RWC: Some notes on balls and other things

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 19 Sep 2007 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

9 Have your say



gilbert-rugby-ball.jpg

Having a ball
At a demonstration of NZ cooking earlier in the RWC tournament, where Anton Oliver stole the show as a volunteer, there were some of the Gilbert balls being used at this RWC tournament. Going back many (many) decades to the days of my youth I couldn’t resist grabbing one and shaping up to pass to my startled wife. What I noticed about the ball is that they are much pointer, more plum shaped, than the balls used in tests and RWC tournaments in the past.

I asked a professional rugby player about this. He told me the pointed ball went much further when punted accurately than the more soccer-round type of ball. It also bounced more erratically. I noticed that Nick Evans for the All Blacks and Chris Latham for the Wallabies are kicking this 2007 ball huge distances. But Daniel Vickerman and Chris Jack have dropped passes they would usually snaffle with easy. And the goal-kickers, unless they hit the (smaller?) sweet spot accurately. Stirling Mortlock and Stephen Jones both missed relatively easy shots at goals in the Australia-Wales game.

I was talking to one of the Wallabies management recently and we talked about the balls. He made the interesting point that they favoured the Springboks because their game was essentially to smash into rucks and mauls (generally illegally), to win the lineouts with the marvellous Victor Matfield, for Percy Montgomery to kick all the penalties and then to force penalties and the occasional try (with Bryan Habana’s chasing) by continually kicking the ball.

A couple of good Rugby jokes
Along with Mick Cleary and Paul Ackford of The Daily Telegraph (UK), I really enjoy the writing of Chris Hewitt in The Independent. Chris looks like an old-fashioned Fleet Street reptile. He slightly roly-poly, has a wicked sense of humour and is the full bottle on all the rugby gossip.

Unlike some (read Stephen Jones) he has some respect for rugby in Australia and New Zealand, and some real insight into why these countries are world-leaders in the game, on and off the field. In his write-up of the Tonga-Samoa game, Chris was at his insightful and witty best. Writing about the Samoan flanker Ulia Ulia, he said, ‘Ulia Uli, a Samoan flanker so good they named him twice…’ And on Hale T-Pole’s yellow card, he wrote: ‘T-Pole did not last the game: he was sent off for a stiff-armed tackle on the Samoan lock Leo Lafaiali’i. You might say that Lafaiali’i was T-Pole-axed …’

Say it isn’t so, IRB
L’Equipe, the main daily sporting newspaper in France, is usually very well-informed. I was concerned when I read a short item some days ago to the effect that the RWC 2011 tournament will have two divisions, one of 16 teams for the William Webb Ellis trophy, and a second division “reservee aux equippes les plus faibles’ (reserved for weaker teams) which will be named La Couple Vernon Pugh.

Vernon Pugh, who he? Vernon Pugh QC (as he liked to be called) was the first full-time, paid president of the IRB. He died in harness in 2003. He remained an official of the Welsh Rugby Union, while leading the IRB. He was hostile to rugby success of Australia and NZ and once threatened to stop SANZAR referees from managing the game to allow open, running rugby. According to L’Equipe, Pugh came up with the idea of the two-tier RWC tournament.

I have two objections to the L’Equipe news. First, Vernon Pugh was such a partisan Welsh supporter, even as the president of the IRB (see how Welsh the opening ceremony at Cardiff the 1999 RWC tournament was), that it is an insult to the other major rugby nations he was hostile to to enshrine his name in a RWC tournament. Second, the notion of a 16-team RWC tournament, rather than a 20-team tournament, should be strongly resisted by the rugby community.

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.

Get a daily rugby union email

Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it.

We value privacy. More.