PETER JACKSON
Dominici was such a force on the field, off it he was fragile
PERHAPS it’s the boredom of lockdown but I’ve taken to musing on a few perceived wisdoms and cliches in our game and questioning if they stand up or if they can be debunked or even dismissed.
It all started the other week with Argentina’s ‘shock’ victory against the match-hardened All Blacks after eight months of lockdown, quarantine, extremely limited training because of Covid protocols and absolutely no proper rugby. How could this possibly happen when modern day coaches insist on the importance of match fitness, peaking for special matches, and quality training as a group?
To further undermine that particular myth, Newcastle Falcons, who had played no competitive rugby whatsoever since March, then went and won splendidly at Bath on their return to Premiership, against a team that enjoyed ten Premiership games since lockdown including a semifinal play-off as recently as October before a restorative break.
It really makes you think. Although I love the Lions dearly and want to see their niche in the calendar protected I do occasionally wonder if they doth protest too much.
The devil inside me still thinks that the best preparation for South Africa next year might be a long relaxing weekend wining and dining at some salubrious spot – say the Compleat Angler in Marlow – followed by a long snooze in business class on the flight down to Cape Town and a couple of days chilling on the beach at Camps Bay before the tour opener against the Stormers. Seriously.
The guys could not be fitter after a long season, they will all be brilliant rugby players and they know each other’s games inside out these days. Sometimes trusting your talent and getting the mindset right trumps endless hard work, angst, camps, artificial bonding and preparation games. There is still a decent argument for just letting the chemistry happen. Ask the Pumas and Falcons.
What other myths need looking at? Well, for years I read about all-singing all-dancing Fijians, with their Harlem Globetrotters handling skills, hating the rain and wet and the slippery ball.
Excuse me, it sluices down from dawn to dusk in Suva – 118 inches a year on average. The sun does also occasionally make an appearance, but Fijians love the rain, they play superbly in rain when their handling skills actually help set them apart.
As for mud some of their finest moments at the Hong Kong Sevens were produced on monsoon like paddyfields of pitches. It’s the unfamiliar biting cold that completely freaks Fijian players on tour or playing with clubs in the northern hemisphere although a few have learned to adapt.
By contrast the Irish, we were always told, love the rain and the wind of their rugged Atlantic battered, stormlashed nation. Well that might, historically, have a little mileage although that love affair with the elements has only brought them only moderate success in the Championship.
In the noughties I recall almost tears of frustration from Eddie O’Sullivan in particular if somebody mentioned a dirty weather forecast for the weekend and how that would surely favour Ireland.
To amalgamate a few of Eddie’s replies on these occasions: “Guys, get over yourselves. Why in the name of sweet Jesus would we want wind and rain when we have Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy, Dennis Hickie, Ronan O’Gara/David Humphreys, Geordan Murphy/Rob Kearney in our back division? And the likes of David Wallace, Jamie Heaslip, Keith Gleeson and Keith Wood in the pack?” Point taken.
Meanwhile Alex Goode, apparently, was/is vulnerable under the high ball. If I had a fiver for every time I have read or heard that I would be writing this from a holiday home in Barbados.
I have watched Goode play for the best part of 15 years either live or on the gogglebox in scores of monumental games and only need the fingers of one hand to count the high balls I can remember seeing him drop.
Goode is fantastic under the high ball – he’s got cricketers hands – but he paid an extraordinarily heavy price for one nigh on impossible afternoon in the lashing rain and swirling wind of Dublin one murky evening for England. That somehow became the sole evidence on which his capability under the high ball is based.
In contrast I have frequently watched Mike Brown drop big bombs at the back and endlessly listened to commentators come out with the same stock phrase: “Good grief, a spillage from Mike Brown at the back, well that’s a rarity, you don’t see that very often.”
Well actually yes, you saw it quite a bit to be frank if you were looking but what you also saw, for the rest of the game, was Brown completely dominating the airways with his big well-timed leaps. Brown was also brilliant in the air but the notion that he was much safer and more consistent than Goode was a complete myth in my opinion.
If you don’t believe my anecdotal evidence I suggest we challenge some Phys Ed type at University who is looking for a thesis subject to ask Prem Rugby – via BT Sport and Sky – for footage of every Quins and Saracens game for the last 15 years and to do the relevant analysis for us.
Argentina and their renowned scrummage? Argentina haven’t had a really scary scrummage since RWC1995 although they were pretty handy as well in 1999. For many years thereafter we talked knowingly about the legendary Bajada technique and their prowess at the scrum but in reality it was quickly becoming a myth.
The very reason the Pumas kicked on and became a major Test team and dangerous floaters at the World Cup is that they could no longer rely on their once dominant scrum and were forced to improve all other aspects of their game and start using their previously unemployed backs who always had the talent but never the bloody ball.
We need to return to this subject of myths and truisms soon, the juices are beginning to flow. We need to discuss how you can’t apparently win with 14 men when you have somebody sent off early doors in the first half. Except it seems to happen all the time and how the All Blacks don’t kick as much as most teams. Except they do.