Blink and You’ll (Not) Miss It

You may not have noticed, but the biggest tournament in international rugby is going on at the minute.

It’s even on terrestrial tv.

But despite ITV’s worst efforts, you wouldn’t be blamed for not noticing. England’s stuttering could be blamed, ITV’s ineptitude at live sport could too. But the main issue lies with the whole structure of the tournament.

After a brace of three games a day, the schedule seems to have descended into something a bit ad hoc. I imagine the team managers ring each other each day asking if they’re coming out to play, seemingly the answer’s been no more times than not.

In the oval-shaped brand of football, we’re scratching around to find when the next game is on but when the footballing equivalent comes round we can’t escape it. Game after game after game.

Heck there’s even the odd upset. I’m not talking about the same scale as a dogged Ireland beating Australia, try Senegal beating France.

It just doesn’t happen when William Webb Ellis is involved. The RWC is a bit of farce because of it, they may as well jump to the quarters. Georgia or Russia won’t beat Italy, let alone the bigger boys. As a spectacle it falls short until the quarters.

Many will argue the lesser lights should be there so they can develop their game. But conversely they’re only going to be improving their defence, Carter ain’t exactly giving them the ball.

By the time we get to the juicy bits everyone will have forgotten the World Cup’s even going on.

Tinkering and Tailoring

What with Sir Paul doing his best Ranieri impression, he’s being courted as not knowing his best eleven and/or picking as per the opposition. The three points collected yesterday has gone some way to vindicating his newest philosophy but has also shown his disdain and no time for sentiment.

And I for am all for it.

Dropping Holt on the face of it ‘took a lot of bottle’. But The Big Man hasnt got off to the bruising, gut-busting best we all know and love. His effort can’t and never will be questioned, but it hasn’t quite happened for him yet, regardless of how vague and unspecific that sounds.

We know what he can produce and so do Messrs Terry and Ivanovic, but the use of CMartin with him plainly hasn’t worked. Arguably, the dropping of CMart was the crudest. But the fact that Holt has “been brilliant for me” as Sir Paul never ceases to tell us, he hasn’t allowed the last two seasons of machine-like prolifacy impact his choice of starting eleven.

Quite simply, there is no place for sentiment in football if you’re to succeed at this game. Lappin has fallen foul of it. Since he’s one of the few remaining from previous reigns, some have a special place in their footballing-heart for him. “He played more in League One than anyone else” they argue. Wonderful as that must have been for him, League One this aint.

Now this is no sleight at The Spanish One, despite my views of the guy. He’s merely my example. The same went for Rusty, he returned gloves-on-hands and we lauded it because a little part of us rememebered him from green-gloved years gone by. We’re fickle and easily won over. Doherty was a chief recipient of this, although thankfully not from us all.

He was here for a good/bad few years and this somehow led people to overlook his patently obvious deficiencies. If he was on a season-long loan and played the way he did for the majority of his ill-fated Norwich career, he would be mentioned in the same breath as Koroma and Leijer.

Worthy would never have dreamed have dropping a player like Holt. Neither would Roeder or Grant. Gunn would have filled in every teamsheet with Holt’s name on it in about July. Lambert knows what we need to do to both restrict the opposition and to impose ourselves.

He also can’t help but put himself well ahead of scores of our previous managers.

Playing the Game

With De Laet doing his best to end his stay at Old Trafford, I had a thought. Maybe, if he toned down his errors, it could be good for us that his lack of assertiveness leads to the odd mistake. A few more, of lesser consequence of course, and his exit from Manchester would be sealed with us primed for accepting him.

Then I realised an error-strewn centre-back is the last thing we need and it is a ridiculous idea. Admittedly, Doc he aint. But something isn’t right in his game and it will need rectifying if he is to realise the potential he appears to have at times.

Equally as ridiculous is the idea put forward by Craig Fleming on Canary Call. Not a place I try to find myself in too often, I hasten to add. The sentiments he offered are not his alone, many a former-pro have uttered the same words in that particular order.

“He’s never played the game.”

Heck, we all know I love a moan but this is absurd.

Halsey had a poor game, we should have had a penalty, they shouldn’t. They missed any road and he can’t give what he doesn’t see. We could have affected the game ourselves had we found that goal scoring touch we’ve had at hand the past couple of seasons. Halsey didn’t stop us scoring. We couldn’t hit the target or get on the end of the plethora of inviting crosses.

But the fact he has “never played the game” doesn’t stop him doing his job. It’s an elitist point of view players have. If retired players who have “played the game” become referees they would be older than most referees currently in the game. Then they’d be saying they’re too old and can’t keep up with play.

Or they’d have ingrained dislike for certain teams, managers and players. And an inescapable like for other such.

Halsey has probably played the game at some low level. He’s not refereeing because he likes to be berated with such virility or he likes the way those in-ear monitors feel around his lobes. He likes and probably loves football.

Fleming backed his view up by saying “I couldn’t go referee a game of rugby”. Well no, Craig. That would be the equivalent of me saying, I can speak English so I’m going to go and teach Cantonese to a Ring-Tailed Lemur. I don’t speak Cantonese. Or Madagascan. And you, Craig, don’t have an total knowledge of rugby or been involved in hours upon hours of rugby unlike the referees have of and in football.

I make mistakes just as much Ruddy does as much as Halsey and co. do as much as Fleming does and as much as you do. We just have so much riding on his job and so much spotlight on his.

It isn’t easy, labeling him as not being good enough to do his job because he has no experience of a different job is ludicrous.

Let’s Get This Over

Next week in Singapore, Vettel can finally win the Championship. Thankfully this puts an end to the ridiculous way in which drivers are having to answer the question “can anyone else still beat Vettel this season”? They all answer the same – “well, anything can happen, I won’t give up”.

Give it a rest.

The Championship’s been over since about the 4^th race. I know they have to say all that garbage for the fans and sponsors etc, but it’s got to be pretty depressing knowing in your head it’s all over and having to say something else.

As good as the racing has been this season, I think I would have preferred the drama of the last few years in terms of last race Championship deciders. That’s what the sport is all about – fighting tooth and nail to win your life’s ambition at the least race of the season. I can still remember how I felt last year just before the start of the Abu Dhabi GP, my heart was literally racing and I was willing Alonso on more than ever before. Obviously we know how that finished, but I would go through it all again that’s for sure.

Having had to sit through the awful Norwich display against West Brom, I  watched the race on a delayed run. It’s not often this happens, so it was quite an odd experience I must say. I was very, very impressed by Michael who I thought held Lewis off extremely well. Yes, he was naughty that one time when he moved twice, but he’s desperate to show he’s still got it and this season I think he has proved that he has. His car control on shot rear tyres was sublime and the defensive lines he was taking around all parts of the track were absolutely textbook. Not much I can say about Vettel really; I think I let my bias against him get in the way of me actually writing anything good about him. Stick him in a crap car and then we’ll see how good he is. Oh and chop off that bloody finger. And ban him from saying “that’s what I’m talking about”.

Button as usual showed he has tremendous capacity behind the wheel to think about what’s going on. You just knew when Lewis was fighting Michael that Jenson was just hanging back making sure he conserved his fuel and looking after his tyres. Not exactly exciting stuff, but necessary all the same. I’m starting to like Button more and more these days – he’s certainly a better driver now than when he won his Championship.

Lewis, as always, is ever the conundrum. An enigma. On his day, he is blindingly fast and fantastic to watch, but those days are ever rarer. At Monza he was like a gifted, sulky child. The guy says that nothing fazes him to the media, but he hung behind Michael for so long it was like he was trying to make a point to people watching that he doesn’t crash all the time. Quite a bizarre thing to do when you’re an F1 driver, but then I’m not convinced his head is in the game at all. He’s had a pretty awful last couple of seasons punctuated by the odd great race, but you’ll notice no one is talking about him in the same reverential tones they once were. Maybe he needs a Casey Stoner-esque break from the sport? Who knows.

Roll on next season.

The Gap’s Not in Goal

We’ve got a history of throwing goalkeepers off the production line but we’re in a bit of a quandary at the minute.

Sir Paul has today said he has “no fears” about putting in the y-less-one so that’s not a problem. His talent and ability has been obvious for a few years now, he’s been a mainstay on the youth international scene for a while too, culminating in a session on the bench for the Under 21’s.

All this despite only having played a handful of senior games.

Whilst most of us are happy to have him between the sticks at home to the Baggies, a bigger problem could be who’s in the gloves on the bench. We’re Norwich, the unlikely unfortunate events happen to us; if we were to encounter an injury to a goalkeeper it will happen when we don’t have one on the bench. And if we’re to keep up our penalty record this season, Rudd can’t be the one give it away.

Not now Cody’s gone.

Our other goalkeeping prospect is away on loan. Big Bryan’s Big Son has been pinched an’all.

If you’ve got some gloves, bring along Sunday, eh?

Undeniably, it’s a big chance for the y-less-one. Ruddy- however well we like to think he’s doing- has a knack of undermining himself with little errors. Little errors with big consequences, as they always are for goalkeepers.

A good performance and he could give himself the chance to really begin to fulfil his potential.

Split Loyalties?

The Chatham Welshman

International weekends. Who needs ‘em. From the looks of Twitter, more were watching Wales than England round our parts.

Club over country an’all that.

I was watching Spain v Chile because of some nasty Australian man. But anyway, the ‘Welsh’ of our squad was a stronger pull than the best English players in the land. Odd that, no?

Does this mean come Tuesday a one-nil win for Wales after Morison nets would be welcomed? Somehow I doubt it, but a 2-1 England win with Morison scoring? Now that would go down well.

If we had an English international, things would be different no doubt. Then again, we do have an English international. Actually, we have three in Crofts, Morison and RMart.

Say Croft and Morison both play Tuesday night; it must be an odd feeling. Both Londoners, they must have grown up watching England in (and not make it to) major tournaments, and now they’ll be playing in the same ground, on the same pitch as the team they would have dreamed of playing for as kids.

An odd scenario, and not one that has an obvious comparison.

It’s not like leaving your boyhood club, it’s bigger than that. Much bigger. But if you were never going to make it for your home country- and we aren’t, no matter what we tell ourselves- but another asked you to play, few would easily say no.

The chance is too big to turn down, and they’ve got their grandmothers to thank for being handed it.

As long as they come back without any niggles or strains, they can do their worst. Which may well end up being the best for us.