English rugby - it's a disgrace!

[Donut]

England have had the barefaced cheek to send a team to the rugby world cup that has a chance to win it. How arrogant can you get?!!

I think it's only right that members of all the other teams have been whinging about them! Latest up to bat for the struggling Southern Hemisphere teams is Toutai Kefu. He shows a remarkable grasp of military history when he says:

"But then the English have always been an arrogant race. Go back in history, look at the English army. Who goes to war dressed up in red coats?"

This follows on from Wallabies coach Eddie Jones whose job is (apparently) to explain to referees how the game should be refereed

Jones, wants referees to "crack down" on infringements at the tackle to ensure a fast, open, attacking spectacle. I've got some advice for you Mr Jones - concentrate on your own job! You haven't been doing too well recently in case you haven't noticed!

Of course Australians are not the only ones that now feel the need to critize England because they are so good. Last November, All Black motor-mouth Andrew Mehrtens commented:

"England are probably a team you enjoy losing too the least. You are made to feel it pretty intensely afterwards. They are pricks to lose to," he said."

Someone later pointed out to him that he had never lost to England. He has however, savoured defeat on two occasions since then.

Then there are the Saffies, a loveable, easy going bunch of blokes on the pitch. Ollie Le Roux:

"I really don't like the English players. I don't respect them like I do Australia or New Zealand. When you beat them, they are full of excuses and when they win they act like world-beaters. England normally play us at the end of our tour, when the guys are tired ... but now we will play them in the middle of our tour and we will have a fresh Test side."

Yes - and you lost 29-9 didn't you Ollie?

South African captain Corne Krige climed that Martin Johnson was the dirtiest captain in world rugby. Can this be the same Corne Krige who had 11 incidents of foul play highlghted by TV in the match against England last November?

But of course, the most vitriolic moaner amongst them all is "has been" David Campese. Prior to England's spectacular performance against the Aussies in June Compo said:

"the English are a threat to the global game and are sending people away in droves"."

and

"England's game had not moved on a jot over the past 10 years"

and

"I'm not sure they know what scoring a try is any more,"

and after England's stunning victory:

"The Wallabies have got a lot to think about before the World Cup but tonight it was England's night. It was a step up in class. They proved me wrong which is fantastic and the good thing is they had a go." WHATTTTTT????? That can't be Compo can it?

So why do they do it? What drives them on? I can tell you, it's fear! They are frightened of us. Fear - pure and simple! Englnd have the temerity to have a good team!

What do you call an Aussie with an opinion about the England rugby team that he doesn't feel the absolute necessity to share with you.

Answer:
-
-
-
-
It's a trick question - such a creature does not exist on the face of the earth!

[ 10-30-2003, 07:51 AM: Message edited by: Donut ]

[Aelia Jusa]

Well Campo. No one listens to him. You should hear what he thinks about Wendell!

[Davros]

My goodness - what inspired this sudden outburst. All we have had for the last 6 days is silence. There have been no IW Aussies taking the IW poms (namely D1) to task over their flagrant rules abuses on the weekend. Nary a peep was heard from this bunch that is suuposedly unable to stop expressing their opinion [img]smile.gif[/img] . I am betting it was the misconduct hearing last night that inspired you to action. I see that the Englsh defence was "Of course we are guilty - we throw ourselves on the mercy of the court. We believe that the quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth from the heavens as ....."

I thought the piffling fine and the short suspension of the abusive official was the right way to go. Mind you, in out local game of Aussie Rules, if the captain of any side calls for a count on numbers and it comes in over like it did last night for you guys then your score gets set back to nil. That isn't the rule in rugby, but perhaps it should be. The thought of that happening would have stopped the English officials from trying to sneak an extra man on the field. Just imagine the scene - it was 34-22 with 10 minutes to go and now it is 22-0 to Samoa [img]smile.gif[/img] .

We must read different papers Donut - all that mine have been filled with are stories from "Clive the Classic Whinging Pom". You would swear blind that nothing ever pleases the man - he comes across as a bigger pize wally than "Wally" Jones.

[Donut]

Given the flak he gets I'm suprised Woodward takes it so well. It's obviously an orchestrated attempt to unsettle him.

But don't take my word for it. It would appear that my piece was composed a day before two other giants of Sports Journalism had the same idea. From Steve Howard in The Australian:

Trial by media: is that all you've got?
By Steven Howard

October 31, 2003

THE front page of The Australian's sports section carried a picture of Jonny Wilkinson after England's defeat of South Africa with the headline Is That All You've Got?

Well, no, actually. We've got Wordsworth, Coleridge, Orwell, Milton, Austen, Byron, Tennyson, Hardy, Keats, Dickens and Lawrence. And that's just the back row.

And what have the Aussies got when it comes to epic poems and great works of literature? Campo's Bonzer Book of Rugby.

This, though, is a gratuitous insult. Just as it would be to repeat the tale of the tourist who, arriving at Oz immigration, was asked whether he had a criminal record and replied: "Why - is it compulsory?" Yet this is the sort of barb England's battered rugby team have had to endure on an almost daily basis since their arrival in the land of the didgeridoo.

But then an even greater sport than sport itself is the ritual slaughtering of the old toffee-nosed Pom, in print or on the field of play.

It does have its rib-tickling moments. Even we chuckled when the Aussie soccer team thrashed us 3-1 at Upton Park, the score we normally see in an Ashes series. It was either that or mass suicide.

And, yes, you could understand the laughter over England's struggle against Samoa as Clive Woodward's over-confident favourites looked as uncomfortable as any listener to a Jason Donovan recording.

But we can take it. Just as we took the questioning of England's technique in the rolling maul by former Oz skipper John Eales while our heroes were shaking off their jet lag.

Just as we accepted Campo's querying of Wilkinson's ability as a mere continuation of the fabulous game of throwing another Pom on the barbie.

And they are at it again with a full-scale investigation into the fact England had 16 players on the pitch against Samoa. For all of six seconds.

Had this happened to Samoa, nothing would have been said. There would have been incredulity that Samoa thought they needed an extra player when the original 15 looked quite capable of winning on their own.

But since it's the old Pom, this is big news. Almost as big as when Shane Warne was thrown out of the last cricket World Cup for taking a banned substance.

Or when Aussie goalkeeper Mark Bosnich was banned for failing a dope test.

Or when Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh admitted to betting on their own side to lose the famous Headingley Test against England.

But having 16 players on the pitch for six seconds - strewth, send for Crocodile Dundee and his outsize machete.

Or maybe it's just a cunning ploy on behalf of the Aussie media to see if the IRB can dock Woodward's side points and send them into a quarter-final against New Zealand rather than Wales.

Whatever, it's always good to see the arrogant English develop a bead of sweat or two on that stiff upper lip. Not that these Aussies are into stereotyping. Just as JP (sic) O'Rourke wasn't when he described Australians as violently loud roughnecks whose idea of fun is to throw up in your car.

But let's go back to Wilkinson and that headline. England beat South Africa, one of the top four sides in the world, by a margin of 19 points. Australia beat Argentina, not one of the top four sides in the world, by a margin of 16 points, 14 from Elton Flatley.

I cannot recall pictures of Flatley appearing under the headline Is That All You've Got? or, indeed, Is That All We've Got?

And if Wilkinson is only a goalkicker, what about former Wallabies skipper Michael Lynagh?

As for England grinding through on the back of a big defensive game, isn't that exactly what Australia did at the last World Cup? In fact, they conceded just one try to the US (though we shouldn't laugh).

Anyway, back to the present. Australia, having edged Namibia 142-0, face Ireland in their final pool game tomorrow night.

I, naturally, will remain impartial as I sit in front of the box, in emerald green jersey, singing Danny Boy to the smooth accompaniment of several pints of Guinness hitting the back of the throat.

The Australian


Come on you Paddys!!

[ 10-31-2003, 05:39 AM: Message edited by: Donut ]

[Donut]

And from my favourite sports writer. You will note that he is using irony to combat the apparent stereotypical view that Australians have of whinging, toffee nosed, stuck up arrogant poms.

Aussie rules resurface as the empire strikes back
By Simon Barnes, Chief Sports Writer (The Times)

NOW that we have an Australian Editor, things are very different at The Times. For example, once the first edition goes, senior staff gather in his office for a belated six o’clock swill. You are expected to down about a dozen tinnies in half an hour. Throwing up, although warmly recommended, is by no means de rigueur.

There’ll be changes of content in the paper. We’ll have a Sheep Dip Correspondent starting soon, for example. The property pages will be brought into line (Knightsbridge flat, own dunny). The Sheilas’ Page is changing: recipes for meat-pie floater and Vegemite sandwich will be alternated with articles on Australian foreplay (Oi, Sheila — you awake?). The culture pages will take a new slant. A picture of a ballet dancer, for example, will be captioned: “Bloke with no strides”. After long discussion, it has been decided that the house style for male urination is “siphon the python”; the more recherché “shake hands with the wife’s best friend” has been rejected.

Court and Social is to be renamed “Stuck-Up Poms Page” (and I reckon that’s a tautology, mate). The sports department is now called the No Poofters Pages. The new Wine Correspondent selects drinks with an eye to the throwing-up market. The Times is sponsoring a concert: Rolf Harris will play The Four Seasons arranged for didgeridoo quartet.

And if I haven’t got round to the corks-on-the-hat jokes, it’s only because I have run out of time. Monty Python, Barry Mackenzie, Foster’s ads, it’s all there. And I must say, in all humility — there will more on humility later, diggers — that as a ridiculous compilation of worn-out jokes about out-of-date national stereotypes, I have done a bloody decent job here.

But not as good as the Daily Telegraph of Sydney. Back to the absurd storm-in-a-teacup that is Lugergate, an incident in which an England World Cup rugby player was on the field by mistake for 34 seconds. The English, I read, “showed lack of respect for the tournament official and the whole thing just smacks of arrogance. But then the English have always been an arrogant race.”

This is just one of the tastier examples of the Insult Campaign going on in Australia. The insults are aimed at the England rugby team, but it all goes much deeper. It is nothing less than an assault on national stereotypes.

It seems that the Australian psyche is unable to cope with any measure of English achievement without bringing in the notion of English arrogance, as if the Australian national consciousness could not exist without the arrogant English to react against. That England has a half-decent rugby team has woken the sleeping — or perhaps I mean lightly dozing — sense of persecution in Australia.

The unabashed, self-righteous hostility of it all quite takes your breath away. I enjoy a good bit of banter with my Australian friends, particularly on the subject of sport, but I can’t see the point of taking it to the level of hysteria that has been reached by the Australian press. And the tournament has three weeks to go. The newspapers are not entirely to blame. They are merely reflecting the feelings of their readers. That, broadly speaking, is what newspapers do. If the Australian public was disgusted by the venom flowing from its newspapers, the newspapers would be unbought, unread.

And I feel like seizing the entire Australian public by the lapels and screaming into its face: “For God’s sake snap out of it! You’re supposed to be a nation that’s come of age! Why the hell are you still bothering with this colonial chippiness?” The jokes about corks on hats are out of date. The Cultural Cringe no longer stings in a country that has produced Patrick White and Peter Carey. But the oldest joke of them all — the one about the well-balanced Australian with a chip on both shoulders — is alive and flourishing like a coolabah tree.

A word about arrogance. The English have no arrogance where Australia is concerned — not when it comes to sport. Rather, the English attitude is one of grovelling subservience, awestruck admiration and hero-worshipping imitation.

What has just about every English sport taken as a template for self-improvement? Australia. The Australian system. If the Australians do it, it must be good. The Australians have a cricket academy. Well, we must have one. Who to run it? Rodney Marsh — the Australian who (a) once drank 56 tinnies between Australia and London (I may be doing the fellow an injustice, it’s possible that he consumed more) and (b) once called the English bowlers “ pie-throwers”.

English rugby has borrowed hugely from Australian rugby, in particular its cross-fertilisation with rugby league, especially when it comes to defence. British swimming will be the happening story of the next Olympic Games because it has appointed an Australian, Bill Sweetenham, as performance director. That’s not arrogance, it is humility of the very highest order. It represents the real nature of the English attitude to Australia in sport. The idea of English arrogance in sport is about as out of date as the six o’clock swill.

So why persevere with it? Australia is a modern nation, Sydney is one of the world’s great cosmopolitan cities and yet, given the slightest danger of English sporting success, there is an atavistic lurch back into chippiness. You ask Mike Brearley, the England cricket captain who became a hate object after winning the Ashes in Australia.

What Australia requires in this sporting life is for good old golden-hearted, straightforward, decent, ordinary, tough, rough-hewn, good-natured and thoroughly heterosexual Aussies to be confronted by snooty, arrogant, over-refined (the sort Des Esseintes would find over-fastidious), over- educated, cosseted, namby-pamby, devious, nasty, cheating, seldom-bathing Pommie poofters.

I think there is an interesting lesson for Australia to learn here. We English have grown out of our resentment of the Romans and the Normans, our rulers and conquerors of the past. Englishness is defined by many complex things, but none of these is a need to be affronted by past oppressors. So long as the Australians cherish the stereotype of the arrogant Pom, Australia will remain an adolescent as a nation.

And I say this as an Englishman who, like all English people who have been there, loves Australia to distraction, delights in the country’s continuing self-invention, envies youth and vigour and ambition and room to breathe. But this obsession with Poms. My dear, so vieux jeu. I mean, grow up, will you? Now to get my bag packed, for I leave for Australia next week. I shall be overjoyed to see the place again. I don’t know how many tinnies I am to drink on the plane; I await the Editor’s instruction.

[ 10-31-2003, 05:49 AM: Message edited by: Donut ]

[Davros]

Tut tut Donut - would you have us believe that piece was written by an Australian? Why, in the link are the last two lines :

" The Sun

The Australian"

and why did you not include the bit about The Sun in your quote? Is it beacuse The Sun is actually a London scandal rag, and that The Australian were actually reprinting the piece to show a bit of balance in journalism. Well that, or a humour piece .

Curiously it doesn't say anything about deliberate breaches or disrespect of officials or the fact that the extra guy made a tackle while Samoa were raiding the English line. It reduces all that quite conveniently to 6 seconds. Does this guy do a stand-up act, and is he playing while I am in London?

[Davros]

LOL - I just read the 2nd article

What was that about chips again

Seriously dude, I have no idea what they are feeding you in the press to make you think that things are so rabid over here. Did you ever ponder whether this whole "bag England" thing might just be a beat-up from your own press giving its readers what they want to hear? They think you want to hear ugly jealous aussie stories and it sounds like you are getting them by the truck loads.

I guess I am living in a non-rugby state who's only paper focusses only on Aussie Rules, but from what I have seen your boys have been getting reasonably favourable press. That is when they can spare some column inches after they stop going on about local West Australian sporting concerns. The visit from England to this state was considered to be hugely successful, and Perth enjoyed its visit from the Barmy Army.

Mind you, your rugby team didn't show us they had very much in that game against the Saffies .

[Donut]

Originally posted by Davros: Tut tut Donut - would you have us believe that piece was written by an Australian? Why, in the link are the last two lines : " The Sun The Australian" and why did you not include the bit about The Sun in your quote? Is it beacuse The Sun is actually a London scandal rag, and that The Australian were actually reprinting the piece to show a bit of balance in journalism. Well that, or a humour piece . Curiously it doesn't say anything about deliberate breaches or disrespect of officials or the fact that the extra guy made a tackle while Samoa were raiding the English line. It reduces all that quite conveniently to 6 seconds. Does this guy do a stand-up act, and is he playing while I am in London?

ROTFL! It wasn't deliberate, I thought I had called them giants of British sports jouralism. BTW - we beat the Saffies by 19 points - you did notice that didn't you?

Comment on the "Is that all you've got" piece please!

[Memnoch]

I've done so much slating of England on my rugby site that I can't think of which line to use here, but I'll bite. Speaking of England cheats, can you believe that they weren't docked the points for illegally fielding a 16th man against Samoa? [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] Samoa should've been awarded a penalty try at the least, England docked the points (the penalty try just to rub salt into the wound ) and then end up having to play a quarterfinal against the All Blacks, losing it of course.

Where is the justice!!!!

And Toutai's right anyway - who goes to battle wearing red coats??

[Donut]

Originally posted by Memnoch: I've done so much slating of England on my rugby site that I can't think of which line to use here, but I'll bite. Speaking of England cheats, can you believe that they weren't docked the points for illegally fielding a 16th man against Samoa? [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] Samoa should've been awarded a penalty try at the least, England docked the points (the penalty try just to rub salt into the wound ) and then end up having to play a quarterfinal against the All Blacks, losing it of course. Where is the justice!!!! And Toutai's right anyway - who goes to battle wearing red coats??

We've obviously got you worried genieboy. I'm gussing that you've realised that the Wallabies can't cut the mustard and you've joined the ABE brigade!