Too much hype

IT IS NICE to see Andrew Nutt has taken a breather from political letters, and has turned his attention to sport. However, he obviously does not watch that much Southern Hemisphere rugby, otherwise he would see very clearly, the simplest of reasons why the Northern Hemisphere teams did so poorly in the Rugby World Cup. We are simply and plainly not good enough. We are lacking in rugby footballing skills in virtually every position on the field, and believe we can simply bludgeon our way through the opposition. Those days are long gone if you want to succeed at the highest level. Unfortunately looking at the 6 Nations games over the last weekend, it is very obvious that none of the countries have learned anything from what they saw in the World Cup. The rugby played in the Southern Hemisphere Super 15 tournament and the 4 Nations tournament is light years ahead of European rugby. I have been fortunate to have spent some time in New Zealand and it does not matter what time of the year it is, in virtually every park you go to, you see men, women, boys and girls, playing touch rugby. They develop their skills from there. The media in the form of television and the press here, have hyped up this year’s 6 Nations tournament, and I have heard former players like Jeremy Guscott, saying it is the greatest rugby tournament in the world. Utter rubbish! So much hype, that our players think they are world beaters, when in fact they are very very average.