Matters Arising

Plenty happening off the field this week, after "Super Saturday" fed our appetites for action. There is argument over the culpability of Scott Macleod in his pharmacological crisis; for my money, we're getting too precious. A clearly honest mistake has been made - and any sport that proscribes asthma medication needs to be thinking again anyway. It is to my chagrin, but your advantage, that all the jokes conflating "Scotland" and "performance enhancement" have already been done.

Then there is the matter of disciplinary fallout from the Wales v Italy match; two Italian players cited for foul play. Mauro Bergamasco has earned a great deal of respect in these quarters over recent years, but has seriously undermined all that with his behaviour on Saturday. Carlo Del Fava's transparently cynical assault on Stephen Jones, however, has been deemed acceptable by the citing commission. This is incomprehensible in light of the publically available evidence (above), and the player's previous record. It's challenging to imagine how reasonable doubt about Del Fava's intentions could arise from a disinterested position.

Meanwhile, talk is surfacing again of the old idea of annually playing off the Six Nations and Tri-Nations champions. Notionally attractive, perhaps; but surely a logistical nightmare in a world of crowded fixture lists and imcompatible playing seasons? Such problems notwitstanding, resistance should be expected from those with material or emotional investements in the Rugby World Cup, whose stifling presence already so distorts the calendar. Any percieved erosion of the Web-Ellis Trophy's value as the "gold standard", will ruffle plenty of feathers - good enough reason in itself to raise the issue, perhaps.

Bogus, not Bonus.

There's no doubting that Shaun Edwards is one of the sharpest tools in rugby's box. When he speaks about the game, everyone should listen. But his call for the introduction of bonus points to the Six Nations tournament is a non-starter. Not only wouldn't it work, but we wouldn't want it to.

The system works well in its original place - to encourage endeavour and discourage negativity in long league seasons. Bonus points add a little extra spice, a token, which can add up to something more valuable - and, by definition, deserved - at the end of the road.

In short tournaments, however, they are an unwelcome distortion. The Heineken and EDF cups are poorer for their inclusion in the group stages, as has been evidenced by recent events. Teams have been effectively eliminated too early, leaving a high proportion of "dead rubbers" (The Newport Gwent Dragons were dumped out of the EDF this season after one defeat, making a mockery of the group format.) Otherwise successful teams are penalised for one slight off-day where - despite winning - they failed to amass sufficient points against a minnow. And lest I be accused of hiding an agenda - yes, it still sticks in this writer's throat that Northampton qualified for the quarter-finals of last year's Heineken Cup at The Ospreys' expense, despite an inferior win/loss record.

The Six Nations is a simple win/lose format, and that works just fine. The driving need to find a winner at all costs has already led to the loss of the perfectly acceptable "shared" championship, and now we declare a winner on score difference. That's bad enough. Bonus points would take this beyond the absurd.

By illustration, here is last year's 6N table:

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pt
France	5	4	0	1	155	86	8
Ireland	5	4	0	1	149	84	8
England	5	3	0	2	119	115	6
Italy	5	2	0	3	94	147	4
Wales	5	1	0	4	86	113	2
Scotland	5	1	0	4	95	153	2

And here is that same table adjusted by the BP system:

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pt
Ireland	5	4	0	1	149	84	19
France	5	4	0	1	155	86	18
England	5	3	0	2	119	115	13
Italy	5	2	0	3	94	147	9
Wales	5	1	0	4	86	113	5
Scotland	5	1	0	4	95	153	5

I seriously doubt that anyone not living on the Emerald Isle would argue that this would have been a better, fairer result than the one we received. I'd argue that the title should have been shared. But if we must discriminate, then a comparison of points for/against over the whole tournament is, surely, fairer than rewarding the side who scored fewer points, but in the right games?

So much for all of that. However, I needn't have bothered - there's a simpler objection. One that kills the whole idea in a single blow. With bonus points in place, the possibility would exist that a team could win the Grand Slam, but lose the championship: Pure anathema. Hell, why are we even talking about it?

The press are obviously pestering Shaun Edwards for soundbites daily, and perhaps this was just him dropping a bomb to buy himself a few days' rest. I'd like to think so. His reputation as a rugby fixer extraordinaire is well-earned, and well-deserved.

But the Six Nations simply ain't broke.

Musical Justins

No, it wasn't a very early April Fool - Justin Marshall really did play 80 minutes at full-back for the Ospreys!

A weekend off for the Six Nations, and that always feels weird. I was at the Liberty Stadium to watch the "Ospreys - Welsh Squad Members + Mike Phillips" stick a hatful on hapless Connacht. The outrageous Marshall ploy signaled either supreme confidence, or desperation. Fortunately for Marshall and Lyn Jones, it didn't really matter as the visitors lacked any idea of how to exploit the situation. Although they deserve some credit for trying to run the ball and not just kicking for territory, in truth they were fairly clueless with it, and their last-minute consolation try was simply due to the Ospreys unforgivably relaxing at a close-range penalty. Another "nil" would have been a welcome tonic, too... grrr...

After only needing second gear to see off an abject Scotland side, Wales look to the prospect of Italy' visit with confidence tempered by nervous caution - remembering that we haven't beaten the Azzurri since 2005. It is to be hoped that precise timekeeping will be unimportant - but just in case, perhaps the Millennium Stadium scoreboards should show the time remaining in a super-large font?

Panic Pandemic

One round in, and 6N players are dropping like flies. For once, it is England who bear the brunt of the plague - not content with robbing them of four starters during the first game, the crock-fates have now targetted Tom Rees and Phil Vickery, leaving the team to face Italy with a decidedly patchwork feel.

Wales have got off lightly this time around, though the loss of Alun-Wyn Jones will hurt. More prominent in Welsh pre-game natter has been the refreshing approach of Warren Gatland; dropping under-performing players from a winning team, and publically explaining why. It sounds common-sense enough, but in Wales, it's little short of revolutionary. Meanwhile, big things are hoped for from Jamie Roberts on his first cap.

There was precious little attacking threat offered by Scotland last weekend, and stripping their XV of both Rory Lamont and Simon Webster has hardly made them look more formidable. This is precisely the problem for Wales, of course - they will now be comfortable favourites for Saturday's game, a position traditionally injurious to Welsh prospects. But a mental toughening is exactly what Gatland has targetted for this squad, so how they deal with justified expectations will be the key factor of their weekend.

19:26 - The Great Strike

The Head had a shocker - the heart is on a roll. Quite how exactly Wales triumphed at Twickenham could probably be the basis of a PhD thesis, if not a whole book. The beating they took in that first half could surely only lead to another of those cricket scores, to which we have become numb? England's superiority - whether at set-piece, in their game-management, or in the incisiveness of their running - was so absolute that many Welsh fans must surely have been tempted to hit the M4 a full 50 minutes early?


And yet, inexplicably - gloriously - England threw it away. The Twickenham shooting party blew both its own feet off. Having clung on heroically, Wales were still there to pick up the pieces and exorcise a 20-year ghost with 20 minutes of punishingly clinical, intelligent rugby. Having been toyed with for an hour, they finished by dismissing England's last desperate twitches with something approaching contempt. It was rarely pretty, but it was in its own way magnificent.

Most encouraging of all the wonders of the day, however, was to hear Warren Gatland's sober reflections. Quick to point out how awful Wales had been for long periods, and equally quick to praise his battered warriors for getting off the ropes and landing the knockout. The sense of a man with his head screwed on only grows. He knows how often Wales have blown a good start in this tournament, and he knows we won't get another gift like this one.

The Calm...

"So it's that time again; the team has been mulled over, the fly-half debate has polarised us, those without ferry tickets have booked their seats in the local, and the butterflies begin. In our heads, the voice of bitter experience tells us to expect little, to enjoy the moment, to be philosophical. But deep in our hearts breathes a dream of the impossible, and it just won't go away. It is our hearts laid bare, it is our Heaven and our Hell, but still they tell us, it's only a game. And a game with stupid-shaped balls, at that. What do they know?"

I wrote the above for Gwl@d's front page, the day before 6N kick-off in 2002. I haven't yet found better way to express how these few days always feel. A little more than 24 hours after I typed the above, Ireland put a half-century of points past Wales to end Graham Henry's shift at the wheel. I remember still feeling numb as I typed;

"The home crowd's joy carried overtones of disbelief, but the aftershock of this result in Wales can only be fearfully imagined. Wales were quite simply atrocious, and finding the will to carry on will be enough of a challenge for the coaches and the team, let alone the transformation required to rescue yet another Six Nations crisis."

and positively undead while responding, weeks later, to England's emulation of the feat:

"There is not much more to say about England's frankly ridiculous superiority. Wales gave it pretty much everything, but not only weren't they good enough, they weren't even on Planet Good Enough. It's less painful - but ultimately more wounding - because it's not a surprise."

Six years, a few more stuffings, and an increasingly incongruous Grand Slam later, and fear of another dose of that unpalatable (not to mention ineffective) medicine leaves a knot in the stomach. But next to it is that other knot, the red one, the one that hopes, and dreams, and reaches out of the stomach for the heart. It gets you every time. It tells you that this year, this time, it'll be different. And no matter how many times it is wrong, we remember the times it was right. That is our curse, our blessing, and our battle-cry as we head for the pub, the bus... or the away dressing room.