Welsh Cheat, Welsh Win, Welsh Still Manifest Chip On Shoulder .. More Importantly, Italy Magnificent

Much going on in the world of rugby the past few weeks. I haven't been blogging because university assignments were due in and I had descended into my usual pre-deadline chaos.

Going back a fortnight, England played prosaically but highly professionally in beating France at Twickenham, thus answering another question on their way back to respectability after several dire seasons. The great news from this game however was the proof that the ruck lives after all. France spent the first half flooding the breakdown and hitting defensive rucks hard and low. This worked to their advantage. England, commendably adjusted to this and in the second half we saw a genuine and brutal contest for loose ball. Super 15 eat your bloody heart out. Highlights at England v France

Solihull School - damned fine coffee

The Overgraduate rugby show next moved on to Solihul School for the senior schools sevens which involved a very knackering amount of running around after well coached and skillful young men in my refereeing guise. I did nine, yes count them nine, matches and could hardly walk at the end. All in all a very good advert for posh kids rugby with the small exception of the master from Bedford Modern who seemed to feel that it could be the fault of a referee that his side had lost. Now this can happen I'm afraid (of which more anon) but not, matey boy, when the score is 41-0. I doubt somehow that the parents of the lucky pupils are paying their fees to have their offspring exposed to such knob-headery. Trouble is it cultivates a mood of victimhood in the young players and they are potentially polluted for life. As Spiderman said (and I have no doubt written before) with great power comes great responsibility. On the plus side I have reffed at Solihull several times now and can have nothing but praise for the way they look after us. Top staff. Top sandwiches. Good coffee.

Fat Pig Roadshow next moved to a muddy Bridgnorth to referee a Shropshire derby, the Bridgnorth v Ludlow 2nd XV fixture. Oh joy of joys, a 2nd team game that clearly meant something and peopled by players who knew what they were about. Sadly I pulled a hamstring (good and proper I'm afraid - bloody great bruise on the back of my thigh as a souvenir) quite early on and had to hobble my way through the rest of the match, no doubt doing some extra damage along the way. It was worth it. And this game most definitely had competition at the breakdown. Lovely. My thanks to  both teams. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

I had promised you a bit of slagging off the Wesh and here it comes. I take no real pleasure in this. You don't get a name like David Roberts without some Welsh ancestry and mine goes back a mere two generations. I am in fact qualified by birth to play for Wales and there was a time in the low years of the nineties when it was fair to wonder how I was the only qulaified player not to have been selected. This despite my stellar form for AOE 3rds at the time. Well yesterday the Welsh beat Ireland 19-13 and did so courtesy of a bit of cheating. Quite a big bit in fact. Had the English done this it would (quite properly) have been castigated as indefensible, just as it was indefensible when Neil Back helped Leicester cheat their way to a Heineken Cup by knocking the ball from Skinner's hands when the referee blind-sided himself. At a stretch you might defend Back by saying it was a spur of the moment thing, rather as afflicts forwards who see the ball on the floor in a ruck and can't help but handle it. Personally I don't buy that. Back knew precisely what he was doing rather as Richie McCaw does every time he kills the ball. Anyway the spur of the moment thing certainly doesn't work for the Wales try. The co-conspirators, Rees (the captain no less) and Phillips knew damned well what they were doing and that it was illegal. What then follows is a monumentally negligent piece of touch-judging which hangs poor old Kaplan (the referee) out to dry. Have a look and a listen at Cheats Prosper. Total bloody shambles. All of which I can live with but read Phillips' comments about how it was nice to get a bit of luck for once. Bloody muppet. Rather more dignified has been the reaction of the Irish coach. 'Sir' Alex Ferguson and footballing 'intellectual' Arsene Wenger might wish to take note.

New Roman emperor

The try that wasn't will soon be forgotten however and it should not detract from the real story, the best story in European rugby since England ended the southern hemisphere RWC hegemony. Italy - 22, France -21. I was only thinking yesterday morning as I conducted a numbing two hour cycle ride that what the 6 Nations really needed was for Italy to beat either England or France. I had no inkling it might happen yesterday. Embarrassing of course but the French will get over it, in fact you wouldn't much fancy being the Welsh going to Paris next weekend. Absolutely bloody marvellous. Sergio Parisse, great player. Rome - great city. Barolo - great wine. Silvio Berlusconi - oh well you can't have everything I suppose.

Darrell D'Silva as Antony

It hasn't been only rugby for the last month however. There has been other culture and some related stupidity. The culture has mostly been Shakespeare with a dose of Waugh thrown in (see the other blog for the latter). I ticked off Antony and Cleopatra in my I Spy book of the Bard when I saw the RSC production in the Swan Theatre at Stratford. This production really worked for me: the staging, the performances, and the theatrical space. I am developing a list of the Shakespearean characters I would like to play and so far it comprises: Aaron the fantastically evil baddie in Titus Andronicus; Kent in King Lear; Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra. You will note that in an unaccustomed fit of modesty none of these are leading roles. Enobarbus is particularly intriguing in the light of Jonathan Bate's comment that 'Enobarbus is as rewarding a role as any Shakespeare wrote. And it might just be the nearest thing anywhere in his complete works to a considered self-portrait.' 

Related stupidity? Mine of course. I did my usual trick of leaving the writing of assignments until too late and therefore had a literally sleepless night last Tuesday/Wednesday. Old dog, new tricks, incompatible.