Eddie Butler, in his opening video montage on top of which he purrs about the upcoming Championship, strayed into dangerous territory this afternoon. He suggested that Wales 'should have' beaten France and didn't because of Warburton's red card (a debatable issue, unlike the missed kicks) and that France 'should have' beaten New Zealand, though it's not clear why.
Did Wales 'deserve' to beat France? Of course not. Did France 'deserve' to beat New Zealand? Don't be silly. What gives either of these teams the right to win anything? Is it because some feel that they were wronged? 'We were all bitched from the start'. The score board is the great leveller, the inarguable friend and foe. It is the only constant and must be respected. Sometimes it is your friend, sometimes your enemy.
The best starting point for any sport is that no one deserves anything. The word 'deserve' should be obliterated from the vocabulary of anyone with a genuine interest in sport. Unless, that is, unless it features in Jonny Wilkinson's mantra, 'get what you deserve'. This has seemed to me to be a fair and rewarding way of approaching the game.
Otherwise you leave yourself open to blaming other people - referees, the weather, the hotel, the food, the pitch. All this was summed up by Jim Telfer on the 1997 Lions tour in his famous speech about the British abroad.
People who use the word 'deserve' are the same people who, in football, claim that a team that has 20 shots on target and scores 0 goals has more of a right to win, or deserves a win, more than a team that has 1 shot on target and scores 1 goal. The only way to approach this is to accept that your strikers must improve. Any other response will slow down a team's development.
You create your own luck and you get what you deserve. That simply must be the starting point for any team. That way, no room is left for complaining, for evading responsibility, for blaming defeats on others. Everything that happens is our fault, wins or defeats. What is the point of training if we aren't to accept this as fact?
It denies weakness and turns it all back on you: how hard you practised, how hard you wanted it. Players become empowered, referees become irrelevant. That's the sort of team Scotland must become. More importantly, that's the sort of attitude that Scotland's fans must adopt. Until then, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Friday, 3 February 2012
Chabal Leaves Racing
The relationship between Sebastien Chabal and Racing Metro 92 has ended in tears. It is unsurprising that a relationship based on money and personal profile and that often resembled a business deal with two equal benefiting partners has ended so acrimoniously.
The reasons given are typical: disagreements over contract negotiations and disagreements about the direction of the club. That's a rough translation. The vocabulary used tells us something about this relationship. The word 'reciprocal' pops up, as does 'collaboration'.
Chabal returned to French rugby after his exile in Sale, hailed as the new figurehead of what was effectively a new club. Certainly a new team. People started to notice Racing, he proved to people that they were serious. That was a dangerous gamble to take, allowing people to see your club in one man.
It's hard to overestimate how big Chabal is in France. Simply, he is the most recognisable sportsman, the most well-liked sportsman and a businessman and television personality to boot. In short, he was bigger than the club.
He brought in innumerable fans to Colombes, they who would collectively shout 'ooooooo' whenever he touched the ball. But were they just watching one man?
Last season Chabal only featured every now and again. Jacques Cronje was clearly the best number 8 at the club and Pierre Berbizier was confident enough to pick him. Weaker coaches would have given in to public pressure, talked about his importance to the club and how he was a figurehead. Who knows what the President thought of all this, his star fading right in front of his eyes.
It's well known that the President and Chabal were good friends. Perhaps they still are. They are still neighbours, after all, in the wealthy suburb of Sceaux.
But while Chabal's ability to make his characteristically big tackles and bullocking runs diminished, he was more and more on the television. It was clear he was on the way out.
This awkward situation was made worse when contract negotiations publicly became an issue. Will he stay or will he go? Racing then effectively signed a new number 8 for next season, Montpellier's Fijian Sakiusa Matadigo. It became obviously that Chabal would not remain at the club. How could he? He was offering less and less on the pitch and the club had to move on. They should have parted ways quietly at the end of the season. Instead, this has unnecessarily become a huge news story.
This situation had been coming from a long way off. It's sad that it had to end in this way. On balance, his impact at the club will be remembered as a positive one. He was a good ambassador for the club, if occasionally a little haughty. Hopefully some of those fans, curious about this man-beast, that Chabal first lured to Colombes are now genuine and will continue to be so. He was a figurehead when the club needed one. Unfortunately, whether the club needed a celebrity to prove they deserved their place in the Top 14 is doubtful, and that is what Chabal was allowed to become.
It's a lesson Sir Alex has known all along, and those at Racing would have done well to heed it: no one is bigger than the club.
The reasons given are typical: disagreements over contract negotiations and disagreements about the direction of the club. That's a rough translation. The vocabulary used tells us something about this relationship. The word 'reciprocal' pops up, as does 'collaboration'.
Chabal returned to French rugby after his exile in Sale, hailed as the new figurehead of what was effectively a new club. Certainly a new team. People started to notice Racing, he proved to people that they were serious. That was a dangerous gamble to take, allowing people to see your club in one man.
It's hard to overestimate how big Chabal is in France. Simply, he is the most recognisable sportsman, the most well-liked sportsman and a businessman and television personality to boot. In short, he was bigger than the club.
He brought in innumerable fans to Colombes, they who would collectively shout 'ooooooo' whenever he touched the ball. But were they just watching one man?
Last season Chabal only featured every now and again. Jacques Cronje was clearly the best number 8 at the club and Pierre Berbizier was confident enough to pick him. Weaker coaches would have given in to public pressure, talked about his importance to the club and how he was a figurehead. Who knows what the President thought of all this, his star fading right in front of his eyes.
It's well known that the President and Chabal were good friends. Perhaps they still are. They are still neighbours, after all, in the wealthy suburb of Sceaux.
But while Chabal's ability to make his characteristically big tackles and bullocking runs diminished, he was more and more on the television. It was clear he was on the way out.
This awkward situation was made worse when contract negotiations publicly became an issue. Will he stay or will he go? Racing then effectively signed a new number 8 for next season, Montpellier's Fijian Sakiusa Matadigo. It became obviously that Chabal would not remain at the club. How could he? He was offering less and less on the pitch and the club had to move on. They should have parted ways quietly at the end of the season. Instead, this has unnecessarily become a huge news story.
This situation had been coming from a long way off. It's sad that it had to end in this way. On balance, his impact at the club will be remembered as a positive one. He was a good ambassador for the club, if occasionally a little haughty. Hopefully some of those fans, curious about this man-beast, that Chabal first lured to Colombes are now genuine and will continue to be so. He was a figurehead when the club needed one. Unfortunately, whether the club needed a celebrity to prove they deserved their place in the Top 14 is doubtful, and that is what Chabal was allowed to become.
It's a lesson Sir Alex has known all along, and those at Racing would have done well to heed it: no one is bigger than the club.
Student Politics...
It was pointed out to me at dinner last night that Exeter 'Uni' was described (probably in the Guardian, which is burned here in the same way American flags are burned in the Khyber Pass) as 'a place for the lesser minds of the greater English public schools'.
I think this is grossly unfair. I mean, what about the lesser minds of the greater Scottish public schools? Or even the rather under performing but still wonderful slightly smaller Scottish public schools? And there seems to be plenty of lesser minds from the smaller, more provincial public schools.
"You know, at Radley they have chapel twice a day?"
"Do they now? That's quite monstrous what."
Today is the first day of campaigning for the posts at the pinnacle of Exeter student politics. We don't have a 'Student's Union', presumably because the word 'union' is anathema to students here, making them shudder at the thought of miners strikes that they can't remember and the sworn foe of the glorious leader we never knew, Maggie.
Instead we have a 'Student's Guild', which to me sounds like a student version of the 'Women's Guild' which takes place in most rural parishes up and down the land. Far more Exeter.
One of the many boring, tired, old clichés that boring, tired, old people like to use is how politicised students become at university. This hangover from the 1960s still remains at some universities I'm sure. But not here, and it is refreshing. Perhaps it's our provincial nature. Those rolling Devon hills I can see out of my window (just past the children's nursery - don't ask) tend to placate any fiery feelings of revolutionary Marxism, or more likely, fascism. So we just shout 'hurrah' for Cameron and 'hurrah' for the Queen and get on with our day.
This campaigning, for the posts of Athletic Union president, Student's Guild president and deputies, reminds me of the class elections that take place in US high-schools on the Disney channel. Everyone takes them far too seriously yet everyone knows that this is not preparation for the real thing. At Oxford it probably is. Archbishops of Canterbury (Archibald Campbell Tait, arguably the greatest ever Academical), London Mayors (Boris), and too many MPs to mention. One gets the impression that this is a serious business indeed.
So when candidates bring in this opening day of elections standing in the centre of campus with pink leggings, pink shorts, a pink t-shirt and plenty of flyers (pink), it is heartening to see that they understand the same as the rest of us. Student politics is a total joke.
I think this is grossly unfair. I mean, what about the lesser minds of the greater Scottish public schools? Or even the rather under performing but still wonderful slightly smaller Scottish public schools? And there seems to be plenty of lesser minds from the smaller, more provincial public schools.
"You know, at Radley they have chapel twice a day?"
"Do they now? That's quite monstrous what."
Today is the first day of campaigning for the posts at the pinnacle of Exeter student politics. We don't have a 'Student's Union', presumably because the word 'union' is anathema to students here, making them shudder at the thought of miners strikes that they can't remember and the sworn foe of the glorious leader we never knew, Maggie.
Instead we have a 'Student's Guild', which to me sounds like a student version of the 'Women's Guild' which takes place in most rural parishes up and down the land. Far more Exeter.
One of the many boring, tired, old clichés that boring, tired, old people like to use is how politicised students become at university. This hangover from the 1960s still remains at some universities I'm sure. But not here, and it is refreshing. Perhaps it's our provincial nature. Those rolling Devon hills I can see out of my window (just past the children's nursery - don't ask) tend to placate any fiery feelings of revolutionary Marxism, or more likely, fascism. So we just shout 'hurrah' for Cameron and 'hurrah' for the Queen and get on with our day.
This campaigning, for the posts of Athletic Union president, Student's Guild president and deputies, reminds me of the class elections that take place in US high-schools on the Disney channel. Everyone takes them far too seriously yet everyone knows that this is not preparation for the real thing. At Oxford it probably is. Archbishops of Canterbury (Archibald Campbell Tait, arguably the greatest ever Academical), London Mayors (Boris), and too many MPs to mention. One gets the impression that this is a serious business indeed.
So when candidates bring in this opening day of elections standing in the centre of campus with pink leggings, pink shorts, a pink t-shirt and plenty of flyers (pink), it is heartening to see that they understand the same as the rest of us. Student politics is a total joke.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
9s and 10s: Learning from the French
It was while watching the young Toulousain Jean-Marc Doussain, who came off the bench to win his first cap in the World Cup final, that I begun reflecting on the French tradition of inter-changeable half-backs, and wondered why the Anglo-Saxon nations had never adopted this way of looking at the game.
While on the topic, it should be stated that positional specialisation is just one damaging way in which British players 'grow up too fast'. We start contact too early and we pigeon-hole players at too young an age, to the detriment of their general basic skills.
It is worth looking back to recent French examples of the model. Michalak/Elissalde worked for many years, with the Toulousains having the same time in a club environment that Blair/Laidlaw have to build up the understanding that is necessary to make this blurring of the roles work. That is why Elissalde was always preferred to Yachvili, who was also slightly less adept at first-receiver. The World Cup saw Yachvili/Parra tried out. While lambasted in the press, I don't actually agree that it was a failure, and Parra proved himself quite capable of playing first-receiver. Francois Trinh-Duc is more a 'traditional' stand-off in that he is incapable of playing 9. However, he is far from British in the way he plays. He doesn't kick goals (regularly) and it could not be argued that 'controlling a game' is his outright strength. Like Michalak, he is a runner and a passer.
It's time Britain and Scotland in particular left behind the 'cult of the 10' and moved on to more logical rugby. Let's hope the emergence of Greig Laidlaw leads to a sea-change of attitudes at youth level where players are not told they are a stand-off and handed a large, metaphorical weight of expectation, but instead told they are half-backs and play-makers. Edinburgh have reaped the benefits this season - let's hope Scottish rugby learns from this so that multi-talented, skilful players like Laidlaw become the norm and not the exception.
Every nation has these ingrained quirks and preferences. New Zealand long-favoured the second five-eigth over the English crash ball, and so on.
But now, finally, Scotland might pick a stand-off in Greig Laidlaw who has evolved as a scrum-half too, so maybe it is a developmental ploy that we should be taking more seriously.
Allan Massie, one of the more lucid rugby thinkers in the employ of Johnston Press, wrote an article many years ago about the possibility of converting Mike Blair to a fly-half and pairing him with Chris Cusiter - that way, we'd have our two best players on the pitch. Typically, such original thinking was shouted down, the shouters' eyes blinded by their traditional thoughts on what a stand-off ought to be.
But in rugby terms, it makes sense to cloud the distinction between the positions. So often the 9 runs past the 10, thereby making the ball slower. Age-grade 'patterns' have impressively cottoned on to this fact and so the 9 and 10 do switch yet very little time is spent improving the 10's scrum-half pass or box-kick. If this is something we are going to commit to then the skills coaching has to reflect this half-back duality.
The benefits of the French system are numerous. Sharing responsibility takes pressure off the 10 - he doesn't have to make so many decisions. The 'cult of the 10' that characterises British rugby at the moment leads to the 10 being overly praised and overly criticised. This is partly a reaction to Mr Wilkinson and his (fully justified) deification - though it means that every 10 who follows has to 'steer' the team, kick all the goals, throw all the right passes. It's illogical. The French realise that the 10 has enough on his plate trying to spark the backline that they even take the pressure of goal-kicking off him.
So if we are going to adopt the French model then we have to loosen our grip on the cult of the 10 and the weight of expectation that falls on their shoulders. In France, 10s are not coached to control the game. Instead all focus is on the skills of passing and catching, running onto the ball and delivering effective passes. This is the bread and butter, not the pin-point kicks to the corner that 'put their team in the right places'.
Last year, I wrote about my conversation with a coach in which we discussed the differing attitudes to the development of 10s, fly-halves, stand-offs and second 5/8ths. It's worth quoting:
"One the topic of fly-halves and the 'controlling of the game', for the French, they only worry about that side of the game when the player is a bit older, certainly older than me, and definitely only once they have mastered getting a backline moving and attacking the line - the basics."
While on the topic, it should be stated that positional specialisation is just one damaging way in which British players 'grow up too fast'. We start contact too early and we pigeon-hole players at too young an age, to the detriment of their general basic skills.
It is worth looking back to recent French examples of the model. Michalak/Elissalde worked for many years, with the Toulousains having the same time in a club environment that Blair/Laidlaw have to build up the understanding that is necessary to make this blurring of the roles work. That is why Elissalde was always preferred to Yachvili, who was also slightly less adept at first-receiver. The World Cup saw Yachvili/Parra tried out. While lambasted in the press, I don't actually agree that it was a failure, and Parra proved himself quite capable of playing first-receiver. Francois Trinh-Duc is more a 'traditional' stand-off in that he is incapable of playing 9. However, he is far from British in the way he plays. He doesn't kick goals (regularly) and it could not be argued that 'controlling a game' is his outright strength. Like Michalak, he is a runner and a passer.
It's time Britain and Scotland in particular left behind the 'cult of the 10' and moved on to more logical rugby. Let's hope the emergence of Greig Laidlaw leads to a sea-change of attitudes at youth level where players are not told they are a stand-off and handed a large, metaphorical weight of expectation, but instead told they are half-backs and play-makers. Edinburgh have reaped the benefits this season - let's hope Scottish rugby learns from this so that multi-talented, skilful players like Laidlaw become the norm and not the exception.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Andy and Novak: The Morning After
The commentators for yesterday morning's 'epic' semi-final between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray frequently referred to the match in boxing terms. It was a 'slug-fest', the two of them were 'sluggers', 'middleweights'.
But it was more a sick perversion of a boxing match - where each fighter took it in turns to land one punch and could make it as hard as they could while the other fighter could do nothing about the blow he received. That horrible moment when Djokovic has returned it and the whole world is pent up in Andy Murray's right arm and we hold our breath until he got it back and we could rest safe in the knowledge that for the next two seconds, it isn't Andy's to lose. Then it's back on us again.
Praying Djokovic couldn't stretch himself to it, then sighing in resignation when he did, it was unbearable viewing. Every time Murray returned the ball was a small victory, a sigh of relief. Only when Novak missed could I fully raise myself to happiness. Of course a winner from Murray registered a sort of happiness, but I found it to be far more like relief mixed with an admiration that showed itself in nervous laughter or a full-blooded exhalation of all that energy.
It was that sort of match where the avoidance of error was paramount. That, and running and running for every ball that made it back over the net. It was like a very real playing-out of the phrase, "the ball is in your court now," with all the implications those words carry of just being glad to get it back over the net, happy to not have to worry about it, even for those two seconds.
The end of any great sporting encounter always leaves a trembling pins and needles, nerves exhausted, like I had just been hit in the stomach. Later on, I experienced the come down, like hitting the wall, and realised that for several hours that morning I had been operating on some higher plane of being. That is surely the most powerful drug of all.
But it was more a sick perversion of a boxing match - where each fighter took it in turns to land one punch and could make it as hard as they could while the other fighter could do nothing about the blow he received. That horrible moment when Djokovic has returned it and the whole world is pent up in Andy Murray's right arm and we hold our breath until he got it back and we could rest safe in the knowledge that for the next two seconds, it isn't Andy's to lose. Then it's back on us again.
Praying Djokovic couldn't stretch himself to it, then sighing in resignation when he did, it was unbearable viewing. Every time Murray returned the ball was a small victory, a sigh of relief. Only when Novak missed could I fully raise myself to happiness. Of course a winner from Murray registered a sort of happiness, but I found it to be far more like relief mixed with an admiration that showed itself in nervous laughter or a full-blooded exhalation of all that energy.
It was that sort of match where the avoidance of error was paramount. That, and running and running for every ball that made it back over the net. It was like a very real playing-out of the phrase, "the ball is in your court now," with all the implications those words carry of just being glad to get it back over the net, happy to not have to worry about it, even for those two seconds.
The end of any great sporting encounter always leaves a trembling pins and needles, nerves exhausted, like I had just been hit in the stomach. Later on, I experienced the come down, like hitting the wall, and realised that for several hours that morning I had been operating on some higher plane of being. That is surely the most powerful drug of all.
Friday, 27 January 2012
In Defence of Andy Murray
Is there anything more tedious in sport than people who moan about someone's 'personality'? Probably those who then use this judgement to decide who they are going to support. It's so depressing. I'm no rampant nationalist who dogmatically insists on supporting anyone who is representing our country to the point of fervour, but I do take issue with Brits who actively support our opponents. You don't have to like Murray, you don't even have to actively support Murray, but you must not support his opponent, thereby hoping that our man comes second.
After every big game that Andy Murray is involved in, I ready myself for the various arguments, fights and scraps that I will choose to wade into onto Andy Murray's behalf. But it isn't just on his behalf, it is for every sportsman that feels no compulsion to pander to boring journalists and who do not seek to build for themselves some ego-boosting following that they can then exploit in negotiations for sponsorship.
Novak Djokovic's innocent and polished answers he gives to the press are the most blatantly stage-managed things in the sport of tennis. When it comes to being honest and genuine, Murray wins hands down. If you want dancing monkeys, go to the circus. This is proper sport. Give me sweat over a smile every time.
Andy Murray is concerned with winning. So what if he mumbles his answers back to journalists? So what if he doesn't shave? He's the best tennis player this country has ever had (not interested in those who won Wimbledon in another epoch). I'm more concerned about the guts he shows to pull himself back into a match when it looks like his opponent is taking hold. I judge him by his actions on the court and not in a press conference, his response to a cross court backhand not a question. Not every sportsman can be Muhammad Ali and arrive to each interview with merry rhymes to make everyone giggle.
At this point it should also be made clear that Andy Murray is not the same player he was several years ago. His on-court demeanour is no longer petulant and he has reigned in the sulking and the droopy shoulders. He now stands tall and is undeniably positive in the way he carries himself. If you still believe that 'he doesn't like English people' then I am not going to waste my energies trying to convert you. You are a lost cause as a watcher of sport.
He has still NEVER lost in a grand-slam to a player ranked lower than him. Well, you might say, he'll always lose to one of Federer, Nadal or Djokovic. Except you cannot deny that he is getting closer and closer each time and it is illogical to claim that this improvement and the narrowing of the gap will one day turn results in his favour. Federer is declining as a force and Nadal has his injury worries. Give it a few years - all the minutiae of circumstance that Murray needs to pull it off will one day happen.
Andy Murray is not a bottler. He is world number 4, so he should lose to world number 1, and 2, and 3. So when he pushes the world number 1 to his absolute limit, why would people abuse him? He was expected to lose in straight sets, so anything better than that is a success, even if he still lost in the end.
In the 2007 RWC, New Zealand 'bottled it' when they lost to France by 2 points. Four years later, the same ignorant people abused the All Blacks again for 'bottling it'. They won by 1 point. Andy Murray did not bottle today's match, instead he pushed the best player in the world to the end. The margins in top class sport are so narrow that it may well take four years to turn a two point loss into a one point victory. Murray, like the All Blacks, has the skills and the support and the set-up to narrow the gap.
Finally, if one more person brings up that tired, limp, smug phrase that goes something like, "Andy Murray is Scottish when he loses/wins and British..." - you know the rest - then I think I may lose my mind.
After every big game that Andy Murray is involved in, I ready myself for the various arguments, fights and scraps that I will choose to wade into onto Andy Murray's behalf. But it isn't just on his behalf, it is for every sportsman that feels no compulsion to pander to boring journalists and who do not seek to build for themselves some ego-boosting following that they can then exploit in negotiations for sponsorship.
Novak Djokovic's innocent and polished answers he gives to the press are the most blatantly stage-managed things in the sport of tennis. When it comes to being honest and genuine, Murray wins hands down. If you want dancing monkeys, go to the circus. This is proper sport. Give me sweat over a smile every time.
Andy Murray is concerned with winning. So what if he mumbles his answers back to journalists? So what if he doesn't shave? He's the best tennis player this country has ever had (not interested in those who won Wimbledon in another epoch). I'm more concerned about the guts he shows to pull himself back into a match when it looks like his opponent is taking hold. I judge him by his actions on the court and not in a press conference, his response to a cross court backhand not a question. Not every sportsman can be Muhammad Ali and arrive to each interview with merry rhymes to make everyone giggle.
At this point it should also be made clear that Andy Murray is not the same player he was several years ago. His on-court demeanour is no longer petulant and he has reigned in the sulking and the droopy shoulders. He now stands tall and is undeniably positive in the way he carries himself. If you still believe that 'he doesn't like English people' then I am not going to waste my energies trying to convert you. You are a lost cause as a watcher of sport.
He has still NEVER lost in a grand-slam to a player ranked lower than him. Well, you might say, he'll always lose to one of Federer, Nadal or Djokovic. Except you cannot deny that he is getting closer and closer each time and it is illogical to claim that this improvement and the narrowing of the gap will one day turn results in his favour. Federer is declining as a force and Nadal has his injury worries. Give it a few years - all the minutiae of circumstance that Murray needs to pull it off will one day happen.
Andy Murray is not a bottler. He is world number 4, so he should lose to world number 1, and 2, and 3. So when he pushes the world number 1 to his absolute limit, why would people abuse him? He was expected to lose in straight sets, so anything better than that is a success, even if he still lost in the end.
In the 2007 RWC, New Zealand 'bottled it' when they lost to France by 2 points. Four years later, the same ignorant people abused the All Blacks again for 'bottling it'. They won by 1 point. Andy Murray did not bottle today's match, instead he pushed the best player in the world to the end. The margins in top class sport are so narrow that it may well take four years to turn a two point loss into a one point victory. Murray, like the All Blacks, has the skills and the support and the set-up to narrow the gap.
Finally, if one more person brings up that tired, limp, smug phrase that goes something like, "Andy Murray is Scottish when he loses/wins and British..." - you know the rest - then I think I may lose my mind.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Two More Weeks
- Injured again?
- Yes, again.
- What have you done (this time)?
- Just my ankle
- Didn't you-
- Yes, it's the other one
- Ah right, that's shit
- Yes, it is rather shit.
- How long do you think it'll be before you're playing again?
- About two weeks.
He'd been telling people two weeks for about two weeks now and this fact now dawned on him.
- You know next week is our first cup match.
- Oh really? Who against?
- ...we need you back.
- Yes. Well, you know, we'll see.
Can't come back too soon - what would be the point? Injure it again? Lose the match anyway? Play like a fool and injure it? There was so little to be gained. Mustn't allow himself to come back too soon. He didn't want to speak to the coach but he was too decent to allow himself to totally slip off the radar. There were some remnants of professionalism left.
- Well the physio says you're okay now.
- Well, I'm not.
The aforementioned team-mates went on with their days, but not before the typical end to their conversations:
- Are you coming to the social tonight?
- No.
- Oh, okay.
He should have known better.
- Yes, again.
- What have you done (this time)?
- Just my ankle
- Didn't you-
- Yes, it's the other one
- Ah right, that's shit
- Yes, it is rather shit.
- How long do you think it'll be before you're playing again?
- About two weeks.
He'd been telling people two weeks for about two weeks now and this fact now dawned on him.
- You know next week is our first cup match.
- Oh really? Who against?
- ...we need you back.
- Yes. Well, you know, we'll see.
Can't come back too soon - what would be the point? Injure it again? Lose the match anyway? Play like a fool and injure it? There was so little to be gained. Mustn't allow himself to come back too soon. He didn't want to speak to the coach but he was too decent to allow himself to totally slip off the radar. There were some remnants of professionalism left.
- Well the physio says you're okay now.
- Well, I'm not.
The aforementioned team-mates went on with their days, but not before the typical end to their conversations:
- Are you coming to the social tonight?
- No.
- Oh, okay.
He should have known better.
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