I hate you, Butler

A couple of related things following the sudden death of rugby pundit and journalist (and former Wales rugby captain) Eddie Butler. Firstly that while I do retain some vague memory of seeing the Grand Slam game in 1978 and probably a handful of other less individually memorable games from the same era my formative rugby-watching years were in the early 1980s when pickings were a good deal slimmer in terms of Welsh wins, let alone titles and trophies. The statistics are stark: 1969-1979 brought eight championships (two shared), three Grand Slams and six Triple Crowns, while the period from 1980-2004 brought two championships (one shared), no Grand Slams and one Triple Crown (in 1988). Obviously I've chosen the dates carefully there for maximum impact, and things have picked up quite a bit since 2005, but it's quite a contrast. Butler came into the team and served a stint as captain during the early part of that era (his debut was in 1980).

I recall that during Butler's time in the Welsh team and particularly on his being named as captain in 1983 there was a bit of suspicion of him in some quarters owing to his public school and Cambridge University background (and not, presumably, something more appropriate like coal-mining). Similarly during his career as writer and broadcaster his penchant for slightly flowery poetic flights of fancy was a bit Marmite-y, and occasionally prompted the thought that he was enjoying the sound of his own voice more than the audience was. But his occasional commentary sparring with Brian Moore was always entertaining and clearly derived from mutual affection, like for instance this entertaining exchange about Gavin Henson's leg-shaving habits before he kicked the monster penalty that defeated England and started Wales' 2005 Grand Slam campaign.

He also did some interesting stuff outside of the narrow subject of rugby union, including this half-hour documentary about his birthplace and my place of residence, the city of Newport. Among the many interesting historical snippets included are a bit about the city's key role in the Chartist movement, the Newport Rising in particular, and the role of John Frost in all of it. Frost managed to avoid being massacred and lived to the ripe old age of 93, long enough to be pardoned for his role in the uprising, but not long enough to see various Newport landmarks being named in his honour including John Frost Square in the city centre and John Frost School.

We'll come back to the square in a minute, but the school illustrates the city's rather incoherent approach to commemorating its Chartist history: it was renamed (it was formerly plain old Duffryn High School) in 2015, but only two years earlier the city had approved the demolishing of the Chartist mosaic/mural in the city centre, albeit in a rather unprepossessing location on an underpass wall. 

Anyway, back to John Frost Square, in a roundabout sort of way (that's a hilarious pun, for reasons that you'll see in a minute) - I was delivering Nia to her best friend's house at the weekend for a sleepover and pointed out the big clock sitting on top of a pair of steel columns that occupies the roundabout at the entrance to the new(ish) Glan Llyn estate, which in turn occupies part of the western end of the vast Llanwern steelworks site. Anyway, I told Nia that I was vaguely aware that the clock used to be in the city centre somewhere and moreover had some sort of mechanism that opened up the top and did something dramatic on the hour.

Further investigation reveals that it is a mechanical sculpture designed by a guy called Andy Plant , was formerly situated in John Frost Square (between about 1994 and 2008, as far as I can gather - there is some info on that Wikipedia page) and did some fairly bonkers stuff as part of its on-the-hour routine. It does seem a pity that the mechanism isn't operational any more - I've no idea whether it's still in there but needs a squirt of WD-40 or if it's been removed, but if it's the former (as seems more likely, on balance) it seems a shame not to spend a bit of money repairing it. That said, it doing its thing in the middle of a roundabout might be deemed a bit of a distraction hazard for motorists and there might not be the appetite for another relocation (nor indeed anywhere for it to go).

Just to clear up another couple of Newport claims-to-fame in the Butler documentary: it is certainly true that Joe Strummer lived in Newport in the 1970s (when he went by the name Woody Mellor), but it seems to have only been for about a year between 1973 and 1974, so any formative influence on his later work with the Clash seems a bit dubious. Even more dubious is the claim that Newport was the place where the mole grip was invented, as there seems to be a general consensus that it was invented (admittedly under a different name) in Nebraska in the 1920s. Newport was certainly the centre for UK manufacture from the 1950s onwards, but anyone claiming that means they were invented here needs to, so to speak, get a grip. 

phil yer boots

I note that after the sad death of Welsh rugby legend Phil Bennett last week his legendary try against Scotland at Murrayfield in the last game of the 1977 Five Nations Championship has, as the kids say, "gone viral". So I thought a bit of wholly unnecessary micro-analysis might be in order.

Edwards Schmedwards, this was seven-year-old me's absolute rugby hero https://t.co/0Dr2ghReLs

— Dave Thomas (@electrichalibut) June 12, 2022

Firstly, yes, yes, all right, the pass from Bennett to Burcher about halfway through the move was probably forward, albeit marginally (and Bill McLaren does say as much during the replay on the BBC coverage).

Secondly, for all the excitement of the build-up - Fenwick's starting the move off after getting the ball from JPR Williams, Gerald Davies' side-steps and hand-off, Bennett's intervention, Burcher's improvised quarterback-style overhead pass - the real magic happens within the space of about a second just after all this. Firstly Steve Fenwick has to wait for Burcher's floaty pass to arrive and then ship it straight on pronto before being ploughed into the turf by a Scotsman:

And then, just after this, it's easy to miss just how much work Bennett still has to do to get past the last two Scottish defenders:

Lastly, even as Bennett touches down and the crowd, and Bill McLaren, go wild, note how David Burcher keeps it real by deeming the try worthy of a prolonged celebration amounting to a single clap before pulling himself together after such an unseemly emotional outburst and trotting back to the halfway line for the conversion. Different times.

Wales won the game 18-9, by the way, giving them the second of four consecutive Triple Crowns, two of which were upgraded to Grand Slams, including Bennett's last Wales game against France the following year in which he scored two tries. 

vloody near volodymyr

Never let it be said that Electric Halibut doesn't surf the bleeding edge of the Zeitgeist; as if to prove that point today's post is so topical it hurts, and it makes the following highly relevant geopolitical slash sporting point: former actor - whose previous roles included the voice of Paddington Bear and, erm, the President of Ukraine - and current President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy looks a bit like England scrum-half and (as of last weekend) caps record-holder Ben Youngs.

we blog again

It's been a scarcely-believable fourteen years since this post about odd sporting clichés, so it's probably about time we set our stall out early doors, gave it 110% and left everything out on the pitch to try and come away with a result at the end of the day by doing another one.

In fact you might say: we go again. Right? I mean, you might say that, if it were not an extremely weird way of saying anything. But nonetheless this is the current phrase of choice in the sporting world, on Twitter in particular. The usual usage is in the wake of a sporting setback, to denote perseverance, undauntedness and a determination to redouble efforts, learn from adversity, come back stronger, once more unto the breach, this is SPARTA, all that sort of horseshit. Here's England prop Ellis Genge in the wake of their Calcutta Cup defeat last weekend:

Thanks for all the travelling support today, not easy in the current climate - literaly. Not to be today but we learn and we go again.

— Gengey (@EllisGenge) February 5, 2022

Note that Genge cashes in "not to be" as well, another standard lament in the event of getting your arse handed to you in a sporting context. Here's Liverpool and England footballer Jordan Henderson in similar defiant post-ignominious-defeat mood:

Disappointing result but we go again Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/xCRcR7ELcV

— Jordan Henderson (@JHenderson) December 27, 2020

In fact the phrase seems to be deeply embedded in the culture at Liverpool FC as they make liberal use of it at all levels of the club. It's not just Liverpool, to be fair, and it's not just football either - here are some from rugby, cricket and motor racing.

𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀 😬

We go again next week 👊#StrongerTogether ⚫️🔴 pic.twitter.com/MYhiyBt65q

— Saracens Rugby Club (@Saracens) December 11, 2021

The interesting question here is: when did this start happening? My impression is that it's relatively recently, but it's hard to tell by just Googling stuff, not least because you have to sift out all the stuff that features the string "here we go again", which is also very common and conveys a completely different meaning. 

trying times

I'm not sure how I ended up watching this hour-long compilation of Welsh tries - possibly residual enthusiasm after our glorious completion of the 2019 Grand Slam a few weeks ago, possibly just some lazy clicking on stuff in the YouTube sidebar, or just letting the auto-play sequencer have its way.

Anyway, it's a compilation presented (with, frankly, far too much inconsequential chit-chat for my liking) by a pair of wily little Welsh scrum-halves of differing vintage, Clive Rowlands and Robert Jones (also, as it happens, father-in-law and son-in-law). Rowlands is more famous as a coach and manager of Wales and the British Lions, but as a player captained Wales to a share of the Five Nations Championship in 1964 and an outright championship win and a Triple Crown in 1965. His most famous feat as a player may well have been in 1963, though, in this game against Scotland at Murrayfield. The general tone of the newsreel voice-over is all Topping Rugger Well Done Everyone Jolly Bad Luck Scotland which conceals the interesting tactical choices made by Rowlands, principally involving hoofing the ball into touch whenever he got his hands on it. There were apparently 111 lineouts (yes, yes, all right, lines-out, if you prefer) in the match, a figure you can instantly compare with, say, the recent Wales-Ireland match in Cardiff and discover that there were 29, and with Wales' previous match in Cardiff, against England, which featured only 17. Legend has it that this was one of the catalysts for the eventual worldwide adoption of the "Australian dispensation" which outlawed direct kicking to touch outside of your own 22. 

Jones was more my era, and a fine player too, though in a different mould from the rugged Welsh scrum-halves of my formative years like Gareth Edwards and Terry Holmes. Probably much to his chagrin Jones may end up being best remembered for his terrier-like scrapping with Nick Farr-Jones on the Lions' victorious tour to Australia in 1989. 

Anyway, the video is divided up, in a slightly contrived manner, into categories starting with tries by position: wingers, centres, half-backs (Gareth Edwards gets a whole section to himself here), forwards, and then there are sections on crucial match-winning tries, spectacular long-distance ones, and then at the end a top ten run-down featuring most of the usual suspects, and no surprises with the top two: Gareth Edwards against Scotland in 1972 and Phil Bennett, also against Scotland in 1977. "That try" by Edwards for the Barbarians against the All Blacks in 1973 was presumably ruled out of the running for not being scored in a Welsh jersey.

Anyway, the thing that caught my eye among the "match-winning" section was this try by Mike Hall against England in 1989, which turned a 9-6 deficit into a 12-9 lead which Wales retained until the final whistle to record the last of their 13 successive wins in Cardiff. It's the first time I've seen it since watching the match (as reminisced about here) live in a hall of residence TV room at Bristol University, and no amount of Google or YouTube searching will return the clip; you have to stumble across it as I did.

I'd forgotten some of the details beyond the basics of the hack-ahead and diving touchdown; one delicious detail that I had forgotten was that the two England players who principally conspired to let Wales in for the try were Rory Underwood and Jonathan Webb, the very same two players who were culpable for Ieuan Evans' try in Wales 10-9 victory at the same venue in 1993. 

As I mentioned and this article says, there has always been some doubt about the legitimacy of the grounding of the ball for Hall's try. The low quality of the video footage and the fact the the posts obscure some of the action make it difficult to reach a firm conclusion 30 years later, but to be honest it doesn't look as dicey as I remember it. It's interesting to reflect, though, on how one might retrospectively disallow some of the legendary tries of rugby history given the high-definition super-slo-mo multi-angle replays we've got access to these days. In addition to Hall's try there are probably a whole host of kick-and-chase touchdowns where the grounding might look a bit dubious on close scrutiny. A couple of obvious other examples: both the Barbarians try (Quinnell to Edwards right at the end of the move) and the 1977 Bennett try (Bennett to Burcher somewhere in the middle) feature passes which harsh critics might rule out for being forward. Elsewhere there are probably lots of undetected knock-ons, obstructions, feet in touch and clatterings into the corner flag to mar your retrospective enjoyment of great moments in rugby history.

pulled off at half-time

A bit of unfortunate slapdash photo-captioning in this match summary of France's slightly unexpected 10-9 win over Ireland in the first Six Nations match on Saturday. I didn't see any of it as I was slogging up a mountain in the snow at the time (more on this later) but it sounds like it was a pretty desperate and attritional affair, only livened up - or so I gather from the photo caption below, anyway - by the spectacle of Irish outside-half Jonathan Sexton being furiously "milked" by a bald-headed member of the backroom staff. It's all part of the coaching and motivational routine, and presumably serves to settle the nerves before key place kicks.

Just in case you can't read the caption there, it reads as follows:

Johnny Sexton was frustrated to have to come just before France's match-winning try

In reality I assume there's a missing "off" before the word "just" there, but like I say I didn't see the game so I couldn't say for sure.

don't you need some doggy to love

Couple of further follow-up observations on old blog posts - firstly, continuing the 2016 theme of celebrity deaths I note the demise of Paul Kantner, songwriter, singer and guitarist with Jefferson Airplane, and, subsequently, Jefferson Starship. It should be noted that he'd quit the band before they mutated, unforgivably, into Starship. Kantner seems, endearingly, to have remained committed to his early counter-culture ideals and sticking it to The Man in general into his 70s. Here's the Airplane rattling through Volunteers at Woodstock in 1969.

Secondly, what is it with Australian rugby league stars and inappropriate sex acts with dogs? You'll recall the strange case of Joel Monaghan and his ill-advised dalliance with a golden labrador in 2010 - well the latest drink-fuelled atrocity is Mitchell Pearce's equally ill-advised drunken dry-humping of a small poodle-like creature at an Australia Day party, captured by an unnamed third party on video and now, inevitably, all over the internet. As boneheaded as this is I'm not sure it compares with Monaghan's exploits, since as far as I can see at no point does Pearce's penis directly contact, still less enter, any part of the dog. If I were him I'd be more embarrassed, in hindsight, at my blatant lack of shame or concern about what appears to be a large piss-stain on the front of my shorts. It is alleged he'd pissed on the sofa as well.

Interestingly, Mitchell Pearce was also involved in one of the most legendary of all pissed-up Aussie rugby league rampages, Craig Gower's terrorising of a golf resort in 2005 - it was he, aged about 16, who was chased "in a threatening manner" by Gower and subsequently vomited on. Maybe that incident made more of an impression than he realised at the time.

incidental music spot of the day

Led Zeppelin's Achilles' Last Stand over a montage of first-half highlights from the crucial England v Australia game in Pool A. Presumably chosen because its massive juddering riff and vaguely heroic subject matter symbolise the physical conflict of a top-level rugby game in some way, or maybe someone just thought it was a cool tune, which of course it is. Here's a live version from Knebworth in 1979 featuring Jimmy Page at the height of his cadaverous junkie zombie period.

men with funny-shaped balls

Great excitement at Halibut Towers last weekend as Wales managed to hold off Ireland to win a thrilling encounter 23-16 and keep alive their slim hopes of winning the Six Nations Championship going into the last round of matches this weekend. Basically it boils down to either having to rely on a couple of unlikely results in the other two matches (specifically, France beating England and Scotland beating Ireland) or, more likely, having to beat Italy by a hatful of points (probably 40 or so) and then hoping Ireland and England win by relatively narrow margins.

Much hoopla in the aftermath of a heroic defensive effort from Wales, and rightly so, in particular much bandying around of the stat regarding their tackle count, which was quoted as being 289 after the game (37 of them by lanky long-necked lock Luke Charteris), but now seems to have been downgraded to 250 (31 of them by Charteris). Both of those are still apparently records (the previous team record being 208 by Italy against Ireland last year), but it set me wondering: who decides this stuff? Presumably there's someone who sits around watching the game and, in real time, or very nearly, logging when each tackle is made and by whom. Not only that, someone (presumably not the same person) is meticulously calculating how much distance each player has travelled with the ball, and there's also some more general logging of possession and territory stats. We have to also conclude that there's some scope for these things being revised after the game, presumably as a result of a post-match review deciding that some things that were logged as tackles weren't really tackles, and so on.

Anyway, as memorable a game as that was it perhaps doesn't qualify for the list I've just thought of, entitled something like: top ten Five/Six Nations matches I specifically remember watching at a specific venue, usually (but not always) somewhere other than my house.

Wales v France 1978

As I've said elsewhere, this was the first rugby game I can specifically remember watching, though it's almost certain that I'd watched several others before. We would almost certainly have watched it in our house in Three Acre Road, Newbury, here. It was evident even at the time (well, perhaps not to me, as I was only eight) that this was the end of an era for the golden Welsh generation of the 1970s: the last Five Nations match for Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett, and what would have been the last one for Gerald Davies as well had he not been ruled out at the last minute by injury. Quite how much of an end wasn't immediately apparent as Wales won another Triple Crown (their fourth in succession) in 1979, and only missed out on a Grand Slam as the result of a one-point loss to France in Paris. Thereafter they won one further Triple Crown (in 1988) in the next 26 years until the Grand Slam year of 2005 (more on that later). A couple of other statistical nuggets: firstly this match was 37 years ago TODAY, and secondly, and perhaps surprisingly, it was the first occasion where two teams both with three wins out of three played each other in the final round of matches with the Grand Slam at stake. This situation was repeated in 1984, 1990, 1991 and 1995 in the old Five Nations and in 2003 after it expanded to the Six Nations.

Wales v England 1989

This was about the single high point of Five Nations watching during my university days, since the three seasons between 1989 and 1991 saw Wales lose ten games, draw one and win one (this one). This game (it finished 12-9 to Wales) was the last in a glorious sequence where Wales hadn't lost to England in Cardiff since 1963, a sequence that was firmly ended in 1991 when England won 25-6 thanks largely to Simon Hodgkinson's boot. I watched this on the frankly inadequate television in the TV room at Badock Hall, and my recollection is that Mike Hall's match-winning try was a bit of a chip and chase job with a somewhat dubious slap of the ball into the turf at the end which would probably have been disallowed in the modern era of TV replays.

Wales v England 1993

Another Wales-England match in Cardiff, another against-the-odds win for Wales, another chip-and-chase try, this time featuring Ieuan Evans outsprinting a snoozing Rory Underwood. 10-9 to Wales at half-time, and my main recollection of the second half is England camped in Wales' 22 trying to batter a way through and being repeatedly repulsed, the match eventually finishing 10-9 with no scoring at all in the second half. It does seem inconceivable in hindsight that all the pressure couldn't at least have manufactured a chance for Rob Andrew to have a pop at a drop-goal - maybe it did and he kept missing. Anyway, I watched it at my then-girlfriend Posy's flat in Shrewsbury (somewhere near here) - apparently she was rather concerned that I was having either some sort of seizure or a heart attack after the final whistle went. Actually it turns out that YouTube have the whole thing, so you can check my memory for yourself.

Wales v England 1999

Another Wales-England match, but despite being nominally a "home" game for Wales it was actually played at their temporary home of Wembley while the Millennium Stadium was being built (it opened later the same year). Glorious sunny day at Wembley, Wales hanging on by the skin of their teeth thanks to Neil Jenkins' boot, and then the glorious climax of Scott Gibbs thundering through for the decisive try, at which point the small Wales contingent among the horde of baying English supporters in O'Neill's Irish bar in Bath (it's called Molloy's now) erupted in jubilation. All except me, as I was unwilling to assume the conversion was a formality, even though it was Jenkins taking it. Fortunately it went over, and I was free to go a big rubbery one for a couple of minutes. Strangely, once I'd composed myself a bit the white-shirted brigade had drifted away rather than stick around and witness my protracted glee; can't say I blame them. The icing on the cake was that this marked the first of three successive occasions where the Celtic nations took turns to deny England a Grand Slam in the final game - Scotland did it in 2000 and Ireland in 2001.

Wales v England 2005

Well, you see the theme developing by now re. the usual opposition: no great expectations coming into this match after a championship whitewash in 2003 and two wins in 2004, but Wales dominated for long stretches and should have been well ahead. However, Charlie Hodgson's penalty in the 75th minute put England 9-8 up and it looked like another defeat was on the cards. But we'd reckoned without Gavin Henson and his golden thighs silver boots. I watched this in the Old Fish Market in Bristol with Robin and John and Hayley and various others, to whom I retrospectively apologise for shouting so much.

Wales v Ireland 2005

Last game of the tournament and one where I really should have been getting drunk in a pub somewhere. However a terrible failure of planning meant that I was running in the Bath half-marathon on the following day, and, not trusting myself to stay off the sauce if I'd been to the pub, I instead barricaded myself in my Bristol flat with some orange squash and an inflatable daffodil. The match was only intermittently tense as Wales were at one point 29-6 up, but frankly for a first Grand Slam in 27 years I was prepared to forgo a bit of nail-biting.

Wales v England 2008

We'd moved to Newport in January 2008, and we thought we'd celebrate by going to a pub to see the first game of the Six Nations. Not really knowing the area we ended up in the quaint and pokey surroundings of Langton's cafe/bar in the centre of town, watching a game where Wales got taken to the cleaners in the first half, and were at one point 19-6 down before two late tries gave them a cheeky 26-19 win, one that set them on the way to another Grand Slam. Judging by Google Street Maps' time-travel facility Langton's stopped being Langton's not long after we were there and turned into Johnnie Rocco's American Diner, and appears now to have been empty for a couple of years.

Wales v England 2012

Another pub, this time the Hanbury Arms in Caerleon, another desperately tense encounter with the deadlock finally broken with 5 minutes left when Scott Williams dispossessed Courtney Lawes on halfway and gathered his own kick to score. Extra spice was provided by the group I was with mainly comprising English supporters, and Hazel being no more than three or four weeks short of her due date with Nia. We had to promise the landlord that we wouldn't get too excited and induce any childbirth shenanigans - well, we failed on the first count but as it happened Nia stayed put for another six weeks or so, so that was OK.

Wales v England 2013

Another slight failure of planning, combined with the constraints of Ray's availability with his van, meant that we had to set aside the day of the game to build a garden fence, in what ended up being torrential rain. Having received occasional shouted score updates from indoors, when we eventually finished the job and came in it was still 12-3 to Wales with about 25 minutes to go. However pretty much as soon as we'd popped a tinnie and sat down the floodgates opened, Alex Cuthbert ran in two tries and wild celebrations ensued.

Honourable mention, though they're ineligible under my own self-imposed rules, should go to the first and second Lions tests in South Africa in 1997, both of which I watched in the Byron (also not there any more) on the Triangle in the centre of Bristol, where (for the first one anyway) I just wandered in after seeing the rugby on the TV through the window and realising it'd just kicked off. As with the 1995 Ryder Cup, part of the pleasure is the unplanned nature of the whole thing.

celebrity lookeylikey of the day

Miranda's resident comedy love interest and eye candy for the ladies Tom Ellis, and French loose cannon and one-man rugby calamity factory Frédéric Michalak.

they mervynned me

Two further quickies: firstly let's give a posthumous Welshman of the Day award to Mervyn Davies, the former Wales and British Lions number 8 and Grand Slam-winning captain in 1976, who has died aged 65. I don't think I ever saw him play "live", as my earliest rugby-watching recollections that I can attach a specific date to are from Wales' next (and last until 2005) Grand Slam year, 1978, by which time Davies had been forced into early retirement by a brain haemorrhage.

Secondly, I caught most of Frost On Interviews on BBC4 the other day, and I was struck firstly by how interesting it all was, despite being at times a bit of a mutually congratulatory circle jerk between Frosty, Parky, the Melvster and others, but secondly by how odd it was to hear Sir David Frost refer to Anthony Eden by pronouncing the "th" in "Anthony" as a "th" and not as a "t", i.e. as in "anthology" rather than "antidote". This sounds odd when someone with a still nominally English accent (though Frost's tortured vowelisations are pretty uncategorisable these days) does it, as it's a specifically American thing. I have no idea why this pronunciation became the standard one in the US while the "t" one is the standard one in the UK. I suppose the many decades Frost has spent in the USA have had an influence (on him, that is, rather than pronunciation habits in general). The Americans still drop the "h" when abbreviating the name, though: the only person Wikipedia has a page for who goes by the first name "Thony" is this obscure French footballer.

celebrity lookeylikey of the day

As with the Michael Gove one I'll offer you two today and you can take your pick: who does gargantuan Welsh centre (and try-scorer against Italy today) Jamie Roberts most resemble?

Is it actor, ex-fiancé of Julia Roberts and schoolboy shower-based bumrape enthusiast Jason Patric?


Or is it venerable Dandy strongman and cow-pie enthusiast Desperate Dan?


You decide.

in which I am filled with a mixture of excital and disappointal

Let's start with a headline of the day, before we move on to other more lofty matters. This is how the BBC introduced a story about the fall-out from Scottish outside-half Dan Parks' decision to hang up his international boots in the wake of Scotland's butchering of what should have been a winning position in a knuckle-chewingly awful game against England last weekend, and his own culpability in having his kick charged down by Charlie Hodgson early in the second half to gift England the only try of the game.

I'm actually inclined to agree with Jim Telfer that Parks was probably a bit hard done by, as he had been for much of his career. Yes, he was a pretty limited attacking outside-half, but so was Jonny Wilkinson and it never did him much harm. Robinson's positive eagerness to let him fall on his sword over last week's defeat (for which he was by no means solely to blame) seems a bit churlish.

Anyway, the headline reads a bit oddly, don't you think? Here's the sub-headline, which also reads a bit oddly, for the same reason.

"Retiral"? Is that a word? "Retrial", which uses the same letters, certainly is (same goes for "trailer", come to think of it), but surely the word the headline-writers were having a bit of a mental block over here was "retirement"? There's a single citation here (which, to be fair, has it as a Scottish usage), but it's hardly a ringing endorsement.

No matter. The other reason the Parks story stuck in my head was that Wales are playing Scotland in Cardiff this weekend, and the last time that happened not only was Dan Parks the Man of the Match, but the game ended with one of the most insanely exciting last five minutes of any game I've ever seen, Wales scoring 17 points without reply to win 31-24. My poor old nerves could do with a more sedate cruise to victory this time, though, particularly after the last-minute nature of our win over Ireland last Sunday.

Back to rugby-related words, and continuing the Dan Parks links: it is odd how the number 10 position in rugby union has such a wide variety of names, usage of which splits broadly across national boundaries (I'm thinking solely of English-speaking nations here: I mean, obviously the French have a different word for it). I think the usage breaks down like this:

England: fly-half
Wales: outside-half
Scotland: stand-off
New Zealand: first five-eighth

I can't think of another position that has so many alternative names - the New Zealanders call what everyone else calls an inside centre a second five-eighth, and people used to call flankers wing-forwards (though that usage is largely obsolete now), but that's about it. I suppose it just reflects the pivotal play-making nature of the number 10 position - a bit like the quarterback in American football, but without the helmet, body armour and terrifying religiosity.

mmmmm......fattening

We went to the Cowbridge Food Festival today, always a reliable source of tempting yet expensive gourmet items. Today's haul (pictured below) included:

• Some cheddar from the Blaenafon Cheddar Company - this particular one has Brains SA and chillies in it
• Some more cheddar from the Snowdonia Cheese Company - one garlic and herb one and a cranberry one
• Some elephant garlic from the Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight
• A beef and stilton pie from the Wessex Pantry
• Some venison haunch steaks from Venison in the Vale
• Some assorted chocolate brownies from the Chocolate Brownie Company
• Some Calabrian sausages from Gorno's

We also popped into the Vale Of Glamorgan Inn as they were running a real ale festival. I had a couple of quite decent pints, which is always nice at a real ale festival where you're generally required to choose from a list of a dozen or so you've never heard of, but more importantly in order to get to the bar for the second of them I had to step around none other than legendary Wales and British Lions full-back JPR Williams. Given that the 17-month driving ban he picked up for a drink-driving incident in March 2010 will have expired only a couple of months ago I trust he had made alternative arrangements for getting home, seeing as how he was tucking into a pint with some gusto.

celebrity lookeylikey of the day

Here's a couple selected from the team I confidently expect, after today's awesome performance against Australia in the semi-final, to be lifting the World Cup next weekend. France may have something to say about that, but they'll have to improve by several hundred percent on anything we've seen so far. Anyway, here's splendidly-named All Black full-back Israel Dagg and American actor (and ex-husband of Greta Scacchi, the jammy git) Vincent D'Onofrio, pictured here in Full Metal Jacket. Thanks to Dagg's efforts it was the Australians who were in a world of shit, however.


Next, and I'm aware that I'm not the first to notice this, here's All Black centre (and sole try-scorer today) Ma'a Nonu, and the Predator, Arnie's main antagonist in the 1987 film, erm, Predator.

saturday, 6am and I've got a semi

I reckon this has been one of the more interesting Rugby World Cups, and of course it's not over yet. My overall opinion may yet be coloured by what happens on Saturday morning, but for the moment it's all very exciting. As always Welsh expectation has gone through the roof, largely off the back of one very impressive performance against an Irish team who probably started the game as marginal favourites.

We were a bit up and down during the group stages, starting with a narrow loss to South Africa that really should have been a win, following up with a nervous win over our old nemeses Samoa, and then two easy wins over Namibia and Fiji that included lots of confidence-building tries but didn't really tell anyone anything useful. So we'll see. My only worry is that we may just go into the semi-final as slight favourites, which is an unaccustomed position for us, but if we play like we did against Ireland there's absolutely no reason why we can't win.

Inevitably there's been lots of harking back to the inaugural World Cup in 1987, which was the only previous occasion Wales got to this stage of the tournament, eventually finishing third after a last-gasp 22-21 win over Australia in the play-off match, thanks to this Adrian Hadley try and Paul Thorburn's touchline conversion. It's also been noted that the four semi-finalists here (Wales, France, New Zealand and Australia) are the same as at the 1987 tournament.

Here's another little statistical oddity that makes this current World Cup unique, though: three of the four semi-finalists have lost at least one pool match on the way.

• Wales lost 17-16 to South Africa
• Australia lost 15-6 to Ireland
• France lost 37-17 to New Zealand
• France lost 19-14 to Tonga

France's qualification for the semi-final stage after losing two pool matches is unique in World Cup history. The only previous World Cup semi-finalists to arrive at that stage without a 100% record in the pool matches were:

• France in 1987 who drew 20-20 with Scotland in the pool stages
• England in 1991 who lost 18-12 to New Zealand in the pool stages
• England in 2007 who lost 36-0 to South Africa in the pool stages
• France in 2007 who lost 17-12 to Argentina in the pool stages

The first three of those went on to reach the final, but all lost. Unless the All Blacks win the tournament as expected (and given their history, plus a couple of key injuries, most notably to Dan Carter, you never know) then this will be the first World Cup won by a team who lost a match on the way. Exciting times.

massive UTAC

When I saw Chris Ashton score his third try against Italy during the last round of Six Nations matches a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself: that would be a good one for Viz's Up The Arse Corner. This was the short-range try, strangely missing from this compilation, where Ashton grabbed the ball from a ruck under the Italian posts and was bundled over by Nick Easter, who ended up landing on top of him. I've no doubt missed the boat on submitting it (or at least on being the first to do so) but here it is anyway:


For anyone not familiar with Up The Arse Corner it's really pretty self-explanatory: try here, or either of these two Facebook groups.

change down aguirre, man

After the disappointment of seeing Wales fail to batter their way over the line for a match-winning injury-time try against South Africa yesterday, I kicked back for the less stressful task of watching Scotland against New Zealand. I was intrigued as to the story behind the name of All Black wing José Aguirre, though - the sort of Spanish/French combo not really being an obvious name for someone of Maori origin. Perhaps his parents were fans of the great 1970s French full-back Jean-Michel Aguirre? Or maybe they were film buffs and big Werner Herzog fans? Or Spanish Civil War enthusiasts?

Needless to say the actual explanation turns out to more mundane - his name is actually Hosea Gear, younger brother of Rico Gear. How disappointing.

doggy style

You'll recall I predicted that there was still some scope for improvement in the various drunken antics engaged in by rugby stars (of either code). Well, while it could be argued that Australian rugby league star Joel Monaghan's misdemeanours didn't quite have the epic range and variety of Craig Gower's extravaganza of obnoxious threatening shitfacedness, being photographed engaging in a sex act with a golden labrador takes some beating. This link is SFW, this one (which contains the original photo) probably isn't.

disorientated and naked - we've all been there

After the flurry of sordid sexual revelations about senior England footballers in recent weeks, it's good to be able to report that rugby is keeping its end up, as it were, as well. It's interesting to reflect how the nature of the offences committed mirrors the intrinsic character of each sport: the footballing misdemeanours tend to be ill-advised encounters with glamour models in swanky London hotels, speeding in and/or crashing expensive cars, that sort of thing, whereas the rugby ones tend to be largely tales of drink-related carnage, public nudity and lavatorial antics. A couple of absolutely prime examples just in the last fortnight or so:

Andy Powell's golf-buggy drink-driving exploits are pretty amusing, though not so much for the player himself now he's been dropped from the Wales squad by Warren Gatland and banned from driving for 15 months.

Even better is the story of Sydney Roosters rugby league player Nate Myles, who was heavily fined after an incident which has apparently became known as Dumpgate. The official NRL statement summarises far more succinctly and amusingly than I ever could:

Shortly after 8am on Sunday morning Myles was apparently disorientated and naked in a hotel corridor and attempted to gain entry into the room of a family who was leaving their accommodation. A short time after his entry was refused and the family had left he was found to have defecated elsewhere in the hotel corridor and was later discovered in a fire escape.

Both of these indiscretions pale into insignificance in comparison with the alcohol-fuelled form-sheet of former Australian rugby league player and current Italian rugby union outside-half Craig Gower, though. Between exposing himself to an Irish backpacker in a bar in Sydney in 1999 and starting a brawl in a nightclub in the same city in 2007, he produced a possibly unsurpassable display of depraved drunken misbehaviour at a charity golf event in 2005, the edited highlights of which include:

• groping the daughter of former rugby league star Wayne Pearce
• threatening and chasing Pearce's son Mitchell
• subsequently vomiting over him
• streaking around the resort
• driving a golf buggy across the greens (possibly while still naked, I'm not sure)
• subsequently crashing and wrecking the buggy
• holding a butter knife to the throat of a local radio personality
• eventually being thrown out of the resort by security

Textbook stuff; it's possibly only spoiled by his not having had a big steaming shit on the carpet, or the 18th green, or the bonnet of someone's car, or something like that. I suppose at least that leaves some scope for improvement when the next generation of drunken meatheads comes along to pick up the baton. Records are made to be broken, after all.