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

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.

Epic finishes for Northampton Saints and London Welsh prove play-off’s worth

Play-offs are not the most popular means of determining who wins a league title, as is the case in English rugby’s Premiership.

They might be acceptable for its use, as in football’s Championship, League One and League Two, of deciding the third (or fourth) team to earn promotion.

Friday night lights for Northampton’s 21-20 win over Leicester at Franklin’s Gardens

But, detractors of play-offs argue, for nine or ten months of a season to come down to a knock-out format could easily penalise the best and, to date, most consistent team of the year.

I have a certain sympathy with that point of view. Saracens fans may bemoan the fact they have to travel to Twickenham in just under a fortnight to win a crown which in most other sports would have been theirs by rights after they finished nine points clear at the top of the table.

Were they to lose the final to Northampton, at least they wouldn’t feel as robbed as Gloucester in 2002-03, who finished 15 points clear but who lost out to Wasps in the final.

Still, everyone knows the rules at the start of the season, and anyway, when play-offs produce the kind of spectacles we’ve seen this weekend, any lingering doubts surrounding their place in domestic rugby should be cast aside.

I was at Franklin’s Gardens on Friday evening for one of the best matches of club rugby I’ve ever watched, as Northampton staged a brilliant comeback to knock out defending champions Leicester.

Franklin’s Gardens panorama

The Saints have been my adopted English team since I moved to Northamptonshire, and I was pretty disappointed when they lost last year’s Twickenham final to the Tigers.

Friday threatened to go the same way – Leicester, England’s most successful club in recent years, running away with it. When they went 17-6 up at half-time, I thought the game was up.

And when,with just over 20 minutes on the clock, Salesi Ma’afu was red-carded for a punch, it looked like the Saints would be unable to overcome the deficit, which at that stage was still eight points.

By then, the 14,000 crowd was growing tetchy. But it was still as loud as it had been at kick-off, helped by a sizeable (if not sold out) contingent of away fans desperate for their side to retain East Midlands bragging rights. And when George North crossed for Northampton’s first try with a quarter of an hour remaining, the atmosphere only intensified.

The final act was perfect for Saints fans, who hadn’t witnessed a win over their closest rivals since 2011. Wave after wave of pressure finally took its toll on Leicester’s dogged defence, as the ball was spun wide for Tom Wood to step inside and crash over with barely two minutes left on the clock.

Northampton had the slenderest of leads – Stephen Myler’s conversion attempt hit the upright – and their first lead of the game. They had trailed for all but 12 of the preceding 78 minutes, but, successfully negotiated the final few plays to secure a remarkable win.

It was pandemonium in the stands, and I was the happiest I’ve been at a domestic rugby game since Ebbw Vale beat Toulouse in 1998.

Northampton Saints fans acknowledge their team’s lap of honour at Franklin’s Gardens

This afternoon, it was London Welsh’s turn to pull off a sensational, last-ditch, come-from-behind win. Their opponents at the slightly less feverish Kassam Stadium were Leeds Carnegie, who led by seven points from the first leg of their Championship play-off.

The first 50 minutes was quite dull, to be honest, with Welsh ahead on the day but behind on aggregate. And when Leeds racked up 13 quick points to put their overall lead at the same margin, I was on the verge of switching off and heading out into the sun.

Good thing I didn’t. Almost out of the blue, Welsh scored two excellent tries, with near-namesakes Seb Stegmann and Ollie Stedman touching down within two minutes of each other. Gordon Ross missed one of the conversions but slotted an even-later penalty to give the hosts a two-point aggregate win. Wow.

You’ve got to think that the fact both games were play-offs added a crucial element to the drama. It certainly amplified the occasions, as well as the victors’ elation and the losers’ disappointment. Both matches were pure theatre.

And in both instances, the best two teams, the two who finished first and second in the league table, are in the final. Northampton take on Saracens at Twickenham, while London Welsh face heavy favourites Bristol in a two-legged decider.

Both my teams will be underdogs. But if they show the same fighting spirit as they did late on in their respective games this weekend, who’s to say London Welsh next season won’t be playing in a Premiership whose trophy sits proudly in the Franklin’s Gardens trophy cabinet?

Six Nations 2014: Brian O’Driscoll’s fairytale finish

It was a brilliant weekend in Paris, capping off a Six Nations which went down to the final play of a thriller between France and Ireland.

Brian O’Driscoll got the reward his career deserved, rounding off his career in the stadium where he first announced his arrival on the international scene.

France were a lot better than they had been against Wales and Scotland, and should possibly have won the game: they would have led with less than 10 minutes to go had Jean-Marc Doussain not hooked a straightforward penalty.

Sitting behind the posts, I also didn’t realise at the time how far forward the final pass of the 79th-minute French “try-scoring” move had gone, and thought Ireland had let another championship slip away in the last minute against France (the video below is of Vincent Clerc denying Ireland a Grand Slam in 2007).

At the Stade de France this time around, Les Bleus had done well to get themselves back into the match, having conceded three tries in the first 45 minutes or so, and Philippe Saint-Andre’s team, which has looked so shambolic in recent weeks, were guilty of pretty awful defence for all three. Just watch the lack of effort the French players make to get back and form a defensive line just before Jonny Sexton’s second.

France’s daily sports newspaper L’Equipe generally wasn’t impressed, awarding its players between 6.5 (Alexandre Lapandry) and 3 (Thomas Domingo) out of 10. Just think what they would have given as ratings for the Wales game! By contrast, three French players were rated as 8/10 by the Sunday Times.

Joe Schmidt’s Ireland certainly deserved the title, though, having been the most consistent team throughout the tournament, giving sport another fairytale ending – in the form of the illustrious career of Brian O’Driscoll – at which it excels.

The only way the game could have been even more exciting was if Triple Crown winners England had managed a couple more tries against Italy (and not conceding the interception score would have helped). If they had managed to bump their points difference ahead of Ireland, both sides in Paris would have been trying desperately to score in the closing stages of the tournament – that would have been epic.

Stuart Lancaster will be pleased with his side’s efforts this championship, and there is plenty to worry the rest of the Northern (and Southern) Hemisphere ahead of the 2015 Six Nations and World Cup. Luther Burrell, Mike Brown and Danny Care have all been excellent.

And, after back-to-back championships, Wales are finally knocked off their perch, thanks to the well-documented horror shows against Ireland and England. It was nice to see the 51-3 thumping of a 14-man Scotland, and a handful of highlight-reel tries, but clearly there is a lot of work to do ahead of the summer tour to South Africa. After Stuart Hogg was sent off, for a shocking bit of foul play, the game was effectively over, so the resulting big win doesn’t mean all is suddenly well, even if there are plenty of positive signs (not least the performance of Liam Williams). We’re still the reigning Grand Slam holders though!

But there can be no complaints that Brian O’Driscoll’s Irish side, scorers of 16 tries while conceding just four, are who Wales relinquish their tournament crown to, and that BOD hangs up his boots in a manner befitting his 141-cap career.