Happy Christmas, Mr Henson

So Henson’s year ends as it started, under an injury cloud, with doubts over his team ethic, but in the news.

This time he’s accused of being involved in some oafish behaviour on the train back from the victory over Harlequins that put the Ospreys in to the semi finals of the EDF. Good thing, too, or the suffix “Anglo-Welsh Cup” would have looked a little foolish.

Before our Gav is hung out to dry by the loose alliance of hangers and floggers who follow his every move (ranging from the Osprey supporters who say “We’ve got Hook, we’ve got Parker – do we need him ?” to the rugby men of past generations who distrust any player who has the time and the means to worry about waxing his legs), let us pause, in a festive display of goodwill to all, and consider…

Question 1 – why on earth was he NOT on the team bus ? Gatland, a man who inculcated a fierce sense of pride in the team ethic at Wasps, will wonder how well he is being managed, on a day to day basis.

Question 2 – perhaps more fundamentally – in a week when a squad player from Man Utd has been accused of rape during the course of a “Christmas Party” costing £4000 per head (cough, splutter…), how bad are our rugby stars ? Really ??

As our most news worthy rugby star in Wales, he’d still be unlikely to be able to splash out £4000 on a night out on the town with the spotty apprentices at Old Trafford. And they’d be highly unlikely to travel by train…

Besides which, would our Gav be allowed to go to a do where WAGS are banned ??

Heart and Soul from the new man

There's something about Gatland's face that urges caution. If he was my coach, I'd listen pretty intently. If I'd been an opponent, I'd have been watchful. It's the face of a front row forward who's done the hard yards. Now, as the Welsh coach, he will have an all too short period of time to pull his squad together, players and coaches, before we head in to the 6 Nations, desperate to put that game in Nantes behind us.
We face that competition without Martyn Williams, probably our best player in the past three years, and Alfie Thomas, our most charismatic individual. Our "Welsh Way" has, apparently, turned out to be a cul de sac. Our Regions have struggled in the Heineken thus far (ironically, only the perennial under achievers, the Cardiff Blues, look good for the next round) and the Ospreys have been the only team to advance in the EDF.
So Gatland himself need not be cautious. He can afford to be choosey. His squad members need to deliver in training - he will be seeking players who have the "right stuff", physically and mentally. Players who will make the right decisions under duress, who can deliver in conditions of extreme physical and mental pressure.
But please, oh please, let's stay interesting. Let's not become robots. Let's not become obsessed with the big hit, the physique, the weights. Let's have power where we need it, when we have the ball in hand. As the Springboks showed this autumn, you have to have the whole package to come up trumps.

After the ball...

Refreshing the parts that other Cups can't reach, the Heineken has replaced the Webb Ellis, and fans can forget dreams of national glory and concentrate on the local picture.
But we can't in Wales, of course.
Gatland has been crowned the new king of the WRU, the latest Great Redeemer. He's a good appointment, a surprisingly well considered one in the context of the hasty exit of poor old Gareth.
If you want an insight in to his legacy, take another look at a recording of that Wasps match against the Scarlets. A balance of fury and patience in defence (will he try to get us to play the rush defence as early as the 6 Nations ?), power and balance in attack. If the Wales team manage to strike that balance, they could be right up there in 4 years' time. He will hope, however, that the Heineken Cup form will improve. The Welsh teams are dominating phases, without coming away with points. Friday's defeat of the star spangled Ospreys by Gloucester was a case in point.

Alfie's reply

My lasting impression of the final will be the sight of Victor Matfield. Soaring to deny England a decent supply of line out ball (arguably, the reason why they never looked like a team that was going to get a stranglehold on the game), making a remarkable cover tackle on Tait (where did he come from ?), or pinning England back in to their 22 with a deft kick ahead late in the game. The man was everywhere.
South Africa won it all because they had specialists who could do it all. Proper stuff it up the jumper forwards who could also handle the ball, backs who could attack from deep at turnovers, but were happy to do the donkey work by making the hard yards when the game demanded it.
The adaptability was key. They attacked with the best, but when it got ugly, they had the grind and kick game to out grind and out kick England.
The competetion exposed those teams who couldn't adapt. Of the favourites, the Kiwis will know that their defeat was a case of "any given Sunday", and the sour grapes brigade will point an accusing finger at Wayne Barnes, but allowing for their lack of serious match practice leading up to that epic game in Cardiff, they failed to adapt to what Laporte's men threw at them. Likewise, the Australians allowed the game to be dictated by Sheridan et al. The wily Loffreda had got the Pumas kicking endlessly, in an effort to break down defenses. It got them so far. The French were too careful, and tried to out kick Jonny. England couldn't adapt anyway - they had decided on one tack.
And the poor Welsh, who could razzle and dazzle, who could fill a stadium with neutrals and play it like purists, forgot to read the bottom line.
No glory without the grunt.

So what's it all about (Alfie) ?

The Final

England 6 - South Africa 15

So it was all about this ?

Another fraught French evening, players fearful of getting caught in possession, or throwing the game breaking interception pass. And we were back to that kicking game, so beloved of Laporte's hapless warriors last weekend. In reality, it made for a poor game. The Kiwis who had hung on to their tickets so grimly, so determined to see out the last of this World Cup even though Carter and Co had long returned to the Land of the Long White Cloud, were rewarded with, well, a grim game. A great deal of blood and thunder at the breakdown, crunching defense, a display of macho sufficient to make Jean Claude Van Damme beat a hasty retreat and... kicking. High kicks, spirals to corners, deep drop outs from 22's, end over end punts, grubbers, up and unders ("cathedrales", I believe they're called in France). A veritable feast of, well, kicking.

The England team tried to out Bok the Bokke. Having been crushed 36-0 a month ago playing a clunking neither here nor there kind of game, Ashton and his merry men decided to follow the formula of the past two matches. Get territory deep, then see if Jonny's boot could engineer a lead that they could defend. Limited, but they could have won it, if Cueto had been wearing boots a size smaller.

How the fluent attacking talents sitting at home in Canterbury and Sydney would have squirmed to see the showpiece final played in such a dour manner.

But, hey, they were watching it, not playing it.

Swing Low, kick high...

Saturday, 13th October

France 9 - England 14

What this World Cup has done for the form book ain't pretty. Sage rugby men are reduced to pinning the tail on donkeys.
Another surreal match.
The softest of soft tries to begin, and Lewsey was so grateful he ruffled the hair of the distraught French tackler as if to say "I say, that was jolly decent of you..."
Then the French got going, rumbling menacingly in the forwards, the ball flickering across the back line. Obviously the conservative Laporte got a message on to the pitch, because the French started to kick the ball to death. Take that, Monsieur Gilbert Synergie.
They lost Pelous, which meant that Chabal, Captain Caveman himself, was denied the chance to be thrown on as a game breaker. Then - the master stroke from that smooth cranium of Laporte. Let's put Freddie Michalak on - BUT TELL HIM TO KEEP KICKING THE STUFFING OUT OF THE BALL...
So Robinson kept skipping back in to the French half, Jonny picked up some points, and Les Bleues somehow lost the game of their careers.
England, dear old one paced, one dimensional, stuff it up the jumper England had stormed their own personal Bastille.

Heading into the semis are...WHO ???

Teams keep paying the price for underestimating their opponents - perhaps the TriNations "you score 2 and we'll score 3" mentality, perhaps players and coaches guilty of looking one or two games ahead. Wales, Australia and NZ all fell short in this way. In all three games, their respective forwards were ultimately outmuscled and their coaching teams out thought.

Wales 34- Fiji 38

Nantes, 28th September 2007

Well, at least I can say I was there...
A few days down the line, I still find it hard to describe what that was like.
We spent most of the game out of our seats, and stood to cheer Fiji's lap of honour as well as the shattered remnants of Wales' finest as they crawled round at the end of what was an astonishing game of rugby.
Wales lost the game about ten minutes before the kick off.
Two crystal clear illustrations of how and why - the Welsh playing some extravagant touch rugby to warm up, the Fijians running disciplined grids, putting the spare man over in the corner. Oh God, I thought, they're going to take them on at 7 a side.
And lo and behold, Wales spurn two chances to put a spare man over in the corner in the first 5 minutes.
Ultimately, the Fijians were more pragmatic. They were willing to pick and drive, to take the Welsh forwards on, then take them on again. The Welsh were unwilling or unable to subdue them at the point of contact. As the game wore on, the Fijians recycled the ball at greater speed, so the Welsh were unable to make it count in the scrum, where they were clearly superior.
But all this sounds too technical, too dry.
I was there, and it was bloody brilliant stuff.

France 25 - Ireland 3, September 21st, 2007

The chorus of "Allez les Bleus" was more a sign of relief than excitement, and the team played down in the trenches rather than in the open fields, but a win is a win...
Both teams looked like viable contenders as the clock ticked down to this tournament. Laporte had gone through his combinations during the 6 Nations, tinkering in that scholarly fashion of his with back row combinations, half backs, back threes. He had enviable strength in depth (could ANY of the Home Nations afford to keep an athelete like Nyanga on the bench ?) and the team was able to play in a variety of ways.
Then came the opening match, where they were mauled by the Pumas. In truth, I suspect, Graham Henry had already holed them below the waterline in the "warm up" matches. A point (or 50) had been made, and the French were rocked on their heels. So when the Puma forwards tore in to them, disrupting the flow of possession, then put up a stream of up and unders to break up the game, the frayed French nerves snapped.
Similarly, the Irish played nervously. Their form had been poor going in to last night's game. Again, here was a team coached with this tournament in mind. Unlike Laporte, Sullivan had a settled side, a balanced team of artists and artisans. But last night they played tetchy, error strewn rugby. perhaps the reports in L'Equipe had led to a loss of focus - those intense blue eyes of O'Gara lacked the usual steely glint. Perhaps too much red mist. He certainly looked incapable of striking the ball with anything approaching his usual accuracy.
And one last thought.
I think it's a shame that much of the commentary and post match analysis revolved around Chris White, the referee. Folks might say that professional rugby players shouldn't need "sympathetic" refereeing, but surely the whistle shouldn't be allowed to drown out the combined voices of all those good people trying to belt out choruses of "La Marsailleise" and "Alive Alive Oh!" ?

England 0 - South Africa 36

The Springboks rarely out of second gear against an England side that lacked belief and showed an alarmingly poor level of basic skill.
Josh Lewsey, in the Sunday Times, analysed it thus :
"The squad has been seriously affected over the past couple of years due to injury, changes and form, but no more so over the past week." Fair comment, thinks the RuckandRoller. But then...
"In the absence of a settled society, history has shown that law and order break down, the social hierarchy constantly changes, organization disintegrates and eventually the tribe fragments..."
Quite so, Josh. And thank God you're not writing for the News of the World...
And "1790's France and 1920's Russia spring to mind"
Yeah. Smack on. Any hapless England fan at the Stade de France on Friday night must have been thinking the same...
So - a message to all the "Swing Low" brigade.
To the Barricades, mes amis. It is time to make a new world. A world where England full backs' hamstrings will not spontaneously combust at the sight of an open field in front of them. A world where journalists will stop grilling poor battered Martin Corry, and will instead pat him on the shoulder and point him towards the showers. "It's fine, Martin, old pal, your rugby did all the talking".

Wales 20- Australia 32

Millenium Stadium, Cardiff, September 15th, 2007

"Jeez, mate. Folks at home told us it rained all the fuckin' time in this neck of the woods. Will ya look at it - blue sky, I've got the shades on, it's just like Brisbane."

Quite.

Except in Brisbane they may have had the courage to open the roof...

A good game that came pretty close to being a great one. Enough what ifs to make us Welsh believe that we may still leave an imprint on this World Cup. Perhaps it is the heart saying that. The head might reply that, as in 2003, the imprint may be that of a team playing attractive rugby, exciting, bums-out-of-seats rugby, but ultimately we will be overpowered by the big boys.