Sport

Ratings; England- Montenegro.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

To complement – or contradict – my earlier blog and prove – or disprove – the fact that I actually watched the game… some thoughts and some numbers.

Hart – simply very fortunate to be in the side. Close to chronic poor form but has almost no meaningful competition. Almost completely untested tonight and only one clear error – when he made a duff clearance in the first half that might have led to a forty yard goal. But didn’t. 6/10.

Walker – likewise lucky to be in the side (and possibly any England side?) following his most recent England performance. Linked reasonably well with Tottenham partner Townsend but showed intelligence-deficit (again) to get booked. Defensively, barely good enough at this level. 6/10.

Cahill – athletic and often composed – or has the appearance of composure. Has most of the necessary attributes but distribution not top drawer. Perhaps the major disappointment is his failure to get more goals from set-pieces. Cruised it, mostly tonight – as he should have done, 7/10.

Jagielka – journeyman, with decent pace but would not feature in a strong England side. Honest enough but can’t pass beyond about ten yards and not likely to either calm things or prompt things. Okay tonight. 6/10.

Baines – especially good modern fullback, who can both defend and attack – and strikes a dead ball beautifully. One of the opposition’s successes tonight was that they cramped his attacking style almost completely. He will be a worthy successor to Cole, whose days in the job are surely numbered. 7/10.

Townsend – decent opening, sporadically effective with comparatively little end product. Then – with the universe quite rightly moving for him, following his sustained attempt to do something positive – he unleashes a stunning right-foot shot for the third goal. Man of the Match for his directness and his energy, no argument but does not look, to me, like a consistent world beater. (So file alongside the other frenetic fliers.) But buy the lad a pint tonight. 8/10.

Lampard – still playing slightly depressingly within himself and… think about it… if he can’t unpick that defence with that much time and space (and against that midfield) then his noble but ultimately slightly underwhelming contribution to the national side is drawing to a close. (Which it surely is). Did little more than water-carried tonight. 6/10.

Gerrard – showed – was often available – but very often disappointed, I thought? Like Lamps, the lights – the Roy-of-the-Rovers fires, in fact – are barely lit these days. Stevie G being merely competent is the rather sad symbol of the England side for the last several years. 7/10.

Wellbeck – another good athlete who can seem really at home in both the MU and the England shirt– deft and bright, even. However…tonight he was sloppy and a little wasteful… and he does unfortunately lack threat, being quite obviously not a goal-scorer. His linking and ‘assisting’ (and – okay then – his defensive work) therefore needs to be absolutely top-drawer to justify a place. Not sure it was tonight. 6/10.

Sturridge – a real striker who was pretty ineffective, tonight, I thought. Again, given the opposition and his form, might have expected more. Can be genuinely elusive and has great instincts but it didn’t quite come off for him – admittedly under close attention. Slightly careless re his awareness of offside, 6/10.

Rooney – had an average game at best, being particularly ropey in the first half. Few if any moments of brilliance, too many miss-controls or poor flicks or dodgy passes. But grabbed a goal. And am pleased to see him sprinting – if only on rare occasions. Confidence clearly not fully there… and he needs to spark up that electric charge. 6/10.

Hodgson – have to give him credit for the Townsend call. But another unconvincing performance, with little in the way of (remember this) verve? It’s not like the lads looked inspired. (See previous blog!) 5/10.

Neville – good bloke and brilliant pundit who seems to be failing almost entirely to shape or motivate the group. But how much scope does he have. Some, surely? 6/10.

Whilst you were watching England…

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

So was I, ultimately. Having side-wound my way round the kitchen – faffing, cooking – whilst still ‘protecting’ a certain #tinnasardines (see previous blog) I did, indeed sit and watch. Didn’t really intend to. Not with friends arriving/rugby on/@tate channel to draw me in/dog to walk. But you just do; when once it really was the biggest and most important and exciting thing.

Now it’s not. Not with these players, this gaffer, the pervading sense of gaudy amorality; the Premiership milieu wavering between maxoffense and dangerousshitmeltdown on the ECG that is my/our(?) heartfelt response to stuff.

Setting aside any nationalistic lunacy (which I tend to) there’s very little in the way of pull. I’m kindof way beyond the gut-churning anguish that traditionally accompanies moments of national embarrassment and almost post intellectual-botheration entirely but if pushed to offer a diagnosis on the Tight-arsed Donkeyism served up by the heroes in white for the last 40 years my doctorly sprawl would look something like this;

  • ’tis a function of dullish and limited coaching and shortage of both top-tier talent and comfort within the territory that perennially sucks the expressive life (and therefore the viewing pleasure) out of the ‘occasion.’
  • In tournaments especially, chronic lack of belief oozes out of the pores of even the better players so that time after time we (England) offer little more than responsibility-shirking, eyes-glazed, allegedly hard-tackling unambition.
  • Meaning players daren’t do stuff; and managers daren’t change things.
  • In short the technical inadequacies of our players are utterly exposed when they show (alongside the presumed skill-deprivation) a depressing lack of fibre. And time after time, they do.

Who’s actually flourished in an England shirt, in the last… in your memory? Rooney, certainly, about five years ago; when he was young and didn’t know any better. When he grew up and the pressures and knocks got to him, he became – symbolically, almost – the worst of the lot, his performances on the Big Stage having been nigh-on insultingly poor. The formerly brilliant scally became some depressed Sunday League would-be-10, joylessly shinning when he should be caressing. I think we may go back to the Bobby Robson era before we find players fulfilling themselves, expressing themselves – outliving themselves as I like to think of it.

Unfair? Possibly. Clearly we do have talents – players who can play. Ironically, one of the very best – Wilshere – has this week exchanged ciggie-in-mush for a boot by sadly confirming he too has fallen for the conceptual footie-norm of Englishman-as-yeoman. How lovely it would have been to have heard him purr about Iniesta. Instead he brought us back to the Stoke City School of Allegedly Fixed Realities, where, as we know, conceptual appreciation of the bravery of ball-retention as an art-form is absent from the curriculum. (Even now, under Hughesy.) Wilshere then, sounded dumb, which was a shame… and to be fair, it contradicts his metier on’t park.

But this is all medium-eloquent rehashing of stuff we already know. What I need to do (I know, I know) is take yoga-size breaths and say something meaningful about what’s to be done, right? Here are some thoughts – again, bullet-pointed to make it look like I’m presenting something kosher. They’re general – because depending on the presence or absence of Better Offers, I may even write about The Match (tonight!)

  • Let’s start with England. The boy Hodgson has merely continued the deathlike suffocation of Braver Thoughts by actually shoring up(!) the tradition 4-4-2 bullshit-bulwark. He should take no credit – and get little sympathy – for ‘leading’ the team through yet another appalling Euro Championship in which his side played pathetically little football and appeared yet another bunch of fearful and insipid non-individuals. He needs to go and World Cup qualification or otherwise should not deflect us from that truth.
  • Management is about inspiring as well as organising; in fact if you inspire you may not need to organise half as much! Brilliant free spirits – or even bighearted brotherly ones – can be propelled through sheer force of personality towards triumph (and I choose that word over success, here.) They may vanquish in a glorious flux of energy, despite being theoretically vulnerable in their ‘openness.’ Think about momentum; think about the role supporters play; picture players bristling and sprinting – living (or outliving) off the fuel of inspiration. Hodgson may have whispered the occasional word of wisdom but he patently has failed to inspire anybody. There is no pretence, even, that he has or could.
  • The current retreat to formulaic Englishness may mean that only Brit managers might be considered as a replacement for Hodgson. This is as ridiculous as the failure of the FA to even discuss ways forward with the willing Guardiola. There are few candidates. Possibly, in a year or two, the Liverpool manager but even ar Brendan might be diverted from the path of knowledge by the pressures of the job.
  • So we probably need to bin these and most other nationalistic notions and… get patient. And get another foreign manager. And let him manage – absolutely.
  • Clearly the development of St George’s Park has potential. Even if the fascists running the Premiership fail to slacken their asphyxiating hold on who plays ball in their league – specifically, how many locals get a kickabout. If the culture of coaching does continue to move towards small-sided games on small pitches where keepers cannot hoof the ball 40 yards up the field and centre-halves learn how to pass and control there may be an improvement, in a decade or so. Or so. But only if the coaches believe in the culture-change.
  • If we continue to get bullish irriots bawling ‘show me some aggression!’ (Jack Charlton, circa 1970) at shell-shocked kids from the touchlines then our magnificent and epic Donkeyhood will continue to thrive at all levels.
  • On a personal note – and I do think this is relevant – I have captained and selected football teams and grew up with footie as the most stable and central staple of our relatively few life staples. Had little else to play or play with, wanted nothing else. But despite being temperamentally suited and probably intellectually equipped, I have not been inclined, for many a year, to get actively involved in football coaching. (Cricket and rugby – yes.) This is undoubtedly partly because the game itself – both on and off the pitch – has changed. Whilst on the one hand the fabulous pre-eminence of Barca and Bayern in recent years has invigorated the spectacle and arguably the nature of the sport, the new squishy chestnuts (greed/diving/contempt for fans and/or authority etc etc) are spoiling the taste of it.
  • Closer to home, contemplation of this unhealthy but bourgeoning empire – The Prem – Premier or Family-Sized bucket of fodder that it is, does for me what a huge tub of KFC or popcorn might. Makes me turn pretty instantly away. And, as I’ve opined before, I know I’m not alone on this. So the cultural imperative to watch and to support the game – let alone Engerland FC – ain’t quite the same. (No matter what any figures may say to the contrary.) The quality of people’s loyalty (to the game, to England) is fraying.
  • To the point that only a genuinely radical and sustained and visionary transformation of all levels of football in the UK will a) put a smile back on my/our faces b) lead, in time, to our wee boys and girls (and thus eventually our representative sides) playing the same game, with the same degree of skill and ambition, as our Dutch, German, Spanish and Italian counterparts. And we’re not big on visions, are we?

Blimey. Off on one again. Did the game start yet? Did I dream all that? What time is it?

More of this? I did write an ebook – well appreciated, as’it’appens by Hayward/Mason/Moore.  It’s here at amzn.to/SSc9To

Haggling unashamedly…

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Transfer deadline day. It’s a squirmathon if you let it be. A kind of shockingly energetic fiscal barf into the sinew-stretching meadow ‘pon which us Michelin-starred culturosporty cud-chewers mindfully graze. Something pathetically, major-league big but also empty, in fact. Feeling to me more depressingly/divertingly anti-sport than ever. Is it simply the money, the obscene nature of half a billion blown on mere footie players? Must be partly. Is it the subliminal fraudulence (too?) A day, after all, of absolutely no reckoning but lotsa cheap haggling, where the whiff of the mad-bovine prevails over the desperate, illusory need to compete… for what? Cash-cows, or trophies? It’s a blur.

And it’s clearly right up there in the diabolical crassness stakes. Like shopping in Oxford Street; like something blocking or jarring or deeply reflective of our failure to evolve forwards.  And our need for the herd and the hero or the god, or… just another Stella. (I mean an Ar-tois.) Hour upon speculative hour of absurd, lonely black-wholeness, offending every sense but that one that twitches over yearnings, over transformational moments of triumph. Like when you actually sign somebody magbloodynificent – which nobody, to my mind, did, or looked like doing – unless we count in Real Madrid, which we won’t, as I’m concerning myself with our lot. The Prem.

So I studiously avoided most of the whole garish bundle, choosing to cast a superior and occasional glance at my twitterfeed and (okay then, I admit it) fire up 5Live for an occasional burst of the goss.  (They, like we did, had United and Arsenal neck and neck in the #racetolosethemostface, a staggering lack of planning having led to clumsy dabs or inelegant clawing at too few, too elusive a ‘target’.)

Arsenal’s failings in the transfer market have a Wagnerian scope, do they not, booming as they do around a certain, epic, poignantly-inevitable calamity or twelve? Yet – is it just pervy ole me? – there’s something remarkable and quasi-sexy in the sheer spermlessness of AFC policy over the years. Buy nobody or buy effectively the same player, endlessly. Fire blanks into the Real War going on around. Avoid what you really obviously need – striker/keeper/stopper. It’s been a sometimes expressive, sometimes jaw-droppingly inept performance , held together solely by the safety pin that is Wenger’s brilliance.

So if you’re NOT an Arsenal fan, there may be something faintly attractive about Arsene; the quiet French hawk, the one-eyed Prof. Denied the bare essentials (well, the dosh) but in any case psychotically unable to see past the need to arm himself with shortish, squattish midfield maestros who can Frenchly-beautifully out-doodle the natives. Suddenly, however, with the economic Goonscape transformed (that word, see!) what do we get but… a Turk-German uber-maestro to add to the collection. The boy Ozil being admittedly, clearly a talent of the elite variety but surely, even allowing for the increasing doubts re the longevity of the unfortunate Wilshere, Arsene needed a striker/defensive hulk or two more urgently than another impish genius?  Having said that, I do look forward to seeing the 42 million pound signing collect and pass and move and weave his characteristically sweet angles.

Arsenal did do other business, including bringing in another keeper, to be fair. But the suspicion remains that they ballsed the whole thing up by failing to garner a Huth-like monster or three for that perennially mincing defence of theirs, plus a Proper Striker. They may have been after Ozil for aeons but to belatedly pay over the top for a player they may not need (mainly) because the locals have been understandably restive/the situation demands a Big Name Signing is both dumb business and disproportionate footie-wise.

The fact that their much-loved neighbours Tottingham have been going through their little black book of dreams and making all manner of successful calls of course added to the pressure on the Emirates regime. Perhaps, incidentally, the Prem at large should be looking very closely at who did and how did Spurs do all this business? Tottenham are a fine club but they are not Manchester United (for example.) So how come they did all this stuff? Exercised this clout? Over at the Emirates, the feeling remains that yet again Arsenal FC will be carried by their manager’s ability to bully or blend together a competitive side from a squad overloaded with hare-like schoolboys and members of the Sub-Iniesta Society.

Arguably only one club has drawn more guffaws than the Gooners this last week – Manchester United. For a club with such resources and advantages as MU to have failed so pitifully to do any decent business in the transfer window is extraordinary. Sure certain clubs/players/agents are going to piss you around because you’re Manchester United; we know that. Everton are going to want to play hardball over both Fellaini and Baines, there’s gonna be an MU Premium added into most deals. But players are going to want to come. Given the status of the football club it’s plainly ludicrous that a shopping list complete with likelihoods and alternatives could not have been acted upon successfully, early enough. Even with Moyes as a latecomer; the procedure and the order of things – the momentum – should have been established.

None of us – not even journo’s allegedly ‘in the know’ – can be sure how much blame to attach to Moyes and how much to Woodward and others in the backroom staff for the widely acclaimed fiasco. Woodward is inevitably likely to be far more responsible for getting deals done than the day-to-day manager of the playing staff but perhaps there is also the feeling that Moyes as yet lacks the personality or stature to get on the blower and simply get things sorted. But that is more of a hunch than a statement of fact – of which we possess relatively few, other than the damning list of (allegedly) failed buy-ins.

Arguably more could have been done in the last ‘window’ to set the club further forward but certainly obvious and ‘essential’ moves – for me, this means Baines first and foremost, given the 18 months of drift from Evra – should have been driven through. The Spanish difficulties might have been overcome with a combination of better PR and sharper, earlier negotiation but in any case multiple alternatives should surely have been approached simultaneously? To be flailing about late on and then apparently only succeed with Fellaini due to him relinquishing a substantial wedge because he so wanted to join MU simply outgooners the Arsenal on the incompetence-in-the-market front. Fellaini, by the way, I do rate and expect his presence in both boxes to be a significant bonus for United. Whether the need to recharge creativity in midfield will be covered by his arrival is another matter. Fabregas might have been good.

I’ve got bogged down I see with the madness of the window and with United and Arsenal. Tottenham have clearly been the epicentre of most world news in the last period and yet (maybe this is a simple case of not seeing the wood f’ut trees?) I don’t yet see/feel how their team is going to act – not yet. Clearly they have Big New Signings and maybe in this age of the lurid and the loud that may be enough.

If I have obsessed on the appalling umbilical link between the Real Deal in footie and in the capital universe, I apologise – that’s politics, folks. I am hopeful of two things; that Gareth Bale will be a success in the purest(?) footballing terms and that maybe any power-shifts we may see post the window (and related to the influx of new managers here and there) might both lift and spread standards/opportunities/joy, even.

Something exquisite in the execution.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Be honest, you’ve forgotten about #BOD. Or most of you have, or at least forgiven Gatland, bless’im. No Alternative (as I’m sure some vitriolic nutter might have said) following the emphatic victory by his overpoweringly big-hearted posse and given the obvious, visible, communal(?) pride and unity that made that possible. Even Keith Wood, who spoke so eloquently against his fellow member of the Hooker’s Union decision to turn away from the ‘clarion call’, must surely have recognised that within the essence of the Gatland Lions was indeed a recognition of that soul-brotherly specialness he thought had gone walkabout. Ultimately, the series victory genuinely felt like both a fabulous result and a vindication of the Lions Project; consequently Gatland emerges with enormous credit. On reflection it may have been okay to criticise his selection but not his integrity or understanding of what this marvellous touring phenomenon is all about. So Keith was probably wrong.

Probably with buts. Certainly he was right to defend – from an informed perspective – this Lions Brotherhood thing, the handshakes across the border being at the philosophical core of what makes these four year solidarity-binges remarkable. But some of us never doubted Gatland’s commitment to those finer points of Lionhood. We rated the Kiwi at the helm somewhat higher than that. We thought the de-selection of a relatively colourless (but magnificent) Irishman made absolute sense both in terms of the accommodation of the exquisite hands of Davies and of the Doctor of Wallop – Roberts. There would be no tawdry or terminal devaluing of the Lions associated with this; BOD – simply – had looked relatively ineffectual and though Davies had also been peripheral in the previous test he has looked pretty damn delicious often enough on this tour.

These decisions are even now, in the age of warm-up coaches for the warm-up coaches, built on a right dodgy cocktail of imprecise and maybe slightly more precise science. Stats and hunches. It would have been fascinating to hear what was said at the final selection meeting – not just on the BOD call but maybe particularly on the back row unit issue. Facile to immediately plump for the ‘Twas all right ‘cos it worked‘ view of this after the event, even though plainly there was a general gelling of previously disparate herculean effort(s) which meant the Lions simply would not lose. And perhaps one of the great joys of this and indeed many other sporting triumphs is that midst the passion and the punditry and the all-consuming hooha we simply cannot measure the degree to which the contest was decided by will alone. We can, however, recognise and maybe identify with something in that undeniability our lot brought to the arena. Whatever – returning to Davies-BOD – that ‘crunch call’ cannot possibly be called out as a clanger; not now.

And so to the match, in which the Lions did produce something close to a complete performance; not flawless, of course, but thrillingly, heart-liftingly complete. Adam Jones shunted himself ever closer to the top of the Knighthood shortlist, while Corbisiero thundered and generally stole the limelight. Crucially, Sexton flowered in the moment – contradicting my own most personal fear – and Halfpenny hoofed the alleged existence of pressure itself into Row 26, whilst cruising at a level of sturdy brilliance that somehow both underpinned and did that icing thing simultaneously over the entire, historically-significant cake. But what felt most remarkable was the full-court bigness and fullness of the Lions effort – something that simply could not have been expressed without a belief, a togetherness driven by the coaching staff.

A coach is in dreamland if everybody turns up and really plays. Though the match – particularly either side of the half – shifted and shimmied in terms of ascendancy, the nub of it was simply that Team Lions really worked. All of it.

From the outset there was forward domination of a sort that had (I can tell you) full-bellied fifty year-old men of a squat, squarish dimension roaring their approval. Rarely has my (cricket) club been filled with so many blokes conversant with the leeches-for-lugs branch of sports medicine. Scrums broiled, breakdowns biffed and hoiked and everywhere there was a Lion rising to the challenge. O’Brien, predictably, was troubling both the Blanketoverthepitch and the Manpossesed-ometers. Faletau rumbled and cut in his own, marginally less abrasive way… and then The Girls… The Girls cut loose, finally, emphatically. Looking back on it now, the running away with it thing towards the end was surely the inevitable result of every manjack pouring themselves so completely into the game earlier. And why did they do this? Because they knew (and Gatland, their leader and chief source of inspiration knew) what it means to be a Lion. That much was clear – and that alone is an effective validation of what Gatland did.

I have favourite moments; Davies drawing and passing with such composure and timing to release the outside backs; oozing, just ooooozzing class. Halfpenny breaking… and covering… and being everywhere and being, beyond question a somehow Roman Soldier-like Man of the Series. (Quietly proud and unflinching and oh yeah – that helmet maybe?) Corbisiero roaring – that word again! – having rolled and plonked that pill down in the first fookin’ minute, whilst we swore passionately, almost violently tribally-ecstatically at the telly. Adam Jones beasting most of Australia.

Perhaps most wonderful sight was the sharing and the celebration – all that hugging and slapping – that began so ludicrously early, like almost TEN MINUTES before the end of the game! The Series Decider might really have wafted into anti-climax had the Lions not gone into auto-execute on the Go Wide, Get Happy and Generally Blossom front. Tiredness admittedly by now offered some space and this combined with that precious flush of confidence meant tries came. Murray enjoyed his cameo, Sexton and Roberts cashed in. And The Lions, The Lions really did win.

A final thought; they won without Warburton and without O’Connell.

Swing Higher?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Australia deservedly beat the Lions in the second test on Saturday, in another match shrill with nuclear-button-moment tension. In this case, mercifully, several things;

one – ’twas all centred round a mere but alarmingly late and decisive kicking event (again!) as opposed to something major going off in Korea/Iran/someplace else the Americans are pooping their panties about.

Two – this time it was us wot missed.

Three – the nuclear-freeness of said event did not significantly reduce the weight of angst where I was watching… and latterly enduring it.

Once more, remarkably, the overtime phases of the game offered nerve-shredding possibilities for all or nothing in terms of this series. For supporters of the reds, like me, ultimately, as I/we/they slunk away to bars and hotels or the small comfort of family life, it was the bitter hard stuff that lay in wait – not the smilier-fizzier accoutrements of quadrennial glory. The redoubtable Halfpenny – he of the doe-eyes calmly fixated – had failed to hoof open a new chapter in long-shotdom; the 50-odd metre penalty he struck falling some way short of the now untroubled crossbar. (Earlier a similar attempt had rebounded cruelly to a Wallaby hand.) It was another moment of drama in a now confirmed triptych – the contest going as a result to the final match in Sydney. And rightly so.

The build-up on and off the box had been full of the usual hum and hokum; banter, bullshit and – where I was – brilliant, informed debate. Much of it around the Vunipola Question. Or maybe the Back Row Question. Meaning that a fair number had bought in to the bulk of the changes – enforced or otherwise – Gatland had made. For example, despite the fact that Mike Phillips is a son of Banc-y-felin, a thirty mile meander from base camp (in Haverfordwest Cricket Club, if you must know) not too much earache on that. ‘Mike’s ‘been bit laboured, see? Godda get that ball OUT, mun!’ No; much more earnest discussion and yes, dissent, over the perceived vulnerability of the England prop. A straw poll would have put Grant in there for starters and allowed the younger fella to rumble round destructively once the game had opened out. Strength not at issue – just too much to expect him to show the maturity, discipline and composure to hold under targeted pressure. He couldn’t.

There were awful moments close to the 25 minute mark when, following general world-wide indictment (and more importantly, concession of penalties at the scrum) Vunipola seemed destined to be unceremoniously hoiked. Then he dropped a pass… and it became inevitable. The fact that he and the Lions scrum scrambled back towards an admittedly sketchy and frankly unattractive ‘parity’- and that in fact he was not removed early – reflects admirably on the England debutant. Words had indeed been said – shouted in fact, at the alleged Englishman but the Lions effort had not started so loaded down with disbelieving expletives.

It began with a storm, in fact, or a storming, the away side looking both impassioned and focused. We thrilled and yes, roared as things clicked encouragingly over from our lot piling into ’em in the time-honoured fashion to some adrenalin-fuelled but controlled rugby of a Wallaby-threatening order.  Sadly, this lasted for all of about eight minutes before… before the magnificent free-spirits up on the screen realised this was a Test Match… with a whole lot riding.

Then conservatism and error and often shapelessness broke out, in the game at large, in both camps. It was rare that either side went through more than a handful of phases before something was up – an infringement or an error, typically. The intensity made it feel like a spectacle but maybe take that series-decider thing out and… what? Scrappy and again frustratingly bound to interpretation of what went on in the scrum and – less obviously in this encounter – at the breakdown.

In the scrum it really may be that concepts are all we have; real, corporeal ascendancy being no longer a possibility, given the shambles around engagement and the put-in. Scrums are no longer contests because a) there is no hooking b) the objective seems to be the prompting of a ‘legitimate’ claim to a penalty following infringement from the other side. Meanwhile the historically essential delivery of the ball to the centre of the melee is apparently an irrelevance, as far as the officials are concerned. Scrums now are far too often an enraging travesty; one which will inevitably lead to some explosive reaction from one of the betrayed protagonists.

The early minutes suggested at least that policing of the breakdown might be less cruelly restrictive than the previous match. O’Driscoll sensed he may be in the game and Warburton most certainly was – if not pilfering outright then genuinely competing without fear. This augured well. In fact though, the inability of the Lions to build (and literally expand) upon a fabulous start by drawing and passing and recycling effectively – adding width following gains in yardage – meant there was no penetration. And they can’t blame the ref for too much of that.

Whether this is a cultural thing with Gatland is open to debate; some mutter darkly about a one-dimensionality in the Gatland Master Plan. As though it’s essence is relatively stoppable, if you learn to read it. It may not be the same thing but there was a sense here that either by instinct or design the Wallabies had options available, even in a crowded midfield, in a way that the Lions didn’t. Davies and O’Driscoll were nullified and North and Bowe almost absent. Beyond that perhaps – they rarely looked like creating. That could not be said of their opposite numbers.

Clearly the brilliance of Genia plays a part in this disparity. He seamlessly links, he moves the centre of threat, there is that unsettling but nonetheless purposeful flux about him. He’s bloody difficult to stop. Allow him a few phases and before you know it every manjack in the backline is feeling indefuckingstructible mate. If he had a real pivot outside him you worry that the Lions would suffer a pasting – but they didn’t. The Australians won, deservedly, because they were markedly more ambitious; they offloaded and brought runners into the game – particularly in the second half. There is an argument that they had no choice but I think that’s slightly cheap. The Wallabies really took the Lions on – courageously, defiantly – and they won.

For the Lions, changes will again be made; both necessary and tactical. The potential absence of Warburton and the loss of the totemic O’Connell may possibly be the end of it, who knows? Parling is a good man but not a legend. The inclusion of a fit Tuilagi, to the squad, if not the team, seems likely, with the Davies-BOD combination somewhere between pallid and competent so far. Nothing wrong with Bowe and North – they just need the pill to carry round a bit. There need be no culture-change in the front row, merely a reversion to an experienced, workmanlike posse including Grant(?) with limited objectives. Compete; behave; stop the other buggers. Selecting the back row is more critical, you feel.

There may be some in the Lions camp pressing for a blanket over things; a fire-response or even better a fire-prevention unit. Tough, reliable types – Lydiates. The argument maybe being that an opportunity will come anyway, for North or Bowe, or somebody and that therefore no need for a Croft or a Tuilagi to go gambolling too recklessly. Issues around fitness of individuals may of course steer this debate but clearly the make-up of the back row will to a large extent control the nature and the pace and the ambition – higher/lower? – of the game plan. Whether Warbs misses out or not, the case for Lydiate is strong. So how do we juggle Croft’s classy athleticism and Tipuric’s great form and O’Briens passion and… which way, what will characterise how we go? With Heaslip? Do we just give Heaslip a bollocking and demand some more or does the thing need a revolution? Perhaps not. But it does need a spark.

In our club the chorus of ‘Swing Low’ heard mid-match was not met with universal enthusiasm. To some these Lions felt disappointingly a bit trad English – meaning inexpressive – dull, frankly. Where were the players ‘seizing the moment’, playing ‘heads-up rugby?’ Well, they weren’t wearing red.

For Gatland there is some serious thinking to be done. I don’t see him as some conservative soul – he’s better than that. But he may feel that trouble lies ahead if his side fails again to release players into space and/or take the risks associated with width. Or he may not. He may I suppose conclude that a tight, forward-led approach is percentage-wise most viable, most advantageous. Many of us would counter that so far the Wallabies have dealt more than adequately with the Lions 1-8 but found 11 and 14 less easily contained. In other words Gorgeous George in particular is nigh on unfuckingstoppable (mate.) So let him have that ball.

Breakdown.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

In a lookawaynow kind of fashion, the first Test between the Shackle-dragging Crimino-brotherhood and The Lions crashed, swung its irons, walloped and all-round prime-timed our dislocated, mid-morning senses. Principally, Blokes were magnificently knocked out every few minutes – characteristically… Australians! Transformer-like Other Blokes sprinted and jinked gargantuan jinks (as opposed to JJWilliams jinks) from one state to the next before palming the ball down triumphantly. It was mega; it was neanderthal and modern and glossy and balletic in a free-form staccato-eruptive flood. And The Lions won; 21-23.

Maybe that’s all you need to know. Maybe – as, let’s be honest, I may well be preaching to the converted here – you knew all that. Allow me then to throw in some free and colo(u)rific insight, some twinklacious observo-punts re the signage as well as the ‘actual events’. Or you could piss off back to the telly.

The  pre-match tension, from the scene of my watchingment, appeared to fix upon whether or not to slurp a beer or several during the game – most of us gathered being more or less committed to playing cricket (sub-the-judice of the effing weather) immediately post the ludicrous mid-morn kick-off. (CUM ON, PEOPLE! Like how’s a man supposed to watch a Test AND slurp beer at 11 am. With a cricket match after? OK. I know. We generally do that cum Lions-time.) So there was that inane banter thing going on around Jamie Roberts and stuff whilst we exorcised the ghostly whiff of hops or worse – the need to slurp. Then boot, hussarr… it started. And so did the drinking, actually.

Within a few minutes the sustaining hunch that Sexton would do okay if he didn’t have to kick pressure kicks and that our lot would actually be more together than their lot of outofpositionflungtogetheradmittedlyflair-enabled southerners seemed a stable concept, amid the inevitable hurly. This is not to say that the homesters looked nervously dysfunctional but more that The Lions, equipped more than adequately in the Experienced and Proper Lion stakes (BOD, POC, AWJ, you cuddle up to your own, bullocking ledge) seemed pidgeon-chestedly at home in this environment. Youngs did the Youngs things, POC the POC, etc. The lads – our stupendously leonine (if birdlike) and capable and whole-hearted red-shirted heroes – did their thing with enough assurance to convince all of us and the watching world that Lions can (oof)… and will… (yowch!) lay it down… (hoiyahh!) in committed style… (aaaah) for The Lions.

Slightly more specifically, Jonathon Davies absolutely laid out Lealiifano, without resorting to malice, in 50 seconds. To his credit, the Welshman – who gave surely one of the great non-Test performances in Lions history in the game against Waratahs last week (yup, I really think it was that good) – immediately called for aid to his stricken opponent, knowing he was haway with the (presumably Aboriginal) faeries. This was merely the warm-up gig in the stretcher-fest that was to wheel its Pete Townsendesque way through the game. Kerrang!! Lealiifano. Kerrang!! Barnes. ‘Allo San Fransisco! McCabe. Power-chord after migraine-inducing power-chord, the physical intensity of the thing was taking its toll; on the Australians.  We drank to that, funnily enough.

There was much to admire and enjoy in the first period. Two tries by the Australian George North – bloke called Folau, who apparently picked up a rugby ball for the first time last week – plus a similarly dashing-bison moment from Gorgeous George himself.

Personally I was convinced the first Folau try followed a scandalously obvious in-at-the-side intervention from an Aussie prop but this was not the only moment of controversy around the breakdown. The man O’Driscoll, whom followers of the game may have heard of, quite plainly decided he needed to absent himself from these challenges following two bewildering pings; this will be a matter for ahem… discussion between Mr Gatland and the authorities, I feel, before the Second Test. In all seriousness, the ‘interpretation’ of rulings on what is permissible – or how bodyweight is judged to be perched – as players try to gather in legitimately contestable ball should not be excluding great and honourable and experienced professionals from plying their trade entirely. BOD could subsequently make only intermittent contributions for his side, something of a travesty for the contest, IMO. This issue will remain central to the series no doubt but if the other, healthier, more roaaarringly uplifting facet of the game – namely the propensity for giant blokes to leg-it like fuck through pathetically flailing defenders – persists, then clearly we are in for some wonderful entertainment.

Folau and Cuthbert and North delivered something special which drew crucially upon the moment… and that was fabulously proper sport. Tries of course can win matches but if the hapless hoofers from the SD colony had even remotely approached Halfpennyesque levels of proficiency with the boot then The Lions would have got beat. As it was, Leigh was again close to exemplary in virtually everything he did, whilst a series of probably under-prepared and possibly unwilling Aussie novices blinked up at the posts before hoiking right, left, or cruelly fell on their understandably quivering ample arse. Beale – the one with alcohol issues – cruelly exposed, kicked drunkenly wide or short or both, when the moment OF WINNING THE FIRST TEST beckoned. My Magnificent Little Pony (Halfpenny – earlier), did not.

In a finale that was supremely tense rather than classic, failures of composure and technique told – failures we might link to selection issues, for Australia really had gambled more than their gallantly stolid opponents. The Wallabies had the Wrong Bloke doing really important stuff too often. So they lost.

However, they did have the finest player on the park by some distance – Genia, who played as though pressure does not and never did exist – but even his brilliance fell short. When the shackles were flung off rather than dragged, the Aussie back line did look a threat, even in midfield, in a way that BOD and Davies rarely did. Much of this was to do with Genia’s comfort and expressivity. Phillips by contrast looked upright and sometimes laboured; his place now more closely under threat from t’other Youngs, perhaps? The Lions came through thanks to bursts of invincible running amid general good (but conservative) stewardship of the line-out and acceptably tidy work from Sexton. They will want more and they may need it.

With the result undecided ’til virtually the last kick and the intensity relentlessly freakish, this First One was damn competitive. Hence, I suppose the attrition on Australians. (Did I mention that?) The Lions are strong but not decisively so – not yet. Two tries conceded. If the Wallabies can truly and effectively re-group they have already shown that they have real firepower – likely the equal of the boy North, even. What we need as lovers of the game is both for the big guns to be unleashed and for the less spectacular contests to be fully played out rather than watch players tiptoe around the referee’s interpretation of the rules. Players/viewers don’t want to obsess about the flippin’ breakdown; they/we want to see it happen – Warburton or BOD v their lot, in action!

It’s simply not possible to play through the breakdown when your movements, your instincts are compromised by those fears. BOD’s withdrawal from this key part of the game was maybe, on reflection, notable as opposed to central to the result – fortunately. But when things get tight… phew, you wanna grab that ball, right? And that might cost. In the fury and the shades-of-grey it became heart-stoppingly close. But as O’Driscoll said after – we’ll take an ugly win. Cheers.

Lions get real.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

There is much talk about the limited value of Lions warm-up games. Mullerings of diverse quality have been minutely dissected or blathered about. This is not only fine, it is the essential accompaniment to the rumble and sometimes tumble of a real, engaging sporting tour. And the Lions adventure is certainly that, enmeshed or driven as it is by the gathering, glorious-daft Sea-of-Redness now showing at a screen near you… and more importantly, in a stadium light years away. Many of us – including, of course, womenfolk with a fondness for oval balls – are hooked, drawn in to the tide of intoxo-enthusiasm, the incrementally searing lust-funk of it all. Swaying or a-swingin’, staggering dad-dancingly but carrying that ball to the gain-line, or into contact or –YESSS – to the TRY-LINE. Being it, being involved because we’re excited and we care and it’s now so real.

Sure there is hype and there are the accoutrements, the merchandise, the £55 shirts, the beery badges of honour. Those of us unable to travel may have indulged in these minor falls from puritanically poi-fect Cliff Morgan-era zeal. Even that’s okay. Because it is feeling real, this huddle of celto-limey brilliance; this us-as-lion. We are gathering, drawn both the lure of a spectacle and surely by some druidic impulse to the standing stones that are the posts – our posts – which we will defend, defiantly together. Against them. Us and Griff and Nana and Reg and Rory and Whitey and Will. Quite possibly lubricated, quite possibly inspired; because this bigness, this generosity is real.

Folks understand. And there’s something of the Baabaa’s about the Lions – there has to be. Beyond the mere assemblage of ‘units’, beyond the gelling of limbs and the reading of calls. The timbre of the thing is different to ordinary international rugby. There’s an onus on those representing to really play. That’s a function of history but one spiced up with a kind of openness (and we hope ambition) to something alarmingly close to poetry and yes – brotherhood. Players are not being glib when they talk about the privilege of the shirt. They are moved as well as motivated by the support – both in the stands and in the blur of distant pubs and clubs and homes. They do know. They are in the moment, even now an attractively underprepared moment, conducive to the sparking up of genius, of glory. It’s special; there is a special joy awaiting as well as a responsibility to be grasped. Lionhood.

So games have been played and cud has been chewed. Chiefly around the diabolical liberties taken by (grrrr!) shackle-dragging selectors of (some say) insultingly under-strength teams. Teasing or taking the piss? Depends on (y)our level of national prejudice, I guess. But I say fear not. Gatland knew what was coming, pretty much. Why else would he have Hogg as a third fly-half? Because he knew a) he would be plenty good enough (for that particular game) b) because the coach can now flirt with option 58b – the possibility that the dashing Scot might come back to haunt or disassemble a retreating Aussie rabble should the Lions either be 2 Tests up or in need of a late burst from an unfeasibly sprightly 10. Thus the coaches too bob and weave, feint and shimmy.

We all know the arguments for ‘meaningful opposition’ but more intense matches may have come at a higher price in terms of injury – to either player or squad confidence. As it happens the Lions must be feeling close to invincible, with backs in particular hungry for another run-in to the line. What players want is the ball in their hands and points on the board. The coaching staff know enough about them as individuals, as players, to be able to select on the basis of skill and character and temperament. It’s in the nature of modern tours that a barrage of more or less distracting psycho-flares be fired up against you; I have every confidence that the Lions as a group have the spine and the spittle to waft this lame but pyrotechnic Aussie nonsense aside.

Much of the fascination at this stage of what I am tempted to call development surrounds Test places – naturally. Plenty of hot air around who deserves this or that as well as laughably heartfelt debate upon who will be actually be in Gatland’s fifteen. Fun to be had in deciphering the clues, following the declaration of the side for Saturday’s game against the Waratahs. Given the approach of the 1st Test, we might expect to see some of the famed ‘necessary units’ to be in place; Phillips/Sexton at half-back? A whiff of authentic grunthood in the front row and a possible lock combo in Alun Wynne-Jones and POC. Inconclusive? May be. Gatland is coming over all wily as well as worldly.

The bankers for a place appear to be Halfpenny, North, O’Driscoll and who? Hogg on t’other flank? With Roberts or Tuilagi at 12? I have always rated Davies at centre for his dynamism and perhaps particularly his opportunism but he seems unlikely now to get a sniff. Phillips and Sexton meanwhile seem sure to start, with Youngs an energetic 60 minute sub. For me both Phillips and Roberts may be a tad fortunate to coast in without showing much of the fire and inspiration of a year or three ago. Such that a Roberts-BOD combo will smack slightly disappointingly of – if not conservatism – an admittedly robust holding operation for the first Test.

The pack against Waratahs – see the team-sheet beneath – is worthy of a Test but delicious or raw spooky possibilities hang. Two weeks ago I thought Hibbard had swashed and buckled his way to a Test start. Now both the mess around line-outs and general questions over the efficiency of Lions set-pieces look to have thrown that one open. Youngs – who plays on Saturday -is a good mix of spirited and focussed. Props-wise Vunipola ticks lots of boxes and Adam Jones ticks all of them – the hairy one will certainly play, the rawer England prop is likely. The locks unit is classy, experienced, courageous, well-balanced but maybe one-paced; meaning I cannot honestly call whether that’s a superior dummy from Gatland or a full-on rehearsal. Richie Gray and Geoff Parling seem almost equally as accomplished and as likely. The back-row looks magnificent, with Croft the supreme athlete and inventor of open space, Warburton hopefully a Captain Marvel in the making and Heaslip a youngish buck with a point to prove. But whether more than one of them will start against the Aussies is another matter.

The back-row thing has got that frisson us fans love going on. Surely Warburton – despite outstanding challenges from within the squad and Gatland’s close appreciation of the Lydiates/Tipurics/Faletaus of this world – will lead, barring injury. O’Brien would bring some Celtic fire and blimey… where does that leave us? With an embarrassment of riches. None of us in our excitement should under-estimate the hike in BIGNESS and EVERYTHING that awaits in the first, crunching Test. Indeed we should relish that prospect – as should the players. Because this is the Lions; we share in it. It remains and indeed thrives ‘midst the hyperbole and the hype. It’s the Lions. Uniquely. And we love it.

Lions v Waratahs.

Backs; Halfpenny, Maitland, Davies, Roberts, Zebo, Sexton, Phillips.

Forwards; Vunipola, T Youngs, A Jones, AW Jones, O’Connell, Croft, (c) Warburton, Heaslip.

Replacements; Hibbard, Corbisiero, Cole, Parling, Lydiate, B Youngs, Farrell, Kearney.

NRG re-fueller.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Something a bit strange is going on when I’m sat in me new motor – the one I’m a bit in love with – enjoying views over Gwbert and Aberteifi, in buttercup-swaying sunshine, radio on but distracted – tetchy even – around the off button. You’ll know we’re talking Uniquely Weird, friends, when I report to you that in the moment of this ravishing, olfactory/audio-visual bliss-temptation, #TMS is on. Yes! TMS; that lush verbiocrumble for our dreamy afternoons. Now, mind, it’s elevenish. Can’t be at home; got reception; parked up. Play stopped.

Stopped for rain. Which is erm, fine – de rigeur even, for Headingley – but most unusually, the inter-droplet verbio-thingies rilly got to me. Or rather the cyclic nature, the endless haul of drips did. The boy Vaughanie and the Kiwis in particular – although Aggers complicit – banged on about Trott and Cook for an absolute age. I know it was raining and there was time to fill. I know they have every right – we all do – to chip in with their opinions. But the sheer weight of comment around slowness (Trott) and negativity (Cook) was lumpenly unnecessary, surely? I agree that Trott was too slow and the skipper was too conservative but bloody hell, fellahs!! England were then four wickets away from a second reasonably surgical dismemberment of the Black Caps and the ONLY POSSIBLE ESCAPE for McCullum and co was via a Yorkie downpour or two. (And England did, crucially, go on to win, in a way we might justifiably call handsome.)

Perhaps Trottie’s dull-but-spiky interview, in which he came over all bullishly protective of the England Massive cranked up the criticism? Perhaps he might have been more self-aware, more honest even? But if he had been ‘honest’ in the appallingly anodyne manner of most leading sportsmen – i.e. if he’d had appeased his way through the conversation with the sole aim of saying bugger all controversial – would that not have been worse than his offensive defensiveness? Whatever; the volume of the (quite possibly) well-meaning picking over of Trott and Cook stuff was, in my view, the problem. It was overdone.

I didn’t in fact turn off. There was clearly the potential for either/both sporting and meteorological drama, so why would I?

Maybe one of the jobs of the pundits is to get under our skins, eh? Calm down and listen. For one thing, look on the bright side – there might be Blowers. Oozing and defiantly timeless; ludicrous. Like some Darkling Thrush-Pigeon for the very concept of delight. Retro to the point of Hardyesque and cake-obsessed, describing both the technical minutiae, the loopy shadow-boxing of possibilities and the occasional interloping bird. Blowers. Shame that I heard not a word from him, given how humid with chance the game seemed. Things were well set for a grasping of the moment moment. And really I suppose it was Swann who grabbed hold. Let’s talk about him.

Swann is a remarkable bloke. Not only is he right right up there with the great slow bowlers – a sentence so glib-sounding I insist you read it four times and translate into eight different (allegedly) Celtic languages for the addition of y’know, profundo-spin – he is a genuine wit, a soon-to-be, gargantuan multi-media mover-and-shaker and for all I know a member of the Black Panthers. But mainly he can bowl. Immediately after coming back from a significant op, in a Test Match, he can bowl.

He competes; he spins the ball refreshingly sharply, faking and tempting. At what is unfortunately often termed The Death, whilst not entirely bamboozling the Kiwis he plucked them out in a fashion that seemed undeniable. Even as the weather and the Trott and Cook stuff threatened to become issues, he turned that key, that seam, expertly but with some violence clockwise, dismissing the froth and the chatter alongside the commendably feisty opposition.

He took eleven wickets in the match. On a pitch, in atmospheric conditions that were designed and built for Anderson or Southee (actually.) Swann it was who dominated; by that combination of personality, threat, persistence, guts and – of course -notable spin. We should therefore not be underestimating how significant an effort it is to have that much effect on a Test Match so soon after an enforced lay-off – whatever may be said about the level of opposition or the playing conditions. Swann is special.

So whilst I too often indulge in more or less constructive sounding-off on this or that sporting matter, I’m thinking I guess that we might merely note in passing that Cook had too few catchers in too often and that at one stage Trott misjudged the necessary scoring rate. But neither of them are criminal underachievers, are they? Brief note taken and move on, you reckon?

Reflection of a mature and critical nature is undoubtedly good and necessary; it’s part of the challenge to improve, the fabric of aspiration.  However, is it not the case that this, the Second Test was (also) won… and that it was won simply and undeniably through a telling contribution of remarkably positive energy from one player in particular? That off-spinner bloke; our gem. Let’s celebrate that.

Jimmy.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Jimmy Anderson – the England ‘quickie’ – has a whole lot going for him. An authentically dashing pseudonym (arguably two?) a talent so poetically/sensually indivisible from biomechanical foreplay it may need a watershed… and just the right amount of chest hair. In addition, the ‘Burnley Express’ can like really bowl too.

On a weekend dominated by that flashier but frankly less beautiful exponent of the slinging art – Broad – #Jimmy produced a moment of such stunning quality that for me it quietly outshone even the lanky one’s seven wicket haul. Like a ruby amongst Fool’s Gold. Broad brought blonde bombshell-shock, total disorder, to a Black Cap batting line-up which may even have fancied its chances at the change of innings. Jimmy meanwhile brought that whiff of the unbuyable, the uncoachable. Though apparently just getting on with it, he brought seduction – the guile of the artist. So whilst player after player was flummoxed by a rare outbreak of fullish length bowling from the coltish giant’s ‘hitting of his straps’, Anderson purred in and pressed his sable from t’other end.

Close investigation, supported in the eye-poppingly High Definition era by revelatory (but now standard) camerawork, confirms it’s not just his further experience that exempts Jimmy from the need for shit-or-bust pitch-hitting. There’s that other dimension going on. What the northern maestro does with the ball really is rather different to the stuff his comparatively one-dimensional new-ball partner serves up. It’s richer. There really is a kind of genius in there. Anderson steps outside the everyday.

Speaking as a member of the Pretty Decent and (Formerly) Occasionally Swiftish Bowler’s Union and now a coach, I can opine on these matters with what I feel to be meaningful closeness – even if much of this proximity may, in truth, have occurred during hours of darkness. Well… sleeping. I do know kindof how Jimmy does it; and it really all is about seam position. Allow me to indulge in something close to an explanation… which will only flirt briefly, I promise, with the prosaic.

Watch Anderson bowl and you may well be struck with the consistency – one might stretch to the word ‘purity’ here – of his seam position. Meaning that effortlessly and rhythmically and consistently the ball is (yes the word is…) delivered at the batsman with the seam skewed that crucial touch either towards the slips (for an away swinger to the right-hander) or towards fine-leg for one that will duck in. For this latter delivery – and it’s this one, the one that flared and snorted and pretty much unzipped Brownlie in the second innings, before he was actually out the next ball – that we’re obsessing ’bout here, right? This delivery, with the shiny side to off and the matt or worn hemisphere to leg had us jolting from our armchairs, did it not? Because its giggle or gag-inducing flight, absurdly challenging as it was for Brownlie, was both an extreme and a perfect expression of mouth-wateringly special co-ordinated brilliance. So much so that it defies the explanation I seek. It was a wonder ball.

Jimmy was seeking to get one to swing in. Late, ideally. So he subtly programmed in (probably) a minor cock of the wrist to shape that seam towards leg. A little. Then he may have just offered a wee tweak on release to impart a touch of clockwise rotation; to increase the likelihood of cut off the pitch (probably) but also (maybe) to exacerbate that swing and duck through the air. Key was and is that keeping your shape and not over-cooking the emphasis. Maybe there is a minor adjustment in timing or opening/closing of the torso but when you know the ball is swinging, present it and hold… and let the chanceful/wonderful airiness of the moment take over. Like it did; how it did!

The ball appeared to shift from well… Lords to somewhere in Belgium in the last four feet of its flight. It landed and kept heading east. It was a truly unplayable delivery; the kind that as a bowler you cannot baleeeeeve has failed to get you a wicket. You are tempted to pretend you’re on telly and milk your own grievous ill-luck. Jimmy gathered, strode back and nailed him next ball with one that went the other way.

Unbeleeeevably, I failed to find this delivery on youtube/similar for your edification and delight. You may find it or you may just take my words for it. Totally bewitching.

Had words.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

Given the self-consciously bouffant cosmo/metrosexuality of the erm #Blues, the first half of the Europa League Final was an extraordinarily trad clash of gifted foreigner (in red) v English plodder (in blue.) For the first 45, Chelsea may as have well played wearing white hankies on those over-coiffured barnets; Oscar looked nervously ordinary, Mata too absent to even be ordinary, Ivanovic like a clumsy, monkish David Webb and Ramires managed to be both infuriating and fascinatingly awful – all of this in a peculiarly Brit kindofaway. Meanwhile the impish swarm that was the opposition toyed around their tetchy, island-hamminess.

It occurred that perhaps this latest influx of Abramo-galacticos had been spending quality time in fe boozers rarnda Bridge, polishin’ ap on ther ‘istry or sammink as part of some Community Outreach Thing(?) How else to explain their total immersion in a rich, Shed-local and apparently transformational anthropological context? Suddenly they seemed fully qualified as authentically duff footballing Englishmen. Was this merely because the moment pressed? Perhaps – but be honest – my theory is much, much more fun.

Gaitan and co skipped and smooched around a statuesque Chelsea rearguard in a fashion that must surely have gladdened the heart of the Benfica bench… although looking at the whirling but-not-entirely-in-pleasure Manager… maybe not. Jorge Jesus – him with the extravagant locks – showing more irreligious passion than contentment. Unstill soul that he appears, surely the only cause he might have had for those constant explosions of vitriol was on the matter of the scoreline; his team having slaughtered Chelsea in terms of style points and creativity but failed (significantly) to notch. Nil nil at the half flattered Benitez’s crew. He then, must have been the one to have ‘had words’.

After the break it became a contest. The embarrassment of riches and touches for Benfica was more meaningfully challenged by Lampard and Ramires, despite the latter’s weirdly off-key performance. The near humbling fluency of the reds, so characteristic of the early stages, slipped, as what I imagine to be a Benitez-driven gathering of blue force responded. There were few now, of those moments when you thought Benfica would dismiss Chelsea entirely through a beautifully constructed goal. Arguably less football broke out, in fact. You could almost feel Gaitan, in particular, sweating over those painfully lame misses from earlier in the match – chances which had they been converted might have tipped the reported balance over from ‘deserving winners’ into ’emphatic’. Despite real quality from the jinking/interlinking Salvio, Cardozo, Salvio, Gaitan, Benfica did lack that killer touch, meaning ultimately… ’twas not to be.

In a twisted world it’s a dead cert that the most maligned striker in the history of the universe is gonna stick one on his critics on an ‘occasion’ like this. And so it nearly was; meaning Torres if not absolutely sticking one then politely labelled a reminder and pressed it quietly against the fridge. Or somewhere. Fernando – whom I too have abused and whom I too still believe to be a pale shadow – threw off some of those monkey-albatross things and firstly led the line with something close to competence and indeed threat and secondly… scored.

Fittingly perhaps, it was a bit of a Sunday League, end-to-end in eight seconds flat job; except the finish, which flickered between composed and stylish, even. Cech lobbed the ball out smartly to Lampard, who pinged it through for the 50 Million Smackers Man to run onto. Torres extended and bypassed both the last defender and the sprawling keeper – going worryingly wide for a split second – before clamly slotting. Four years ago we would all have said it was class. Probably, it still was.

Benfica did respond but things were scrappy now rather than entertainingly ding-dong. Curmudgeonly barges and slightly cynical tumbles and inelegant, incomplete exchanges. Luisao baulking or lunging, Ivanovic clumping, Luiz still not hitting a meaningful pass. There was tension, still, in the play.

A clumsy handball from Azpilicueta needlessly gifted Benfica a direct route back into the game – Cardozo despatching the penno. Significantly, however, the reds control had ebbed away and the staccato nature of things was as least as likely to be punctuated with (for example) two stunning strikes from Lampard as it was with anything orgasmic from those sexy-footballing Europeans. Oscar and Mata still made only fleeting contributions, but the feeling grew that Chelsea’s resolve – or their physicality? – might be enough, without recourse to what might generally be termed ‘much fooball’.

It may therefore only be right to point out that a certain Fat Spanish Waiter (sorry Rafa!) is entitled to take some credit for the distinct improvement in attitude, application and consequently fortunes of the Chelsea side post the break. They dug in and held – even whilst failing to find their classier gears – and suddenly… bingo.

We’re in the last minute and there’s a corner which Mata floats towards the back stick. Ivanovic – who had been inconsistent with his defensive work all night (and was yet to offer Benfica one last golden opportunity, which fortunately for him, they spurned) drifted then looped back to connect with a firmly steered header. Time stands still… as does the keeper… and the ball arcs into the top corner. Cue ecstasy, cue disbelief. Chelsea have won their second European trophy in a year or so… and Benfica – remember them, who looked different class in the first period? – have now lost seven (repeat SEVEN) on the bounce, apparently.

Re-winding, it may be that the most remarkable thing about the game (save it’s extraordinary climax) was this imperfect correlation between say… John Terryness and David Luizness – or at least the David Luiz that looked kinda British, last night. And him (and Chelsea) being bamboozled by ‘technically gifted’ types for much of the game.

For a zillion years foreigners have done this carousel-of-lovely-touches thing to our lot but given that this 2013 version of ‘us’ is more likely to have wailed its first in Portuguese rather than cockney, how could a team containing almost no Englishmen represent the White Cliffs and stuff so stoutly? Could we maybe credit/blame Benitez for that too? And where does this leave the concept ‘us?’ And hang on… was that Jesus bloke like… on something, anyway?

In the extremely wonderful The Big Lebowski, the central character gets through by being a combination of stoned, stoic and mellow ma’an. It is said that ‘the Dude abides’. As he waddles off onto another sunset, another box ticked, perhaps we should be offering a little congratulation to Signor Benitez… who likewise, I suspect, will persist… nay thrive?