ESPNs Finest

As the picture of me and my new best mate Durders has been so popular, I have taken the decision to publish the rest of the photos from the same day. Moody, Healey and a near hypothermic Matt Stevens all took the time to have a picture with fans who had braved monsoon conditions to witness Charlie Hodgson dish out a lesson in game management. Ignore the other clowns in the picture, I wanted a picture by myself and they totally jumped in on my moment. Bastards.

And another thing...

This was the proudest moment of my blogging life so far. Mark Durden-Smith, rugby presenting legend, habitual mickey taker of Austin Healey and Ben Kay, honoured me and my friends by posing for a picture after the Bath/Saracens water-polo game last week. We asked somewhat sheepishly when we arrived at the ESPN 'Kebab Van' post match if he would pose for a snap and to our elation he bounded down the stage, threw his arms around the group and said 'This has made my Christmas! A picture with the lads!'.

Wherever the rugby ends up on TV next season, I hope he's involved in its delivery.

The North-West - Sleeping Giant of English Rugby?

As I sit in my mother-in-laws home in Cheshire after a long and thoroughly enjoyable Christmas break, I find myself reflecting on last month and looking to the second half of what has so far been an action packed season.

The team I co-coach won the Hertfordshire U18 Schools Cup. A dramatic win against St Albans Boys (11-3) ended a very successful regular season for the St Columba's College 1st XV, a team that is still in the Daily Mail Vase, so watch this space.

My knee is getting stronger, I can now run on it for limited periods of time, but more on that in a specific blog later on.

My club Tabard are still unbeaten in London 2 North-West and looking strong. In all, apart from myself not playing things are coming up roses.

Looking forward though and having just watched the highlights of the Sale game at the weekend, I can't help but wonder at the state of rugby in the North-West. When doing my teaching qualification I played for a team in South Manchester, Altrincham Kersal. This would prove to be one of the most enjoyable seasons I'd ever played and I loved the variety of fixtures and edginess the Northern teams brought week in, week out. I once remember playing away in front of roughly 800 people at Westoe in one of the hardest games I've ever played in. It took me four days to get back to feeling normal.

It leads me to think how can a region with such passion, such grit and so many wonderful clubs, fail to provide one that can compete with the best in England, nay Europe?

Andy Powell: One of many good signings, so
why the poor league performance?

Sale should be a powerhouse of the English game. They are the premier club in a colossally deep pool of talent, so what precisely is going wrong?

The stats simply do not add up. Rugby Union in the North-West in terms of participation is second only to football so why oh why have the North-West ever had a dominant, or at the very least, consistently top-half side.

The first thing to get out of the way is the notion that a successful amateur game is somehow a precursor to elite success. If this was the case England would be top three in most sports across the world. It does however beg the question that a region so rich in strong junior 'semi-pro' type clubs doesn't seem to transfer to a more successful professional side.

Firstly, it may surprise some to learn that there are no teams from the North-West in the Championship. There are plenty from the North-East, Doncaster, Rotherham, Newcastle and Leeds collectively making up a third of the entire league. The North-West though, not a one.

Looking below that, Preston Grasshoppers, Sedgley Park, Macclesfield, Stockport, Caldy are all clubs well known beyond their localities and have all made their impact on the game in the last few years. But there are three teams there that have not been mentioned which 15 years ago would have probably been the first on the list. Orrell, once the top side in the North-West, fell through the leagues after poor business management. A club that had players as excellent as Dewi Morris and Austin Healey as well as a rich history, almost ceased to exist. Waterloo were a shining beacon of the oval shaped ball game in a hotbed of football and they are once again proving successful but they were another who during the amateur era were probably up there. Finally  Manchester Rugby Club. Their demise has been recorded by most rugby circulars but for what is one of the oldest rugby clubs in the world to fall so dramatically from grace after a financial pulllout was heartbreaking to say the least. These clubs all still exist, but have all attributed to the Sale monopoly in the region.

And this brings me to my conclusion. Steve Diamond once said he wanted to be a northern 'Super Club'. I'd say this is precisely what they do not need. A monopoly breeds complacency and what Sale need is a good old dose of market forces and some competition. A second successful club in the region would not only make Sale work harder for fans (the North-West is a huge sports market, how else can St Helens, Wigan, Man Utd, City, Liverpool and Everton all sell out on a weekend whilst being within 30 miles of each other) but also playing resources making both player development more aggressive as well as external recruitment more competitive.

However, to have such a push would mean a massive financial (and emotional) investment and there have been too many teams in the region who have had their fingers burnt by aspirations of grandeur before and new teams would be reluctant to take such a gamble themselves. On top of this, looking at where the main pretenders to second NW team throne are at the moment in the league structures, this seems a long way off. So what will it take for this sleeping giant to finally wake up? Its hard to say, but as long as there is only one team at the top of the hill and the rest firmly with with their feet at sea level, there will be little incentive for those at the top to work any harder than they already do.

Ground Reviews: The Rec

The Rec is a micro version of the old Wembley/London conundrum. Great city with a shite ground as its sporting centre piece. People say Vicarage Road is the worst ground in the premiership. This is just untrue.

Review done.

Woke up on Sunday, no I wasn't dreaming

This will go down as one of the greatest victories in international rugby. As a technical and psychological challenge, England beating the Kiwis is not to be underestimated.

The breakdown was a very English affair. Whilst not resorting to be being offside at every given opportunity as our New Zealand cousins like to do, we simply challenged at the point of contact and made sure we got hands on the ball before anything was formed. Dan Cole was again instrumental in this and he has the skills of openside but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look it) he is the build of a Kodiak Bear.

The back row were simply magnificent  Wood and Robshaw changed their approach and challenged with some conviction the belief that a team needs an out and out number seven. They simply out muscled their opposite number, carried until they could no more and made god knows how many close quarter tackles. Ben Morgan just does what Ben Morgan does week in week out and I still can't believe we left him out for the first two matches. I doubt, injury permitting, this will be the case in the Six Nations.

Ben Young's kicking was off at points and didn't give his chasers much of a chance but his service was twenty times better, passing from the base rather than look for a snipe around the fringes where there was never likely to be space. Farrell was a steady head all game and looked like a 50 cap fly-half. Its unbelievable he looks so assured after just 12, never scared to change the flow of the attack or try something different.

Centres were excellent and the shut out they provided in the midfield was as key as the set-piece domination of the England pack. Barritt just loves hitting people and made a break which even Saracens fans don't get to see too often. Tuilagi carried with aggression and even showed some silky hands when he offloaded to Barritt and intercepted a pass that was not at all easy to get hold of.

Goode and Ashton both had solid games, but the standout was Brown. He simply refuses to go down at times and is deceptively fast. He eats up the ground and is hard as nails in a scrap, never shy to dish out some stoosh to anyone unlucky enough to get in his way. A great competitor, like Delon Armitage without the propensity to get sin-binned.

In all a proud day for the fans and players alike and so much to be positive about. I was despondent after the South Africa game, but things started to click on Saturday. About bloody time. The really exciting thing is the entire England team collectively had only slightly less caps than the entire New Zealand front row. Still so much room for potential.

In other news, our World Cup group looks unforgiving with both Wales and Australia in it. A few days ago this would have made me want to curl up in the corner and make darts my new favourite 'sport'. Now, it feels like more of a warm bath than a pool.

Also, well done to the England Womens team who whitewashed the Kiwis in a three match series. Great for them too and now they can rightly take their place as the best womens team in the world. No third round entry into the World Cup pools for them!