Cup In The Air, Feet On The Ground
Humility is an attribute that is getting rarer in contemporary professional sport. With football players refusing to play so they can get big money transfers and NFL MVPs obligated to say they are “going to Disneyland!” you are unlikely to see the best of the best refusing to celebrate or a last-gasp loser showing magnanimity.
The Aftermath
So how do we summarise our Rugby World Cup?
Falling Off The Summit
Welcome to the precipice. In front of you is a sharp drop. A fall from grace. Behind you is a queue of people waiting to push you off. That same queue of people that always said Scottish rugby wasn’t very good. You always ignored them. Hoping that the glory days would return. Now you have […]
Wishing Scotland All The Best
Here at Scottish Rugby Blog HQ we wondered: what would we say if we had the chance to give the Scotland Team a private message before the Argentina game? Would we give them a Jim Telfer style roasting, or would we caress their egos? Would we go around the room speaking to each individual or […]
Argentina Talk The Talk
“I’m really looking forward to this game – I think it’s going to be very close and hard to predict. Argentina have played well in both their first two games, and it was very pleasing to show against Romania that there’s more to our game than power and a strong set-piece. We will need to […]
The Men In The Middle
Referees are everywhere. They are in the park. They are in your classroom. They inhabit every boozer and drinking hole that has a TV in the corner. Everyone knows the rules better than the man in the middle. So during this World Cup there have been some public outpourings of vitriol directed at the real […]
New Age Rugby Union
Life is about change. Nothing can stay the same for too long. In a postmodern world to stand still is to be left behind: to perish in unpopularity.
Shockers, Shennanigans And Webb Ellis
One week in and we can well and truly say the circus is in town. Only during a Rugby World Cup could you have headlines about Dwarf Tossing, Pregnant Pop Stars, All Black Injury Faking and Martin Johnson’s immortal quip: “Rugby player drinks beer, shocker!”
Welcome to New Zealand
Some pundits *cough Stephen Jones *cough* have a history of winding up the Kiwis, insulting everything from hospitality to weather to their general attitude. But so far the welcome here has been amazing, and ne’re a grumpy kiwi in sight. Although a few eccentrics for sure, like the guy who runs up and down Baldwin […]
Richie Vernon Rugby World Cup Tour Diary Pt 2
Here’s Richie Vernon’s 2nd installment of his RWC Diary
RWC Build-Up: Does Superstardom Await?
3 days to go and the mounting pressure and rise in exposure is inescapable. RWC 2011 kicks off on Friday with Tonga unleashing the Sipi Tau against the hosts, NZ, and suddenly we are made aware of every movement by every team, every day. It will continue like this throughout the tournament and at a […]
Richie Vernon World Cup Tour Diary Pt 1
Here is the first installment of Scotland Back-rower Richie Vernon’s Rugby World Cup Diary, exclusively for Scottish Rugby Blog:
RWC Build-Up: The Major Madness
Before every major event we get caught up in the madness of predictions. We follow speculation as if it were Gospel. We force ourselves to show blind faith, regardless of what common sense has been telling us for 3 years out of 4. Suddenly people at the office you rarely speak to are talking to […]
RWC Build-Up: Our Back-Three, According To The Best
Let me set the scene for you: Scotland play 2 EMC Tests with 6 back-three options. They play one game against Ireland with S. Lamont, Paterson and Walker. Then they play against Italy with R. Lamont, Evans and Danielli. Then they take out Walker and send the rest off to New Zealand. My question for […]
RWC Announcement
So the Scotland team are off Down Under and will be 11 hours ahead. You won’t be able to get your Twitter fix from the players and there won’t be press reports every second day. Don’t worry! We have a way you can keep up with the Scotland squad and have your player fix… We are pleased […]