Please, let’s have an end to this phony war
It’s the waiting that’s the hardest part. The long summer break with next to no meaningful rugby is drawing to an end, but the final few weeks are always the most frustrating bit, with the clubs’ PR people working overtime to generate some interest for the punters, and the atmosphere becoming increasingly febrile.
The supporters’ websites are abuzz with speculation about how preseason has gone, what the starting line-up for Round One of the Premiership will be, whether there are any more signings yet to be announced, and, of course, the pre-season games.
I really dislike these games of two halves or four quarters, where everyone in the squad gets an outing, and the result is absolutely meaningless. The issue is that some fans don’t see it that way, so we get predictions of doom and gloom, or of a great season to come, based upon almost zero substantive evidence.
Most sites will have a ‘where’s my season ticket?’ thread – it’s akin to where’s the first cuckoo of spring. It’s a tradition to whinge about the lateness of the season ticket hitting the doormat, but before the real actions starts, everyone miraculously receives theirs!
It’s also a tradition to have a poke at the competition’s kit – the ‘Is this the worst shirt you’ve ever seen?’ makes an appearance in some form on quite a few sites.
Charles Piatau’s reputed £1m p.a. contract has drawn outrage and envy and there is always a thread about the unpopularity of Friday evening and Sunday afternoon kick-offs – good luck with that one! The Anglo-Welsh Cup gets its annual, and totally justified, kicking even if its position as daftest competition ever has been eclipsed by the new PRO14.
Then we have the bull- statements from players new to a club. The first time I hear a player say he’s there because there were no other offers on the table, I’ll be amazed.
Equally, everyone tells us that they’re ‘a great bunch of lads’, even if there are one or two they really can’t stand, and I get sick of hearing how brilliant every coach in the Premiership is.
Finally, there have to be threads about the salary cap. Alex Sanderson’s serious point about wage inflation, and the challenges of retaining home-grown players who have become Lions, really was too soft a target for some, on whom the irony of him being a Saracens coach bemoaning lack of funds wasn’t lost!
In just 12 days’ Exeter travel to Kingsholm, and Worcester make the long trek to Kingston Park: the talking stops and the action begins, I can’t wait.
Every England fan hopes that a rehabilitated Manu Tuilagi will eventually be welcomed back into the England fold.
However, I don’t believe that some of the comments made by Leicester Tigers’ head coach, Matt O’Connor, served Tuilagi well. First, the implication that Tuilagi is too good to leave out sits uncomfortably with me. He’s a great player, but surely no player is bullet-proof ? If we ever get to a situation where a player starts to believe that’s the case then Engish land are in deep trouble – an element of fear that they might be dropped is no bad thing.
In interviews daft comments sometimes slip out, and to refer to Tuilagi’s experience of lengthy periods of rehab as ‘mental torture’ has to be one of them. Frustration, yes.
Also, the defence that ‘he’s not the first young man to get stuff wrong’ worries me. Tuilagi is now 26, by which time plenty of people have been working for ten years, many of them have the responsibility of family and mortgages, and they’re not being paid anything like what he gets. Rehab might have been tough, but Tuilagi is on around £400k p.a. at Tigers, so every day he turned up at the gym’, he was getting more than £1,000 for his troubles!
I doubt O’Connor would have said that he felt the affair would have no further ramifications unless he and Eddie Jones had spoken, so the likelihood is Tuilagi will have some role in the autumn internationals.
If that’s the case, let’s hope he has learned his lesson, that he stays fit, and has a blinding season for Tigers. But if he transgresses again the question must be asked: How many chances does one player deserve?