Signing off

I was disappointed to read the news this week that Harry Ellis, the former Leicester, England and Lions scrum-half had been forced to quit the game following a succession of knee injuries. I rated Ellis highly (I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear it). Until the very recent emergence of Ben Youngs, Ellis has been England's best scrum half by a mile in the last few years and, at only 29, he would almost certainly have been at next year's World Cup but for injury and would definitely have strengthened England's resources.

Ellis' retirement comes hot on the heels of two others - Michael Owen, also 29, who captained Wales to their 2005 Grand Slam has also had to call it a day after long term knee problems, whilst the very unfortunate Thom Evans has been forced to pack it in after sustaining a serious neck injury whilst playing for Scotland against Wales in this season's Six Nations. At only 25, the super-charged Evans appeared to have a glittering rugby career ahead of him.

I guess the issue here is what will they all do next? Not everyone is cut out for coaching and players simply don't earn enough from rugby to be able to put their feet up when they retire (unlike their football equivalents). The requirement for planning for a career beyond rugby is therefore ever more important.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I see that Auckland's Eden Park has banned the use of vuvuzelas.

The incessant hornet buzz that has provided the backdrop to the football World Cup will therefore not feature during today's TriNations fixture between the All Blacks and the Springboks.

Not that it was ever likely to. Like it or loathe it, the vuvuzela is very much a feature of football in South Africa in much the same way as a pitch littered with ticker tape is my overriding memory of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. When in Rome...

Out of the context of a football World Cup in South Africa I doubt very much whether blowing a vuvuzela would ever catch on. The International Rugby Board, in its infinite wisdom, says it will consult its "tournament stakeholders" before deciding whether to ban vuvuzelas at next year's Rugby World Cup. They really needn't bother.

Hunky Dory

It's often claimed that I'm a little behind the times, and the fact that I appear to have missed the below story appears to verify such claims.

Not sure how I missed it, but back in April an advertising campaign in Ireland for "Hunky Dorys" crisps (no, I'd never heard of them either) caused something of a furore when it featured young ladies in low-cut tops using straplines such as “Are you staring at my crisps?”

The ads appear to have induced a mass failure in the Irish sense of humour with phrases like “blatant exploitation of women,” “tasteless and base" and "quite simply unacceptable” liberally bandied about.

The Advertising Authority for Ireland, having received over a dozen (!!) complaints, chose to impose an interim ban on the ads, a ban that was confirmed as permanent yesterday.

The powers that be at the Irish Rugby Football Union also got a little hot under the collar given that the ads also featured a reference to the crisps as a “proud sponsor of Irish rugby”. (It turns out that Largo Foods, who manufacture Hunky Dorys, actually sponsor the Navan rugby team!)

And the result of the campaign? Undoubted joy in the Largo Foods boardroom with Hunky Dorys sales by up by 17%. As their CEO said back in April, "we want to inject a little bit of fun into things."

Quite.

For better, for worse

TOTAL FLANKER - bringing you the stories that MATTER!

According to reports emanating from Scotland, a rugby tackle is responsible for locating a wedding ring which was lost in snow six months ago.

Under the headline "Rugby ace finds bride's ring in Scots park" the Daily Record reports on how apparently a Dutch woman lost the ring whilst throwing snowballs with her husband during a holiday in Edinburgh at Christmas. Six months later the ring was finally found when Matthew Gilgore was tackled during a rugby match at the park. He apparently landed face-down in the mud just inches from the ring.

The ring was eventually returned to its rightful owner after Mr Gilgore put a notice on the website Gumtree. Lovely.

Far be it for me to cast doubt on the story, but I'm pretty sure that there was very little rugby being played in Edinburgh at the end of June and, even if there was, it's unlikely that much mud would have featured given the recent dry spell.

Methinks that possibly the story may have been ever-so-slightly embellished by an overly-enthusiastic reporter north of the border on a very slow news day.

TOTAL FLANKER - investigative journalism at its shuddering best.

Scrum dot gone?

According to a so called expert (i.e. someone who clearly knows nothing about rugby), scrums should be banned in schools to protect children.

This is the conclusion reached this week by Professor Allyson Pollock, director of Edinburgh University's Centre for International Public Health Policy following a study carried out during 190 rugby matches at five schools, during which a grand total of 37 injuries were recorded.

"If youngsters were coming back from school trips with these rates of injuries it would be enough to trigger a major inquiry," says Prof Pollock, missing the point entirely.

Perhaps she thinks it is healthier for kids to stay indoors in front of a TV or computer all day and no doubt she is also recommending that hockey be played without sticks, that cricket be played with a soft foam ball and that children be banned from riding horses?

Good week, Bad week

Good Week

1. Warren Gatland - for some reason in demand, both in Wales and News Zealand. Lord knows why after his more recent track record - unless there's a demand for coaches whose teams deliver too little too late.


2. Brian O'Driscoll - married the rather lovely Amy Huberman. Congrats to them both.

Bad Week

1. Steve Borthwick - good enough apparently to be England's leader months ago - now not good enough to make the elite squad at all. A tad harsh perhaps?


2. Olly Barkley - if Borthwick thinks he's hard done by, Barkley's managed to miss out on both England and Saxons selection, despite being the best 12 in England by a country mile.


3. Danny Cipriani - probably the only player further from England selection than Olly Barkley and now he's hanging out in Hollywood with Lindsay Lohan? Good grief.

Back in Touch

It was Clash of the Titans this week as I returned to the Touch Rugby field after a 3 week hamstrung lay-off.

The good news is that my hamstring was fine. The bad news is that the rest of my body’s been screaming at me for the last few days – hardly surprising given that my rehab consisted largely of beer and telly.

This week we Odd Bods faced our biggest challenge so far, an encounter with the Angry Leprechauns, a collection of lads (no lasses) from the club’s Under 17s section.

Now, the thing about being under 17 is that that you’re more than likely to be very quick and very fit and, disappointingly, this proved to be the case with 2 or 3 of them being super-fast and super-talented. Consequently, we ever-so-slightly more mature players found ourselves hanging on grimly for dear life during a frantic first half while the Leprechauns led us a merry dance.

But hang on we did and, despite always seeming to be several scores behind, we kept our heads in attack and flung ourselves about rather inelegantly in defence. Slowly but surely the harum-scarum pace of the game meant that our young oppo began to tire and make mistakes and we were able to claw our way back, bringing our own youngsters into the game more and more.

Four unanswered tries late in the game led us to believe that we had made the score respectable, so we were delighted when the ref announced a final score of 14-14 – that’s 28 tries in 40 minutes, which goes some way to explaining why I still feel so knackered.

Delighted with our moral victory (!), we were treated to a slice of pizza to celebrate the 16th birthday of young Tom and were left to digest the news that, even if we finish top of the league after the final round of matches next week, the top 2 teams will be required to play off the following week to decide the champions.

Step forward the Angry Leprechauns again. I’m not sure my body can take it.