Eight reasons to loathe the Poms
Wellington. Worst of all, they had two guys sinbinned, and against just six men, the All Blacks eight couldn’t get a pushover try. No All Black has ever known what a winning Irish or Scots team is like, and no All Black for nearly 60 years has had to see how a winning Welsh team behaves.
Five. They’ve had some dirty buggers play for them. Yes, I know we’re supposed to be the lowlife scum on the paddock, but in Danny Grewcock, England not only had a man with one of the worst names in the sport (only rivalled by Ebbo Bastard of South Africa and Jean Condom of France) but a serial head kicker too. He copped five weeks for kicking Anton Oliver at Carisbrook, and six weeks for kicking Dan Carter.
Six. They’re sensational hypocrites. Danny Grewcock was awarded the MBE for his services to rugby.
Seven. Their media hacks are lousy comedians. Stephen Jones tries, but, as an English colleague of his once told me, ‘‘Stephen’s psyche is so twisted the poor man is Welsh, and he’s a fanatical England supporter.’’ The only really funny English writer was the dyspeptic John Reason, who leavened his displeasure over all things All Blacks with political views so hysterical it was impossible not to laugh. During the 1981 Springboks tour he compared the Christchurch Press to the Soviet Union communist paper Pravda, and suggested that the best thing about the 81 tour was that it gave our cops the experience they’d need when they later faced the social terrorists at the heart of the anti-tour movement. ‘‘They don’t have machine guns yet. But they will. They will.’’ I am not making any of this up.
Eight. Every now and again they’re so tricky they produce a genuinely good bloke to keep us off balance. Such a man is Bill Beaumont, who the NZRU backed to head the IRB. Beaumont is as unassuming as the day is long. As just one example he tells how, when a buxom topless woman ran on to Twickenham during a test in which he was captaining England, one his players said to him, ‘‘Bill, don’t look now, but there’s a woman on the pitch with your bum strapped to her chest.’’