Rugger it!

Right then, let’s get the hard bit out of the way before it does any lasting damage to my craw. England were fully deserving winners of the fifth William Webb Ellis trophy, if for no other reasons than their undeniably impressive resolve and strength, and the remorseless efficacy of Jonny Wilkinson’s left boot. And it was enjoyable, too, to see Australia’s hate-mongering, prejudice-pandering prime minister “Honest John” Howard presenting the England players with their medals so cheerlessly and resentfully that he looked like Basil Fawlty handing out the room keys.

But if you aren’t English, or a connoisseur of long-range goal-kicking, be honest — the 2003 rugby World Cup was something of a dud, wasn’t it?
Weeks and weeks of deeply tedious mis-matches and turkey-shoots; nothing resembling a surprise result with one possible exception (see below); the two most gifted teams being found out when the pressure was really on; a final pairing that nobody outside the two participating countries wanted; and tournament champions who were grotesquely over-reliant on one player to a degree not witnessed in any of the other four tournaments, and who could hardly score a try to save their lives.
If this was a wonderful World Cup, as many English hacks argued in the aftermath of the final, the mind positively reels at what a bad one would look like. Littered with 0-0 draws, perhaps?
Every result went according to the pre-ordained analysis, with one exception – the Wallabies v All Blacks semi-final, which was played in Australia, and ended in a victory for the then reigning world champions. As shocks go, that one’s right up there with, say, Ajax turning over Bayern Munich.
It was a tournament where Ireland found their level early on, and stayed there. The failure, as expected, to beat the muscular but unimaginative Australians pitched them into the stronger half of the draw, where they were never likely to last candlelight. (Might have been no bad thing, actually: a quarter-final trouncing of the weak Scots and a place in the last four would have only served to fool us about Ireland’s true place in the rugby firmament, which is somewhere between fifth and seventh.)
And, watching Hooky and Popey and McGurky blathering on about the spirit and defiance our boys supposedly showed in the 2nd half against France, Foul Play couldn’t help feeling there was a sad air of denial about it all.
Is it much of a feat to grab a couple of tries at a time when most of your opponents‚ minds are already back at the team hotel studying videos of England? Ireland were 37-0 down after 50 minutes, for fuck’s sake. Watching them contrive a couple of tries near the end to take the bare look off the scoreline reminded me of that FA Cup tie years ago at Stamford Bridge, where Manchester United went 5-0 up on Chelsea before letting their humiliated hosts grab three goals in the dying minutes.
Ultimately, just what do you do with a sport where the new world champions saw off all comers by scoring just two tries in their final three-and-a-bit games? It seems clear that some rule changes would help, specifically one reducing the significance and weight of the penalty kick. In a game like rugby, where the tiniest infringement in a chaotic situation is punished, three points is too much of a forfeit. Make it two points instead, and bump a try up to six points while you’re at it.
Let’s be clear: this is not a “stop England”, or more specifically, “stop Jonny”, initiative (though that would be a nice little bonus). Ideally, it would result in more genuine contests, closer scorelines, and attacking outlooks being adopted by the best teams (i.e. England), with the emphasis on crossing the opposition line rather than bashing the ball up the middle.
If England win the next World Cup with genuine panache, then good luck to them. But on this occasion, apart from a few brief flashes by Jason Robinson, they essentially triumphed playing ten-man rugby. And there can’t be too many non-Home Counties residents of the world who will ever willingly sit through a video of any of their games in this tournament again.
Still, they went out and won it, beating everything that was put in front of them, and for that alone, they deserve most of the praise they’re currently being showered with. That said, however, I can’t resist concluding with a quote from one of the best letters ever to appear in Viz:
“Congratulations to England for winning the Five Nations. However, the achievement would be far more impressive if rugby wasn’t a shit sport played by latent homosexuals.”