Dai Lama is wonderful fun, just don’t drink with him!
Well, it has started, and for the next seven weeks rugby will feature on terrestrial television on five weekends – every year this is rugby’s spell in the spotlight, and we have to hope it delivers. It’s a great tournament but its importance has been diluted over time.
Whereas this once was the be-all and end-all of the season, we now have a lot more top-class rugby to watch, and as viewers we’re a lot more demanding. The hype beforehand can be overpowering, so what about an alternative view?
Every year on Twitter, Dai Lama publishes his Six Nations Drinking Game, and with the caveat that under no circumstances should you actually try it, it’s an essential read. I’d go as far as to say that it has preserved my sanity during a tournament that has, in recent years, delivered dross and cracking games in equal measure.
The premise of the game is that every time a predictable event occurs, you have a drink. It’s priceless stuff with Jonathan ‘Jiffy’ Davies and Eddie Butler a particular source of fun. This year it’s one drink every time the former screams ‘numbers’, or ‘it’s on’, but I was disappointed to see that you no longer have to take a drink when Butler gives full vent to his French pronunciation – his
Aaree-Nor-Di Kee was the stuff of legends. This year it is, however, three drinks when he does a voiceover, and that should damage a few livers.
You can make a start even before the match kicks off, as you are required to have a drink every time they show a pundit wearing a stupid scarf, and one for any player not singing his national anthem! Look him up on Twitter at @WelshDalaiLama.
As for the tournament itself, here’s hoping. If we get some outstanding games it can attract new to rugby, who might go on to play, or turn up at weekends to watch live matches in the Premiership or Pro14.
The Six Nations deserves the best coverage, and I’m afraid the BBC and ITV just haven’t offered that in recent years.
Practice makes perfect, and a flurry of games in February and March every year isn’t really enough for them to hone their skills. Too many ageing pundits and uber-slick presenters have been a problem, so let’s hope they’ve smartened up their act this time around. W e rightly make great play of rugby’s core values. Each Union has them, and World Rugby has an over-arching set that include Integrity, incorporating fair play, and Respect, including for the opponents. It’s worth mentioning this because last weekend saw an odd situation in the Clermont v Montpellier Top14 game.
With less than two minutes left on the clock, the visitors scored a try, making it 29-28, with the conversion to come. Ruan Pienaar took his full 90 seconds. He had several big drinks of water, then had a chat with the water carrier, had another drink or two, lined the kick up, had a lingering look at the clock, waited a bit more, and then slotted it, winning the game for his team, 30-29.
The referee was the hugely experienced Jerome Garces and he clearly saw nothing of confollowers cern.
However, while it may have been within the Laws, was it fair play, or respectful?It maintained Montpellier at the top of the table, while making it tough for Clermont to get anything out of the Top 14 season. If you’re a Montpellier fan you probably loved Pienaar being so street-wise, but it didn’t sit comfortably for me. I ’ve found another rugby cliché that is irritating and insulting. In the run-up to Wales v Scotland, we kept getting told that it was going to be a great game because they were two sides that liked to play rugby!
That means they might play a particular style of rugby which appeals to a few pundits, TV directors, the corporate hospitality types, and probably some Antipodeans!
The game is for all shapes and sizes, and there are plenty of us who love to see a pack dismantling the opposition, or a rolling maul moving at pace. Yes, the show ponies have their place, but if they were all we had then we might as well watch 7s.
The pundits who moan about scrums, and insult the skills of forwards, are the enemy within, and the sooner they start to appreciate the wider beauty of the game the better it will be.