France 2007 RBS Six Nations Rugby Champions

Five weekends and fifteen games later, it’s all over and France is the 2007 RBS Six Nations Rugby Champions.

But what a final Super Saturday, with three teams fighting for the title. First into the ring was Ireland vs. Italy in Rome; they had to win by a large margin to put the championship out of French reach. With 80 minutes up, instead of being contented with the margin they had Ireland went for another try, only to fail and see Italy score a try, making the final score Italy 24 - 51 Ireland. The gauntlet had been thrown down; France would have to beat Scotland by 24 clear points to win the championship.

France looked to be cruising easily towards to a well deserved Championship. Then in the last few minutes of the game Scotland scored a try to reduce the margin to 20 points and give Ireland the Championship. We then saw a sustained French effort - with 80 minutes up, they had to ensure the ball remained in play and score a try. Under the pile of bodies on the right, is the French hero Elvis Vermeulen scoring the try which gave France the Championship.





All eyes then turned to Cardiff for the Wales vs. England match. England could still win the championship if they beat Wales by 54 clear points. Not a realistic possibility, and even less so when Wales went 15 to nil up.



In Wednesday’s blog I unfortunately said, Shane Williams had the opportunity to make himself Prince of Wales - I must have put a jinx on him. He did his normal electric runs, but instead of passing the ball for what would have been certain tries he held on hoping to score himself. As a result, at half time instead of being well out of reach Wales were only 3 points ahead.


But another Prince of Wales was crowned. With a contribution of 22 points James Hook was magnificent as indeed were the Welsh pack.










At the end, but to the relief of the Welsh Nation and particularly the Welsh Coach Gareth Jenkins, Wales won 27 - 18, avoiding the Wooden Spoon.









The Welsh fans were overjoyed, you would have thought they had won the championship, not narrowly missed finishing up with the wooden spoon






At the end of the day, in an empty stadium the French team was presented with the trophy.











Now we look forward to September & October and the World Cup.

Tea and the decline of British Society.

After blogging about tea yesterday, I started to think about the significance of tea in British life. I was wondering if tea drinking statistics can be used as a measure of social behaviour patterns.

In the past tea was attributed with having special powers.

You’ve just been knocked down by a bus and someone would rush up and offer you a cup of tea, “you’ll feel a lot better after drinking that”.

In the Second World War a bomb has just demolished your house, no problem a neighbour would be there to brew up a cuppa for you, “you’ll feel a lot better after drinking that”.

Your doctor has just informed you you have terminal cancer and have six months to live, “no problem dear lets go to the café for a nice hot sweet cup of strong tea, you’ll feel a lot better after drinking that”.

In those days tea was brewed in a teapot using tea leaves.

Britain lost its Empire and the British were no longer worthy of having tea brewed from tea leaves. With the loss of respect they only qualified to have tea bags, made from the sweepings off the floor of the tea factories.

But tea still had a unifying influence on British family life. At 4p.m. children sat around the kitchen table with their mother, drank tea, eat jam on toast and exchanged stories about the day’s events, before doing their homework.

After a meal, the man of the house would take out a packet of fags, (no he didn’t have miniature homosexuals in his pocket), light up a cigarette and drank a dark brown cup of strong sweat tea, (my father would put 5 heaped spoonful of sugar - I would sit and watch as he stirred and stirred the tea in an attempt to dissolve the treacly glob of sugar). I’d wait to see if he would blow a smoke ring. That’s one of the last memories I have of him, the night before he died, sitting watching TV, blowing the most perfectly symmetrical smoke ring, “that was perfect”, “yes” he laughed.

In contrast to the British, the Americans have always been hooked on coffee. They have no appreciation for tea - look at the Boston Tea Party and the barbaric act of emptying boxes of tea into the harbour. The start of the decline of their society can be traced to that point in time. All that caffeine from coffee was bound to have a detrimental effect. They were too stimulated to appreciate the joys of cricket. Probably had an adverse influence of their brain cells.

Regrettably there has been a similar decline in Britain. Up to ten years ago, every town in Britain had at least one “Greasy Spoon”. Cafes whose atmosphere was a combination of steam from the hot water boiler and fat vapour from the deep fat fryer. They would be inhabited by youths listening to the jukebox, housewives dragging at their cigarettes and coughing over their empty cups, the saucers full of ash and lipstick stained cigarette butts. Now those glorious bastions of all that was great in British culinary arts are no more. They have been replaced in the High Streets by Starbucks and other large multinational coffee shop chains. So now the young think it’s hip to sit around drinking over priced extra large cups of frothy milky coffee. In the mean time children drink sweat gassy liquid concoctions from tins.

What has been the result of replacing our great British cuppa, with those insipid chemically modified foreign drinks? Moral decline, New Labour, Tony (I lie through my teeth) Blair and the Iraq War.

Bring back the good old British cup of tea. Let’s have kids sitting around tables communicating with their parents. And most of all re-engender the community spirit which saw neighbours offering cups of tea in times of joy and trouble.

Anyone for Tea?

Never been one for herbal teas - nettle, mint, rose hip - things you feed to rabbits not make tea out of. No, tea is what chimps drink at zoos - don’t expect they have chimp tea parties any more, too none PC.

My wife started drinking Liquorice tea - that took my thoughts back to schoolboy days, short trousers and scuffed knees - chewing liquorice root. But liquorice tea is not for me, even the smell is overpowering.

Then she bought Sweet Chai, blended by Yogi Tea. Thought I’d be adventurous and try a cup. Followed the instructions, let it infuse (nice word that -infuse) for seven minutes added milk and honey. And do you know what, it was really nice. Just a hint of anise, the spice of ginger and clove, and a hardly detectable trace of liquorice. Yes delicious.

Then she bought Choco, also blended by Yogi Tea. Perhaps tea isn’t the right name, when the ingredients are: Cocoa shells, cinnamon, liquorice, carob, barley malt, cardamom, ginger, cloves, cinnamon extract, vanilla extract, black pepper, ginger extract, vanilla beans. Now I confess I like a mug of chocolate before going to bed, so I thought, “go for it!” Am I getting adventurous or what? So now I have a new bedtime drink. Hint - if you try it you must let it infuse (there’s that word again) for the full seven minutes to get the full balanced flavour.

Then she bought Lemon & Ginger. I thought enough is enough; I’m not going to become one of those herbal tea freaks. Drink too much and next thing you know you have long hair, wear beads and sandals and spend the day chanting Om. But then I had a cold. All the fault of that pig of a man who coughed just as I was passing him. Why is it that people no longer cover their mouths when they sneeze or caugh? And as for spitting, where has that habit come from? As a kid I’d have a clip across the ear if I spat on the pavement, but now it appears to be acceptable behaviour. Stop, stop calm down - stick to tea - today isn’t a day for ranting. Where was I? Yes, caught a cold, had a sore throat, my wife nagging “try the Lemon & Ginger tea, it will do you good”. Anything for a quiet life, I made a cup. Just off to buy some sandals and beads - Om, om. It was invigorating and did ease my throat. Though it’s not a tea I would drink on a regular bases.

Ho and I forgot to say yesterday, Happy New Year - it’s the Chinese New Year. 2007 is the Year of the Pig (must be named after the man who coughed on my face) .

Six Nations Rugby Championship - 2nd Weekend

Today England is playing Italy, and Scotland playing Wales. Tomorrow Ireland is playing France.

The Italians like playing with the sun on their backs, so the cold winter weather of the last four days would not be to their liking. After last weeks game against Scotland, the English supporters were singing the praise of their team. But really the Scots were so weak; no concrete evidence of a recovery can be taken from the game. It will not be until 24th February when they play Ireland that the strength of the English team can be measured. Unless England beat Italy by a margin of over 30 points, it will be seen as a poor performance.

Wales should beat Scotland, but they are still weakened by injuries. After last weeks defeat Scotland will be playing for their pride. Whoever loses today their season will be over, and it will also dent their confidence leading up to the World Cup, to be played later this year.

Tomorrows game is really juice, both Ireland and France have the potential to not only win the Championship but achieve the Grand Slam (winning all their games).They are also the two Northern Hemisphere teams who have the capabilities to challenge, if not New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Ireland have suffered a big blow losing their captain Brian O’Driscoll due to injury. The French like the Italians play their best rugby when they have the sun on their backs. Its finely balanced, hopefully its going to be an open running game.

It's going to be a tense afternoon watching Wales, but first the England vs Italy game.

Did you hear that thump; it was England falling to ground after spending last week in dreamland.

It was as if there was an invisible wall at the Italian 10 metre line through which England could not pass. They had to wait 35 minutes before they got into the Italian 22. Up to that point Wilkinson had kicked penalties at the 3rd, 14th and 24th minute. On the 37th minute Italian forward Marco Portola was sin binned for 10 minutes. In the 39th minute Jason Robinson went over in the corner for a try, which Wilkinson failed to convert, making the half time score England 14 - 0 Italy.

Fifteen minutes into the second half Wilkinson put over another penalty. Virtually all the play in the second half took place in the English half. The Italian pack had full control of the game, and England looked devoid of ideas. Italy got their reward in the 65 minutes with a try under the posts. In the 73rd minute Wilkinson put over his fifth penalty, to make the final score England 20 - 7 Italy.

Two statistics say it all, in the second half Italy had 75% of the possession and territory. Though they won, this was a reality call for England, last week’s performance was a false dawn, in reality they have made little progress since their Autumn Internationals dismal performances.

In the other game of the afternoon Scotland started strong with Wales conceding penalties at the 5th & 18th minute. Wales got a penalty back at the 24th minute to make the score Scotland 6 - 3 Wales. Scotland got a further penalty in the 36th minute, with Stephen Jones putting over a penalty just before half time to make the score Scotland 9 - 6 Wales.

In the second half Wales lost control of their own lineout and Scotland dominated possession. However even when Wales were reduced to fourteen men in the 57th minute with the sin binning of Rhys Thomas Scotland failed to score a try. In the second half Scotland scored 4 penalties to Wales’s one, making the final score Scotland 21 - 9 Wales.

The win will give Scotland confidence for their match against Italy in two weeks, while Wales are left to lick their wounds and pray for inspiration for their visit to Paris.

Would you believe it England have beaten Australia.

Call me a cynical grumpy old fart, but I must ask did England beat Australia or did Australia let them win?

This was the first match of the best of three final. If Australia had won they might have had a reasonable crowd for the second game, but that would have been it. As it is now, the final will go to three matches and almost guaranteed sell out for the next two games.

You might say “Give England credit for the win”, but look at the evidence England were 15 for 3, McGrath dropped the simplest of catches which would have made it 35 for 4 and England would again be Walking Dead.

Or is the answer, if England play Australia enough times then they might win one game.

What is the above all about? Just Cricket.

Me and my big mouth.

There’s a terrible chill around here - nothing to do with the temperature outside. It’s accompanied by a deathly silence. I’m afraid it’s entirely my own fault.

Being a Welsh supporter I just hate it when the England Rugby team does well. It’s even worst when I have to view it in the presence of an England supporter. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t control myself and accused my wife of being a traitor supporting England. Married to a Welshman she should be a loyal Wales supporter. She stormed out of the room.

This morning I found she has removed the plug from the TV to prevent me seeing the Wales vs. Ireland match. Now I know what you are thinking, why not replace the plug? When my wife removes the plug, its more than an action, it’s a statement “Don’t even think of watching the game”. In the past I have beaten the ban by standing on the bed and using binoculars to watch the TV in the pub across the road. But she’s hidden the binoculars.

I guess there is only one answer; I have to grovel and eat heaps of humble pie, plus the offering of a large bribe.

Better go and perform an act of atonement.

Update

Negotiated a truce with my wife. I hoped I would have the staying power to perform the reparations she demanded.

But then I had a flash of inspiration. She cooked stew for lunch. While her back was turned I put a handful of salt in the pot. She was so embarrassed at putting in too much salt and I was so very very sympathetic that I was immediately forgiven for yesterday’s faux pas

So lets switch on the TV to see, I hope, Wales win their first game of the 2007 RBS Six Nations Rugby Championship.