Rugby autumn internationals: week three predictions

Wales 23-29 New Zealand

After yet another narrow defeat to the Wallabies, followed by a hugely underwhelming (and even narrower) win against Fiji, Wales have to get their act together, and fast.

The All Blacks are on one of their worst runs for a long time – although that’s still only one defeat (27-25 vs South Africa in October) and a draw (12-12 vs Australia in August) in their last nine games against tier one opposition. Scotland could easily have snatched a famous win last weekend.

This is Wales’s penultimate chance to win a game against a top Southern Hemisphere team before the World Cup. I say it every time, but it’s true. Wales simply have to do what England and Ireland, and France, have done in the past and beat one of the old Tri Nations sides.

New Zealand is a daunting task in that context (in fact, in any context). But at least Wales have the advantage of not being favourite, for the first time this autumn. That might take some weight off their shoulders.

From my point of view, too, I’m not worried about the game tomorrow in the same way I was ahead of the Australia game. Instead I’m really looking forward to a high-octane encounter. The battle on the wings – George North and Alex Cuthbert vs Julian Savea and Ben Smith – could see sparks fly. Wales will be boosted by a few players returning from injury or rest, including Leigh Halfpenny, Dan Biggar, Richard Hibbard and captain Sam Warburton.

When you face the world champions you need all the margins to go your way. But let’s not rule out a first Welsh win over NZ for more than 60 years. In the words of Jonathan “Jiffy” Davies:

“The All Blacks, in their last four matches, have made more errors than they normally do and missed more tackles. Against Australia this year they turned it on when they needed to; they lost to the Springboks, and against England and Scotland they could conceivably have lost both.

“If the All Blacks subconsciously feel like it’s the last game of a long season, there’s an opportunity there. But you can’t simply try to contain them. Wales have to play rugby.”

Finally, a special shout out to the awesome Richie McCaw. To be captaining the All Blacks for the HUNDREDTH time is testament to a simply sensational career. I know the Millennium Stadium crowd will give him the respect he’s earned during his magnificent career.

Italy 13-39 South Africa

Scotland 27-10 Tonga

Ireland 28-30 Australia

England 31-13 Samoa

France 28-19 Argentina

Wales’s footballers show rugby compatriots the way to go

A disinterested observer would have assumed the two results would conjure up the opposite emotions.

In rugby, Wales sneaking a narrow win, their first of the autumn. In football, Wales hanging to a goalless draw on by their fingernails.

Wales v Fiji at the Millennium Stadium

But the rugby at the Millennium Stadium was a huge disappointment. Words like diabolical and disastrous were bandied around in the aftermath of the 17-13 win over Fiji, in which Wales remained pointless against the 14-man South Sea islanders.

It wasn’t quite the 2007 World Cup defeat to the same opposition – that really was a diabolical disaster – but it was typical of Wales’s persistent inability to put weaker teams to the sword. It started fairly well, with George North and Alex Cuthbert crossing for well-worked and ultimately straightforward tries.

But then, a pair of dubious disallowed scores aside, Wales took their foot off the gas. Whether it was complacency, a tendency to over-complicate matters, or a combination of the two, the game turned turgid. The healthy crowd of 60,000+, attracted by a welcome WRU decision to lower ticket prices for the game, quickly got bored. I’ve never been so inclined to join in with a Mexican Wave than the one sweeping the stadium on Saturday (obviously I still ignored the hateful thing). It said it all about the way the game was going.

By contrast, the Welsh footballers’ 0-0 draw in Belgium was a superb, wholehearted display. Facing the team (unrealistically) ranked fourth in the world, Wales were under the cosh for much of the game at the Koning Boudewijn Stadium in Brussels.

But – from what I could gather listening to the superb Five Live commentary feat Robbie Savage – Wales were far from outclassed. They got a result, maintaining their unbeaten record at the start of this Euro 2016 qualification campaign. A special shout out to James Chester, who seemed (from a radio listener’s perspective at least) to be everywhere.

With two games against Israel to come – they may be group leaders, but they’re also eminently beatable – Wales are in a cracking position, and certainly their best since the Euro 2004 qualifiers. We’ve also got Cyprus and Bosnia away, with Andorra and Belgium to visit Cardiff.

But the theoretically toughest game has been and gone, and it’s 0-0 final score is hugely positive for Welsh football. Let’s hope the rugby players can draw some inspiration from their success.

Rugby autumn internationals: week one predictions

After a bit of a hiatus, the autumn internationals give me a chance to look foolish once again by getting my score predictions horrifically wrong. Still, it’s neck-on-the-line time, and here’s what I reckon for today’s encounters:

Wales 21-17 Australia

It looks as if the Millennium Stadium will have about 15,000 empty seats, which is a shame, but not altogether surprising given the cost of tickets.

Wales have lost their last NINE games against the Wallabies, with their last success coming in November 2008. Warren Gatland has denied it, but there seems to be no other explanation for those losses than some sort of mental block – particularly as Australia’s margin of victory has been within a score on six of those occasions. In fact, the last seven games between the two sides have seen Australia win by (from the most recent backwards) 4, 2, 1, 2, 8, 6 and 3.

And with Australia and Wales both in hosts England’s group at next year’s World Cup, both teams (but particularly Wales) know it is vital to take some sort of momentum and belief into the tournament.

For some reason I fancy Wales to win this one. It’s not just because I’m Welsh – I’m more often pessimistic than optimistic on that front. I like the look of Wales’s team, with more than half an eye on that World Cup. I like George North at centre, even if it’s only because the mighty Jonathan Davies is injured. And I like having Rhys Webb at scrum half rather than wannabe number 8 Mike Phillips.

England 22-31 New Zealand

Ireland 20-26 South Africa

Scotland 18-17 Argentina

Jambos win Hearts during thrashing of Cowdenbeath

In the last couple of years I’ve come to dread the start of the football season.

The relaxing off-season allows the focus to be switched on to the Commonwealth Games, World Athletics Championships, the Olympics, test cricket, Super Rugby – whatever. Come the start of August, though, and the sports pages are once again dominated by news of petty spats, crowd violence, referees taking a battering, obscene wages etc.

The view from the Roseburn Stand

On the other hand, I can’t wait for the football season, and it having gone off the boil for me over the last couple of years is probably not simply coincidental to me, a Newcastle United fan, having moved away from the North East of England.

After all, nothing quite catches the imagination like football. Even speaking as, predominantly, a rugby fan, I get swept away every Saturday by the round-ball game.

And so it was that, last Saturday, I found myself at a Scottish Championship game between Heart of Midlothian and Cowdenbeath at Tynecastle, arguably not one of the weekend’s glamour ties in British football. But, being in Edinburgh, I couldn’t not go and get my first taste of the Scottish leagues.

In any case, I’ve always had something of a soft spot for Hearts. After a bit of head-scratching, I’ve come up with three possible explanations: a career with them on Football Manager was one of my most successful ever; Tynecastle reminds me of Tyneside; and their nickname (the Jambos) makes me hungry for doughnuts. An alternative nickname is the Jam Tarts, which is even more explicit.

The football was, at times, dubious. The first 45 minutes, in particular, had quality in short supply, and I made my own entertainment by munching merrily on my Scotch pie. Behind me, the conversation soon turned to the Scottish independence referendum, held two days earlier.

The excitement levels ratcheted up after the break, though, with Hearts knocking in four to secure an emphatic 5-1 win and extend their lead at the top of the second tier (a league which also includes Rangers and Hearts’ city rivals Hibernian). After a turbulent decade which culminated in relegation last season, Hearts’ luck has perhaps changed since they exited administration over the summer.

These fans in the main stand were in no doubts as to whether they agreed with the No vote in the Scottish independence referendum

I hope that is the case, because, cheesily, the club won my Heart. The atmosphere at and outside the ground was excellent; the 17,529-seater stadium attracted almost 15,600 fans for a tie which can’t have jumped off the page when the fixtures were first released.

The crowd around me in the Roseburn Stand was friendly, knowledgeable and was at the opposite end of the spectrum to the reputation of the Old Firm clubs. Even 90 minutes was enough to make me feel at home.

Despite the at-times turgid first half, I walked back to Edinburgh trying to remember when it was the last time I enjoyed a football match this much. Great stuff, Jambos.

Rain fails to dampen Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games party

It’s only a week since the curtain fell on Glasgow 2014, although it feels like longer, with the sporting media having mercilessly moved on to the test match and the start of the new football season (groan!).

And although the Commonwealth Games was never going to compete with the London 2012 Olympics, for obvious reasons, the event surprised most people with how much it captured the imagination.

Hampden Park set up for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games 400m hurdles

Of course, it helps that all four UK teams did so well – Wales, Scotland and England all secured record medal hauls, Northern Ireland got their second best total, and England triumphed over Australia to top the medals table for the first time since 1986.

It was a games which lacked quite a few top names – Mo Farah, Jess Ennis-Hill, Usain Bolt from the individual competition – but, thanks to a crop of Home Nations stars, did not miss them. Whether it was gymnasts Dan Keatings and Frankie Jones, swimmers Fran Halsall and Ross Murdoch or track and field’s Jodie Williams and Eilidh Child, fears the global stars’ absence would hamper the games proved unfounded.

Like in London two years ago, Glasgow also got fully behind the games, even if it wasn’t always blessed with the same glorious weather as the Olympics. Being in Scotland for a week was a brilliant experience – it’s such a great place anyway – but it was only enhanced by seeing Lesotho and Mozambique squad members mingling with the crowds in Buchanan Street or Aussies chucking around an inflatable kangaroo on the way to Ibrox. Usain Bolt’s reported comments that Glasgow was s**t were wide of the mark, although he did backtrack later.

Ibrox, which hosted the rugby sevens

I was fortunate to get tickets to swimming, the rugby sevens finals and the (very wet) David Rudisha v Nijel Amos evening of the athletics. In those three sessions there wasn’t a whole lot to cheer as a Welshman. A silver and a bronze were a decent return for my night at Tollcross watching the swimming (though I wasn’t there for Georgia Davies or Jazz Carlin’s golds), but I watched Wales lose in the final play of the sevens bowl final to England and there was only one Welsh representative at the athletics (Brett Morse, fifth in the discus).

But in that sense I was unlucky, because Wales had a brilliant 11 days. Rhythmic gymnast Frankie Jones (born in Kettering, incidentally) kicked it all off and crowned her personal success by winning the David Dixon Award for the outstanding competitor and for a sense of fair play winning a gold and five silvers. Geraint Thomas’ triumph in almost the last event of the games, the men’s road race, capped it all off nicely. It meant the absences of some of our world-class athletes – Becky James, Helen Jenkins, Non Stanford, Fred Evans – were not as keenly felt as I had feared. A return of five golds, 11 silvers and 20 bronzes put Wales in 13th in the medals table, the same as in Delhi – but on that occasion we got only 19 podium finishes (three, six and 10 of the respective medal colours).

A swimming medal ceremony at Tollcross, with the Welsh flag raised for Georgia Davies’ silver

What about the bigger picture? Some commentators have said Glasgow 2014 saved the concept of the Commonwealth Games following an underwhelming version in Delhi in 2010. I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment on that particular issue, but it certainly quelled any doubts I has about it.

I think Rick Broadbent in the Times at the start of the week had it just about right:

The athletes had little but praise for Glasgow. There was a buzz. And as for Usain Bolt, he came, he saw and, ultimately, he concurred.

Get excited for the Commonwealth Games

I’ve never really found it very easy to get into the Commonwealth Games.

Maybe it’s the fact I didn’t have a chance to watch much of the last two editions – in Delhi in 2010 and Melbourne four years previously. Maybe it’s because, without the likes of USA, China and Russia, it sometimes has the feeling of almost a second-rate competition. Maybe it’s because I’m cheering on Team Wales, inevitably less successful than Team GB at an Olympics or World Championships.

Wales hosting the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games

But this time around I’m really looking forward to going up to Scotland for a week to watch Glasgow 2014, my first Commonwealth Games, where I’ve got tickets to swimming, rugby sevens and athletics, and which gets under way with the opening ceremony at Celtic Park on Wednesday.

And although the big names seem to be dropping like flies at the moment – Welsh boxer Fred Evans and English sprinter Dwain Chambers today joining the absentee list – I confidently predict the whole nation will be captivated by the Games, the first to be held on British soil since 2002, by this time next week.

As a Welsh fan, though, London 2012 silver medallist Evans’s presence will be missed – especially as, if you were picking a quartet of Wales medal prospects for Glasgow it could very well be made up of the 23-year-old, cyclist Becky James and triathletes Helen Jenkins and Non Stanford. All four will be missing from Scotland’s biggest city this summer.

Still, no point in being glum. Here are five bits of Welsh Commonwealth Games glory (or near-glory):

1. Weirdly, my all-time favourite Commonwealth Games moment saw Wales beaten by England. But what an effort red-haired Matt Elias put in on the final leg of the 4x400m relay to get within a photo finish of the English team. Although perhaps Wales, with a quartet of Elias, Jamie Baulch, Iwan Thomas and Tim Benjamin, should really have won it…

2. Dai Greene wins gold, Rhys Williams bronze

3. Colin Jackson winning 110m hurdle gold in 1994. Although he held the world record for a 13 years, he never won Olympic gold, so had to settle for top spot in the Commonwealths and the World Championships, both twice.

4. Robert Weale. If I need to say more, you clearly don’t even take a passing interest in the Welsh lawn bowls scene (shame on you!). Powys-based Weale won his first Commonwealth medal in 1986, is the reigning singles champion and one of Wales’s best-ever Commonwealth Games competitors. Disappointingly, I’ve not been able to find a video.

5. The 1958 Empire Games in Cardiff. The only time Wales has hosted the Commonwealth Games (or its predecessor). Admittedly, not a great sporting success for the hosts – Wales only managed one gold and 11th place out of 35 in the medal table. But just look at how mighty fine the old Cardiff Arms Park looked 56 years ago in the video above.