Dinner snub seals England’s shame
THE final embarrassment for the host country after exiting the Rugby World Cup in the group stage was the chronic lack of England players and management at the post-tournament awards dinner.
There were representatives from all quarters of the sport and most World Cup competing countries but not a single person from England’s 31-man squad or Stuart Lancaster’s coaching staff appeared at the glittering World Rugby event at Battersea Evolution on Sunday night.
With sportsmanship and sporting gestures — like Sonny Bill Williams giving his winner’s medal away to a kid — being the theme of the evening, it looked really bad that England were nowhere to be seen.
The few RFU suits in attendance didn’t cover themselves in glory either. RFU chairman Bill Beaumont went on stage to present an award and left it without opening his mouth — not even congratulating the World Cup winners or the England Rugby 2015 organisers for staging such a magnificent tournament. And to think Beaumont has fanciful ambitions of being the next president of World Rugby.
RFU president Jason Leonard did say some thank-yous from the stage. But Jason is such a poor public speaker that his message failed to come across with any conviction.
An RFU spokesman said: ‘The organisation was well represented corporately and the players are back at their clubs.’
THERE has to be something wrong when pictures of the World Cup-winning All Blacks on the podium at Twickenham have ringmaster head coach Steve Hansen hidden away in the back row while the team’s preposterous media manager Joe Locke (above) is in the front with a medal around his neck. Locke somehow qualifies for a gong as a member of 15-strong backroom staffs from both sides who made the trophy presentation a drawn-out affair. Locke’s main contribution came after the World Cup final when he barged past members of the world’s media to hand over a mic so that New Zealand TV could ask the first question at the post-match press conference. JAMES TAYLOR, returning to the England Test side for the first time since Kevin Pietersen claimed he was more suited to being a jockey, has shown his quality in the third Test against Pakistan. And certainly no one who saw him compete in a popular test of strength at Hooters in Nottingham would doubt the power in his diminutive frame. The barstool challenge sees a contestant lie horizontally with head and feet on two barstools while passing a third barstool around the body, and Taylor smashed the record number of rotations out of sight.
DAN CARTER may be a deserved World Rugby Player of the Year after his performance in the World Cup final. But it certainly wouldn’t have hindered his cause as a global ambassador for MasterCard that the individual honour was sponsored by the corporation.