England Ice Age

Red Rose wilts as England feel pressure 19/02/05

In rugby, February is the cruellest month. The wind goes straight for the bone, and if it’s not raining on the morning of the match it soon will be, while overnight frost waits chilled beneath divots from last week, or the week before that, equally icy afternoons forever frozen in the memory. It suddenly seems like a good time of year to try out gloves. For the grip, you know. Wingers everywhere feel an unexpected desire to play in the forwards, or even better, indoors.

Earlier this season, former Welsh scrum-half Rob Howley was offered a final operation on his damaged wrist. The surgeon proposed shaving off certain nerve endings, so that messages were sent to the brain carrying false information. Such as: ‘No, Rob, there is no pain.’ Howley declined the surgery, but everyone now knows that such a procedure exists, and it seems a shame to stop at the wrist. At this time of year, many outside backs would gladly volunteer to shave off the nerve-endings at every extremity. And for forwards, struggling to sustain September intensity levels all year round, the process could be applied to the brain itself.

It’s not just the cold that puts the br in the middle of February. In every league in the land, from the Zurich premiership to Midlands 3 East (North), time is running out for teams at the foot of the table. They’re beginning to feel exposed. There’s no cushion for those at the top, either, with enough matches left to play for leaders to lose their grip. To borrow a phrase from Ellen MacArthur (surely the first scrum-half on any sane selector’s team-sheet), February is rugby’s month for grunting up.

In international rugby both these factors - the cold and the pressure – are condensed into the mini winter-league of the 6 Nations. It was 1987 when England last suffered so badly in February, eventually finishing last in the tournament. Since then, the seasonal sleet and hale has been made bearable to England rugby fans everywhere by the warmth of probable victory.

The excellence of successive English fifteens has carved out for the red rose supporter a comfortable little snug. The 6 Nations has been a cozy fireside retreat, with a deep armchair and a pint on the side-table, feet stretched out towards a hearth kept burning by regular away victories and the invulnerability of fortress Twickenham. There were moments when the fire needed a new log, but the flame would never die.

Or so we thought. The only flames after last weekend’s loss to France were lit by the media under the England dressing-room benches. It helps to lay some blame, but this is a false warmth, like drinking whisky in a blizzard. However consoling it seems at the time, it doesn’t actually do much good. The English, both the team and its followers, are out in the cold for the first February in years.

From an English perspective, the occasionally-mooted idea of summer rugby suddenly seems like a grand idea. Losing to Wales might hurt less if you could sit in the garden afterwards, and explain it away in the sunshine over a barbecue. As if. We’d probably be losing a Test match to Australia at the same time, on the afternoon of the third day. Losing to Australia and Wales in the same weekend would be truly unbearable, and make July as depressing as February.

To every England calamity its season, so let’s leave the cricketers their summer. This month, we’ve been reminded of the bad old days when along with deep frost and unforgiving nights February was a time to demonstrate, on an annual basis, how useless England could be at rugby. And my how hard they used to work at maintaining that impression. This is how it used to be every February, before the global warming of Will Carling and his high-achieving England machines.

No English supporter who remembers the eighties ever wants to go through that kind of ice-age again. Especially as this time it would be infinitely worse – they’ve stopped making shorts with pockets.