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Friday 10 February 2012

To Murrayfield...

Friday, 12th March 2010

No blogging here until Monday: it's Calcutta Cup weekend and I'm off to Edinburgh today for the festivities. It's an odd feeling this, the notion that England aren't the obvious and heavy favourites. Two average sides will meet tomorrow and it's quite possible they will produce the worst match of the championship. How grim that would be depends, naturally, on the actual outcome. It can't be any worse than the 1988 fixture which was, quite possibly, the worst game of rugby I've ever attended.

Really, we should have a better anthem than Flower of Scotland. It's a pretty rotten and, in some senses, sentimental dirge. Just occasionally, however, it aspires to be something bigger and better than that. March 17th 1990 was one such day:

This weekend, for sure, the stakes aren't nearly as high. Defeat merely means yet another infuriating and pedestrian championship. We've been here before. Even victory, mind you, hardly transforms the season even if, despite results, there are signs Andy Robinson is making some progress. As for England? Well, who cares? Sure, if any side is going to win by 20 points then it's probably England, not Scotland but the grumbling about Johnson and Wilkinson and all the rest of it has already passed the point at which it became tedious.

Not as tedious, mind you, as the bloody Welsh. Obviously I want Scotland to regain the Calcutta Cup but I'd be almost as pleased if Ireland were to hammer the bloody Welsh who, generally speaking, are as insufferable in victory as they are in defeat.

To Murrayfield, then, for the fixture that really doesn't need to be sold. There was a nasty edge to it during the 1990s but that's calmed now, I think, perhaps because for the last few years neither side has been very good. But it's still an occasion fraught with history and nerves and trepidation and panicked excitement and all the rest of it.

I'm not willing to risk a prediction but, damn it, this is a game Scotland can win. The back-row will, as always, be vital. All our best sides in recent decades have played off 6,7 and 8 and this one is shaping up to be a pretty good unit too. A marauding, pillaging performane from Barclay, Beattie and Brown is needed; without that we're sunk. With it, well, there's victory and a small measure of glory waiting to be claimed boys...

PS: If you haven't bought Tom English's book about the 1990 match - The Grudge - then do yourself a favour and get it now. It's terrific. Jim Telfer comes out of it as the mad, horrendous genius much more terrifying than anyone or anything the opposition can throw at you, but I was also surprised by how Will Carling and Brian Moore come across. The latter probably cost England the match, the former is more sympathetic than I'd previously thought him to be.

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Ewan Watt

March 12th, 2010 1:54pm Report this comment

Enjoy the game Alex.

Luckily BBC America decided that - after all - they would show the Calcutta Cup game. The only Scotland game they're showing.

Ronnie

March 12th, 2010 2:19pm Report this comment

Think yourself lucky Ewan. The game against France was torture. The Wales game was an 80 minute nervous breakdown and the Italy game was tragic.

But one day soon...

Kevyn Bodman

March 12th, 2010 3:52pm Report this comment

Even your gartuitously rude comments about the Welsh will not make me change my wish for a Scotland victory tomorrow.

The first International my father took me to was a Wales v. Scotland game at the old Cardiff Arms Park.
The Scots down for the weekend were a great bunch.I was far too young to go out on the pop afterwards, but I do remember the good humour and generosity of the Scotland supporters near us in the old North Stand. You were not among them.

Mr Wizzy

March 12th, 2010 5:39pm Report this comment

Apologies for being picky, but there's no [i]probably[/i] about Brian Moore and 1990, busily running kickable penalties like there was no tomorrow and generally pretending he was Cap'n rather than dear old Black Label.

Wonder if his co-commentator (please, please, pleeeeze let it be Andrew Cotter and NOT the appalling Nick Mullins) will bring up this little memory ? Oh, I do hope so, much as I like Moore's work for the Beeb.

S(Sorry to the Welsh and Irish, but if we're not to have Mullins (please etc etc), then he's likely to land on your game. Maybe with Ol' One-Eye himself, Mr J. Davies Esq. Ever watched a game with the sound off ? Now's your chance !

paulg

March 12th, 2010 6:00pm Report this comment

There is nothing to rival the pride and passion of scotland v england at murryfield and, once the 'flower of scotland rings out' it sends the hairs on the back of your neck up.

Then finally to see so many thousands of scots start greeting when you get your annual stuffing, makes it a spectacle worth watching every year.

Gaw

March 12th, 2010 9:39pm Report this comment

My how the Scots have fallen. To get chippy about the *Welsh*?

Fergus Pickering

March 12th, 2010 11:42pm Report this comment

Where did that dreadful song 'Flower of Scotland' crawl from? Did it win some sort of competition? It wasn't around when I watched Scotland at Murrayfield in the 1960s in the days of the semi-divine Campbell-Lamerton when the Scots at least had some balls if precious little skill. Schmaltzy and tedious like Scottish history - well perhaps it suits its purpose after all.

Cuffleyburgers

March 13th, 2010 10:04am Report this comment

Agree with comments about the dreadful dirge.

Scotland is a national of wonderful music - to adopt a dreary 60's pop song is, well par for the course unfortunately.

No hard feelings but I hope scotland get stuffed. And I hope Wales beat Ireland.

Tiberius

March 13th, 2010 8:41pm Report this comment

As has been the case so often, the Calcutta Cup match was turgid and of poor quality.

Ronnie

March 14th, 2010 12:48pm Report this comment

Can anyone explain to me why England's XV bother to go onto the pitch? What are they trying to achieve? What could their game plan possibly be? Have they undertaken any training or practice?

Why won't Sotland score tries? Is it too vulgar? One would have seen this game won, but no...

Dirty Euro

March 14th, 2010 1:16pm Report this comment

Flower of scotland is awesome. I do not understand your taste. It celebrates a great victory against an invading army, that wanted to wipe our country of the map.

Dirty Euro

March 14th, 2010 1:20pm Report this comment

The English anthem is far far worse and pointless.

paulg

March 14th, 2010 4:06pm Report this comment

Yet again, we see the scots run around as if their boot laces are tied together, whilst their fingers appeared to be basted in butter, but only bad luck right at the death saw them hang on.