Six nations

Farewell to rugby’s King John

You couldn’t miss the heartbreaking irony of one of the greatest rugby players who ever pulled on his boots passing away just as the latest tournament was getting under way featuring 18-stone behemoths smashing into each other. Barry John, who retired at 27 and died last Sunday at 79, could have walked through brick walls and emerged unscathed. Was he the finest fly-half ever? He was certainly the most beautiful to watch. He played just 25 games for Wales and a handful for the British and Irish Lions, including the 1971 tour of New Zealand when he helped them to their only series victory against the All Blacks. It was

Parliaments clash in Six Nations fixture

Away from Ukraine, it was all kicking off elsewhere in London yesterday. As the England rugby team was labouring to a 23-19 win against their Welsh rivals over at Twickenham, a similar fixture was taking place a few miles down the road at the nearby Richmond RFC ground. For, as per Six Nations tradition, a Westminster parliamentary team ran out to to take on their counterparts from the Senedd who had made the trip from Cardiff Bay. The London team was compromised of staff and members from both chambers in Parliament and was coming off the back of a successful 12-5 defeat of the Holyrood team in Edinburgh. But the Welsh team are

A drinker’s guide to the Six Nations

Let’s face it, rugby can be a bit confusing. No-one really understands the rules. For huge swathes of an 80-minute game, the ball disappears under a pile of bodies; scrums look like a load of fat fellas looking for a set of keys dropped in the mud and the rest of the time it’s just a giant cartoon brawl – a massive Beano-esque cloud of dust with assorted fists, feet and colloquial expletives emerging from it at various angles; after which a pint-sized ‘bloody good bloke’ kicks a penalty through some posts after an alleged offence no one understood in the first place. That’s why rugby fans are allowed to

Roger Alton

Don’t cry for John Terry

Just when you were thinking that the Premier League had become a much nicer place without José Mourinho in it, here comes another old friend from Stamford Bridge who can be relied on to pollute the atmosphere. Yes, it’s John Terry again, JT, Captain, Leader, Legend, who issued a tear-stained farewell saying Chelsea didn’t want him any more (sob), it couldn’t be a fairytale ending (sob), and he wasn’t going to retire at Chelsea (hysterical weeping). But so loyal was he that he couldn’t possibly be going to another Premier League club (stately music and solemn applause). Oh please, what a load of tosh. This was Terry, in his inimitable

The truth about rugby is hard to admit for fans like me

The Six Nations begins today, bringing joy into the hearts of millions of rugby fans. It will, as ever, be a predictably unpredictable tournament – there are always upsets – which will showcase great athletic skill, close teamwork and raw physical courage; and like the first snowdrops, it is one of those reliable harbingers of spring guaranteed to lighten the gloom of cheerless February days. But this year, hovering in the background, is a spectre at the feast; the fast-accumulating evidence that rugby is a danger to the players’ health and well-being. The truth is that many rugby spectators, who love the game, end up feeling guilty. Celebrating a huge

Billy the kid, football’s star of the future

Sadly it looks as though the 2020 Six Nations may have to go down with an asterisk and an explanation that might baffle future scholars — ‘Aborted due to the coronavirus’. Still, after the Wales game we can look back with affection on Owen Farrell at his horribly gobby worst, endlessly getting at Kiwi referee Ben O’Keeffe while dishing out a series of nasty niggly fouls: why does he do it? Then there was Eddie Jones in inimitable fashion blasting away at the laws and of course the ref. You lost a couple of men to foul play, Eddie, I’d keep quiet while the going’s good. I had my ref

Could coronavirus kill off the Six Nations?

Could the Six Nations rugby tournament be the first high profile victim of the coronavirus? England supporters are expecting to decamp to Rome’s Stadio Olimpico in just over two weeks time for the final round match against Italy. But the chances of the game going ahead seem to be fading as fast as Italy’s hopes of winning the competition. The country’s rugby federation called off all matches over the weekend, while the Six Nations has released a statement saying the organisation is ‘monitoring this situation very closely and is in regular contact with the [Italian rugby federation] and all other unions and federations as well as the relevant local authorities and

A tale of two Englands

At the same time as England’s rugby union players delivered a magnificent hearts-of-oak performance to humble a very good Irish side in Dublin, England’s cricketers were giving a very passable impression of what happens to a pile of balsa wood when stamped on by an elephant. What happens next — especially looking ahead to the rugby and cricket World Cups later this year — is fascinating. The remaining Six Nations matches will show us whether Eddie Jones’s England, with the formidable help of the returning Vunipola brothers and Manu Tuilagi, will go to Japan at the end of the year as a supreme force. I think they will. As my

The end of the era show

It may be the end of the year but it’s also the end of some major sporting eras. Alastair Cook signed off amid sun-drenched glory and a tsunami of affection. And surprise, surprise, it has liberated Joe Root to make a team in his own image, playing with brio and bravery. Roger Federer may be capable of one last burst of incandescent brilliance but not much more than that. Meanwhile, the implacable giants of football and cricket, Germany and Australia, have been brought crashing down to earth. We should relish the schadenfreude now, because renewal will follow quickly, and a new-look young German football outfit looks to be already on

This Six Nations could be anyone’s – and it couldn’t be more exciting

‘It’s never easy going to Rome,’ observed Anthony Watson after the traditional mauling of a hard-working but outgunned Italian side at the weekend. Eh? Well Watson is a brilliant winger (two tries in ten minutes no less) and a thoughtful and well-spoken credit to English rugby. But a difficult trip, Anthony? Sure the A23 to Gatwick can be pretty hellish, valet parking is a tad pricey, and security a nightmare. And don’t get me started on Fiumicino Airport. But all that said, Anthony, I don’t think it’s never easy going to Rome. And in the unlikely event you were referring to the rugby: come off it. England never fail to

Was it football or just mutimillionaires cheating?

Few sporting events in history have been greeted with such swivel-eyed, table-pounding hysteria as Barcelona’s comeback to overturn a 4-0 deficit against poor Paris St-Germain in the Champions League. Brilliant though it was, was it football or just another exercise in multimillionaires cheating? Luis Suárez clearly dived for the fifth goal, and should have been sent off. The sixth was arguably offside too. Either way, a video replay would have changed one or both goals and justice would have been done. Cricket, tennis, rugby, athletics all have technology to prevent this sort of thing; why not football? The excuse is that it would hold things up and yes, we all

Three cheers for rugby’s Italian loophole

A friend was at Twickenham on Sunday sitting not far from the Italian coaching top brass, Conor O’Shea and Mike Catt. After an early tackle, and no ruck being formed, the Italian players ran to take up space in front of the England backs, blocking their attacking options. ‘That’s offside,’ shouted my friend. Catt, who knew her, glanced up. ‘No it’s not,’ he smiled gleefully. And it wasn’t. As the world now knows, the Italians had found a loophole — there couldn’t be an offside after a tackle once neither side formed a ruck. There cannot be many people who care for rugby and applaud the underdog who didn’t secretly

The Six Nations is the most exciting sport on the planet

Perfection in sport: unattainable, but sometimes you can come close. Moments, people, actions you never tire of watching: Roger Federer’s backhand; Virat Kohli’s cover drive; Mo Farah’s acceleration off the final bend or little Lionel Messi dribbling through a crowded penalty area as if his opponents were shadows; Fred Couples’s sensuous golf swing. Last weekend another moment: the long pass from England’s Owen Farrell to Elliot Daly for that decisive try in the final minutes at the Principality Stadium. This 25ft rocket, superbly timed and delayed long enough for Farrell to be in touching distance of the defensive battery, was so quick and flat it left the defence flummoxed. It

Breathtaking and brilliant

Perfection in sport: unattainable, but sometimes you can come close. Moments, people, actions you never tire of watching: Roger Federer’s backhand; Virat Kohli’s cover drive; Mo Farah’s acceleration off the final bend or little Lionel Messi dribbling through a crowded penalty area as if his opponents were shadows; Fred Couples’s sensuous golf swing. Last weekend another moment: the long pass from England’s Owen Farrell to Elliot Daly for that decisive try in the final minutes at the Principality Stadium. This 25ft rocket, superbly timed and delayed long enough for Farrell to be in touching distance of the defensive battery, was so quick and flat it left the defence flummoxed. It

Should Many Clouds have been racing last Saturday?

Few things in sport are more thrilling than a great racehorse giving its all. That’s why the death of that noble steeplechaser Many Clouds on Saturday was so sad, so epic too. Courage is an over-used word in sport, but Many Clouds really was very brave indeed. He won the Grand National on strength-sapping ground in 2015, and at the weekend fought back to beat the best chaser of the present day, Thistlecrack, by a head. Seconds after crossing the line in the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham, this most magnificent of horses collapsed and died. It was a pulmonary haemorr-hage. Many Clouds had literally given his all. Now his ashes

Unimpressed by the Root cause

Those who occupy them sometimes say that the only two jobs that matter in England are Chief of the Defence Staff and editor of the Times. Others argue for Prime Minister or England’s cricket captain. Either way, a shoo-in is not the way to get the right person. Remember Gordon Brown? Despite the best efforts of some of us to get Alan Johnson or even David Miliband to have a pop, in the end Brown took over as uncontested Labour leader and unelected Prime Minister. That went well, didn’t it? Now a similar din is building up for Joe Root to take over from Alastair Cook. I am not quite

Jones the dragon-slayer

The return heavyweight bout between England and Wales lived up to its billing as the most thumping rugby match of the Six Nations. It was also the perfect result for both sides. England’s win brings the Grand Slam in sight, but Wales get to feel smug that they could have won if they had played on for a couple more minutes against an England team clutching at air with the bench emptied and the two leaders, Dylan Hartley and Chris Robshaw, withdrawn. There’s nothing the Welsh like more in the absence of a win than claiming the moral high ground. In a masterstroke of man-management, the England coach Eddie Jones

Your problems solved | 10 March 2016

Q. My niece, who came to stay with me in the country for the weekend, arrived without cash and asked me to lend her some for the tip. I lent £30 which she assured me she would give back immediately, but though we live very near each other in London, she has failed to drop it round to me. It’s not that I’m desperate for the £30, it’s the principle. How, without being schoolmasterly, should I convey my disapproval so my dear niece, for her own sake, can clean up her act? — Name and address withheld A. Next time you see your niece, bring £30 out of your wallet

Six Nations rugby

Back in 1882, exactly 100 years before I was born, the Four Nations rugby competition was formed. It was originally contested between England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and the fortunes of the different teams have varied through the years. Scotland and England shared early successes, but with the turn of the century came numerous changes. Four became five with the addition of the French — but the team didn’t have the same flair that we know well from the modern game. The French struggled, winning only once in their first five years — how my heart bleeds for them! War left the Five Nations on the sidelines, but when it

Three sides to our success

In the middle of Oxford is a socking great cinema: once the Ritz, it’s now an Odeon multiplex. Back in 1962, in the intermission of, I think, The Longest Day, the curtain moved and on walked a group of men, young I suppose, though to my 15-year-old eyes they seemed impossibly grown-up. It was the Oxford United team, led by their manager Arthur Turner, and including such titans as Ron ‘The Tank’ Atkinson, his brother Graham, John Shuker and Maurice Kyle. They had just won promotion from the Southern League to the Fourth Division (today’s League Two). They were introduced to the audience, and I have been a fan ever