‘Gobby’ Biggar must learn to control himself
Irecently insulted scrum-halves by calling them gobby, which we all know they are, but they now seem to have rivals in the gobbiness stakes in fly-halves! Watching last weekend’s matches, surely there was a case for having Dan Biggar up in front of the beak for his behaviour, and for asking the referee, Matt Carley, why he put up with it?
The Welsh Rugby Union website includes the words “There is a need for all adults to understand that we must promote positive behaviour towards referees, and set good examples for children to follow.”
In my view Biggar’s behaviour was utterly shocking, and clearly at odds with the WRU’s words. He was constantly waving his arms like some demented fledgling trying to fly for the first time, shaking his head in disbelief whenever the ref made a decision he didn’t like, and muttering goodness knows what to himself.
Not surprisingly, his conduct attracted a lot of comment from fans. As for the referee, he should have warned Biggar, then penalised him, repeatedly.
When questioned about this, Stephen Jones, the Welsh attack coach, handled mattersdiplomatically! He didn’t criticise his player, but it’s difficult not to read between the lines when he commented that Biggar is highly competitive and driven, but added: “From a coaching element with Dan we need to make sure he lives in a play-by-play mentality and stays focused on delivering the game plan, as he played some excellent rugby on the weekend.”
The other thing noticeable last weekend was the almost total change in demeanour from the Irish team, and in particular Johnny Sexton. Having spent much of their previous two matches appealing to the ref at almost every breakdown, suddenly they were deathly quiet!
The Irish Rugby Union have their Spirit of Rugby charter which tries to capture the essence of what makes the game great. Respect is heavily featured, and I wonder whether someone decided to point this out to their players, or was there a simpler explanation? In their previous matches they were on top of the opposition, and their energy level was sky high, but this time around England were in their faces, and it seemed to me they simply curled up. Ireland pride themselves on their physicality at the breakdown but suddenly they were being beaten up, and didn’t seem to know what to do.
Are Sexton and his teammates reformed characters or was it a case of the bully wilting when someone stands up to him?
The most encouraging aspect of the weekend was that we finally got a couple of decent games after two very disappointing rounds. Coronavirus permitting, next weekend England v Wales will go ahead as planned, and the Scots will be able to host the French at Murrayfield.
Ireland v Italy has been postponed – personally I’d just cancel it and I’d scrap Italy v England too, another foregone conclusion of a fixture. That would leave us with a final weekend hopefully going ahead with Scotland going to the Principality, and the French entertaining Ireland.
With two rounds to go, it’s still all to play for.
With the Six Nations plunged into chaos because of the coronavirus scare, this year’s tournament is likely to become a bit of a farce as there isn’t any space in the calendar to play postponed fixtures.
There are lessons to be learned from this. First, why do we need seven weeks for five rounds of fixtures? If the RWC can be run in seven weeks, couldn’t the Six Nations be cut to six weekends? Also, please can we dump Italy from the tournament? Scotland are dire this year, but even they managed to ‘nil’ the Azzuri away in Rome! They are an embarrassment to the competition.
Do that and suddenly three weekends are freed up – surely a Five Nations could be played over four weekends? Those three weekends could help with the much-vaunted mantra of player welfare, and they would build in some slack in case of foot and mouth, coronavirus or whatever.
It would also help to avoid the spat that seems sure to happen when the Six Nations tries to pressure the Premiership if matches are rearranged outside World Rugby’s Test window.
The clubs would be under no obligation to release their players. And the Six Nations, or Five as it should be, deserves to be played with full-strength teams, or what’s the point?