Rewarded

I was humbled to learn that I have been rewarded for writing a load of guff about rugby by the receipt of a Tripbase 2011 Blog Award.

Who or what Tripbase might be is anyone's guess, but I would nevertheless like to thank the Academy, my wonderful agent, my lovely wife, my adorable children, the Great Blogger in the Sky and anyone and everyone who knows me. Most of all I would like to thank you, my adoring public, without whom none of this would be possible.

The award comes with a cheque for £50,000.

I made that last bit up.

Total Flanker Awards 2010

Adverse weather conditions and an increasingly chaotic schedule mean that this year's Total Flanker Awards are taking place a little later, and in a slightly less organised fashion, than normal. Our usual sumptuous venue is unavailable owing to a double-booking, our guest speaker has disappeared on a skiing holiday and the caterers have run off with the deposit so it's down to the local pub where the carpet is almost red, the beer is half decent and the Pomagne is most definitely on ice as we say: "My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, it gives us great pleasure to welcome you all to the 4th Annual Total Flanker Awards ceremony."

Yes, it's time once again to pay homage to those who have contributed so much to our enjoyment of the game of rugby during the last 12 months.

Without further ado, our first award of 2010 is the Total Flanker Utter Muppet of the Year Award. Now, in most years there would only be one candidate for this honour as Saffa coach Peter de Villiers would usually have this one wrapped up and, to be fair to him, he did put up a decent show again this year, especially with his insinuations that the Tri Nations was fixed in favour of New Zealand. However even PdV must stand aside this year and doff his cap to the one and only Andy Powell, whose early morning jaunt down the M4 in a golf buggy in February not only secures this award but also assures him of legendary status.

Moving on, and now the much coveted Total Flanker You Don't Know What You're Doing Award. As England's Calcutta Cup match with Scotland at Murrayfield last March reached its conclusion there was a fair to middling chance that Martin Johnson would be putting his hand up for this one, but a subsequent significant improvement in England's prospects means that Johnson misses out. The aforementioned PdV might also have had a shot at this one but his team let him down badly with their powerful display at Twickenham in November. The winner, therefore, is none other than the IRB who, having somewhat astonishingly got something right with the new interpretations at the breakdown, have managed to secure the award with their instructions to referees to enforce the "Crouch, Touch, Pause, Pause, Put the kettle on, Have a cigarette, Pause and Collapse" edict at scrummage time.

Next up is the Total Flanker All Publicity is Good Publicity Award. Sad to say, but there are multitude of candidates for this one. Gareth "Have I mentioned that I'm Gay" Thomas has barely been out of the newspapers this year, while James "the Brand" Haskell continues to let his talking (as opposed to his rugby) do the, erm, talking. Danny Cipriani's on-off relationship with Kelly Brook continues to fill its fair share of column inches while his flirtations with various association football clubs has filled the rest, while Ben Foden has taken his first tentative steps into tabloid recognition (but only on a Saturday). However the king of the publicity hounds this year has to be the artist formerly known as Gavin Church. Celebrity relationship breakup, nude photo shoots, reality TV shows, ballroom dancing - you name it Gavin's been there, done it and bought the Tshirt and, furthermore, might just have talked himself into the Welsh squad on the basis of being able to walk on snow, cha cha cha and play less than 30 minutes of rugby. Well done, sir, the award is yours.

We're over half way through ladies and gentlemen and on the home straight. Time now for the Total Flanker Every Time I Speak I Get Into Trouble Award. Only one realistic candidate for this one - step forward Sarries coach Brendan Venter. Whether it was criticising referees, getting into scrapes with Leicester fans, upsetting RFU disciplinary panels by eating biscuits or providing Sky Sports with baffling comedy interviews, Venter spent most of 2010 pissing off those in authority and is truly deserving of this honour.

Our penultimate award tonight is the Total Flanker Lucky To Still Be In A Job Award. There are a number of candidates for this one. PdV is an obvious choice and many might argue that Australia's inability to find a scrummage once again this year puts Robbie Deans in the frame. In England you'd have to consider defence coach Mike Ford, while in France Marc Lièvremont's Grand Slam just about makes up for the rubbish his team have been serving up ever since. But, after careful consideration, the award must go across the Severn Bridge to Mr Warren Gatland. Another distinctly underwhelming 6 Nations from Wales was followed by a disastrous Autumn series - 4 wins in the last 16 matches speaks for itself - and it does look as if Gatland and his coaching team have run out of ideas (if the best they can come up with is the restoration of Britain's second worst ballroom dancer to the Welsh midfield).

And finally - and on a distinctly sentimental note - we reach the Total Flanker Farewell To A Legend Award. The word  "legend" is often bandied about but never was a man so deserving ... 24 caps for England between 1972 and 1976, British Lion in 1974, played first-class rugby until the age of 41, BBC Superstars champion, indoor rowing world record holder for his age group, competed for a place in the Cambridge Boat Race crew aged 50 and author of an award-winning book in which he chronicled his struggle with prostate cancer - Andrew George Ripley was a truly inspirational figure. In his own words: "Dare we hope? We dare. Can we hope? We can. Should we hope? We must. We must because to do otherwise is to waste the most precious of gifts, given freely by God to all of us. So, when we do die, it will be with hope and it will be easy and our hearts will not be broken . . ."

And so we reach the end of our annual ordeal and set out below, for the short of memory, a list of our Awards this evening:

Total Flanker Utter Muppet of the Year Award- Andy Powell
Total Flanker You Don't Know What You're Doing Award - the IRB
Total Flanker All Publicity is Good Publicity Award - Gavin Henson
Total Flanker Every Time I Speak I Get Into Trouble Award - Brendan Venter
Total Flanker Lucky To Still Be In A Job Award - Warren Gatland
Total Flanker Farewell to a Legend Award - Andy Ripley.

That's all folks. Happy New Year!!

Bloody marvellous!

I'm loving the fact that Big Bad Dean Richards has been short-listed for an ERC 15 coaching award to honour the top coaches in the competition since the Heineken Cup started in 1995.

Richards, currently serving a ludicrously long suspension for his role in the Bloodgate affair during Quins' Heineken Cup quarter-final match against Leinster a year ago, has quite rightly been recognised for his back-to-back titles with Leicester and his generally outstanding record in the competition.

Wouldn't it be rather amusing if he won?

Where do I vote?

Total Flanker Awards 2009

It's that time of year again, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, when we put on our glad rags, dust off our bling and crack open the Asti Spumante to honour and reward (well, sort of) those who have contributed to our enjoyment of the game in 2009.

Forget the farce that was BBC Sports Personality of the Year (Ryan Giggs? My arse!) and welcome instead to the 3rd annual Total Flanker Awards ceremony.

Yes, another year has passed since we handed out our last set of prestigious trinkets, a year in which has been very good for the likes of South Africa and Ireland but which has seen the game as a whole tainted by drugs scandals, fake blood, eye-gouging and an inordinate amount of aimless kicking.

First up in 2009 is the Total Flanker How Not to Run Your Sport Award. Only one candidate for this particular gong of course - yes, our perennial favourite the International Rugby Board. In the last 12 months the IRB has attempted and failed to railroad the world of rugby into accepting a new set of fiendish experimental laws which the majority obviously didn't want and, when faced with defeat, rather than withdraw gracefully chose to push through various of the so-called less controversial changes to create a compromised mish-mash and then compounded their incompetence by introducing a new interpretation at the breakdown (with no consultation that I am aware of) which massively favoured the defence and stifled attacking rugby. And don't get me started on the IRB's failure to tackle eye-gouging...

Moving swiftly along, it's time for the Total Flanker Tarnished Halo Award. This award is for the team or individual whose previously impeccable reputation has taken something of a kicking over the last 12 months. There are a few candidates - our favourite son of orange, Mr Gavin Church, for instance, has seen his star wane to the extent that it is now unclear whether he has a future in the game at all. And, despite a French renaissance of sorts, perhaps it is finally dawning on the world of rugby at large that SuperJonny's powers to influence the outcome of an international rugby match are not nearly as persuasive as they once were. Matt Stevens' reputation also went down the pan in 2009 alongside several Bath colleagues and Dean Richards managed to achieve pariah-status over Bloodgate. However, and it pains me to say this, this award must go to England manager Martin Johnson. An iconic player and captain, Johnno's tenure as manager has so far been riddled with conservatism, indecision and an uncharacteristic reluctance to be ruthless. I desperately hope that he proves his critics wrong and this award proves to be entirely unjustified but, until then, I'm afraid he's stuck with it.

Next up is the Total Flanker How to Make a Bad Situation Worse Award. The aforementioned Dean Richards (not to mention various other parties at Quins who somehow got away with it) comes very close to securing this one for his role in Bloodgate but he is pipped at the post by none other than "the Plank" aka Justin Harrison. Faced with a situation in which a club team mate, Matt Stevens, had tested positive for and received a 2 year ban for taking cocaine and with his club under fierce scrutiny, the Plank decided that it would be a fabulous idea to go on a bender at the end of season party, declaring that "Class A is OK" before being observed partaking of the said narcotic before getting in a fight with a Quins player outside a Fulham pub. The subsequent fallout involving the resignation and banning of 3 other Bath senior players is something that the club is still struggling to recover from. Well done Mr Harrison.

At this point it is obvious that, having just missed out in the last two categories, if there's any justice in this world then Dean Richards simply must win a coveted TF Award in 2009. By popular demand, therefore, I am delighted to announce that Deano is to receive the Total Flanker Scapegoat of the Year Award. It takes some doing to conclude that a conspiracy involving at least one player, the coaching staff, the medical staff and the executive committee of a rugby club was all the fault of one man and one man only - but that is exactly the conclusion that ERC reached, conveniently brushing its own manifest failings under the committee room carpet.

Turning now to the penultimate award tonight, the Total Flanker Coco the Clown Comedy Award. Harlequins' Tom Williams was for a while the front runner for this one after his ludicrously obvious attempt to convince match officials that he'd cut his mouth by spewing litres of ketchup whilst staggering around as if he'd been darted by a tranquiliser gun. Comedy genius. However, the performances of Peter de Villiers during the Lions tour this year were on another level. His defence of Schalk Burger's attempts to remove Luke Fitzgerald's eyeball were particularly worthy of nomination and the line "we might as well go to a ballet shop and all get tutus and get a great dancing show on for all to see that has no eye-gouging, no tackling, no nothing and we can all in enjoy it" is almost Pythonesque in its comic brilliance.

And finally - and on an upbeat note - we reach the Total Flanker Punch & Judy That's the Way to Do It Award. In this age of risk-averse conservatism and of endless squad sessions and over-coaching, one man was able to bring together 35 players from Britain and Ireland and, in next to no time, knit them into a cohesive unit playing effective and attractive rugby. That man is, of course, Ian McGeechan. Yes, the series was lost but only just and, in restoring credibility to the Lions concept, a concept that many were beginning to question, Geech has done the game a big favour. Shame it cost him his job at Wasps ultimately but I doubt he'll be short of offers.

And so, in summary:

Total Flanker How Not to Run Your Sport Award - IRB
Total Flanker Tarnished Halo Award - Martin Johnson
Total Flanker How to Make a Bad Situation Worse Award - Justin "Plank" Harrison
Total Flanker Scapegoat of the Year Award - Dean Richards
Total Flanker Coco the Clown Comedy Award - Peter de Villiers
Total Flanker Punch & Judy That's the Way to Do It Award - Ian McGeechan.

Merry Christmas...