I have previously warned all you politicos out there that this blog might occasionally turn its attentions to other matters - notably the oval-ball game - and in the wake of England's 31-6 humiliation at the hands of France yesterday, this is such an occasion.
Frankly, today I couldn't care less whether Tessa Jowell, Tony Blair or even Ian Blair go - as long as England rugby coach Andy Robinson does!
I've long had it in for Robinson as a result of his disgraceful treatment of the Lions and Leicester Tigers centre Ollie Smith, potentially the finest young talent in the English game yet repeatedly ignored for international selection.
Yet Robinson refuses to learn from his mistakes and persists in bone-headed decisions like playing the blindside flanker Lewis Moody out of position on the openside, and the tactically limited Mike Tindall as an inside centre.
Now it is all finally unravelling, and the shortcomings of a coach whose limitations have long been obvious to me are becoming clear for all to see.
There are plenty of discussion threads on this subject on the Planet Rugby site - this one entitled Where to start? is probably one of the best.
3 comments:
Paul, I could not agree more. It was utterly embarrassing on Sunday, and yes the players were crap, but they are not fundamentally that much worse than the French players. It does look to me like the coaching is where the problem lies. I don't understand why Robinson just "inherited" the England coach's job. It looked to me like the sort of coronation only a totally complacent sporting association which somehow felt it deserved to succeed, come what may, would do. And yet there is virtually nothing in the papers about getting rid of Robinson. Is it because people perceive there to be no alternative (TINA - there had to be a political element to this topic)? Scrum V on the BBC website seems to be full of people calling for Brian Ashton - but bearing in mind the paucity of English coaches coaching the premiership clubs is it not time to think overseas, just like the FA did with the sainted Erickson? And what about the players and the clubs? The players always look knackered when they play for England. Is that coincidental? Anyway, how can we make this happy? How can we organise the ejection of AR? A first for blogging Britain - the downfall of a sports coach. Time it happened. Grrrrrhhhh.
It was a disgraceful performance. Losing to anyone is bad, but the French. As Sir Humphery say's, that's why we've got the Bomb.
It's all gone downhill since the World Cup, you would hardley belive that we are the current world champions!
Politics and sport! Is there anything else important enough to write about??!!
Paul, apologies. I have missed your link to me all this time and will reciprocate asp.
I am sure you will have read my work in the Commons press gallery - I used to send press releases up (for both Govt and Opposition at various time) on a regular basis.
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