It has not been a good 24 hours for England sport. Yesterday in Podgorica the England football team blew a 2-0 lead and drew 2-2 to Montenegro. Today the England rugby team played France in a world cup quarter final. Well I say ‘played’, but ‘stood like statues whilst the French ran riot’ might be a better description. On Twitter TMS scorer Malcolm Ashton suggested that France were playing a Madame Tussaud’s XV. Jonathan Agnew asked why ITV were showing an X-rated horror movie. England went into halftime trailing 0-16. They gave glimpses of a fightback in the second half, but just as in the group stages they were sloppy. They conceded fewer (far fewer) penalties, but these were offset by handling errors. I lost count of how many times England knocked the ball on in the French 22. (Though part of that was probably due to the fact that I switched from tea to brandy at halftime.) England did score a brace of tries to maintain interest, but it wasn’t enough. The full time result was England 12-19 France and not even the most partial of England supporters would say that it was unfair. In a way, this gives France the double over England, as the most recent football encounter was also a French victory, at Wembley last year. We need to try playing them at cricket.
So England’s RWC has ended in much the same manner as the cricket and football versions: Bitter knockout disappointment. The next knockout tournament is Euro 2012, followed by the World T20. I’d suggest maybe England have a chance at the latter, but as I type this England’s cricket side are 35-3 in a warmup match against Hyderabad. I’m going to bed.
Defensive Indifference 