Why England needs redemption in the Six Nations Tournament

By Spiro Zavos / Expert

England, the proud and arrogant rugby nation that created the great game, had a dreadful 2011 Rugby World Cup on and off the field. Brand England right now is a trash brand. The RFU is in a dysfunctional turmoil.

For the first time there is no English presence on the most powerful committee of the IRB, with Bill Beaumont’s attempt to unseat the IRB President Bernard Lapasset failing in ignominy and acrimony.

With England looking to host a 2015 Rugby World Cup that at least matches those of 1995 in South Africa, 2003 in Australia and 2011 in New Zealand and with its influence on the game worldwide diminishing, all the local rugby writers who have been fawningly indulgent over the weaknesses of English rugby are now insistent that the national side must start to dominate in Europe, at least. And improve its act on and off the field.

That domination has to start next weekend when England play Scotland at Murrayfield in the first round of what is shaping up to be an enthralling 2012 Six Nations tournament.

We don’t need to rehash too much old history from the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Just a mention of ‘dwarf-thrashing’ is enough to make English supporters cringe and bring back the horrible memories of players getting drunk and, in one notorious incident be absolutely unpleasant to a hotel maid.

The dreadful behaviour off the field was matched with poor play on the field.

We had the talented idiot Chris Ashton diving for tries against weak opponents like a prat while failing to deliver against strong oppositions. Ashton summed the English ethic of flat-wicket bullies, or as I called them during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the ‘John Bully-boys of world rugby.’

Before the usual suspects feel impelled to indulge themselves in their usual rant about me being consistently hostile to English rugby, I’d remind them that these sentiments are not just mine. They also now are expressed by virtually all the important British rugby writers.

During the 2011 Rugby World Cup,  before the finals so England’s chances were still open, Stephen Jones (the scourge of southern hemisphere rugby and all its works and pomps) opined that he wanted the All Blacks to win the tournament. Why?

Because he feared for the game in Europe if, say, England were to win their second Rugby World Cup tournament playing their dreadfully negative game.

When I made this same sort of argument in the 1990s, Jones was so outraged he called me in print “a greasy Greek.’”

This is the same Jones, too, who suggested that if New Zealand pulled out of the Rugby World Cup 2015 then Spain could easily take its place and provide the colour, glamour and brilliant rugby to fill out Twickenham like the All Blacks do.

It says a good deal about the malaise infecting England rugby that even Jones has finally seen through the obstructionist RFU and the sheer boredom and arrogance of the England game.

This week, as if to reinforce Jones’ new paradigm, the UK Daily Telegraph writer Steve James has written a piece on the difficulties facing the stand-in coach of England, Stuart Lancaster.

The heading to the story gives a clue as to its content: England Coach Stuart Lancaster’s Toughest Task Could Be Bringing Chris Ashton Back Down To Earth.

Highlighting the story was a photo of Ashton making his triumphal dive to plant the ball under the posts with an ‘infamous’ one-handed smash.

James started his story this way: “So England’s rugby players are perceived by much of the general public to be among other things, beer-swilling, dwarf-tossing, harbour-jumping, materialistic, coach-slagging, woman-harassing, drink drivers. Put simply, their reputation is in the gutter.”

James then quotes the new coach as conceding that this reputation is deserved and needs to be changed. England need a rugby team that “people at the grassroots level … can be proud of.”

The point here is that a team’s culture and the way players behave on and off the field can’t be changed over-night. England have actually won 10 of their last 13 Tests. They only lost once at the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

But – and it is an important qualifier, as James argues: ‘The trouble is that they played in such a depressing manner on the field and off it some of them acted like idiots. It is a poisonous cocktail in the eyes of the critics.

“England must not only just win: they must win with style and grace. As individual characters they have to become less disliked.”

Ashton and his graceless dive when he scores a try is a case in point. As James points out, Martin Johnson tried and failed to Ashton to stop it: “Maybe Lancaster should ban that mocking Ashton dive … Now, that would be a real statement of intent.”

For a couple of decades now I have argued in books like Ka Mate! Kamate! New Zealand Conquest of British Rugby (Viking Penguin, 1998) and innumerable articles in the SMH and The Roar that the DNA of English rugby was fatally wounded with the RFU’s split with the progressive northern unions in 1895, thereby allowing the creation of the rugby league code.

This split took the flair out of English rugby. The rugger blazers who forced the split and then ran the game, in England and throughout the world (until a couple of decades ago), had a view of rugby union that it was a contact form of soccer, foot-ball with crash tackles and mauling.

England rugby became fixated on ‘hard-men’ and allowed wonderful backs like Poulton-Palmer (the dazzling centre who captained England in its last Test before the 1914-1918 War), Peter Jackson and Horrocks-Taylor (of whom a frustrated tackler said after missing him, “Horrocks went one way and Taylor the other and I was left clutching air) to be one-offs.”

It is a rugby nation that does not have a clue about the aesthetics of rugby and how to win big matches with flair and style that preferred the journeyman kicking machine Rob Andrew (and has allowed to be part of the present administrative shambles) over the pudgy rugby genius (and now excellent television commentator) Stuart Barnes.

As I say, all the time I pointed out these obvious truths I received vicious and often racist criticism from English rugby writers and from supporters.

After some comments in the SMH about England’s stodgy play in the 1999 Rugby World Cup tournament, the SMH published a letter from an irate Englishman living in Sydney in which he literally cried out: “Who the hell is Spiro Zavos …”  And then he speculated that I was probably an advocate of the round-ball game.

I suppose I should be grateful that at least the rugby writers like Jones have seen the light on these weighty matters, finally.

I was interested to read this week, too, that Graham Henry has waded into the battle for the soul of English rugby (and presumably for a fat contract to help right matters) by accusing the English authorities of being ‘world champions at wasting talent.’

Henry argued (as I have so often over the decades) that England and English clubs play “a game based on fear and a generation of promising backs are dying on their feet. That has to change.”

He singled out Ben Foden, Chris Ashton and Delon Armitage as potentially great players who will never achieve their best under the current system.

A day or so after this Armitage was suspended from the larger England squad after being arrested for an alleged assault. And Ashton said he would change his ‘attitude’ but not his ‘style.’

Redemption, if it comes, will probably be later rather than sooner if this is the attitude of the senior England players.

The Crowd Says:

2013-01-01T23:55:05+00:00

cold calling techniques

Guest


Why visitors still make use of to read news papers when in this technological globe the whole thing is available on net?

2012-02-02T14:22:09+00:00

Ben S

Roar Guru


You're right. England need to own their reality and start to play what's in front of them. Especially in terms of background etc.

2012-02-02T10:50:50+00:00

Ben S

Roar Guru


I agree, Dave. Just making the point. Bloody drunken Irish... When will you learn?!

2012-02-02T07:46:14+00:00

Krash

Guest


"The words “Storm” and “teacup” spring to mind." My sentiments exactly Dave

2012-02-02T07:40:47+00:00

Krash

Guest


Well said Pots

2012-02-02T02:48:26+00:00

Dublin Dave

Guest


Hah. First I've heard of it. Sounds utterly disgraceful and I deplore such behaviour. But then again, let's do the sums. If the entire squad was there, plus presumably some support staff you're talking about 40 people. A bar bill of £1600 works out at about 40 quid a head. Now while you could certainly have a good night out at a bar for that amount it's not exactly excessive. I have no idea how much a pint costs in New Zealand but in Dublin, an ordinary bar would set you back about £4 a pint (roughly, assuming we're talking sterling here) But then this was probably a themed pub with specal attractiions and a VIP policy so their rates would be higher. Let's say it was the equivalent of a fiver a pint. Eight pints a head is indeed a lot, but I;m sure some of that went on food and perhaps on some of the, er, attractions.. A couple of pints, a pie and a lapdance......you'd be lucky to get away with 40 quid a head for that anywhere. And that's before a dwarf is thrown. The words "Storm" and "teacup" spring to mind.

2012-02-02T01:12:27+00:00

Derm

Roar Guru


Cos the Irish is nice, innit? Except when they're part of British trudging rugby, the evil Home Unions, the UK, the evil Celtic Home unions, etc, etc, etc.

2012-02-01T14:44:38+00:00

Ben S

Roar Guru


Btw, I read in this month's Rugby World that prior to the Australia v Ireland WC Test the Ireland squad went on a "boozy bash" in the same bar that a few England players got drunk in and incurred over £1600 in bar costs with Stephen Ferris walking about topless. Why was this never mentioned on the Roar?

2012-02-01T12:31:54+00:00

Colin N

Guest


I was hoping Spiro would do a run down on the Six Nations, who are the new players to watch, predictions etc etc? Something different to what we usually see on The Roar and just generally a knowledge of northern hemisphere rugby, not some effectively rehashed article. Alas, it was not to be. Oh well.

2012-02-01T12:08:44+00:00

Steve

Guest


Yes, this is needlessly inflammatory, and the comment about English Rugby being arrogant, followed by 'of course I identified the problems and gave perfect solutions in their entirety decades ago' goes along with earlier posters comments that there may not be much to pick between the author of this piece and the infamous Mr. Jones. Or indeed the pot and the kettle. The question is, is this the way 'The Roar' is going? Offensive broadsides aimed at ill-tempered rebuttals? I'm thinking of the recent piece which dealt with Tim Tebow's 'aggressive, backwards, degrading' Christian assault on the otherwise fashionably atheist NFL and it's viewers (presumably Ms Dinjanski has never heard Ray Lewis being interviewed, or seen Brandon Marshall's tattoos. Or Antonio Cromartie's,or Chad Ochocincos,or seen a player raise his finger to the sky after a touchdown etc. etc. etc.) Well, I suppose in the new spirit of The Roar, here's a continuation of Spiro's argument: ---------the DNA of rugby was fatally wounded with the RFU’s split with the progressive northern unions in 1895, thereby allowing the creation of the rugby league code. This split took the flair out of rugby. The rugger blazers who forced the split and then ran the game, in England and throughout the world (until a couple of decades ago), had a view of rugby union that it was a contact form of soccer, foot-ball with crash tackles and mauling-------------. With the simple deletion of the word 'English', you have the same argument, this time demonstrating why League has all the flair.

2012-02-01T10:44:45+00:00

Ben S

Roar Guru


How did England revert to type after that match? In which games?

2012-02-01T10:32:20+00:00

Dublin Dave

Guest


Groan. Can I be arsed to refute this same old same old stereotyping of the history of rugby in these islands? No. I will however point out one error of fact, or at least an error of incompletion. The famous quote about the missed tackle on Phil Horrocks-Taylor which was attributed to the Irish out half Mick "The Kick" English, is actually: "Horrocks went one way, Taylor went the other and I was left holding the bloody hyphen". This was remarkable at the time because English played for the Limerick club Bohemians and in the manner of Munster out halves in general, and Limerick out halves in particular, was required to be proficient at only two things: kicking the leather off the ball and making his tackles. Fancy dan sniping runs, astute passes to liberate your back line or any other sleight of hand was to be left to those effete middle class sissies from Dublin and Belfast. But by God, you had to work at it to get past the likes of English with the ball in your hands! Ronan O'Gara has blazed a new trail for Munster outhalves by being prodigious at the first requirement and completely ignoring the second. But then he's only a bloody Corkman!

2012-02-01T07:27:38+00:00

Scarlet

Guest


This article is more of the same, wrapped up in a desire for redemption and acknowledgement of Spiro as the Great Seer of Rugby. England have been arrogant and poorly managed but Lancaster is certainly setting the right ethos around discipline, hopefully his coaching ability will support it. England have a number of great attacking players as well as some quality forwards and we will all benefit from seeing England play exciting attacking rugby and stop being so worried about losing. England is the team/country that everyone loves to hate but balance in reporting is everything Spiro.

2012-02-01T07:14:41+00:00

Kane

Guest


Or maybe it was just another case of picking on weak opposition haha

2012-02-01T06:29:43+00:00

sheek

Guest


For me, Graham Henry nailed it - England waste talent, & they play with fear, fear of losing. England talk a good talk, but they can't walk the walk. May it continue..........

2012-02-01T04:53:06+00:00

Boris

Guest


Yep England were sensational in that game. They were dominant across the park and were particularly potent in the backs- something I hadn't really seen before. It was scary how good they looked, but following that match they reverted to type and haven't played in the same way since.

2012-02-01T04:45:02+00:00

peterlala

Guest


Spiro, it's staggering to hear that SJ called you a "greasy Greek". That's unacceptable. I'm surprised it was printed. Did anyone apologise to you?

2012-02-01T04:41:20+00:00

The Bush

Roar Guru


*snap*

2012-02-01T01:09:29+00:00

shropshirelad

Guest


Usual sad old balls by Spiro. We know we have problems fella and those of us none "arrogant" English people wish they would be sorted out too - you should visit Shropshire sometime and watch a game with genuine decent people who love the game and respect those who play it regardless of which country them come from. Now - rant over - I'm off to brand all mexicans as lazy and asians as sneaky....oh wait no - that would make me a bit of a twunt now wouldnt it!

2012-02-01T00:37:26+00:00

TembaVJ

Guest


As long as he is bashing the poms, he give bashing the boks a rest. I think England is turning the tide. Stephan who? :)

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