Frustraitions.

I have just come home from the rugby club event of the year which was the first Chesham Sports Festival. As an event it was very well executed. It seemed to me that all the people who were involved in it enjoyed it and the range of sports on show benefited the rugby club in building some partnerships. There are some aspects that I am sure the organisers would change but all of them minor and just with regards to space available. I don’t think it can be denied that this 1st outing was a great success.


This leads to the reality of small clubs and raising their profiles and the work involved. At this event we managed to attract a Sky sports team and the England Women’s Legend Maggie Alphonsi. Now to put that into perspective it is a bit like getting Lawrence Dallaglio to attend a week after the England team played a world cup final. The major disappointment was the lack of women at the event. If I had the chance to meet one of rugby’s real heroes, I don’t think there is much aside from family weddings or funerals that would have kept me away. For a club like Chesham whose women’s team face major hurdles this year to even field a side this was without doubt a major disappointment. I did get a chance to speak to Maggie (I can call her that now) about the situation in the women’s game and she was actually quite candid in her view which was that the women’s game faces some huge hurdles. Like anything at the lowest levels of sport. To even get the basics right involves a lot of sacrifices and usually from the same very few people.

To put on an event like the Sports festival involves an incredible amount of work, this work is usually carried out by the same people, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Before a ball is kicked each season the club needs to find somewhere in the region of £20,000. That’s probably a conservative estimate. As someone that has fulfilled a couple of these minor rolls behind the scenes, as a second team captain and a coach of the women’s section. Involving yourself in the committee is a bit like being the first man over the top during the First World War. Chances are you are going to end up dead and the people behind you will be running right over your corpse. You won’t get any thanks and 95% of the people who you commit your time too will either not have a clue what is involved or simply won’t care. They will have no qualms about complaining about what is wrong but will put very little effort into helping put it right. This is the dilemma facing small clubs. When do you say enough is enough? If you have a team and more than 50% of its players don’t care if it fails, do you say at some point we can’t do any more? If you provide that team with an international standard coach and match day assistance and still many of its players and members don’t feel they want to be involved. You have to make some tough decisions based on what more you can do.

I said earlier in the piece rugby clubs and teams survive because of a handful of people who are willing to make huge personal sacrifice. To just simply keep things ticking over is an effort; more than that, it is relentless and time consuming. In life as well as sport there are those who do and those who don’t. This is thanks to those who do.

Big Weekend Part 2- Womens World Cup Final.

So it was back to Twickenham on Sunday to watch the Women’s World cup final, with the hosts England taking on the Black Ferns of New Zealand. I have to say the atmosphere at the ground was amazing and as we walked towards the stadium from the flats behind the ground we were being heckled by a group of Kiwis dressed as wrestlers. To be honest they showed up in huge numbers and it made for a cracking feeling in the stadium.


The Haka is a very different thing in the women’s game I am led to believe they need special permission to perform it and I am glad they receive it unlike the men’s game it doesn’t seem as blood curdling and threatening but it is still a fantastic sight and at the end as they stepped towards each other and faced off it set out the format for the next 80 mins.

I am not going to go into every aspect of the game but the standard of rugby New Zealand produced was up there with the best, only matched really by the immense defensive performance that England put in. Immense does not do them justice. For huge portions of this game New Zealand hammered and hammered on the door of the England try line, and time and time again England kept them out. Jo McGilchrist, the second rowers, tackle on the flying Kiwi winger was just an incredible effort and an example of the bloody minded determination England showed all game. It is hard to criticize England really, there were one or two errors of judgement but the truth is when you are starved of the ball as much as England were; you are going to face problems in doing positive things with it when it comes your way.

What makes New Zealand so good? I talked about the funding reduction the women have faced but they just seem to have a glut of natural talent. Maybe this comes from a national rugby obsession but oddly enough I realised today New Zealand are World cup holders in Men’s League, Women’s League and women’s Union. How odd they can’t transfer that to the ultimate New Zealand team, the All Blacks. In reality, it’s tough for a country to justify, a reduction in funding, for a team that wins successive world cups for 4 tournaments in a row. A team whose players are unpaid and make huge sacrifices to play, yet throws money at a team that has, with the exception of the inaugural tournament, failed to bring home the trophy. If I were a New Zealand woman I would probably be kicking up a hell of a fuss over that…….obviously I am neither so maybe I should just butt out…..

For England I don’t know how you get over a defeat like that. I cried for a day when Chesham 2nd IV lost a plate final of a merit league trophy we got a bye into. So to lose a final of that magnitude would probably require years of intensive therapy. I am sure they will come to terms with it and hopefully look back with pride at just what they did manage to do against a team so advanced in terms of skill’s and game play. There is talk that this result may see a reduction in their budget for the next few years. I hope that doesn’t happen. I think all that need’s to happen is to simply look at the way the foundations are laid and stick huge resources into bringing women into the game and find ways to do it with urgency. Our own club faces a real crisis in terms of its women’s section in the coming year, simply because there is a huge gap in who has gone and who is coming in. I wish I could find a way to solve that issue. They are a team I have a huge amount of affection for and have been lucky enough to play a small part in their history, all be it one of the most unsuccessful parts but all the same it was a good learning curve and something I will always be very proud to have been involved with.

Big Weekend Part 1- Saturday

Twickenham from the Gods 

A weekend of incredible rugby action has just passed; involving a tri nation’s classic, the new boys of the premiership turning over Gloucester with a cracking result, a Twickenham double header and the women’s world cup final. I am going to post separately about the women’s game as I feel it deserves a bit of attention.


The Australia victory over South Africa in Bloemfontein, the first in 47 years was an example of how far the Aussies have come. Let’s be honest when I say how far they have come, even at their worst they have never been far off perfect. The quality of their back division has always made them an incredibly dangerous outfit. Certainly for stodgy great lumps who want to power through the game. Australia sits in a position where with one or two tweaks they could be the main threat to the hosts in New Zealand 2011. I wonder if South Africa has not peaked now and are on a downward slide. Whether they are an aging team in need of an overhaul or just simply a team out of sorts is up to the coaches and managers to decide and I suppose we will see the answers at the next fixture.

Now the Premiership and the big noise of the weekend were coming from the West Country....At Last!! The real South West of England has for so long been underrepresented at the top flight that you would not believe as an outsider it is such a rugby dominated area of England. A Welsh like ferocity and attitude to the game, is all around and the Cornwall v Devon rivalry is up there with the biggest in sport. Personally I desperately want to see a Cornish side in the premiership but we will have to wait a few more years yet I think. All that aside, for the new boys to turn over one of the dominant teams of the south west must feel great. They are very quick to talk down the win and they are right to do that, they have a long and tough road ahead, but what a start.

I was at Twickenham for the double header on Saturday and got to see some good rugby. The physicality of the premiership has gone up another level and the hits going in, in the early stages of the Saracens game were bone crunching and unforgiving. Schalk Britz played a sublime first half and his offloading game was the best I have seen for years. However I am guessing Saracens are going to face some tough challenges this year, their players are now known and as a result analysed. They will struggle to maintain the impact they made last year and as the second half showed when Irish put numbers and pressure onto the likes of Britz their impact was nullified. I still think they are going to be there at the end but it will be a harder test this season. Steffen Armatige was out of this world for Irish a real powerhouse performance from the little barrel of a flanker. I really hope England persevere with him in some capacity. He looked fitter than ever and stronger; a result of some hard work in the off season and an example of his desire to work on his game. Wasps v Harlequins was another battle really even contest a début for the Welsh bad boy Andy Powell saw him score with some great support work and to be honest the game sort of fizzled out towards the end. Now that is a bit of an excuse to be honest for the fact my attention fizzled out and the tray chucking Mexican wave was far more fun!! I have to add a few beers also affected my capacity for reasoned analysis at this point. However all in all a good day, and a good scoring weekend in the premiership. If the opening scores are anything to go by the title and the relegation are not certainties......Though much as I hate to say it, I am tipping Leeds for the drop.

Personal Questions.

So the season is as good as here and the clubs pre-season has seen large numbers taking part. I am not sure if that translates to quality but it does encourage talk of 3 teams....This works right up to the point that you have 3 games and only 28 people. As our pre season interclub game proved in the amateur game lots of people training does not equal lots of people playing. “When Saturday comes” is no longer a phrase you can associate with sports most religious followers’ holy day of the week. Now “when Saturday comes” means kids need to be entertained, wife wants a shelf put up, I have to work or any other manner of necessary distractions from taking part in the sports we love.

Do I have enough tape for another season?   

So personally where do I see the season going? To be honest as much as it hurts to say it I really don’t think I am good enough, fit enough or committed enough to offer much this season. I know the argument could be put forward that I never have been. The big difference though is I always imagined I was that mental aspect of my game is what I loved and thrived on. I am currently frozen with fear when involved in any of the physical aspects of the game to the point I can’t offer anything positive on the field. I started with a lot of enthusiasm for the season with the thought of honest selection processes and quality coaching but having seen the effect on my body and the fact that I just simply can’t sustain any consistency has left me racked with questions. The standing joke about my retirement is funny but I really don’t have a love for playing at the moment which I always did. That really hurts. I still love the game, with passion. Just not enough to want to go through the potential pit falls of another season playing. I hope my mindset changes at some point I really do as it stands, I am going to wait a little longer and see what happens.

A game for all.

The Women’s world cup began on Friday and the hope is high for an English victory at the end of the tournament. The hurdle of the New Zealand “Black Ferns” is a potentially slippery one. This is a team that has played 53 games and won 50 of them. Then there are the knockout stages of the competition where form and consistency can sometimes be overturned by bloody-mindedness and a bit of heart and passion. Ask countless favourites who fail at the final hurdle when the pressure comes on and there is nowhere to go.


This is a real problem for the England side. People on the whole are talking about who will win; England or New Zealand. If anything motivates teams to perform, it is the suggestion they do not exist in any other entity than as a stepping stone to the forgone conclusion. As Ireland showed in their tough defence this is not as easy as many are suggesting.

There is a bigger picture here and that is the health of the women’s game. If you look first at New Zealand the land of rugby. This year they pulled its women’s version of the NPC completion in a search to make budget cuts. Major figures from the women’s game in New Zealand see this decision as potentially fatal for the women’s game in New Zealand, League and other sports may become more attractive to the disappointed players. The decision to provide them no competitive rugby in a World cup year is a major handicap for success. Such is the depth of talent they will still sit as the team to beat, however the long term effects of this decision may mean an end to their dominance. England sits astride the world with a massive playing budget which really should see their investment sit well. Yet the women’s game in England is not a healthy one in my opinion. From my own experience the numbers are not growing and when you take away the elite level and the premiership, where even there some teams struggle to field sides, below them is league after league of mismatched teams and threadbare administration.

I am of the opinion that the women’s game needs a complete overhaul of its structure from the top down. With the teams so spread around the need for county teams is vital and some tough decisions on bringing clubs together to raise the quality of the game is essential. I am not an expert but if you take Buckinghamshire with its clubs all whom struggle to produce decent numbers for games. Why not create two county teams one north and one south combining the clubs in the area and in that way raising the numbers for training and matches and therefore improving the consitancy. These are tough decisions and some clubs would suffer but the long term health of the women’s game is in dire need of proper restructuring and nurturing. Competitions like the national 7s have been in rapid decline when only 8 years ago they were big events that drew people in and represented all that was best about the game. You cannot say that 7’s is in decline because the growth of weekends like the Bournemouth 7’s proving this is not the case.

Where do the answers for these problems lie? Well I can assure you I don’t have them but I don’t think it can be denied they exist. The solutions lie in the hands of the women who play week in week out. Whether on the back of the women’s world cup they can raise not only the profile but the issues they face in the game is up to those who wish to see it continue.

So it begins..........

This is how long I will last.

We are currently into week 3 of our pre-season, so that is six sessions. I have managed to attend 5 and as a result my ankles now barely function and my knee’s feel like they have been hit with hammers for about 3 days. The only thing getting me through it is work is quite so not too much heavy lifting and lots of ice. So what have I noticed this year that is different to the previous? Well to start with our opening session was hosted by a current England international and a woman well to be fair it was two current internationals who were both women! To be honest, I feel this is an exceptionally good thing for us as a club and in a selfish way the fact she is a prop means I am hoping to get some considerable tips to take into the season.


The coach is now away with England carrying out international duty and will be until September so coaching has continued under all manner of different people. I even did a bit myself one Thursday. I only have one issue at the moment and that is SAQ (speed, agility, quickness). My reason being, as someone carrying an excess baggage of around 5st hopping and jumping over hurdles is the main reason for my now non-functioning legs. I am not one to duck out but I think to save my joints for the coming season, I am going to have to avoid the hurdles. I have never encountered the pain I am getting and that is the only thing that has changed. That and very hard ground do not combine well for my 37 year old joints. Also, I don’t think I have done as many press ups in my life as we have done in the last 3 weeks, and boy am I crap at press ups!!!

So what am I seeing at the moment as the main issues? Well on the whole our handling is terrible and our vision can only be compared to that of Stevie wonder. I think fitness plays a major role in both of these things but the basic skills really need to be honed. At our level you don’t need to have fancy lineout options and 10 attacking moves simple basic rugby executed well will bring about scoring opportunities. Create 4 phases of quick ball at this level and you should score. That said we need to find in us some patience, a lot of our handling errors come from trying to score of every pass we make. The truth is we need to get used to stretching people and teams from one part of the field to the other in order to create the chances. These may not happen first time, but with good crisp clean passing and depth they will come, in our haste to do something magical we are missing the continuity required to open teams up.

push over try from last season. I am wearing 3. 

What am I hoping for from the coming season; really I just want to play a bit. I want to enjoy some games with the young talent coming through the club. The last few games I played last year were some of the most enjoyable I have played. Getting a chance to be part of some of these young guys introduction to adult rugby is an honour and a privilege. I can’t teach them anything but I think seeing how important the work of the second team captains and regulars is to these young players is vital as they move through the club.

Tri Again

We are on the eve of the first Tri nation’s match of the tournament. The All Blacks hosting the reigning champions and world cup winner of South Africa. This really is a mouth-watering clash. I think Australia will test both teams in defence but with the weak point of their scrum being a target for both teams I think they are going to struggle.

However New Zealand too got a bit of a shunting in the early stages of the second test against Wales, Adam Jones turning the screw on Tony Woodcock. I am sure the Boks will have looked at this and will certainly be looking to target the young tighthead Owen Franks; I imagine he is in for a rough day at the office. The Boks are tried and tested forward dominated rugby players. Yes they have talent in the backs and they have a world class distributer in Morne Steyne but I really don’t think even with a dominant scrum they can contain this All Blacks side. I think the second row partnership of Botha and Maitfield may well have peaked and this does not bode well. South Africa are an aging team now, whether they can cope with the pace at which New Zealand are currently playing I really don’t know.

The All Blacks have the ultimate problem the two best rugby players in the world McCaw and Carter are so far ahead of the field that no one else can fill their shoes when they are absent. This is the test facing them; they have depth everywhere except 7 and 10. So will they try some options in this tournament? Yes but I doubt it will be tomorrow. Expect fire and brimstone from the kick off and somewhere in the game Bakkies Botha to get into a scrap…….. I know that hardly makes me mystic Meg but I love that great big lumbering fool!

It will be a test for my patience tomorrow as I am watching via sky player due to moving. If it works then excellent, if it doesn’t this may be the last ever blog!