Wales, the All Blacks and Howard Kendall - a whole new bawl game

MY beloved Wales may be out of the Rugby World Cup, but I reckon we won almost as many new friends as did the nippy little dazzlers from Japan.

Warren Gatland’s injury-ravaged squad were on a hiding to nothing after losing key backs Lee Halfpenny and Rhys Webb in their final warm-up game against Italy. By the time they faced South Africa in Saturday’s quarter-final, they had been reduced to taking the field with two fourth-choice backs in centre Tyler Morgan and fullback Gareth Anscombe. Not to mention a brilliant fly-half in Dan Biggar whose goalkicking preparations include a passable impression of the symptoms which led to my being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

A hwyl new bawl game: Michael Caine in Zulu

That we beat England at Twickenham and ran Australia and the Springboks so close is testimony to the never-say-Dai spirit known in Wales as ‘hwyl’. If you don’t know what hwyl is, try nipping over to South Africa and asking a few descendants of the Zulu warriors who overran our (Rorke’s) Drift defence. Not that we managed to beat the South Africans in 1879, either. Must be down to having Englishman Michael Caine as our commanding officer - but not a lot of people know that.

For all Wales’s courage, at least we went out of the 2015 Rugby World Cup with our honour intact. That is more than can be said for the French, who found themselves suffocated by a black New Zealand cloud in Saturday’s second quarter-final. The 62-13 scoreline suggests that South Africa will also be blown away next weekend and that Richie McCaw’s champions will become the first nation ever to win two World Cups in succession.

Football has had its great international teams like Brazil and Germany, cricket had the era of West Indian invincibility and, more recently Australian dominance. But only in rugby union has a single nation dominated the world game throughout my lifetime. A tiny nation with a similar three-million population to Wales, not to mention around 80 million sheep.

Howard Kendall during his Blackburn Rovers days

HOWARD KENDALL achieved a lot in football. In fact, he was a legend. At 17, he became the youngest ever FA Cup finalist, later captained Everton to the Football league title in 1970, and for good measure went on to become the Toffees’ most successful manager ever. He also liked a drink, which became more and more apparent in his increasingly flushed visage at Goodison Park press conferences as the years rolled by.

I don't think he'd had a tipple the day he laid into me at Ewood Park. But I have never forgotten the rudeness of the Blackburn Rovers player-manager at that impromptu after-match press conference in the early 1980s. It was during the early days of hand-held tape recorders and this particular inquest was held in a corridor near the changing rooms with perhaps a dozen reporters milling around.

I was armed with notebook, pen and an untested tape machine. Fearing that the new gadget might not work, I quickly pressed the record button, placed my notebook on top of it, and stood jotting down Howard’s words with my other hand. I made no attempt to hide the machine, which Kendall spotted immediately.

“If you’re going to use one of those things, at least have the decency not to try to hide it,’’ he rapped, clearly irritated and pointing to my notebook sandwich. It would have been bad enough had the innuendo been correct. But this was positively embarrassing.

I’ve spent the last 30 years wanting to put the record straight so if you are listening up there in God’s-Own Park, Howard, now that you know the truth, I accept your apology. However, it’s too late for you to climb up there alongside turnip head Graham Taylor and West Ham’s genial John Lyall as the most polite and approachable managers I came across during two decades of covering League football for the British tabloids. There were also bosses and players some of my colleagues preferred to avoid. Keep reading this blog and I may just tell you about them....

As for Howard Kendall, he and I did have one thing in common. My other half and I called our two daughters Hayley and Lisa – and so did Howard and his wife.

The FIFA File: Why did it take so long to Blatter seedy sexist Sepp?

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2010, A FEW MONTHS AFTER THE WORLD CUP IN SOUTH AFRICA. THE QUESTION IS, WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG FOR THE AUTHORITIES TO BLATTER SEEDY SEPP AND HIS CORRUPT REGIME?

During Spain's march to glory in last summer’s World Cup, I wrote a magazine article in which I described Sepp Blatter, the most powerful administrator in world football, as ”an ageing plonker”. I now accept that at the FIFA chairman is not ageing. He’s decrepit.

Sepp Blatter...decrepit and sexist

Indeed, he is so far past his sell-by date that I suggest his native Switzerland considers putting him out of his misery. Euthanasia is perfectly legal there, after all.

Now I love football but, like just about every fan in the world, I think its administrators are in another world when it comes to moving into the 21st century.

Even if those decisions are patently wrong and unfair, as they often are.

Take England’s disallowed goal against Germany, for instance. Frank Lampard’s rocket shot bounced down off the crossbar at least a yard over the line and then came out of the goal – and the referee and linesman were seemingly the only two people in the stadium who failed to spot it.

The German goalkeeper knew it was a goal, of course. But since honesty is the last thing one expects from professional footballers (we won’t mention being faithful to their wives), there was no way he was going to tell the referee. Let’s face it, England would have done exactly the same had it been the Germans who scored, so dishonours even there.

However, had the referee merely been allowed to consult a video replay, as are officials in other major sports, justice would have prevailed. As it was, nobody knows what might have happened had England been level at 2-2 at halftime rather than 2-1 behind. Why, they might even have won. (well, in my dreams).

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a player or manager speak AGAINST the use of video playbacks to confirm or over-rule controversial refereeing decisions. And the argument that the delay would detract from the game has long since been shot down by the evidence of other sports. In rugby and cricket, for example, the anxious wait for decisions like ‘not out’ or ‘no try’ to appear on the screen invariably ADD to the excitement rather than detracts from it.

Time you went to Specsavers, ref...Frank Lampard's blinding shot is a good yard over the line

Yet Blatter and his fellow FIFA duffers have consistently resisted calls for any sort of technology. And that has inevitably led to people like myself asking ‘Why?’

And in the absence of a logical reason, I can’t help pondering the recent corruption allegations over FIFA’s decision to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia.

Now I am well aware of the laws of libel, so I am not saying someone is bribing Sepp and his sidekicks NOT to say yes to the technology companies. But it makes you wonder, particularly as Blatter’s election in 1998 was later sullied by allegations that an African federation official had been offered a 100,000 dollar bribe to vote for him.

Certainly, Blatter’s logic seems to be at variance with the entire population of the world. Apart, perhaps, from his cronies in Geneva, all of whom are presumably blokes. And that brings me to another negative aspect of the man’s background.

Seedy Sepp does not seem to hold women very high in his esteem. Indeed, he seems to see us merely as sex objects. According to Wikipedia, in the early 1970s he was elected president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, an organisation which tried to stop women wearing tights instead of stockings and suspender belts.

Then, in 2004, he angered female footballers when he suggested that women should “wear tighter shorts and low cut shirts… to create a more female aesthetic” and attract more male fans.

I’ve got news for Mr Blatter. If he spent more time sorting out football’s injustices and less on ogling the girls, then it might start living up to its billing as ‘the beautiful game’.

He could start by introducing a law that works wonderfully well in rugby and ensures that cheats who illegally prevent a certain score don’t prosper. In such circumstances, referees can award a ‘‘penalty try’’ – yet in football, the worst a team can suffer is a red card for the offender and a penalty kick for the cheated side.

When a Uruguay player prevented Ghana winning their World Cup tie by deliberately stopping a goalbound shot with his hand, the correct decision should have been ‘goal’ – even though the ball did not cross the goal line. The incident happened at the very end of extra time, so the red card did not help Ghana in any way.

And when they missed the resultant penalty kick, any advantage was completely wiped out.

Uruguay celebrated their reprieve by winning the penalty shootout that followed and Africa’s last representatives in the tournament were on their way home when in the eyes of every fair-minded person they were really the victors. But the concept of introducing a ‘penalty goal’ award to foil the cheats has probably never crossed Mr Blatter’s mind.

Ghana did not get justice, they were robbed because the laws are an ass. It’s the sort of thing that makes football appear even more stupid than the heads-in-the-sand brigade who run (or should that be ruin?) the game.

So how is football ever going to be dragged into the 21st century? Maybe we should offer sleazy Sepp an inducement to hand the whole caboodle over to us girls. Then we could sort it all out in no time and let him concentrate on whatever else he does for kicks.

England v Australia: From rugby zeros to conquering heroes in 80 minutes

UNDER FIRE: England captain  Chris Robshaw and coach Stuart Lancaster

A WEEK of recriminations over England's humbling by Wales has done nothing to ease the pressure on skipper Chris Robshaw and his beleaguered Rugby World Cup troops.
The Twickenham inquest has merely cranked up the pressure on the men the media and the fans hold responsible for the sweet chariot crashing on the final bend. And if they shoot themselves in the foot again against Australia tomorrow (Saturday), Robshaw and coach Stuart Lancaster could well find themselves travelling home with their opponents. To Botany Bay.
If England's fickle fans have not already gunned down the suffering sheriffs, that is.
One of the starkest after-match contrasts between St George and the conquering Dragons was the reaction of the ostensibly 'British' media to Wales's 28-25 victory. In their overseas edition, the nation's top-selling tabloid scarcely gave Sam Warburton's wounded heroes credit for their unexpected second-half comeback. Instead, Welsh, Scottish and Irish expat readers had to endure five pages in The Sun on England's demise, two of which were devoted to former captain Will Carling sticking the knife into Robshaw and Lancaster.

Those looking for a tribute to the injury-decimated Welsh's unlikely victory at England HQ by had to settle for a few short paragraphs on their mouting injury problems plus assistant coach Sean Edwards' revelation of just how much the result meant to everyone in the Principality.
Edwards, once a never-say-Dai English rugby league hero, said: “At Sunday mass, the priest came out and put his hands in the air to celebrate. That's when you know you are making a difference to the nation.''
Carling's condemnation of England's decision to go for a match-winning try rather than salvage a point from a 28-28 draw is rich, coming as it does from a man whose decisions, by his own confession, cost England the 1990 Grand Slam.
Had Robshaw's spurning of a three-point penalty produced the last-gasp victory he and his team were aiming for, the media would have him up alongside Martin Johnson today as an England all-time legend. And Lancaster would be licking his lips at the prospect of emulating Sir Clive Woodward, the coach who led the nation to the 2003 World Cup.
Beat Australia, as Woodward and his captain Johnson did in the 2003 World Cup Final, and last weekend's cock-up will in just 80 minutes be completely forgiven, if not forgotten.
Regardless of yesterday's Wales v Fiji result, England can still make it to the knockout stages. But it will take a monumental effort to beat a Wallabies team that beat the mighty All Blacks in a Bledisloe Cup match in Sydney just a few weeks ago.
Until Wales replaced them this week, the Wallabies were officially ranked No.2 in the world behind the All Blacks. Michael Chieka's men will have just one target at Twickenham tomorrow – and that is to achieve the equivalent of what their cricketing countrymen failed to do this summer.
By putting the boot into the ashes of English rugby.

Japan's rest-case scenario

THE challenge of peaking twice in just four days proved too much for rugby's greatest giant-killers – much to the delight of a Scotland team who caught poor Japan on the rebound at Gloucester last week.
It was quickly apparent that a fresh Scottish side playing their first game of the tournament would be too great an obstacle for the shock conquerors of mighty South Africa.
Scotland's 45-10 victory also highlighted the unfairness of a system that gives some teams up to three days more rest between games than others.
Ironically, England have had the best deal of all – with at least a week between each of their three games so far.
Their conquerors Wales, on the other hand, were given just five days to recover before facing the physical might of Fiji last night (Thursday) with the longest list of injuries in the competition.Japan suffered more than any other nation, their 96-hour recovery period after the Springboks match also involving a venue switch from Brighton to Gloucester.
All of which makes a powerful case for the organisers of the next Rugby World Cup in Japan to balance the recovery time of all competing nations.
The hosts of RWC 2019 certainly won't argue with that one.

Football beware! Rugby's rising sons have sparked a sporting revolution

IT is arguably the biggest giant-killing act in sporting history – but Japan's Rugby's World Cup slaying of mighty South Africa was more than that. It was the ultimate game-changer, a result that introduced the public to global sport's Brand of the Rising Sons.

While football remains the most popular ball game on the planet, the emergence of Japan as a major rugby union force signals a huge breakthrough for the oval-ball code.

Yes, the Beautiful Game is being threatened by Beauty and the East.

Forget the 45-10 hammering the Oriental upstarts took from Scotland in Gloucester on Wednesday. The bigger, fresher Tartan troops were always favourites against a team weary from their history-making exertions four days earlier.

Full of  Eastern Promisee: Japan's Rugby World Cup heroes celebrate victory against South Africa

It was the South Africa result that put down the marker for the future of the game at world level.

In the words of Japan coach Eddie Jones, the man who steered Australia to the 2003 World Cup Final, “With an Asian team beating a top-tier country, that really makes it a global sport.”

Football remains No.1 with the public thanks largely to a complex coaching net that has elevated the top 50 or so nations to a level where their international teams are all capable of beating each other. The scene is changing, however, amid the chaos of Sepp Blatter's corrupt crew and FIFA's continuing refusal to adopt new technology that rugby, tennis and cricket have been utilising for a decade.

Rugby has long held the moral high ground when it comes to respect for officialdom and use of technology to ensure that try-scoring and disciplinary decisions are always correct. Professional leagues thrive in all the major rugby nations, with sponsors queuing up and the lure of big money attracting the world's best players. And crowds at top rugby Premiership games in England attract crowds of Manchester United and Arsenal proportions.

Until last weekend, the main thing holding a genuine popularity challenge to football back was the absence of a meaningful rugby presence beyond the traditional hotbeds of the British Isles, France, Australasia, South Africa, Argentina and, to a lesser degree, Italy.

The qualification process for RWC 2015 involved no fewer than 83 nations, the majority of them rugby's equivalent to European football's newest whipping boys, Gibraltar.

Gibraltar beating England in the World Cup finals? Pure fantasy, of course. Yet that is what Japan effectively achieved by beating the Boks with a bit-part team made up of physical midgets and journeymen pros from overseas who qualify for Empire status on residential grounds.

In fairness, Japan's rugby minnows weren't exactly devoid of professional assistance. The game has long been hugely popular in the Land of the Rising Sun, and a coaching team led by former Wallabies chief Jones and ex-England captain Steve Borthwick knew exactly what was required to make the team genuinely competitive.

Way back at RWC 1991, I remember Japan's charismatic manager Shiggy Kono lamenting after a World Cup defeat at Murrayfield at the physical limitations of his players. “Our backs are as good and as quick as any other nation,'' said the man who claimed to be his country's only failed kamikaze pilot. “The problem is finding Japanese players who are physically as big and tall as those in the leading rugby nations.''

London-educated Kono, who died in 2007, reckoned he was such a bad pilot that his wartime kamikaze unit bosses refused to send him on a mission. A mission where survival would have been as likely as the Japanese rugby team beating the 1995 and 2007 world champions.

Even with the absorption of foreign-born forwards, Japan's tallest player at the World Cup is a mere 6ft 4in – that's four or five inches shorter than the average Bok, Kiwi or English second-row giant.

Japan can still qualify for the quarter-finals for the first time despite the defeat by Scotland - but even if they miss out, no-one can take from them the fact they achieved the unachievable.

The little big men have also lifted the game of rugby into a new era of global competition.

PS to England as they prepare for Saturday's Twickenham showdown with 2011 semi-finalists Wales. Beware of wounded Dragons...they are likely to catch fire and reduce you to cinders.

St George is still recovering from the burns inflicted by Wales in the 2013 Six Nations championship. In case anyone has forgotten, the written-off Taffs thrashed England by a record 30-3 margin and went on to lift the European crown for the fourth time in eight years.

Saturday's confrontation has a familiar look about it. England start hot favourites with Wales decimated by injuries to key playmakers Lee Halfpenny, Rhys Webb and long-term casualty Jonathan Davies.

The game will be a doddle for Stuart Lancaster's sweet chariot, predict the fans in the white shirts and rose-coloured spectacles.

Bu will it – particularly following the loss of England's midfield try machine Jonathan Joseph?

Wales, for all their injuries, feel they can exploit a juggled English back line which includes relatively untried rugby league convert Sam Burgess replacing Joseph. With Lancaster also handing George Ford's No.10 jersey to Owen Farrell, the Welsh will feel they can exploit what they see as England's soft midfield under-belly.

Have Farrell, Burgess and St George gut what it takes to slay the Dragon? Tune in to ITV at 9pm Spanish time on Saturday to find out.