Table tennis (not!)

“If you can’t take a punch, you should play table tennis”

Pierre Berbizier – former French rugby player 

It is difficult at the moment not to continue with the rugby theme of recent posts. In fact, I promised in my last such that I would make some mention of home nations (UK) other than the Scots – who have themselves now sadly been ‘sent homeward to think again…’

This weekend just passed saw the quarter finals of the 2019 Rugby World Cup. We are now down to the business end of the tournament – having entered the knockout stages.

Of the quarters it must be said that the results pretty much went the way – and in the fashion – that one might have expected… although there is always room in rugby for things to run counter to any presumption.

The English took on Australia. Now – there has been much talk of late about an Aussie renaissance, but frankly the English have had their number for some years now. It was about time that the men in white turned in a truly good performance and they duly did so. There might be some gripes about them having had the run of the ball – getting the lucky breaks and suchlike – but what actually happened was that they very coolly let the Australians throw the ball around and generally run themselves a bit ragged, whilst at the same time exerting the sort of pressure that would inevitably lead to Aussie mistakes. When these occurred they were appropriately taken advantage of with clinical proficiency. The English are starting to look good and are – frankly – the only side that one could imagine mounting a challenge to…

…the All Blacks! Quite a lot has been made of the fact that the much-fancied Irish actually beat them twice in the last couple of seasons. A fair bit was also ignored concerning the recent dip in Irish form that coincided rather unfortunately with the ABs coming on song themselves just in time for the big event. The inevitable happened… The All Blacks blew the Irish away and now look pretty much unstoppable with regard to retaining the trophy for the second consecutive time.

The France/Wales game? Well – this one really did go exactly the way that one might have anticipated. Rising to the big occasion the Welsh played as they had been doing a couple of years back – complete rubbish (slight exaggeration for dramatic effect)! They also contrived to squeak a win with their dying breaths. The French did what only the French can do. They displayed in one moment the mercurial talents that have seen them in the past knock the All Blacks out of this very tournament… the next they looked like total novices – handing the ball to the Welsh for them to canter downfield to the try line. Having built a healthy first half lead there was an inevitability about the way one of their locks – Sébastien Vahaamahina – got himself red-carded shortly after the start of the second half. One might imagine that the French despair – but they probably just shrug their shoulders in that familiar Gallic manner.

We all so wanted Japan to continue their magic carpet ride and to beat the South Africans, but frankly that was never going to happen. The Japanese are nowhere near as diminutive overall as they used to be, but the oxen that the Saffers put out to face them had clearly been chosen purely to accentuate the size advantage. There was nothing very attractive about the Saffer win and they had to work hard to get on top of the ceaselessly energetic Japanese, but in the end they duly squashed them.

How will Wales get on against the Boks? I think I may already know the answer to that one.