Year: 2012

There’s no action at all

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The colours are beginning to gather and swirl.  Or at least in my head they are.  And this year, there is a freshening up of if not the hues or emblems then certainly some of the imagery.  Ireland swap perennial likeable erratic celtic scurrying for stolid consistency. England go skinny-dipping into a brave new brick-pond.  Wales – dashing and smashing Wales – seek quietly desperately to do what they just did once more.  France try fundamentally to get a grip, Italy to get a win (again) and Scotland… Scotland gathers once more into a determined huddle with a rare degree of authentic belief.  This much at least suggests itself from the recent announcements of 6 Nations personnel.

On balance it seems great; a feistily competitive tournament awaits; an even one perhaps, where England may have been transformed from the Great Boring Shadow over the affair into The Real White Fluffy Bunny of Hope.  Ideally.

Or where Wales accept the challenge of doing that thing all over again and do, whilst breaking down the walls of tradition through being majestically/counterintuitively pragmatic in order to win.  Or where Scotland really really actually actually do beat people they threaten to beat on paper, following their allegedlyinfact real progress.   And these are just the obvious shifting gems in my own particular admittedly Brit-centric kaleidoscope.

I’m actually guessing England’s necessary evolution will stereotypically not feature some flamboyant casting off of the recent dull iron.  The talk of youth and the manifest rejection of Tindall/Banahan and arguably Easter points to a healthy injection of pace and flexibility, with the newboys Farrell and Barritt for example looking suitably geared up to facilitate that requirement.

Yet talk really is cheap when it comes to the international level; particularly in reference to ‘playing a more expansive game’.   Getting notably duffed up in the first ten by a politically motivated Scots back-row might throttle back rose-tinted English  ambition pretty sharply I sense.  And more specifically, if Lancaster does go for Hodgson Farrell Barritt(?) as 10-12-13, half of England as well as all of Scotland will be initially concerned with how they cope, never mind how they play.

Hodgson has been widely admired as a top and consistent performer in the Premiership but am I alone in wondering whether he has the temperament or (go on, say it) The Bottle to boss things on an international stage?  Particularly one that specifies Murrayfield first-up.  His nature and my memory of said nature suggests otherwise.

But such is the lot of the 10.  Current expectation, history and some large hairy geezer all bearing down…

Unquestionably though, the ability or otherwise of the English to reinvent themselves into a modern/competitive/fit for purpose top level international side is clearly going to impact on the destination of the 6 Nations trophy.  Not particularly because any of us expect them to win it but because they have, as they say, players.

But do they have a team?

Wales have different pressures.  A near-magnificent Word Cup adventure; a coaching triumvirate in Gatland/Edwards/Howley that gathered them then to a collective peak of confidence and execution, now needing to do that most challenging of things – rinse and repeat.  Dangers of expectation and of maintenance; maintaining that spirit; maintaining intensity without shackling that glorious expression; maintaining composure when suddenly Faletau/Warburton are getting knocked back.  Defending without distraction when every fibre screams out for release.  And maybe most pointedly, plastering over cracks where key players should be.

I have a hunch that Priestland, perversely, may find life in the 6 more testing than it appeared at the World Cup.  His chief attribute seemed then his general coolness – the boy making no claim to threaten the exclusivity of King John and his mercurial followers in the national out-half slot.  He succeeded in being effective without sparkling and I wonder how that key balance – territory versus terrorism? – will play out this time.

Hook is surely a bigger talent, but one flawed or compromised or perceived to be, following the occasional interception of a killer pass.  Given that much of the gut-churning tension generated by test matches inveigles its way into the heads/hearts/feet/hands of the number 10’s, the pulse of the Welsh side will calm or quicken according to the quality of will and the steel shown by Priestland or by Hook.   Because – in one of their bigger calls? – the coaches have dispensed with the doughty Stephen Jones.  May youth and imagination prosper.

The Irish fascinate me.  Not just through their capacity to produce the world’s finest and most rewardingly sustaining drink – although many a thesis could be written to conjoin Guinness and creative genius – and then link that dubiously to numbers 4 to 7/possibly 8 on a rugby pitch.  (I’m not going there, quite.)  But Ireland have been and do remain a threat mostly(?) when the O’Connells to the Heaslips seem possessed of an electrically charged, patriotically driven fury.  Then low-centred centres have relentlessly exploited newly-exposed soft-centres.  That is still likely to be the Irish Way.

To be more specific, there are times when the Irish carry irresistibly – when the pick and go is developed into a carousel of green violence few can resist.  O’Connell will be selflessly but in every sense leading this charge; as skipper and as totem for that special kind of focussed but physical examination.  Ireland do have quality in the backs – witness the omission of Luke Fitzgerald – but a certain BOD has often been the baton-carrier into the lethal phases, has he not?

It strikes me that Bowe in flight is a classy but a pretty rare sight in recent times because of this sniping midfield obsession; one which works fiercely but historically only intermittently, often off the back of a roaring home crowd. Is this, I wonder a reflection of the lack of ubertalent as well as a mark of the propensity for world-class defiance?

So I am fascinated by the onward roll of a part-green part-gold generation; which despite its relative consistency has spikes of over and underachievement.  Which of these Irelands, these Wales’s, these Englands will actually turn up?

My opening gambits.  As such they are hardly exhaustive – and I do intend to take on the Scots and the rest more forensically later.   But with kick-offs so invitingly, so deliciously approaching, it does feel good as well as appropriate to be all mouth and no action for now.

Hirst; they think it’s all over- is it, now?

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Damien Hirst has continued his druggie/pardee/easy-teasy relationship with the unfortunate non-Damien Hirst World this week by – as is his want? – TAKING OVER.  He has gone smotheringly, ballistically wider and in your facier than his previous bigtime best, by commandeering space in 11 Gagosian galleries around the world simultaneously.  As always with the regal brit-popper, beneath this cultural blitzkrieg there is that subversive prickle within the detail – some of the works being provocatively titled, with hallucinogenic associations

Paintings being exhibited are entirely appropriate to the Hirst-obsession with WHAT THE MARKET WILL TAKE.  So this current ruse of (imagined?) flooding or testing our/THE MARKET’S capacity to engage is what it’s about.  As much as the paintings are.  Again.  Arguably.

This may on the one hand be a perfectly acceptable creative response, honourably reflecting Hirsts’s entirely legitimate and punkily energised worldview; (that) the Art Market is obscene/absurd/necrophiliac and it must be defrocked, demystified and disembowelled in a creative and entertaining way.  Or it may be another lazy spin of another formula designed at the Hirst Ruse Emporium, centreing again on his own importance; or does it challenge that too?

Hirst knows that the scale of the project and of his celebrity tanks these paintings in formaldehyde.  Indeed if a shocking generalisation were to crop up here it might be that Hirst’s ouevre is relentlessy concerned with his knowingness.  But in my view it would still be foolish to underestimate either his integrity or his concern with the making of worthwhile art.  Thus my own sloganeering is more in sympathy than in irony.

Interestingly, Adrian Searle in today’s Guardian seems clear that there is no discernible benefit to looking at these paintings as individuals – suggesting I think that this offers little reward, or no individual unique viewing experience, even though they are hugely different in dimension and subtly different in colour(s).  I disagree.  (If you are unaware of the nature of the paintings, now might be the time for me to tell you that they are all ‘spot paintings’ – arrangements of coloured dots along an imaginary grid system.  ‘Traditionally’, they are the kind of (arguably) abstract or conceptual painting that might demand a degree of contemplation from the viewer.)

I think the artist may argue that it is a travesty to suggest these paintings are in any way ALL THE SAME.  I think, however, that he seeks to lever out that very response, at whatever level, from his punter.  Hirst is standing again on the chest of the Market, crow-barring open its ribcage for fleeing or inveigling opinions – offensive or otherwise – to worm a way in or out.  The paintings – all made by assistants, I believe – are both a challenge as an understood group AND as individuals AND as a relevance (or otherwise.)  They are not to be dismissed without due consideration because that is a purpose of all art; to demand or engineer consideration.

So look at these paintings.   Allow yourself to feel them.  Is there anything there for you?  If so, what?  Have fun trying to work that out!  If nothing alights, firstly look some more then consider whether they make a contribution – uplifting/degrading or bland or quietly humming? – to an individual moment, or to an easy or a teasy conversation you might have… after too much wine, or some drugs maybe, at a noisy metropolitan party.

Sniffing out the truth of it…

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Like some modern Allan Clarke, the much despised ‘sniffer’ of yore, I am instinctively and with some unattractive predatory gubbins well aroused, returning to the box.  The Pandora’s Box; the penalty box – the Rooneybox – the mad as a box of frogs box, in order either to wring my hands of its luridly signalled rubber-roominess, or say something intelligible.  About its abstracted bitterness, its high-octane mad-but-vulnerable surrogate violence, its derby-day realities.  United City; or more correctly – and here endeth the pretence towards accurate reportage – City United.

Having for scientific reasons (ahem; that would be a necessary family walk then) swerved the live coverage so as to benefit from cooler appraisals of what would inevitably be an emotional carnage-fest, I submit the following truths/untruths for your inspection.  They are based on a little knowledge and understanding of the game and absolutely no alcohol.

It strikes me firstly and often during this game that Manchester is helpfully keen to wrap us tightly into some symbolically drenched, mythologically scaled flood-scenario, where the protagonists slide tackles and gleeful victorious scoots towards ecstatic fans are beautifully facilitated by what can only be described as pissing rain.  Fortunately there were 5 scoots total, as United contrive to beat City 2-3 in what was without question an extraordinary match.

But the larger questions – about Rooney, about the side’s respective qualities – remain airlocked in the stormy organ-music of the affair.  Am I alone in thinking that although Rooney showed willingly and scored twice, his mixture of affectedly casual but often unproductive cuties and poor penalty are still indicative of a superlative player still rather unconvincingly egging on his own self-confidence.  Trying – maybe just slightly forcing – those sparks?  The purity of his attack for that thudding header notwithstanding, there were too many moments where I for one, felt he was seeking comfort on the ball rather than purring with it.

His exaggerated smacker on the badge in celebration of that first, illogical goal was similarly surely a kind of stage-managed theatre rather than some hearts-truth; Rooney having been led too far into the panto that is our lives to genuinely, genuinely move us with that one.  Yet score he did (twice!) and far be it for me to begrudge him that.  My cynicism or criticism is again more of a reflection of the lurv-deficit I feel exists between my own idealised Rooney and this current incarnation.

There was likewise something about the shortfall in real quality on show in this fantastic football match that disappointed.  Aguerro showed quality, I thought, and commitment – indeed much of the most convincing movement and passing came from City early in the game.  But Aguerro was guilty of a shockingly cheap clasp to a negligibly contacted face late in the game that again, for me, undermined his contribution.  This poorly refereed game, played in admittedly testing conditions, did not need rank drama of that order from one’s of its generally more highly performing combatants.

And so, regrettably, we turn to the ref.  And that sending-off.  The defender – Kompany – jumped in somewhat and two feet were unjustifiably raised, raising the possibility of a red.  However, it was a poor, ill-advised decision with significantly damaging consequences; namely that the game was obviously and unreasonably skewed against the home side from that moment forward.  Why oh why the 57 cameras attending these matches cannot be put to productive use for contentious decisions such as these is a mystery those allegedly running the Premiership avoid like … like politicians – it’s that bad and that mindless.  Twenty something seconds of reviewing gives us good quality decisions 90 something percent of the time; as opposed to the 41% currently imagined.  End of.

The fixture – if not the quality of the football – deserved better.  Instead Giggs was able to stroll absurdly through the match, relatively unchallenged, as City dropped deep, coiled into counter-attacking mode.  United disappointingly contrived to allow their ten opponents to boss both territory and possession in the second half, so that the homesters developed a real and threatening momentum towards the climax.  Thus Ferguson’s (disappointing?) shallow holding position almost embarrassed him.  For me, Phil Jones, Nani, Evra and Lindegaard were all poor and the performance itself was mediocre, unlike the result.

City, I suspect, will likely be more buoyed by what happened today than their rivals.  An irate Mancini can and will motivate his classy troops with that ole chestnut “Imagine what we’d have done if the ref hadn’t robbed us?”.  Silva though, may be more personally distracted by grief over his withdrawal for the second half – a half notably again unlit by his colleague Nasri.  And Hart will surely wonder quietly (or otherwise) at his manager’s decision to rest him for this, arguably the meatiest if not the most meaningful confrontation of the season so far.

Sad, in conclusion, that in a situation so gloriously stuffed with stories – the mighty Scholes revisiting, the cruelly crocked Hargreaves popping in – witless ‘authority’ pastes the headlines across its own, impervious brow again.  There is something of the dumb animal about this, or the drunken party game, where, glazed-eyed, Bigwigs paste miscellaneous notes above the eyes of those to the left.  Only here, we the fans can read what is written; it says “Don’t be such a donkey- REVIEW!!”  Then we get a proper, proper game of football.

Where’s yer Rooney gone? Far, far away?

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I’ll level with you.  Dumbly pondering my next missive, quill caught expertly between the furrows of my brow as the everlasting gale flings assorted twigs, small birds and occasional tourists against the windows, the last thing I wanted to do was add to the absurdly humungous pile of speculative cobblers about Rooney.  On the one slightly spiteful hand it feels like the boy barely deserves it – him being arguably the clunky epitome of the (crass?) ‘top Premiership player’ – and on the other, frankly, his slightly porky-sulky moodiness becomes a significant turnoff.

But how often do talents turn out this way?  Initially magnificent in their raw state, soon to be either worn down or spoiled by pressure/age/duff life-choices/questionable commitment.  How often do we as fans, find ourselves disappointed by their easing out of love with the game?  Personally I have near run out of patience with player’s inability to appreciate what they got.  So I’ll write, in the abstract, I suppose, about that.

And no, I can’t pretend to write from some passionless state of authority; I’m on a rumble and a hunch here, feeling something between concern about Rooney’s trajectory and near-bitter disappointment with how things turn out when big money, monumental exposure and lowish intelligence coincide.   Unlike the tabloids, I have no new facts to offer.  I merely fear that this quite recently brilliant and natural talent is in real danger of a premature fade.

The Rooney of his last Premiership outing – the humiliating defeat at Newcastle – had more in common with his desperate World Cup self than with the young buck who for two years plus (from the moment of his international debut) carried England with his fearless, intuitive brilliance.  That young innocent played with a revelatory sureness and confidence; he had everything – superb touch and vision, pace and aggression, that gift of knowing without thinking.  In contrast, the Geordies were left mocking a man seemingly (and I hope not to offend by this…) depressed by the kind of theatre and challenge once embraced with a fearsome, wholehearted verve.

Often lately, Rooney has looked this way to me; either sluggish, or unfit, or under-motivated.  As if he no longer really wants to play.  Or maybe things turn that way, if the touch isn’t there, or colleagues maybe aren’t, in his view, up to it in the way United players – Champions League players – ought to be.  Perhaps I exaggerate; perhaps it’s not fair or right to criticise his body language so when the side itself is plainly vulnerable and lacks cohesion.  Clearly struggling is as infectious as scoring and it may therefore be unreasonable to expect anyone to remain immune; but such is the apparent depth and even emotional weight of Rooney’s difficulties (intermittent as they are) that many of us feel for him, I think.

Whilst I don’t expect too many heads to be nodding in Liverpool when I speak of some minor sadness at the sight of the former Toffeeman’s plight, I stand by that particular emotion.  Given what Rooney has shown us – that extraordinary spirited expression of his toggergift – a slide towards the everyday, the workmanlike, the ordinary would be a matter of regret for all who appreciate the game.

We might go on endlessly about the whys.  The cogs now grinding rather than purring so slickly and easily.  The ease itself turning to unease.  For this young man there are so many possible causes for distraction or worse that any cod-psychologist could rapidly formulate a viable hypothesis.  Too much pressure/too much indulgence/dodgy family/delusional fame-obsessed wife/prozzie guilt. Common pubtalk.

I hasten to add that I propose none of these – or certainly none of these individually, or even chiefly.  (And I make this point not just for legal reasons) but because actually it strikes me that without hugely patronising the young man, Rooney is not designed to cope with anything very much other than being – when fit and happy – a magnificent and natural footballer.

So wipe the slate clean again – every word.  Let’s all retreat to some quietly pre-glorious, unselfconscious day.  Let’s speak again of Rooney but more simply; don’t ask him to be a diplomat/orator/pundit/policeman/politician or nuclear physicist.  Give him a ball… and a pitch.   Then, without too many distractions, he might make sense of this ludicrous world – his and ours.

BOD or BOFG? Silly to compare!

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There is something alarming about Paul O’Connell’s forearms; or at least I think there is.  I hope this has nothing whatsoever with prejudices I may have against Irishmen, Ginger Monsters or ham, but there is something in the club-like nature of that leading section of his limbs which has the worryingly hypnotic power normally associated with unhinged propellers.  Or – I suppose – mad, ginger-haired Irish hams.

Not that the recently reappointed skipper is himself either fully or sectionally unhinged – far from it.  In fact, on the contrary, there is something (else?) both powerful and controlling about the Second Row’s clasping gear.  It appears – it feels – as though he has uncommonly massive forearms; forearms with an extra dimension.   One where even extraordinary physicality is only part of the bundle.

This potential for extra-curricular stature is essential to O’Connell’s appeal.  As a captain – of both Lions and Ireland on occasion, remember – and as a standard-bearer leading the charge.  For a man who lacks pace, he picks and goes as effectively as any Front Fiver, having a weirdly unassuming relentlessness that smacks of indomitable courage rather than extroverted heart.  Again and again, O’Connell leads; again and again – whether in the lineout or into contact – he is present.  Such is the rather wonderful and possibly anti-heroic nature of his contribution.

Being myself mercifully six or seven inches shy of the typical Second Row’s elevation I can only speak from a respectful distance of the frequency and abrasiveness of the clashes of these titans.  O’Connell has had his share.  But what strikes me generally of the man – in particular the later vintage (Limerick)Munsterman – is the degree of control he retains whilst either being, or being in, a tide of hyper-conflict.   The temptation towards devilry when confronted by the likes of … name your most feared or revered international 4 or 5 (Botha?)… has been known to be challenging to the point of decisive – particularly in the modern era – where yellow cards for cynicism, slackness or raw violence do occur.

Paul O’Connell, though I suspect not remotely fazed by the thought of succeeding Brian O’Driscoll as captain of Ireland, is nevertheless succeeding a man who by common appreciation is one of the greats of the game.  O’Connell is not, he will know, quite in that highest echelon – though this is certainly partly a matter of differences in gearing.

O’Connell epitomizes that low-diff grungy but rangy Land Rover thing whereas BOD has the possibility for thrilling, fuel-injected glory.  The Lock, who I am tempted to burden with the BOFG moniker (Big Occasionally Friendly Giant) will never electrify us; 4 and 5 don’t do that stuff.   He will however make us roar, us Lions fans, with an imperious catch and subsequent drive, or a low-slung but vital scurry for yardage as a 10 waits dry-lipped for a drop attempt.

In addition, the aforementioned catch/drive/scurry is likely to be repeated with an efficiency destined surely to grind down or erode the confidence of the opposition.  Thus O’Connell executes.

O’Driscoll and O’Connell; two good Irishmen and true who unquestionably share a capacity to absorb or inflict pain for the cause.  As a result they’ve shared injuries and the breaks in continuity they bring.  But such is the influence both exert that they tend to feature pretty much immediately upon teamsheets at every level, right up to those conferring preciously regarded Lionhood.

As the one (BOD) steps away from some of these privileges, few would question that Paul O’Connell – magnificently armed specimen that he appears – is entirely equipped to be a worthy successor, captain or not.  And that brilliant, thunder-stealing but short-arsed centre cannot, in all likelihood rob him of one particular accolade – that of being the B.O.F.G.