The sporting day
My day starts in the early hours with the Test Match commentary.
The written press is one day behind and if England did not have such a disastrous final hour – losing 4 wickets – their doom and gloom would have looked foolish.
Jimmy Andersen has come in for lot of flak – particularly from me – but he took 4 wickets and Australia were dismissed rather cheaply.
However all England needed to do was dig in, but once again the openers provided no foundation and, with Dawid Malan back in the pavilion, the Ashes seemed and are now lost.
I was looking forward to Harlequins taking on Northampton Saints ( 43-17) in their self-styled festive “Big Game” at Twickenham Stadium.
BT Sport tend to hype an sporting event rather than analyse it but in this instance it was justifiable hype.
You can pretty much rely on Quins to provide an entertaining, closely fought, game even without Marcus Smith.
One aspect of sport which always interest me is the culture, image and reputation of a club.
Quins have always been a swashbuckling side that throws the ball around but does that alone you win multiple trophies, or is the vital ingredient a power scrum such as Exeter Chiefs and Saracens possess?
In football it’s not enough for Spurs to win they must do so with glory and panache. Similarly West Ham fans have only recently accepted a more pragmatic style under David Moyes.
I do not know enough about Harlequins fans to know whether they might accept a less cavalier style for more silverware.
This game ran true to form with Harlequins falling 21-7 behind.
They did not abandon their freewheeling style but, in heavy rain, the second half was appreciably less fluid and fluent.
Significantly the 5 tries were scored in the first half.
Credit to Northampton, their scrum half Mitchell was outstanding and England captain Courtney Lawes was marshalling the back row superbly.
It is worth noting that Dombrandt was at fault in the first Northampton try.
There is no better number eight in the whens and the hows of attacking the gain line but is there a defensive frailty there?
Over to the Rust rugby correspondents.
One aspect of modern rugby that strikes me as strange is the sight of coaches processing data behind their laptops when on the pitch things are not going to plan.
In the game there were two mass brawls, in the second of which Danny Care was ‘ sin binned’, thus depriving Quins of a key player in the final 10 minutes.
Does the data in the laptop cater for such indiscipline?
I have written before how impressed I am by rugby refereeing. Wayne Barnes is one of the best in clear and firm control.
One of BT Sport’s best innovations in soccer is the referee on their panel of experts. For the average Joe some of the decisions in rugby are inexplicable and the rules change so often that such a referee would be welcome.
My final watch was Newcastle v Manchester United in the evening.
Newcastle fans are amongst the most loyal in the land. All the more laudable as the last Newcastle player to lift a trophy was Bobby Moncur – the old Inter City Fairs Cup in 1969.
They played some lovely football under Kevin Keegan but he lost it with his rant of “ really luv it” against Alex Ferguson.
So this fixture had form.
Newcastle played really well in the first half to take the lead through Alain St. Maximin who has something of the David Ginola about him.
Manchester United, who these days are pale shadows of the Ferguson teams, did equalise in the second half.
Rooted at the bottom, Newcastle may not find that easy to attract the players in the January window and manager Eddie Howe may have another relegation as he experienced a couple of seasons ago at Bournemouth.
