This is a collaboration so please do use the comments below to suggest new phrases to drink to, or new ideas, changes etc.

The Rules

Are simple, played much the same way as many other TV drinking games. Everytime you hear or see one of the things below you take the corresponding amount of ‘fingers’ from your beer (hard core players can try doing it with shots). This game is NOT to be played whilst watching England as you will end up wasted inside about 5 minutes. Games in their pool are also not recommended.

Drink 1 Finger When

• You hear someone say 2003
• You hear someone mention Wilkinson
• You hear someone mention Sir Clive Woodward
• We have to sit through some 2003 highlights
• Stuart Barnes mentions Munster when talking about Ireland
• Choose a player before each game, every time their name is mentioned by the commentary – Take 1 finger. Used to be lethal when Gregor Townsend was playing and Bill McLaren was announcing.
• 1 finger every time an announcer says “you can follow all the world cup action on” and mentions any sort of online stuff

Drink 2 Fingers When

• Someone mentions how the game being watched will effect England’s chances
• Sod it – any time anyone mentions England in a game that has nothing to do with them
• Will Greenwood verbally ejaculates over a player (anyone with Sky Sports will know what I mean)
• Gavin Henson is mentioned (assuming he isn’t back, playing and in the Welsh squad)

Finish Your Drink When (if)

• Wales beat a Pacific Islands team
• New Zealand choke. Finish 2 if it was against France

Please do help out by adding more ideas in the comments!

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ITV have the broadcasting rights for both 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cups. Hands up who is happy with this decision?

Ok, now hands up who not from England is happy with the decision. I should imagine that’s a big zero. Because whilst England will get plenty of coverage we will be left, yet again, pondering how Wales vs South Africa will effect England’s chances of winning the World Cup.

ITV’s coverage has been traditionally awful, so I assume that the tendering process included no reference to quality and everything to do with price.

Think for a moment about the commentators. John Taylor may have been a class act in a Welsh shirt but his commentary has been some of the least exciting stuff I have ever been sent to sleep to – and I include my old Physics lessons in that.

Going by previous occasions we can assume that ITV will again borrow some ‘talent’ from Sky. Which means we again have to suffer through Will Greenwood trying to be poetic whilst he verbally ejaculates over anything in an England shirt. Stuart Barnes shall be hyping up anything and everything that England do (with brief moments of how England might counter something another country does).

We shall certainly have to sit through some 2003 montages, and a shed load of references in a game that has nothing to do with England. I may even sit down and make a World Cup drinking bingo (in fact I have done – see this great drinking game) – doing shots for each time certain phrases are mentioned in non-England related games. Although I will have to leave out the name ‘Wilkinson’ or we will all be in a drunken stupor before kick off.

Worse there is the possibility that the permanently smug Adrian Chiles will be asked to present some of it. I do hope this is not the case, he can barely manage football never mind rugby.

Those with memories of Formula 1 will remember how ITV can butcher a sport. Those with memories of any World Cup will know how we will have to sit through masses of adverts in between biased and incomprehensible analysis before, during and after the game.

I don’t know if you have noticed but I am really not a fan of ITV getting the World Cup.

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This is a league that gets much derision for a number of reasons, for teams not taking it seriously, for a lack of fans, for a lack of interest. But yet again we see just how the Magners League address this issue – they do nothing and hope it works.

Now I do think the Guinness Premiership is an over rated league. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a number of things going for it – not least because they know how to interest the fans.

Double Header

This season, having moved to London, I have ‘acquired’ a Wasps season ticket. Obviously I would prefer to be watching the Ospreys but that isn’t logistically possible. But I look at what Wasps start out with and then I look at the Ospreys fixture list and I am left thinking that maybe watching the GP is the right choice.

Wasps start with the ‘double header’ at Twickenham. I did this last year and it is a great day out, loads of fans, loads of buzz, a lot going on and two great games against traditional rivals. Kicks the season off well.

Compare this with the Ospreys start. Two trips to Ireland, which most fans are going to be unable to get to, and two home games vs the new Italian teams.

Now I know that having a league in so many countries is going to lead to a number of games you don’t care as much about – but there has to be a better way of starting the season off than this!

Why can’t we look at the Welsh teams getting a double header together at the Millenium? Goodness only knows the clubs don’t take the league that seriously anyway so the move of a ‘home game’ to the Millennium will not be too concerning, and will create a lot more interest amongst fans.

Even if that not is the case a local derby to kick us off allows all fans to get to their teams first game of the season, will lead to some sell outs and create a lot of media and fan interest. Surely it is important to start the season off with a bang?

Not in the Magners League though, a whimper is more accurate. But then what else can we expect from a league that doesn’t want good players playing in it.

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This is interesting in a number of ways. Firstly that the Blues are prepared to get rid of their Lions and Welsh star despite him having two years left on his contract. Whilst they may have managed to somehow keep Xavier Rush when he looked set to join Ulster the loss of Andy Powell is a significant loss in depth at the 8 position.

But it doesn’t seem too much of an issue – reports from those ‘in the know’ (be careful of Chinese whispers mind) is that Andy Powell has burnt a lot of bridges in recent months, especially with those at Cardiff. This certainly seems confirmed in what is a very final statement from Dai Young on the Cardiff Blues Website

”
Everyone at the Blues would like to thank Andy for his services to the region over the past five years.”

When he is fully focused, Andy in one of the best back row forwards in the country, as he showed when he was deservedly called up to represent his country and the British and Irish Lions during his time with the Blues.”

“However, I think it’s fair to say that this last season has been a difficult one for Andy following the unwise incident with the golf buggy and he has lost his way somewhat.”

“Both parties felt it was in the best interests of the region and Andy if we parted company and we wish him well with his future rugby career.”

When you filter that through what is usually more polite ‘media speak’ it seems like there is one not very impressed head coach that is happy to see Andy Powell leave.

Now it is no secret that this blog is not exactly a big Andy Powell fan. But with the rise of importance of dynamic number 8′s, and the loss of form of Ryan Jones, Powell is still an important cog in the (much dilapidated) Welsh machine – and so his move to England comes as a bit of a blow.

That means of the 3 best Welsh 8′s currently plying their trade only Ryan Jones is following the stated wish of the Welsh coaches to have Welsh players in the Welsh set up. Andy Powell moves to Wasps in the same summer Gareth Delve moves down to Australia.

Has Ryan Jones now become immoveable as the Welsh 8?

EDIT: Wasps have now confirmed the signing – saying this

On the news, Wasps Director of Rugby Tony Hanks said, “We are delighted to announce that Andy Powell, a hugely talented and highly regarded international back-row forward, joins Wasps ahead of the new season. Andy makes his move from Cardiff based on his desire to drive both his club and international career and whilst his rugby ability is obvious, the Wasps coaching team have all warmed to Andy immediately and are impressed by his drive and enthusiasm to relocate to London and join Wasps.

“Andy is the first high profile Welsh signing at the club since Rob Howley and we are confident he will benefit from the environment and ‘Wasps way’ in a similar fashion and become a favourite with the Wasps faithful. He will be a welcome addition to the squad and is held in high regard by people in the game that we at Wasps trust and respect – none more so than Wasps’ Lions players who played alongside him and forged friendships with him in South Africa in 2009.

“This is a good fit for both Andy and Wasps – we want to give him the platform, on the back of good club performances, to play at the highest level possible and Andy is committed to developing his game and ensuring success for Wasps in 2010/11.”

On joining Wasps Powell said, “I am extremely excited to be joining London Wasps. My decision was a pure rugby decision. After all the talk and speculation about where I will be playing, all I want to do now is get my head down, improve as a player and hopefully if selected, play in the World Cup next year for my country.

“To do that I need to be playing well for my club, and I think with the coaching team and setup here at Wasps, I will have the perfect opportunity to do that. I know Shaun Edwards well of course from my time with the Welsh team, and I took little persuading once I met with Tony Hanks and Trevor Woodman about how serious this team is about success and winning.

“Wasps have pulled together a great squad, with some great coaches and I think this is an environment in which I will thrive as a player and I hope to do my part to help bring success and trophies to Wasps.”

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The Scarlets haven’t decided to ban it. In fact they are so unsure they are asking the fan(s) what they think. They want to know if the fans want it.

http://www.scarlets.co.uk/eng/news/2881.php

If any of you are one of the ten Scarlets fans that go to the games please let them know that they aren’t wanted. Otherwise all that will be left at the stadium is…

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Any one who has tried to sit through the football World Cup will welcome the banning of the vuvuzelas with open arms. Those bloody awful plastic trumpets (best I can think of to describe them) have spoilt the little pleasure I manage to derive from watching the the over paid wendyballers fall over anyway. Every match it is the same thing, droning, monotonous noise from start to finish.

Some might wish they were there to drown out the ITV coverage (yes, sorry, it is on ITV again) but in the main their noise will not be missed.

“We are concerned about their potential to spoil the experience for fans,” a venue management executive said.

Good to see someone is. And good to see that yet again rugby turns out to have more brains than football. Good bye you annoying plastic noise polluters. You will not be missed.

Thanks to @the_welsh_idiot on Twitter for bringing this to my attention

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How many times have we bemoaned the lack of plan B for the Welsh rugby team? And yet it seems we are still left bereft of ideas, clueless, when our plan A is figured out. And that is no surprise as everyone knows Plan A and so simply need to devise a way of countering it.

What is Plan A? Simply soften up the midfield with Roberts, move it as close the the touchline as possible with successive blind forward drives and then spin open into the massive open field. But because we are so slow in doing it, and because teams have us worked out, there are no miss-matches created. The defences against us are well organised.

That is not to say that even vs well drilled defences it doesn’t work. We can and do make ground. But when it is consistently the same tactic then we are left letting the defences know what we are going to do, and set up accordingly.

Brief Moments

The Welsh Tour of New Zealand showed us, yet again, that we are reliant on these tactics working. And when they don’t we rely on individuals producing a moment of magic – and as this tour had no Hook and no Shane Williams (as well as the still missing Gavin Henson) we lacked the required players who are able to create something out of nothing.

There were brief moments, moments that gave us a glimmer of what could be. The most notable of which was the final 10 minutes of the 2nd test against New Zealand. Yes the Kiwi defence had, to a degree, gone to sleep with their job seemingly done. But that does not detract from what was some very promising attacks – one of which led to a try for Jamie Roberts, the other of which should have been a try but for a moment of white line fever causing Jonathan Davies to go for the line rather than use the two man overlap, and the get caught.

The Welsh Way

These attacks were promising not just because of their success but because they showed inventiveness. The forwards had secured front foot ball, and had started interpassing. Not just hitting the deck and rerucking, but offloading and running into space. Whilst the concept of the ‘Welsh Way’ is, imo, misleading media speculation used for brand purposes only it does describe a certain type of rugby.

A type that we have used before to success (2005) and a type that led us to go backwards (2006), or at the very least sideways – a lot. I certainly don’t want us to go back to those days of throwing the ball around willy nilly, but moving the point of attack, providing something different, aiming at space – these are things that have been missing from our game, and should be reintroduced as a method of varying our game, of keeping opponents guessing.

For instance the ‘move it as close to the touchline as possible’ (AKA Plan A) would work far better, imo, if the opponents were genuinely worried about a blindside break. So having the forwards interpassing there, mixing in with Shane and co to provide a real attacking threat down that side that occasionally breaks, will cause the opponents to be worried, forcing them to commit more numbers and so possibly exposing overlaps on our preferred openside wide attack.

A quick change of direction when it looks like we are starting to set our selves up to go blind often will cause hesitation, especially if a few offloads can put us beyond the first up tackles.

These are simple things – and I certainly don’t assume I have thought of them when Warren Gatland hasn’t. But whatever they have thought of, or even trained, isn’t getting put in place. We run the same predictable moves on the same predictable lines game after game – with only James Hook and Shane Williams showing any real invention – and even they bring other faults to their games.

Right now, to me, Wales are showing a complete lack of invention, barren of ideas. It really is time we had some much needed back up plans brought into our game.

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One try. One try in 3 games vs New Zealand. You think that would tell you all you need to know wouldn’t you? But no – things are far worse than that suggests. Not only are we struggling to score tries but it seems that when they are on we simply panic, unable to penetrate the opposition defensive line, unable to get over the white wash.

I know that sounds dramatic, but take a look at everything we have seen.

Offensive Problems

There are plenty of offensive problems, another topic of discussion deserving of it’s own study. But one of the major ones is our panic. Take, for example, an early 5m scrum Wales forced early in the game. The scrum was a dominant set piece for us – but rather than do something with it we gave away a penalty.

That is just an example. All you need to do is watch almost any game to see how often we spend in the opponents half, and even 22, but don’t score. It follows the same pattern every time – forwards hit, forwards hit, maybe goes to the backs before forwards hit – and eventually get turned over having made next to no ground.

This tells us a number of things

1)most of our ball carriers don’t make enough impact – AWJ, Ryan and JT especially.
2)Our players are scared of trying something

It is number 2) that is worrying because it is easier to do something about. Simply producing ball carriers, or getting the likes or Ryan back to the barn storming best we haven’t seen from him in awhile, is a difficult thing to do. But addressing our fear of mistakes is something we can do about very easily on the training paddock.

The forwards don’t try any inter passing, our backs run very little angles (where has Byrne’s imagination gone?), we look devoid of ideas. More accurately we look like we are terrified of making mistakes. The Welsh players look like they will simply do their job rather than try something new.

Eventually we did try something different – and were rewarded with 10 minutes of our best play and a try. Should have been two but for some inexplicable whiteline fever from Jon Davies.

Think what I am talking about is a one off? Look at the possession and territory we enjoyed the week before – without threatening to cross the white wash. Look at how we have consistently struggled for tries – especially tries that don’t rely on a moment of magic from James Hook or Shane Williams.

We panic when we see the line. We retreat into ourselves, scared of making mistakes. Until we stop doing that we will never start getting the scores we need to really threaten the likes of New Zealand or South Africa.

Please let us know about your thoughts on this in the comments below – or anything else you think we learned from the tour

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As part of a series studying what we learnt from the Wales tour to New Zealand, let’s call is a vain attempt at salvaging something from such a pointless trip, we are going to look at things that we ‘learnt’ from the tour.

To be honest in most cases we knew them already and things will have simply been reinforced by this tour. But we may as well get something to talk about after such an abject showing.

Gavin Thomas

The most obvious thing that we can ‘learn’ from this tour, for me anyway, is that Gavin Thomas is a long, long way from being international class. Yes we could excuse he has been out of the pace of International rugby for a long time. Yes we could excuse that he was up against the best openside flanker in the world, and many would say the best player, and the opposing 10 was a certain Mr Dan Carter.

But when it comes down to it he was not only poor compared to the opposition, he was poor end of story. When he got sin binned in the last 10 minutes, along with the New Zealander, I was more than happy to trade him for one of theirs.

Lack of Depth

The complete lack of depth in certain positions was highlighted elsewhere, and something we will cover further into the series. But this showed that our 3^rd choice 7, behind the rested Martyn Williams and the injured Sam Warburton, is not only not good enough to take on the best but is in fact a liability to our play.

In contact he either went backwards or was turned over – he lacked any carrying ability like we see from Warburton. In a pack that seemed to be lacking in go forward at times we need a 7 who can match opposing players for physicality, he couldn’t.

Martyn Williams gets away with this by acting as a link man superbly, almost like another 9. He gets everywhere, turns over ball and makes a nuisance of himself. Again we see Gavin Thomas failing to do this.

I don’t like that this is a simple attack on one player, goodness knows that the problems are deeper than playing one openside flanker who is not up to it. And I don’t like laying into one player… but he was such a liability n my eyes he is one of the major things we need to take on board… we can not take on the best in the world carrying players of this level.

A number of Dragons fans tell me he has a fantastic season (and what I have seen he has improved on his showings over the last couple of years). But he isn’t above that. A good flanker for Magners League is an achievement in itself for rugby players, and that is the level Gavin is at. He is not an international level flanker, and we should never see him in a Welsh shirt again.

Please let me know about your thoughts on this in the comments below – or anything else you think we learned from the tour

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Nothing that exciting seems to have happened, though the English goal keeper managed to have worse hands than the Swansea Uplands team at one point. So with a lack of interesting things to look at (who hear thanks to those blwydi trumpets – not even going to bother learning how to spell them) I thought I’d ask a question.

Of all the teams in the world cup who is it that you are supporting? There is a poll to the right of this post, please vote. And let us know in the comments below who you are supporting.

Personally I don’t care. I halfheartedly wouldn’t mind England doing well – after all i am a Spurs fan so would be a bit hypocritical not to at least support those players. And as someone else put it – the Welsh anti-English laws don’t recognise football as a real sport so we don’t have to hate them in this.

I don’t want them to win the thing, not sure I could cope with the press afterwards – but an unlucky 3rd place finish would be fine by me.

How about you guys?

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