Five lessons to take away from the Rugby World Cup
1. New Zealand is still the greatest rugby nation of all – On the evening of the final 250,000 (yes 250,000) people descended onto the waterfront ‘fanzone’ in Auckland to […]
2. The IRB should hang their heads in shame for their stance over the Haka – Without doubt the moment of the tournament was the French advance on the Haka in the final. There is very little I can think of in sport to rival the theatre that moment created. However the IRB decided to fine the French. What a disgrace. Something must be done to allow teams to symbolically ‘accept’ the ‘challenge’ that is laid down to them through the Haka. Such moments can inspire youngsters to take up the game in the first place and provide a spectacle that other sports cannot compete with for gladiatorial drama. Who can forget the image of Sébastien Chabal basically foaming at the mouth face-to-face with the Haka in Cardiff at the 2007 World Cup?
3. Sports socials are probably best left to University students – Now I am not one to condemn sportsmen for unwinding from the pressure of a World Cup, but surely there is a difference between socialising as a team in the hotel and throwing dwarves around a bar in public? Also, if you have married the Queen’s granddaughter just over a month before the tournament, it’s probably not the best idea to be seen engaging with another woman ‘Sinners Sport style’ just in case it makes the papers. What you should do is to wait until the tournament is over and then you can do what you like, even jump off a ferry. Oh wait. Step forward Mike Tindall MBE.
4. The World Cup is about results and not romance – Ask any person who watched the tournament, ‘who was better: England or Wales?’ and I don’t even think Jonny Wilkinson’s mother would say England. The IRB rankings would though. England spent the whole tournament ranked at no.5 whereas Wales actually dropped from sixth to eighth in the standings. It’s clearly an anomaly but the bare facts from the tournament read that England won four out of five matches whereas Wales won only four of seven. Put all the goodwill from other nations’ fans and attractive rugby to one side and Wales actually won only one meaningful match, the quarter-final with Ireland.
5. The French remain totally unpredictable – For six weeks everyone and everything pointed to how lucky and undeserving the French side were to be in the Final. They had a coach with a ludicrous moustache who had lost his players to the point that they were ignoring what he was saying. They had contrived to lose to Tonga during the pool, struck much luck against a pathetically inept English side and a most unlucky Welsh team to reach their clash with the All Blacks. There seemed no reasonable evidence that they could even come close to winning, and then we all remembered they are French. They started by advancing on the Haka and then produced a magnificent display and were themselves incredibly unlucky to catch the wrong side of the referee or else it may have been them celebrating in Auckland. No one really knows what changed, and because they are French it could have been literally anything – the quality of the red wine at the hotel, the side of the bed they got out of in the morning, the quality of the fights that broke out in training that week or even simply the weather. All we do know is you can still never count out the French.
Written by Elliot Dodds, grandstand writer
Photo: © rugbyworldcup.com
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