Always close calls to make. Here's the team I'd like to see out against the All Blacks Saturday week:
Tags: Sports, rugby, lions, lions tour.
What a great evening it was for sailing yesterday here in Dublin – we had beautiful sunshine and a Force 4-5 wind, something like 30 knots gusting to 40 (roughly 35-45mph). I was out on my regular boat, Pippa IV, a Sigma 33, which I often crew on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, sometimes Saturdays too.
Sailing is a tough sport requiring a lot of hard work – both physically and mentally. As I'm pretty inexperienced I'm generally a winch-monkey, one of 2 responsible for tacks – making sure the genny (aka foresail aka headsail) moves across the boat and is hardened up. It's a very physical job, and requires good coordination between the 2 people on the task. Last night was a little difficult because of the strong wind but we had a very experienced crew on board. Occasionally I do main, which means being in charge of the main sail, funnily enough! This is a hard job in strong winds.
Last night I ended up spending most of the time hanging off the side as ballast, in between mad scrambles down or up a rapidly rising deck. My duties were few: making sure our GPS had the correct waypoint programmed, and doing “guy” on the spinnaker, which means keeping the spinny pole perpendicular to the wind direction, so as to keep it full. I really appreciated leaving the tacks to the other guys because they had a tough evening of it due to the wind.
And the race? Well, we started quite well, roughly 5th (of 17) for the first leg. After the 2nd leg we had moved up to 2nd as many of our rivals had reefed their mainsails (making the main sail smaller, so it's easier to control in high winds). Going into the penultimate leg we were being caught up rapidly, and somehow on the last leg we dropped from 2nd all the way back down to 6th. Disappointing. I think we lost concentration on the last, which cost us dearly. Still, not a bad way to spend a beautiful sunny evening in Dublin!
As you can tell, there's
a lot of terminology to be learned when taking up this sport. And “Shiver me timbers”? When sailing at maximum speed the masts of wooden ships vibrate like a tuning fork. You'd be quite amazed at the number of commonly used phrases derived from nautical use.
I got a mail this week from a Kiwi colleague, who's lucky enough to be attending some of the Lions games – the Maoris last Saturday, Wellington yesterday, and heading to the 2nd Test in Wellington. New Zealanders are “underwhelmed and haven't seen anything there that impresses”. “The All Blacks are serious and will be looking for a whitewash.” “The front page of the paper this morning says it all: “PUSSYCATS”. ”
I don't think anyone has told Mike about Sir Clive's strategic brilliance. What's happening, right, is that we've got a brilliant squad of players that perform superbly in the closed training sessions. Because we don't need the match practice and our guys link so well together, we're actually using the Wednesday games to lure the All Blacks into a false sense of security. Sir Clive has ordered the pack to stay out of 2nd phase and the backs to deliberately mis-time passes. And the Kiwi press are falling for this 100%!
When that complacency hits, say 25 minutes into the first Test, and New Zealand think they can sit back and relax on their 56 – 9 lead BAMMM – that's when we're gonna hit them with a sucker punch.
Pure genius. They'll never see it coming. Thanks, Clive!
Tags: Sports, rugby, lions, lions tour.
Back in reality, I'm extremely concerned about what's happening at outhalf (or flyhalf, or first 12/16th or whatever the hell you guys call it: I think we can all agree that it's Number 10).
SCW has been making some strange selections “wrapping Wilkinson in bubblewrap” according to some reports. Going by match form from what we've seen so far this is my lineup:
(excellent on his one appearance)
(questions on defense, but was targetted, great tactical kicking)
(has been poor, not linking well, lack of control)
(defense – protecting bad shoulder, match fitness, poor kicking form).
Unfortunately I suspect that Clive's list looks more like this:
Tags: Sports, rugby, lions, lions tour.
Scotland hammered an error-prone Baa-Baas team 38-7 in front of a small but vocal crowd of 20,000 in Aberdeen last night.
The somewhat dubious privilege of a Barbarians cap (for the British and Irish players[1]) was devalued even more by the nature of the 5 try to 1 rout. Handling was atrocious with countless knock-ons, defense poor, the attack was weak and disjointed (admittedly in the face of a superb Scotish defensive effort).
In their first game after sacking Matt Williams the Scots looked impressive. I think their next match is Argentina in November. I suspect it won't be half as easy, since after Mondays game Argentina look a match for anyone.
1. Whilst the Lions are packing their bags…
Tags: Sports, rugby, lions, lions tour.
Lions 25 – 25 Argentina
Congratulations to the Pumas for holding the British and Irish Lions to a draw in Cardiff this evening.
In an exciting end game Argentina were 25-22 up with 3 minutes of extra time gone – most spectators believed it was game over when the Lions lost possession. The Argentinians had had a superbly resolute defense which answered everything the Lions could throw against it, including some decent moves from the Irish contingent of Hickie and D'Arcy (despite his several dropped balls), a nice break from the English pretender to RoGo's throne, Wilkinson[1].
Despite the best efforts of the Lion's backs at the end of the 2nd, it was really a forwards game throughout, which suited the Puma's big pack just fine. The Lions went nowhere fast with their several lineout-to-maul movements on the Puma 5 yard line as they struggled to turn the 25-22 deficit around. After 6 minutes of extra time they had to finally concede that time had beaten them and they must turn to the reliable boot of Jonny to steal the draw – and in inimitable style, he did so. Beautiful kick for a left-footed guy too (I must admit to sometimes wishing he was Irish).
The Lions are left with much to think about. It's hard to know how much this game really mattered – it's a half and half mix of mid-week and Test teams, played at home (strange), and it's early days. The first tour match is still a long time away, on Saturday the 4th of June (FYI 8am Irish time, Sky Sports 1 I believe).
Tags: Sports, rugby, lions, lions tour.
1. 