Pacific Islanders - The Poor Relation

The official twitter account of the Fiji Rugby Union tweeted the following this morning:

"This is a stab in the dark but is there anyone out there who can donate a defibrillator to the fiji rugby medical team"

This is heart-breaking for anyone who has ever been excited when any Fiji team, be it 15 a side or 7, have taken to the field. It highlights some massive problems.

Firstly, the very idea that a national rugby union as prominent as the Fijians should have to beg for a donation on twitter of all places is awful. Secondly, that they are asking for a crucial piece of medical equipment that could save lives is even worse.

Do the IRB not exist for precisely this reason?

This actually goes far beyond defibrillators. The same issues have been voiced over and over again throughout the rugby world but nothing ever seems to change. New Zealand and Australia fly over 50 people across the globe to play matches every autumn yet they are totally incapable of flying a squad up to play a test in Suva or Apia. Heck, the All Blacks have benefited plenty from players going the other way.

It isn't just the southern hemisphere teams either. England took countless players to Australia two summers ago - how difficult would it have been to send a side up to the Pacific Islands. What are they afraid of?

Some are suggesting that it should be the NZRFU who 'donate' the defibrillator. This is crass to say the least. As if donating a defibrillator, and treating Fiji as some poor, down at heel cousin will help matters. The Fijians don't want charity, they want to be treated equally. No, the NZRFU and the IRB have to change their mindset to view the Pacific Islanders as valued, equal members of the rugby world. They may not have the money or the population that gives them a seat at the top table but they provide a hell of a lot more than that, rugby qualities and brotherhood and humility that the other countries would do well to adopt.

These are the countries that light up the rugby landscape, providing something that is different to the stodgy European old guard and the southern hemisphere oligopoly. Fiji, Samoa and Tonga deserve so much better. The All Blacks and the rest of them should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves that a national union is begging on twitter. It begins with defibrillators but the issues run much deeper.

The Chinese and The Provencal

Hemingway was right about the inexplicably “windswept Place du Pantheon” which he noted many years later in his Paris memoir, A Moveable Feast. It was just as windswept over eighty years later, as another foreigner trudged round the great monument to French-ness, cursing himself for not putting enough clothes on and cursing the suburban morning sun for misleading him. It was always like that around midday, without fail. Anywhere else in the city might be calm, but wind would find its way to the Place du Pantheon to whip its way round that converted Church.

But I was not Ernest Hemingway, and not there to write. Not there to continue past the Cluny, round and along onto the Place St Michel to sit in a café and write. I was there to play the sport, so I stopped before the Luxembourg Gardens, slipped underground and took the RER south to run around and lift weights.

Much like Hemingway, that was when it felt good to escape the phoney people and to have the time and the resources to work on my craft. I was lucky to spend my afternoons with the genuine people, the sporting people. Some of these people were of Paris, but not the postcard Paris – they were of the unseen Paris, the suburban, quiet Paris which is the same as suburbs anywhere with the same attitudes and the same muted ambitions.

And there were some who were not Parisian in any way, who came from different lands like Alsace and who enjoyed Paris and took from it what they wanted like the nightclubs and left what they disliked and remained sceptical about.

There were no affectations – no vague aims about ‘Paris’ and the images that the very name evokes in the minds of impressionable, naive, East coast American women raised on a strict diet of liberal arts. My friends, especially those from the provinces, were here for the sport – to lift weights when they had to, to do little extras when they wanted to and sometimes when they felt they should, and most of all to run and pass and kick every day. They were the genuine people, and apart from the language, they were occasionally just as bemused by it all as I was.

That is not to say that I didn’t go and sit in cafés like the good one that Hemingway wrote in on the Place St Michel. I did once, on the Rue Auber. I must have been there to see about my bank, for I never strayed that far north unless I was going to the bank. It was a day of heavy snowfall and the city was skidding to a halt. I was probably there because my money had been stolen, along with my watch, from the changing rooms in Colombes, which just goes to show that in amongst the genuine people there were some dishonest people. That was to be expected.

It was a perfect day to be warm in a café and when I texted my kicking coach to ask whether training was still on, I knew the reply I wanted. The reply I got was sarcastic and I didn’t understand it. So I did what Hemingway would not have done, and texted my mother. She told me that the text was about ‘snow shoes’. That was all I needed to make myself comfortable and to order a croque madame. Before heading back to the suburbs I thought about the phoney people. They seemed so phoney then and being around them irritated me.

But these days, when I compare those pilgrim students from all over the world to the vacuous Home Counties students who I share things like creative writing seminars with... When I cast my mind back around the lecture theatre in the Vth Arrondissement, there was more there than I suspected, yes there were the traditional Americans looking for something that they couldn’t define if you asked them, but there was also the Chinese, on the make.

I respected the Chinese more than the Americans. They closer resembled my genuine friends from the provinces, people who came to Paris with defined goals, who were prepared to work and weren’t leaching from Paris something that wasn’t really there. Paris owed them nothing.

Cycling: 'Bad Blood' - Reviewed

Bad Blood: The Secret Life of the Tour de France by Jeremy Whittle

Eye-opening without actually saying anything that wasn't widely suspected. This is the book that has turned me into a cycling nut. Whittle chronicles the downward spiral professional cycling has been on since the 1980s. Yet, it isn't sensationalist and it doesn't leave the reader hating the sport.

Certainly, it is hard not to hate some of the people involved, but the over-riding (pun) feeling is that doping is not black and white, and many cases, like David Millar's, are shown to be in the grey.

Whittle doesn't defend those who choose to dope, but he does explain their actions, some of which turn out to be utterly deplorable and others entirely understandable.

The author hasn't always been a cycling fan - he had to be converted, and it is this outsider's viewpoint that makes this book so readable.

Lance Armstrong is discussed in great detail and one is left with one immovable question: how on earth did he never fail a drugs test? Well, you might respond, he never took drugs! Simple! Even if Whittle is careful to never suggest that Armstrong doped, every other team member did and Armstrong is linked to so many dodgy doctors and team managers that one cannot help but wonder. It was all so institutionalised that the idea of anyone being able to resist is frankly laughable. But then again, if anyone could have, it would have been Lance.

A fascinating story that runs through the book is the feud between Armstrong and David Walsh of the Sunday Times, who is convinced to the point of dangerous obsession that Armstrong has doped and will risk nearly everything to try and expose the Texan. Whittle is balanced yet appropriately cynical, and not just about Armstrong.

David Millar is clearly author's friend and so Millar's story is told differently to the other reprobates. I have since begun reading Millar's autobiography, written with the help of Whittle.

Through all of the sludgy, thick, EPO, the double-crossing of team-mates and drug testers and the double-popping of amphetamines and sleeping pills, how am I left with a new interest in a sport that seems so ruined and with which so many have become disillusioned? Partly, it is because Whittle offers hope, that things are improving. But more than that, it is his descriptions of the traditions of cycling that run through the peloton, it is the camaraderie between cyclists that stems from the sheer difficulty of their livelihood (and it is their livelihood, something that the reader is never allowed to forget) and the respect amongst them that such toughness engenders.

And then, of course, such vomit-inducing suffering is set against the European continent: the Alps, the Pyrenées, the Spanish plains, the Provencal villages where the most exciting day of the year is when the Tour passes through. There's an undeniable romance to it all which provokes the same feeling that the Heineken Cup does in me - the colour, the pageantry, the excitement, the exoticism, and not a hint of parochialism in sight.

Exeter Chiefs vs. Perpignan

There were four of us yesterday who travelled to Sandy Park for the Amlin Challange Cup pool decider between Exeter Chiefs and Perpignan.

Their European pedigrees could not have been much different. Exeter in only their second year of European rugby and Perpignan experienced travellers.

An impressive number of Perpignanais had made the trip and they were clearly visible in their red and gold of Catalonia - the gold representing the shield of Wilfred 1 The Hairy on which Charles the Bald, Holy Roman Emperor, drew four lines with his own blood as a sign of gratitude. The Exeter Chiefs' fairly stereotypical view of  native North Americans that forms the basis of their club's branding looks tame in comparison to even a small slice of Catalan history.

Anyway, we four, a rugby player,a  golfer, a long-distance runner and a rower, took our places in a corner stand. And stand we did, for it was terraced. I am from a different generation to those who clamour for a return to terracing. I have grown up with a seat at sporting events, and was itching to sit down by half-time. Enough self-indulgent moaning.

The rugby played was enjoyable. After ten minutes, Perpignan were 14 points up, confirming my expectation that there was too much quality in their team for Exeter. But USAP fell asleep and fell away as Chiefs fly-half Ignacio Mieres orchestrated 31 unanswered points. Exeter lack the pace and penetration of many sides and so rely on a super-structured game plan which batters the opposition and then batters some more. It is not pretty to watch, though to ask Exeter to play like Leinster, Quins, or Edinburgh (woo!) would be downright unreasonable. They are good at what they do and good luck to them.

Sandy Park regulars rivals their Thomond counterparts in the respect they afford goal-kickers. However, for one of Mieres' pots at goal, some jolly old Catalan unleashed an almighty roar of derision. Without so much as looking where their kicker had put the ball, 10,000 of the Devon faithful turned towards the noise, booing and shouting, to which the garrulous and ballsy Catalan, clearly well-oiled, stood up, beamed, and opened his arms wide in gleeful appreciation for whatever abuse his hosts could throw at him.

Perpignan got annoyed, began lashing out, had a player sin-binned and the crowd was lapping it up. A very good day for west country rugby as Exeter continue making history. But for Perpignan, they have until the end of the season to reverse their current Top 14 position of 10th, wallowing in unfamiliar mediocrity. They should be better than this, and they know it.

Oh, Toulouse...

Oh, Toulouse.... Throughout the first half I was planning on indulging myself in writing about my favourite subject, the brilliance and audacity of Toulouse. Then they started to do some silly things and this became a piece about how they can be so brilliant and so inept. And now, having found myself shouting for Connacht against Quins, something that didn't sit well given Quins' very own brilliance, I find myself loving and hating Toulouse in equal measure. In fact, I want to hate them more.

The Fijian, Timoci Matanavou had his worst game of the season. Andrew Cotter (who was typically outstanding) pointed out that Matanavou is the cousin of Sireli Bobo. The younger Fijian then spent the next 60 minutes proving this and left me asking how I had not seen it before. He gifted Gloucester their first after spilling a Garryowen into his dead-ball area, shimmying, and doubling-back, threatening to pull off a Christian Cullen, then decides to hoof it in the agricultural way that most Fijians do, charged down, try. Yuck. Gloucester then peppered him all game and little changed. Noves should have taken him off. He did some lovely things with the ball in hand, skinning Luke Narraway in the 5m channel and finishing off two of Toulouse's flowing movements, but they were overshadowed by his ineptitude when confronted by a ball in the air and the onrushing hordes.

Louis Picamoles, who I believe should start for France at no. 8, can be so classy. He covers the ground so well, reads the game, and off-loads with such ease. He has an air of Zinzan about him. And then he throws a series of inexcusably awful spin passes. Infuriating.

Burgess was lively, especially in comparison to Lawson who looks laboured. Nyanga seemed to mop up every missed tackle by his team-mates. Beauxis, who is now well and truly recovered from his festering at Stade Francais, made a nice break. Albacété flogged himself around the pitch, leaving me in rare agreement with Stephen Jones, that the Argentine is one of the great players of the era. Servat rumbled around in his usual manner, which makes the news of his defection to Toulon even more depressing. Who would leave Toulouse?

Médard's left boot, once so prodigious, now resembles that of Hugo Southwell, occasionally so long, often mis-hit. Still, the value of a left-winger who can kick is invaluable. Poitrenaud was Poitrenaud, nothing more, nothing less.

In contrast to these Toulousains, certain Gloucester players shone, offering some optimism for the future of English back play. Bryan Redpath is a lucky man. Akapusi Qera was, at times, just as brilliant and frustrating as his countryman Matanavou, passing out the back of the hand with difficulty then dropping the simple return pass.

Before tonight, Toulouse were my pick, and no doubt they will eradicate the faux pas of tonight. They've certainly done it before. Maybe it's unreasonable to expect them to produce it every week. But then again, maybe it isn't. It is all mental, after all. At times they are playing on a different planet, untouchable, even by the likes of Leinster. Let's hope that tonight reminds them that they are beatable when they fail to apply themselves. Tonight provided a huge sigh of relief, for the Heineken Cup would be infinitely poorer without the artists from Toulouse.

Andrew Cotter said of the enigmatic Guy Noves, "he always looks like he wants a cigarette." After tonight's performance, I can see him settling down with his pack of Gaulois. He'll probably sigh with frustration. Then he might allow a wry smile, a smile that knows that, with this club, it oftens turns out alright in the end.

On Effortlessness

Effortlessness is surely one of the most admired concepts in sport. The word itself does the idea absolutely no justice at all, being clumsy and not knowing where to end. But when we put it next to effort, perhaps our perceptions change.

Do we not want to see the effort? Is effort not titillating? And is this a particularly British trait? We do, after-all, love an underdog, an outsider.

The outside-centre may have glided through a defence three times in the first half and go in at half-time with a clean shirt but it’s the muddy, dog-eared flanker that we are drawn to. At least, those of us who are more prone to cynicism are more drawn to him. The young, those who still have dreams of emulating the outside-centre, will be more drawn to a clean shirt and all it represents.

This dichotomy is one of the very essences of rugby: the forwards and the backs, the grinders and grafters up front and the gliders behind – ‘the piano shifters’ and the ‘piano players’, as one French three-quarter once put it.

But there is more to the idea of effortlessness than this. Hemingway defined courage as ‘grace under pressure’ – this is when we really enjoy effortlessness, when it becomes really superhuman to be so aesthetically athletic in the face of so much pressure (tangible nutters running at you, as well as the metaphorical weight of your nation on your literally narrow shoulders).

There is also effortlessness which somehow seems natural and that which becomes natural. When Jonny Wilkinson drops a goal on his right foot to guide his team into the World Cup Final in 2003 against France all the praise centres on how many hours he has worked to pull that off. It is graceful, it appears to be effortless, but hard work looms large. When Juan Martin Hernandez drops on his left against France in the following World Cup, there was little suggestion of hard work. It was effortless, he was exotic and the two came together to create this glorious nonchalance. He was like a South American freedom fighter. The thing is, he may have practised just as hard as Jonny, but we don’t know that, and we aren’t interested either.

Clearly, we adapt our perceptions of effortlessness in relation to what we know. Can English sportsmen really exhibit true effortless grace? Very rarely. But Hernandez, the Maradona of rugby, he sure can. Did Maradona practice? Of course not, he was sent from God and has been too busy dancing the tango with beautiful women and taking dodgy pills to practice... if we asked Hernandez if he practiced, we expect to be shrugged off.

It is incredibly hard to pin down, this idea of effortlessness. Perhaps it’s because it’s such a personal idea. How does Dan Carter look like he isn’t trying? It’s a question we seek to answer ourselves, open-mouthed, as he saunters to the line and fires out a pass with his floppy arms. Jonny and Juan, in their wrong-footed drop goals, both look so effortless, but as is human nature when it comes to sport, we create our own stories that surround these courageous, graceful figures.

Displaced in Dubai

Life is simply better when England are playing a Test match. You can follow it throughout the day, pulling yourself away from a tedious lecture or turning round a boring lunch with the the simple question, “What’s the score in the cricket?”

Test cricket is possibly the perfect sport. It is slow and rhythmic when you want it to be, before sparking into occasional flurries of tension. It is not a sheltered game played indoors, it is open to the air and all the variables that come with such a setting. And it goes on for five days!

Yet to watch Test cricket in Dubai feels wrong. Not that one can tell the location of the Test match through the coverage. In fact, having said that, the identikit, empty, brand new, shiny stadium is typical Dubai. Test cricket is one of the sports that, as yet, has resisted the lure of the Middle East. Football is consumed by it, with Manchester City the UAE national side and with the FIFA World Cup having been bought by the Qataris.

Test cricket still seems pure, untouched, the rhythms of a Test match feel intact. The bastardisation of cricket has, thankfully, been collected and gathered up in the willing arms of Twenty20 cricket.

There are good reasons to hold this Test match in Dubai. The players are safer and the facilities are world-class   - world class because enough money has been thrown at them, which leaves them shiny but hollow and not the sort of place any sportsman deserving of the name wants to play.

But here we are, in the half-built neutral desert, playing a Test match that is used to the cauldrons of Lahore or Karachi. It's bizarre, displaced and lacks feeling, but that is Dubai. These days, if a sport finds itself in trouble, look to Dubai. Thank goodness for Dubai.