Rugby

One for the men in green

There are plenty of things imperfect about rugby union’s Six Nations tournament – not least the fact that it is a hugely commercial sports product of a cosy, self-serving cabal of ‘old world’ countries specifically designed to preserve the existing Northern Hemisphere order – but each [...]

March 16, 2014 // 0 Comments

Wales humbled at HQ

That’s the odd, and compelling, thing about sporting contests. They very rarely pan out as you think. Or, to put it another way, sometimes the result does – but not in the way that you had anticipated. In advance of yesterday’s England v Wales rugby match at Twickenham, I was forced to give a [...]

March 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

Quins-watch (16) – just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse

It may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but there is a distinct reason why I wish to begin my piece upon yesterday’s Premiership clash between Harlequins and bottom-of-the-table Worcester Warriors with a representative example of a professional journalist’s report of the game from the website [...]

March 2, 2014 // 0 Comments

Respecting the referee

After a weekend in the county, yesterday I finally got around to reading my copy of the latest The Rugby Paper, rugby union’s weekly newspaper. One of its articles was a full-page diatribe by a regular contributor against the increasing preponderance of on-field chat/advice to the referee [...]

February 26, 2014 // 0 Comments

Quins-watch (15) – The glass is half-full, of course

The business end of the rugby season is now upon us and, right on cue, the Harlequins have just slipped from fourth position in the Premiership to fifth, defeated away at Gloucester last weekend. A fair assumption being that Northampton Saints and ‘Saffra-cens’  – a common reference to [...]

February 25, 2014 // 0 Comments

An epic encounter at Billy Williams’ cabbage patch

Any slight frustration I felt at about 6.00pm last night, my long record of hopeless sporting predictions still intact after England’s 13-10 victory over Ireland at Twickenham, was surpassed by sheer delight and wonder at the pulsating game of rugby that I had just witnessed on television. Those [...]

February 23, 2014 // 0 Comments

So little to choose between them …

Having retired to bed last night at half-time during the Wales v France Six Nations contest with a home victory plainly in sight, I awoke a few minutes ago with a growing sense of anticipatory tension and excitement over the England v Ireland clash at Twickenham this afternoon. Can Stuart [...]

February 22, 2014 // 0 Comments

Quins-watch (14): one to forget

Yesterday I went to the Stoop to watch the Harlequins keep their quest for a Premiership top-four finish on track with a nervy 18-14 defeat of Dean Richards’ Newcastle Falcons. To be honest, it was not a great game. I’m not suggesting Quins have lost their mojo, but they just aren’t playing [...]

February 16, 2014 // 0 Comments

Quins-watch (13) …

[The Stoop, Sunday 9th February: Harlequins 11 London Wasps 10] … and I wished I hadn’t bothered! Yesterday I had committed to attending a lunch in honour of a Canadian cousin’s offspring and his fiancée who had flown in from Moscow at short notice, this whilst erroneously believing that [...]

February 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

What goes around, comes around

As the 21st Century marches on, some sports are developing in ways that gradually take them away from the versions that we oldies grew up with and loved. Change is inevitable, of course, but sometimes you wonder. Take cricket. Back in the day – for me personally, the 1960s – county cricket was [...]

February 2, 2014 // 0 Comments