Writing On Literature

  • Times Column 20/11/04 Last week, South African coach Jake White supposedly gifted the Irish a winning psychological advantage by publicly criticising the quality of the men in green. This week, the Welsh management have avoided the term 'All Blacks' in favour of 'New Zealand', helpfully pointing out that the former suggests a rugby superpower while the latter is a 'poxy little Island in the Pacific.' Uh-oh. This doesn't seem a very sound approach, but pre-match psycho-scuffles can actually work   Most famously, David Campese and his big mouth, two of Australia's all-time great performers, managed to talk England out of their 'boring' game plan before the 1991 World Cup final. In the same decade, Brian Moore would annually reduce the

    Nov 20,
  • Times Column 6/11/04 When a referee gets noticed, the saying goes, he’s had a bad game. If so, then this season the refs are in trouble. Rob Andrew (who used to be such a nice boy) lashed into referee Sean Davey after only the second home game of the Premiership campaign. Chris White was booed at Welford Road.  The London Irish coach Gary Gold slammed refereeing standards throughout the league after his side’s one point home defeat to Leeds. These kind of cry-baby tantrums tend to happen more often before Christmas.  When Andrew had a go at Sean Davey, the season was only three matches old and Newcastle Falcons were top of the league.  It was still possible for Andrew

    Nov 06,
  •  Times Column 23/10/04 Something is stirring in the land of the rising scrum. At the end of May, Japan outclassed Canada to claim the IRB Super Powers Cup, inspired by 20-year-old fly-half Kyohei Morita. And this autumn, after the fifth weekend of the increasingly competitive Top League, five teams are tied one point behind front-runners Kubota Spears.  Last Saturday alone, Toutai Kefu, Jaco van der Westhuyzen, Glen Marsh and Pita Alatini could be seen in action in Tokyo, with standards rising so fast that not all of them were on the winning side. Off the pitch, at a glitzy central Tokyo hotel, former prime minister Yoshiro Mori was introduced on Monday as the president of Japan’s 2011 Rugby World Cup

    Oct 23,
  •  Times Column 9/10/04 This season, the well-dressed Zurich Premiership player will mostly be wearing - white socks.  Already four clubs, Sale, Bath, Newcastle and Leeds, have sent out teams in the latest rugby fashion, and the country hasn’t seen so many men in white stockings since the court of Charles I. This surprising new fad is unlikely to be a coded welcome to Prince Harry. So what can be the reasoning behind the decision of four separate Premiership Clubs to choose socks for away-day matches in a colour which might fairly be considered junior schoolish? If not downright netballish.   Ever since professionalism, kit in rugby has been an issue.  This is partly because as an amateur sport rugby had

    Oct 09,
  •  Times Column 25/09/04 This rare close-up of George W. Bush in sporting action was recently discovered and published by the Los Angeles Times. The caption is from the Yale University yearbook of 1969, and the key question is the same for American voters as for rugby adepts.  Can playing rugby, and the way rugby is played, provide any clue as to the character of the man?  Traditionally, rugby encourages a rainbow of virtues including stoicism, co-operation, dedication, and of course courage. There is also responsibility, decision-making and patience - not a bad list of boxes to tick for an aspiring political leader. Bill Clinton, another rugby-playing President (spooky, you might think, if you weren’t already beginning to suspect the often

    Sep 25,