few occasions he did get involved. But, in making the tackle and forcing the penalty for holding-on in at the death, he found a way to win the match, again. Class.
The real story, though, was provided by Jonathan Sexton, who kicked all of Ireland’s 15 points in a mature display. It was the first time in six years that a fit Ronan O’Gara had been overlooked at fly-half, and the fact that, even with O’Gara’s huge experience ready from the bench, Sexton stayed on the pitch during a nervy finish added further to the end-of-an-era feel to the occasion.
Wednesday night’s Inside Sport provided a fascinating insight into depression in sport, an issue brought into tragic focus by the recent suicide of German international goalkeeper Robert Enke. Gabby Logan interviewed several high-profile sufferers, posing questions and posting tentative conclusions on how sporting success does not make you invincible against mental illness, and indeed the pressures of the modern game can bring it on.
The analysis of the effect of sport on the mind got me thinking about the more readily tangible effect of sport on the body, after watching a slimmer Rafa Nadal fall to three successive defeats at the ATP World Tour Finals in London. Whilst I do not wish to compare Nadal’s sporting plight to the human tragedy of Robert Enke, the young Spaniard – who has come to epitomise the innate physicality and athleticism of the twenty-first-century tennis player, sportsman even - was a sorry sight this week. It was not so much that Rafa looks ‘a shadow of’ the man who so gloriously beat Roger Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon Final, but rather that the Spaniard’s current frame wouldn’t come close to filling his former shadow.
2009 looked like being Nadal’s year. He began it is as World Number One, holding three of the four Grand slams after winning the Australian Open in January. But then tendinitis in his right knee, a recurring problem which has seen him wearing heavy strapping ever since I can remember, saw Nadal pull out of Wimbledon in June. He returned to London this week, sporting a new sleeved t-shirt that did little to hide the absence of his biceps that used to bulge out of the trademark sleeveless vest. It seems that quite simply, Nadal’s knees – put under enormous pressure by his relentless playing style – can’t hold his weight, and so he’s been forced to shed a great deal of muscle, and with it the power that was his greatest weapon.
Why was Nadal’s body in unnatural shape in the first place? Because, with the ball coming off Andy Roddick’s graphite composite racket at 150mph, such physicality is needed to get it back. Racket and player performance technology have led tennis’ development from a once delicate game into a slugging match. Nadal – and I really hope I am being helplessly premature here – would not be the first tennis player to play their best tennis before hitting 25. Martina Hingis – who won three Grand Slams aged 16 and retired at 22 – springs to my mind, whilst my dad talks of Tracy Austin – who won the US Open aged 16 and was finished as a top player before she turned 21, suffering from recurring back injuries. Switching sports, you find the burn-out of Brazilian striker Ronaldo, and, in a slightly different direction, a number of serious spinal injuries suffered in rugby union.
This is an issue worthy of much broader analysis, but does modern sport demand too much from its competitors? How long can players continue to drive themselves into the ground before something changes?
The ATP World Tour Finals became a shambles on Thursday, thanks to confusion over the rules for progression from the round-robin stage, labelled ‘embarrassing’ by Boris Becker.
Juan Martin del Potro was left waiting on court to see if he had qualified for the semi-finals after beating Roger Federer, eventually learning he had done so by only one game in the ATP’s games won percentage (after del Potro and Murray finished level in terms of matches and sets won). Murray himself had to have it explained to him on court earlier on.
I’d moan about how the final round of matches should have started at the same time, so that del Potro and Federer didn’t have the unfair advantage of going into the final match knowing exactly what they had to do, but in fact it was all so bloody confusing that nobody had a clue.
The maths behind one-day cricket’s Duckworth/Lewis method is complicated, perhaps even unfathomable to the layman, and has resulted in some farcical and comical situations (the South Africans don’t find it so funny). But D/L is there to decide matches whose regular course has been shortened by the weather. The ATP actually set the groups up like this, failing to anticipate a group of four would almost inevitable end up in everyone level on points. Before next year – sort it out!
After a miserable autumn of miserable rugby, Ireland’s victory over South Africa this afternoon was worth waiting for, every second of a 15-10 win at Croke Park thoroughly absorbing. There were a number of interweaving narratives – from the selection of Jonathan Sexton over Ronan O’Gara as Ireland’s fly-half to unfinished business after the Lions tour, and the game was predictably niggly early on. But that was all part of the fun! Bryan Habana getting dumped onto the seat of his pants was a favourite, while Schalk Burger – booed by the home fans after disgracefully gouging Luke Fitzgerald in the summer – celebrated his try by aggressively kicking the ball towards them. It was brutally physical, both teams showed a willingness to run the ball from deep, Ireland ruled the line-out, South Africa exerted pressure at scrum-time, and there were turnovers galore.
Despite the Irish eight going backwards in the scrum, Jamie Heaslip always seemed to be in control. Actually, his performance was nothing short of monumental. My confidence in an early prediction (see July 8th 2009, ‘Lions Tour Review’) of his future captaincy grows. Rob Kearney again proved he played a hell of a lot of catch as a kid.
Brian O’Driscoll had a pretty awful game by his standards, knocking the ball on the few occasions he did get involved. But, in making the tackle and forcing the penalty for holding-on in at the death, he found a way to win the match, again. Class.
The real story, though, was provided by Jonathan Sexton, who kicked all of Ireland’s 15 points in a mature display. It was the first time in six years that a fit Ronan O’Gara had been overlooked at fly-half, and the fact that, even with O’Gara’s huge experience ready from the bench, Sexton stayed on the pitch during a nervy finish added further to the end-of-an-era feel to the occasion.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
David Mitchell on TMS
If you get the chance, listen again to David Mitchell joining Aggers for A view from the Boundary at lunch on Test Match Special yesterday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lr08x/Test_Match_Special_18_07_2009/
The interview begins around 2:21 into the show.
Mitchell – of Peep Show fame – was interesting when asked about his personal life and profession, but brilliantly intelligent and insightful when talking cricket, as only the kind of ‘Part-time sports fan’ I was describing the other week can be. He didn’t fill me with too much confidence early on, admitting ‘I was frightened of the ball’ as a cricketer himself.
But I found myself wanting to yell at the radio ‘yes, exactly!’ on numerous occasions, as he, almost nonchalantly, explored the quiet truths of watching the sport. He laughed at how ludicrous it was that his flatmate begged him to turn off the TV because him watching it affected England’s performance in 2005. It’s absurd to even think that might be the case, but I’ve gone through several spells of believing my actions influence what happens on the pitch, and I think a lot of people feel the same. Mitchell reminded me what the outside world must think of us demented fanatics.
He was fascinating when he spoke about the character of certain cricket players, admitting he loved seeing Ricky Ponting get angry. He spoke about watching Graham Gooch bat as England captain, it's best to quote it: ‘There were times when he looked so exhausted at the crease scoring run after run, almost as if he couldn’t face getting out because then he would have to re-approach the whole problem of how an earth he was going to bowl the other team out. I loved the contrast between the down-beat demeanour and all these runs being scored. He didn’t look like he was going to smash a bowling attack around the field, and then he was quietly doing so, with a facial expression as if he hadn’t noticed that he was.’ These are the wonderful observations only those with a certain distance from the action can make. The way in which sport allows you an unparalleled insight into the characters who play is one of the greatest pleasures of spectating. Think of Paul Collingwood’s relentless stubbornness or Kevin Pietersen’s inner demons. More to come on that soon in this blog.
Mitchell dabbled further into psychological analysis to say ‘There’s a defensiveness to England’s approach… We’ve tried not to lose too often – maybe that’s a part of our whole national psyche.’
Mitchell and Webb’s shows contain several sketches based around sport, and one listener pulled him up on his hypocrisy in referring to the England cricket side as ‘we’ having chastised football fans for doing just that. Keeping with the comic side of sport, Mitchell added: ‘One of the most endearing and comic things in cricket is when tail-enders have to bat to save games. Seldom in professional sport do you see someone having, at the highest level, to do something that they’re not really very good at. Other sports would benefit immensely if they got that element in. Hitting a ball with the bat is not something they were put on the earth to do, batting is not their strong point – and yet they are having to do against the best bowling in the world, and the stakes are incredibly high. And when they succeed, it’s the best underdog succeeding in sport you can get.’
It made me think of the almost unique multi-disciplinary nature of cricket, a sport in which you have to do two, or three, things, very different things. Or the drop goal penalty contest which settled last year’s Heineken Cup semi-final, with Cardiff Blues flanker Martyn Williams – ironically one of very few forwards to have scored a drop goal in open play – the unlucky villain who missed. The occasion raised fresh controversy over whether a shoot-out was the way to settle a drawn tie. Balancing the fact that putting top sportsmen way outside their comfort zone is highly entertaining with the notion that drop goals are not a fair way to decide the all-round game of rugby is a difficult proposition.
My mate Alex Richman wrote a blog entry recently entitled ‘We all love laughing at losers’. http://www.theyorker.co.uk/news/sport/3040 Typically entertaining stuff, but I don’t really agree. As Tim Henman and Jimmy White testify, we love our losers. There may, again, be something essentially British about supporting, and later consoling, the plucky underdog that Mitchell speaks of. And finding the equivalent of the 'endearing' tail-ender in modern sports where we no longer find affection and association with the players - most notably football - may be the way we can regain the love of the game.
If you have a lot of spare time and have finished listening to Mitchell, don’t track down this lunchtime’s TMS audio. The guest was Rolf Harris. What a plonker.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lr08x/Test_Match_Special_18_07_2009/
The interview begins around 2:21 into the show.
Mitchell – of Peep Show fame – was interesting when asked about his personal life and profession, but brilliantly intelligent and insightful when talking cricket, as only the kind of ‘Part-time sports fan’ I was describing the other week can be. He didn’t fill me with too much confidence early on, admitting ‘I was frightened of the ball’ as a cricketer himself.
But I found myself wanting to yell at the radio ‘yes, exactly!’ on numerous occasions, as he, almost nonchalantly, explored the quiet truths of watching the sport. He laughed at how ludicrous it was that his flatmate begged him to turn off the TV because him watching it affected England’s performance in 2005. It’s absurd to even think that might be the case, but I’ve gone through several spells of believing my actions influence what happens on the pitch, and I think a lot of people feel the same. Mitchell reminded me what the outside world must think of us demented fanatics.
He was fascinating when he spoke about the character of certain cricket players, admitting he loved seeing Ricky Ponting get angry. He spoke about watching Graham Gooch bat as England captain, it's best to quote it: ‘There were times when he looked so exhausted at the crease scoring run after run, almost as if he couldn’t face getting out because then he would have to re-approach the whole problem of how an earth he was going to bowl the other team out. I loved the contrast between the down-beat demeanour and all these runs being scored. He didn’t look like he was going to smash a bowling attack around the field, and then he was quietly doing so, with a facial expression as if he hadn’t noticed that he was.’ These are the wonderful observations only those with a certain distance from the action can make. The way in which sport allows you an unparalleled insight into the characters who play is one of the greatest pleasures of spectating. Think of Paul Collingwood’s relentless stubbornness or Kevin Pietersen’s inner demons. More to come on that soon in this blog.
Mitchell dabbled further into psychological analysis to say ‘There’s a defensiveness to England’s approach… We’ve tried not to lose too often – maybe that’s a part of our whole national psyche.’
Mitchell and Webb’s shows contain several sketches based around sport, and one listener pulled him up on his hypocrisy in referring to the England cricket side as ‘we’ having chastised football fans for doing just that. Keeping with the comic side of sport, Mitchell added: ‘One of the most endearing and comic things in cricket is when tail-enders have to bat to save games. Seldom in professional sport do you see someone having, at the highest level, to do something that they’re not really very good at. Other sports would benefit immensely if they got that element in. Hitting a ball with the bat is not something they were put on the earth to do, batting is not their strong point – and yet they are having to do against the best bowling in the world, and the stakes are incredibly high. And when they succeed, it’s the best underdog succeeding in sport you can get.’
It made me think of the almost unique multi-disciplinary nature of cricket, a sport in which you have to do two, or three, things, very different things. Or the drop goal penalty contest which settled last year’s Heineken Cup semi-final, with Cardiff Blues flanker Martyn Williams – ironically one of very few forwards to have scored a drop goal in open play – the unlucky villain who missed. The occasion raised fresh controversy over whether a shoot-out was the way to settle a drawn tie. Balancing the fact that putting top sportsmen way outside their comfort zone is highly entertaining with the notion that drop goals are not a fair way to decide the all-round game of rugby is a difficult proposition.
My mate Alex Richman wrote a blog entry recently entitled ‘We all love laughing at losers’. http://www.theyorker.co.uk/news/sport/3040 Typically entertaining stuff, but I don’t really agree. As Tim Henman and Jimmy White testify, we love our losers. There may, again, be something essentially British about supporting, and later consoling, the plucky underdog that Mitchell speaks of. And finding the equivalent of the 'endearing' tail-ender in modern sports where we no longer find affection and association with the players - most notably football - may be the way we can regain the love of the game.
If you have a lot of spare time and have finished listening to Mitchell, don’t track down this lunchtime’s TMS audio. The guest was Rolf Harris. What a plonker.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
England hold on for draw in Ashes first test
We got away with it, just. But, amidst relief that the draw was secured, we shouldn't forget some significant England shortcomings in the first test. The first one: we gave away 19 wickets, and gave away really is the term, on a placid wicket. KP's gone down as the scapegoat, but can you remember more than three England wickets that were unavoidable, where the ball was 'just too good'? The facts: In 211.5 overs, across both innings, England lost 19 wickets. In 181 overs, Australia lost only 6.
The tail-enders may have stolen the headlines, but it was Paul Collingwood who saved the match for England. He batted for nearly six hours, scoring 74 off 245 balls. Perhaps a result of his limited-overs captaincy, he took responsibility for his wicket, and his side, with rare bravery. When he got out, he was visibly gutted, as he thought that one lapse had cost England the first test. Collingwood is not brilliant, but attritional, obdurate. He'd be a great Aussie.
One of the great things about Test cricket is the way that momentum can swing back and forth on numerous occasions. It can go one side’s way for two days, and then just one strike – bang – a wicket, even a boundary or two, and the game’s going the other way. Talk about an Ashes series. 5 Tests, and after securing that draw in the first, England are on the front foot. The back-to-back set-up of these first Two tests allows England to capitalise, starting tomorrow.
Australia's failure to finish off England in Cardiff on Monday is a damming reflection of the fallibilities in Ricky Ponting's captaincy. Ponting, as a captain, not a batsman, lacks the killer instinct. Michael Vaughan had that sniff of opportunity, of the movement to be aggressive with his bowlers and his field. It's too early to know if Andrew Strauss has it, but he'd do well not to copy his Australian counterpart. Ponting twice let England off the hook, at 70-5 and again when Panesar came to the wicket. Monty, possessing a Test batting average of 5.33, survived for 35 balls to bring England home. For some bizarre reason, Ponting partnered Nathan Hauritz with part-time off-spinner Marcus North. Monty understands spin. Why not send in Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle to use his ankles as target practice? It would have only taken one ball that came in a little bit too quick, one LBW, and Australia would have been one up.
The age of the all-rounder has begun. Between them, England and Australia only had the single real one - Andrew Flintoff - before the Ashes begun, but many more stood up over five days in Cardiff. Ponting trusted batsmen North's off-spin to take that final wicket, and Katich and Clarke had a go with the ball too. For England, Paul Collingwood - who excels in the third discipline, fielding - took Brad Haddin's wicket with his medium-pacers, whilst Freddie looks more comfortable with the bat than he has done in a while, on his way back to being a genuine all-rounder, rather than a bowler who bats. Graeme Swann scored 47 not out and 31, Stuart Broad was disappointed with 17 and 14 and James Anderson notched up 26 and 21. England's 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 can all bowl and bat then. Such multidisciplinary adeptness is becoming a feature of twenty-first century sport. Rugby league has been full of identikit 6'2", 14 stone plus clones for every position now, but union is following suit. Gethin Jenkins is the finest prop in the Northern Hemisphere because he rucks like a back row, and Mike Phillips the finest scrum half because he can tackle and break tackles well enough to be trusted at centre. Duncan Fletcher, in his time as England head coach, taught each bowler that he had a responsibility with the bat too. You have to take all 10 wickets to get England out nowadays, as Australia are all too aware.
Monty Panesar should be dropped. First up, he has failed to replicate his new-found maturity with the bat when doing his day job, bowling. Figures of 1-115 tell a story of a man who keeps on rolling out the same delivery, failing in the essential demand of making batsmen uncomfortable. But, just as important, dropping the Barmy Army's cult hero would send a powerful message in a series where the phoney war is nearly as important as the real thing. Taking heed of Michael Vaughan's admission that seeing Australia (that's Australia) celebrate a draw (yes, a draw) at Old Trafford in 2005 made his team realise how close they were to doing something special, England didn't over-celebrate their rescued test in Cardiff. It also can't be bad news that we're already under Ricky Ponting's skin. The Australian captain is a genius with the bat, but has pyschological weaknesses that can be exploited. Dropping Panesar for the second test would show that there's no room for sentiment in the England camp. We mean business.
Check this lot out for a 6-a-side cricket side: Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne. Not bad eh? Why do I group them together? Because they were wearing the baggy green in the 2005 Ashes series, and aren't here four years on. (I, like all other Englishmen, am still pretending 2006-07 didn't happen!) Australia arrived in 2005 as a side near the peak of their powers, comfortably the best test side in the world, and having won in India in 2004, with their main men enjoying continued success towards their twilight years. Somehow, England dragged themselves upto - and even beyond - the tourists' level. Four years on and I'm worried England - admittedly, a side who have endured considerable turmoil off the field in the last 12 months, but been reasonably settled on it - being pulled down to the Australians' - an inexperienced side who lost a home test series to South Africa over the winter - level.
Can a set of 22 (rising towards 26 by the end of the series) who don't come close to the 2005 bunch produce the same levels of sporting drama, if not excellence? Thankfully, it seems they can.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Protecting our part-time sports fans
Want to head down to your local tennis court for a game? You'll be lucky. It's the week after Wimbledon and all over the country, part-time tennis fans are taking their British flags off their cars, dusting down their tennis rackets for the first time since this time last year. 'Big serve from Roddick.' 'Backhand crosscourt from Murray...' 'And he wins the point with a smash!'
The same way that Wimbledon has punctuated my midsummers since childhood, The World Snooker Championship at the Crucible became a springtime fixture, and a great excuse for staying up late on that Bank Holiday Monday. In year six, dreaming that I could replicate the men in the tuxedos, I set up a school snooker tournament, on my primary school's tiny pool table. By the time we got round to playing, the drama at the Crucible had faded into distant memory and nobody was interested in playing. I only had to win two matches to win, against snooker players who must have been even worse than myself.
But it's not so much in the playing as in the armchair spectating that real part-time sports fans excel. You know the kind - the kind that mispronounce 'Fernando Torres' and tell you that 'it's really all about the way they retrieve the kick off.' Fan, we often forget, is short for fanatic. That they are not. Sporting events saturating terrestrial TV is their all-important medium, allowing them to become two-week experts on Andy Murray's return and Stephen Hendry's safety shot.
I’ll come down off my high horse for a second, and admit that I really only qualify as a full-time football fan. I guess I’m more weekend dad with rugby union, tennis, cricket – I never stop caring, I talk the talk when the Six Nations come around, but am not in the pub for Northampton – Sale on Tuesday evening.
In fact, I envy these part-time sports fans a lot. They get the exciting bits without having to go through all the drudgery in between. But, as Nick Hornby so thrillingly, nail-smack-on-the-head, described: those beautiful climactic moments are much better if you’ve gone through the drudgery to get there; you’ve put in the time, deserved it.
You can also learn a lot from them – we ran a feature on ‘The Score’ – our student radio Saturday afternoon sports show – called ‘Girls answer sport’s biggest questions’. Ignoring accusations of sexism, we found that the girls we got into the studio, with very little knowledge of sport - and therefore free from preconception and bias - cut through the crap and made some pretty insightful comments on goal-line and other refereeing technology, drug taking in sport and the like.
We should value them, protect them even. The 'protected' sports list - or more correctly, the list of sporting events reserved for free-to-air television, under the remit of the Culture Secretary, is hugely significant. There are currently 10 events on the A-list, those too important to be restricted to subscription television, ranging from the Olympics to the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final. In 1998, when the list was last renewed, home cricket test matches dropped from the A to the B-list, meaning they could be bid for by subscription broadcasters, as long as highlights were shown on terrestrial. Fortunately, for the 2005 Ashes, Channel 4 bid high enough. My memories of the greatest series therefore include watching in free periods at school and getting home to see the climactic stages on TV. I remember the Channel 4 coverage as top notch - but then again I would: the cricket was brilliant, and we won.
The last time the 'protected' sports list made the headlines was September of last year, when only the highlights of England's World Cup qualifier in Croatia were available on terrestrial, as Setanta showed the game live. It was England's best result since the thrashing of Germany in 2001, Theo Walcott scoring a hat-trick for Fabio Capello's boys in a 4-1 win. Perhaps a good omen for their cricketing counterparts, whose exploits against the Aussies in this summer's Ashes will be available only on Sky. Of course, we didn't care when the same was true in the series down under 2006-2007, but that was because it was winter and we lost, heavily. For us terrestrial viewers, Five's highlights every evening at 7.15pm are as good as it gets for the 2009 Ashes. And my tractor's only got FM radio, so I can't even listen to Test Match Special!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Promising' is the word to describe England's first day of the 2009 Ashes series. 336-7 is just about par, as England's batsmen got in, and then got out. I would be pretty happy if I was Andrews Flower or Strauss, certainly much happier than if one batsmen had made half of that total on his own. Bopara, Pietersen, Collingwood, Prior, Flintoff and Strauss himself all got between 30 and 70, showing - with slightly differing comfort levels - that they are in good touch. They lost their wickets - and Pietersen is the prime culprit for a ridiculous sweep-shot - because of a lack of care. Strauss can now sit down with his run-scorers and tell them, as well as Alastair Cook, whose dismissal for 10 was more worrying, that they need to take responsibility, treasure their wicket and start putting in the centuries, the match-winning 150s, 200s. For me, partnerships are more important than individual scores in winning matches though, and today showed the beginnings of two which should prove to be imperative if England are to win the little urn back. Pietersen and Collingwood, 4 and 5, steadied the ship in batting from lunch to tea and added 138. Prior and Flintoff, 6 and 7, added 86 more when they were together in the middle. Prior looked the most fluent of all of England's batsmen - which is great news. Especially after watching the Twenty20, he knows as much as anyone else that he's no superstar behind the stumps, but the more runs he gets, the more his confidence as a wicketkeeper will grow. Having him at 6 also has the advantage of giving Freddie the licence to go for his shots at 7. The openers will need to join the party in the second innings, so Ravi Bopara can come to the middle with the score at least at the 100 mark. Bopara, batting at the pivotal number 3 position, will now his first-Ashes-test nerves behind him, and looks set to score big. He will have gained from surviving - initially - a thorough interrogation by Peter Siddle, who has looked the pick of the Aussie bowlers. Before Bopara was out of single figures, Siddle planted one down short and straight, bouncing hard to hit the batsman hard under the chin. 'New boy, this is the Ashes, you know.'
The same way that Wimbledon has punctuated my midsummers since childhood, The World Snooker Championship at the Crucible became a springtime fixture, and a great excuse for staying up late on that Bank Holiday Monday. In year six, dreaming that I could replicate the men in the tuxedos, I set up a school snooker tournament, on my primary school's tiny pool table. By the time we got round to playing, the drama at the Crucible had faded into distant memory and nobody was interested in playing. I only had to win two matches to win, against snooker players who must have been even worse than myself.
But it's not so much in the playing as in the armchair spectating that real part-time sports fans excel. You know the kind - the kind that mispronounce 'Fernando Torres' and tell you that 'it's really all about the way they retrieve the kick off.' Fan, we often forget, is short for fanatic. That they are not. Sporting events saturating terrestrial TV is their all-important medium, allowing them to become two-week experts on Andy Murray's return and Stephen Hendry's safety shot.
I’ll come down off my high horse for a second, and admit that I really only qualify as a full-time football fan. I guess I’m more weekend dad with rugby union, tennis, cricket – I never stop caring, I talk the talk when the Six Nations come around, but am not in the pub for Northampton – Sale on Tuesday evening.
In fact, I envy these part-time sports fans a lot. They get the exciting bits without having to go through all the drudgery in between. But, as Nick Hornby so thrillingly, nail-smack-on-the-head, described: those beautiful climactic moments are much better if you’ve gone through the drudgery to get there; you’ve put in the time, deserved it.
You can also learn a lot from them – we ran a feature on ‘The Score’ – our student radio Saturday afternoon sports show – called ‘Girls answer sport’s biggest questions’. Ignoring accusations of sexism, we found that the girls we got into the studio, with very little knowledge of sport - and therefore free from preconception and bias - cut through the crap and made some pretty insightful comments on goal-line and other refereeing technology, drug taking in sport and the like.
We should value them, protect them even. The 'protected' sports list - or more correctly, the list of sporting events reserved for free-to-air television, under the remit of the Culture Secretary, is hugely significant. There are currently 10 events on the A-list, those too important to be restricted to subscription television, ranging from the Olympics to the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final. In 1998, when the list was last renewed, home cricket test matches dropped from the A to the B-list, meaning they could be bid for by subscription broadcasters, as long as highlights were shown on terrestrial. Fortunately, for the 2005 Ashes, Channel 4 bid high enough. My memories of the greatest series therefore include watching in free periods at school and getting home to see the climactic stages on TV. I remember the Channel 4 coverage as top notch - but then again I would: the cricket was brilliant, and we won.
The last time the 'protected' sports list made the headlines was September of last year, when only the highlights of England's World Cup qualifier in Croatia were available on terrestrial, as Setanta showed the game live. It was England's best result since the thrashing of Germany in 2001, Theo Walcott scoring a hat-trick for Fabio Capello's boys in a 4-1 win. Perhaps a good omen for their cricketing counterparts, whose exploits against the Aussies in this summer's Ashes will be available only on Sky. Of course, we didn't care when the same was true in the series down under 2006-2007, but that was because it was winter and we lost, heavily. For us terrestrial viewers, Five's highlights every evening at 7.15pm are as good as it gets for the 2009 Ashes. And my tractor's only got FM radio, so I can't even listen to Test Match Special!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Promising' is the word to describe England's first day of the 2009 Ashes series. 336-7 is just about par, as England's batsmen got in, and then got out. I would be pretty happy if I was Andrews Flower or Strauss, certainly much happier than if one batsmen had made half of that total on his own. Bopara, Pietersen, Collingwood, Prior, Flintoff and Strauss himself all got between 30 and 70, showing - with slightly differing comfort levels - that they are in good touch. They lost their wickets - and Pietersen is the prime culprit for a ridiculous sweep-shot - because of a lack of care. Strauss can now sit down with his run-scorers and tell them, as well as Alastair Cook, whose dismissal for 10 was more worrying, that they need to take responsibility, treasure their wicket and start putting in the centuries, the match-winning 150s, 200s. For me, partnerships are more important than individual scores in winning matches though, and today showed the beginnings of two which should prove to be imperative if England are to win the little urn back. Pietersen and Collingwood, 4 and 5, steadied the ship in batting from lunch to tea and added 138. Prior and Flintoff, 6 and 7, added 86 more when they were together in the middle. Prior looked the most fluent of all of England's batsmen - which is great news. Especially after watching the Twenty20, he knows as much as anyone else that he's no superstar behind the stumps, but the more runs he gets, the more his confidence as a wicketkeeper will grow. Having him at 6 also has the advantage of giving Freddie the licence to go for his shots at 7. The openers will need to join the party in the second innings, so Ravi Bopara can come to the middle with the score at least at the 100 mark. Bopara, batting at the pivotal number 3 position, will now his first-Ashes-test nerves behind him, and looks set to score big. He will have gained from surviving - initially - a thorough interrogation by Peter Siddle, who has looked the pick of the Aussie bowlers. Before Bopara was out of single figures, Siddle planted one down short and straight, bouncing hard to hit the batsman hard under the chin. 'New boy, this is the Ashes, you know.'
Lions Tour Review
The Lions salvaged some pride in avoiding a series whitewash at the hands of World Champions South Africa with a defiant 28-9 win in the final test in Johannesburg.
The recalled Shane Williams capitalised on fine breaks by Jamie Heaslip and Riki Flutey to grab a first-half brace and put the Lions in control, and wing partner Ugo Monye’s interception touchdown put the game beyond a much-changed Springbok side.
South Africa coach Peter de Villiers changed ten players from the team who secured series victory last weekend, the replacements unable to break down the Lions’ defensive barrier. Many of Ian McGeechan’s changes were enforced – injuries to both first-choice centres and props allowing Flutey his Lions test debut, as well as a shot at redemption for veteran Phil Vickery.
The Lions won the series 74-63 on aggregate, or by 7-5 in tries scored. The Lions played all the rugby against the World Champions, who wanted to get the ball off the pitch and exploit the set piece as much as possible. The rugby was thrilling at times, although perhaps the drama reached higher plains than the quality of play. The Springboks won the first two matches, however, because the Lions came up well short at the basics; indiscipline let them down. The Lions' credibility was more than maintained in 2009, but they must make sure that they don't become the Barbarians, a touring novelty known for daring, expansive rugby, with professionalism less important. Ensuring a slightly longer tour, with the squad spending longer together before the serious business really gets underway, in Australia 2013 is a promising first step.
The Lions first test fightback, and third test vanquishing of the Springboks, were both achieved with the majority of the South Africans' main men off the park. The World Champions came up well short when it came to strength in depth, their replacements a good level short. It was said before the tour, and at several points within it, that the Lions were lacking in truly world class players, Brian O'Driscoll aside. I don't think is the worrying thing - a lack of alternatives to the first choice test selections, from the four home nations combined, lest we forget, is far more striking. Mike Phillips played every second, Andy Powell was no competition for Heaslip at Number 8, and things might have turned out a lot better if the second choice fly-half, Ronan O'Gara, had never made it onto the pitch.
Man of tour:
The barnstorming Jamie Roberts. The 22-year-old Welshman wrote his name all over the No. 12 test jersey in the warm-up games and formed such a formidable midfield partnership with Brian O'Driscoll in the first game against the Springboks that he was man-marked in the second. Proof that bish-bash-bosh can be stunningly effective in the modern game, and now a recognised world class talent.
'That lad's a bit special':
Ireland full back Rob Kearney's solid warm-up displays went almost completely unnoticed, so nailed on was Lee Byrne for the test No.15. Byrne was forced off injured early in the first test however, and Kearney excelled in his place. Stunningly cool both receiving and following his own high balls, and finished his try intelligently in the second test. 23, but looks like he's been playing at the very highest level for years. Always looks like he has time - the sign of a top class player.
Golden oldie:
Simon Shaw. Brought into the side for the second test to add a bit of beef to the scrum - receiving his first Lions cap on his third tour - and was outstanding, deservedly winning man of the match. Well on his way towards 36, surely the England lock can't be there in four years time...
The Denmark at Euro 92 award:
The Danes didn't qualify, but replaced Yugoslavia at the last minute, and went on to win it. The athletic Leicester Tigers flanker Tom Croft was surprisingly absent from the original tour party but was called up when Alan Quinlan was banned for gouging. Went straight into the test team and scored two tries. Simple. Ian McGeechan and co. are lucky not to have had to explain why he wasn't picked in the first place.
The Darren Fletcher award for enhancing reputation through absence: (sorry for the football theme, I must be missing it)
Fletcher has been a dogsbody in the Manchester United midfield for years, but then got sent off in the Champions League semi-final, Barca's Xavi and Iniesta ran rings around Carrick, Anderson and co. in the final, and Fletcher has been heralded as the finest hard-tackling midfield err ever?
It wasn't that long ago that The Times' Stephen Jones said he'd leave Brian O'Driscoll out of the test team, and pick Tom Shanklin instead. The Welshman's shoulder surgery was quickly forgotten, though, as O'Driscoll formed an impressive centre partnership with Jamie Roberts. So, just about goes to Jerry Flannery. The Irishman was the clear choice for test hooker before he was ruled out with an elbow injury. Lee Mears and Matthew Rees weren't good enough, and Ross Ford was only called up to bolster the Scottish numbers, to...3.
Future captain:
I'll take a punt on Jamie Heaslip. The Irish Number 8 was one of very few to start all three tests. He held his own relatively quietly in the first two, but did what he does best - running in straight lines, through whatever's in front of him - for the full eighty minutes in the third. Will be the cornerstone of the Irish team for the next few years, and right at the heart of an Irish-dominated Lions team 2013 (Stephen Ferris is a great prospect, choose from this lot for outside backs - Fitzgerald, Bowe, Kearney, Earls, and Leinster and Munster continuing to progress in the Heineken Cup). Will be 29 when the Lions reach Australia - the same age Paul O'Connell was this time.
Best quote:
Phil Vickery – 'You know you have had a bad game when your mum, your missus and your sister text to say they still love you!'
The recalled Shane Williams capitalised on fine breaks by Jamie Heaslip and Riki Flutey to grab a first-half brace and put the Lions in control, and wing partner Ugo Monye’s interception touchdown put the game beyond a much-changed Springbok side.
South Africa coach Peter de Villiers changed ten players from the team who secured series victory last weekend, the replacements unable to break down the Lions’ defensive barrier. Many of Ian McGeechan’s changes were enforced – injuries to both first-choice centres and props allowing Flutey his Lions test debut, as well as a shot at redemption for veteran Phil Vickery.
The Lions won the series 74-63 on aggregate, or by 7-5 in tries scored. The Lions played all the rugby against the World Champions, who wanted to get the ball off the pitch and exploit the set piece as much as possible. The rugby was thrilling at times, although perhaps the drama reached higher plains than the quality of play. The Springboks won the first two matches, however, because the Lions came up well short at the basics; indiscipline let them down. The Lions' credibility was more than maintained in 2009, but they must make sure that they don't become the Barbarians, a touring novelty known for daring, expansive rugby, with professionalism less important. Ensuring a slightly longer tour, with the squad spending longer together before the serious business really gets underway, in Australia 2013 is a promising first step.
The Lions first test fightback, and third test vanquishing of the Springboks, were both achieved with the majority of the South Africans' main men off the park. The World Champions came up well short when it came to strength in depth, their replacements a good level short. It was said before the tour, and at several points within it, that the Lions were lacking in truly world class players, Brian O'Driscoll aside. I don't think is the worrying thing - a lack of alternatives to the first choice test selections, from the four home nations combined, lest we forget, is far more striking. Mike Phillips played every second, Andy Powell was no competition for Heaslip at Number 8, and things might have turned out a lot better if the second choice fly-half, Ronan O'Gara, had never made it onto the pitch.
Man of tour:
The barnstorming Jamie Roberts. The 22-year-old Welshman wrote his name all over the No. 12 test jersey in the warm-up games and formed such a formidable midfield partnership with Brian O'Driscoll in the first game against the Springboks that he was man-marked in the second. Proof that bish-bash-bosh can be stunningly effective in the modern game, and now a recognised world class talent.
'That lad's a bit special':
Ireland full back Rob Kearney's solid warm-up displays went almost completely unnoticed, so nailed on was Lee Byrne for the test No.15. Byrne was forced off injured early in the first test however, and Kearney excelled in his place. Stunningly cool both receiving and following his own high balls, and finished his try intelligently in the second test. 23, but looks like he's been playing at the very highest level for years. Always looks like he has time - the sign of a top class player.
Golden oldie:
Simon Shaw. Brought into the side for the second test to add a bit of beef to the scrum - receiving his first Lions cap on his third tour - and was outstanding, deservedly winning man of the match. Well on his way towards 36, surely the England lock can't be there in four years time...
The Denmark at Euro 92 award:
The Danes didn't qualify, but replaced Yugoslavia at the last minute, and went on to win it. The athletic Leicester Tigers flanker Tom Croft was surprisingly absent from the original tour party but was called up when Alan Quinlan was banned for gouging. Went straight into the test team and scored two tries. Simple. Ian McGeechan and co. are lucky not to have had to explain why he wasn't picked in the first place.
The Darren Fletcher award for enhancing reputation through absence: (sorry for the football theme, I must be missing it)
Fletcher has been a dogsbody in the Manchester United midfield for years, but then got sent off in the Champions League semi-final, Barca's Xavi and Iniesta ran rings around Carrick, Anderson and co. in the final, and Fletcher has been heralded as the finest hard-tackling midfield err ever?
It wasn't that long ago that The Times' Stephen Jones said he'd leave Brian O'Driscoll out of the test team, and pick Tom Shanklin instead. The Welshman's shoulder surgery was quickly forgotten, though, as O'Driscoll formed an impressive centre partnership with Jamie Roberts. So, just about goes to Jerry Flannery. The Irishman was the clear choice for test hooker before he was ruled out with an elbow injury. Lee Mears and Matthew Rees weren't good enough, and Ross Ford was only called up to bolster the Scottish numbers, to...3.
Future captain:
I'll take a punt on Jamie Heaslip. The Irish Number 8 was one of very few to start all three tests. He held his own relatively quietly in the first two, but did what he does best - running in straight lines, through whatever's in front of him - for the full eighty minutes in the third. Will be the cornerstone of the Irish team for the next few years, and right at the heart of an Irish-dominated Lions team 2013 (Stephen Ferris is a great prospect, choose from this lot for outside backs - Fitzgerald, Bowe, Kearney, Earls, and Leinster and Munster continuing to progress in the Heineken Cup). Will be 29 when the Lions reach Australia - the same age Paul O'Connell was this time.
Best quote:
Phil Vickery – 'You know you have had a bad game when your mum, your missus and your sister text to say they still love you!'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
