Bonny Prince Alex

Prior to the union with England Scotland had a long and glorious tradition of following the wrong leader and creating the wrong alliances and this poor judgement eventually created the need for union with England 1706, when the Scottish Parliament voted by 106 votes to 69 for dependence.  Since the Union there have also been a number of moments when the Scots have thrown their lot in with leaders (Bonny Prince Charlie for one) and alliances (The French) who offered more than they were able to deliver.

Queen Anne's floral badge of Union

The North South Divide - welfare reform adds to the problem

The UK is embarking on a long overdue revamp of its welfare provision, this includes unemployment benefits, incapacity benefits, pensions, housing benefits and a whole range of tax credits too numerous to name.  The aim of Mr Duncan Smiths reforms are to simplify the system, put the emphasis on work rather than paid-for idleness and to reduce the amount of expenditure.  These changes have been greeted with howls of anger from the Left, although Labour have made no firm commitment to reinstate these cuts if re-elected in 2015.

Can England Rugby re-build?

Although it hurts - Well done Wales!

The English dream of a grand slam in Cardiff turned into a nightmare.  When we finally opened our eyes at the end the score was Wales 30 England 3, the biggest winning margin Wales  have ever achieved against us in the six nations. From the moment the 80,000 strong crowd started to sing Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of my Fathers) the writing was on the wall.

A week ago I appraised the England team after a poor performance against Italy in the post
http://getwd50.blogspot.com/2013/03/two-nations-left.html


 - my reassessments after the Wales match are in bold.

The front five, always the corner stone of a good England team, are a young and hopefully improving unit but they are not destructive or frightening like their forebears.  The raw material is there but they will have to improve a lot if we are to be world beaters.
We were destroyed in the front five, repeatedly being penalised at the scrum for collapsing and other mysterious misdemeanors. This is where we lost the game and Graham Rowntree (forwards coach) should take responsibility for this national embarrassment.  The front row aren't technically good enough and our second row look light weight.

The Loose forwards are a concern, Tom Wood plays out of position and we lack a real openside wing forward.  The captain Robshaw has been inspired defensively but does not give us enough "go forward".  The lack of a credible number eight is perhaps the greatest weakness of the team.  I would play Wood at blind side, Croft at open but that leaves Robshaw without a berth.  This area is a big problem.
A manful effort from Robshaw but he could not stem the tide alone.  The other two Wood and Croft were invisible.  Without a proper number 8 or openside we are going to struggle.  But the main problem for these loose forwards was the fact that we were out gunned in the front five and the rest was history.

The half back pairing of Youngs and Farrell are good enough and there is cover as well.
This pairing were just not precise enough, Farrell defended bravely but passed erratically and didn't have the skills outside him.  Youngs struggled all afternoon at the base of a beaten pack. 

In the Centre we have plenty of grunt but no finesse.  Our inability to cross the line against Italy was a national embarrassment as we butchered chance after chance.  Tuilagi is obviously a presence but without some brains inside he can be marshaled, as the Italian's showed.
Out classed by their opposite numbers.  Tuilagi missed a great chance off a set move in the first half and Barritt defensively sound but one dimensional in attack.  Actually these guys rarely had the ball so dominant were Wales.

Finally the back three are talented but miss-firing, both Ashton and Brown are suspect defensively as the conceded tries show.  Goode is okay defensively but lacks pace and guile in attack.  We need more pace at fifteen and better defense on the wings. 
Goode was dull as normal, Ashton will now be dropped after his woeful display of non-tackling and Brown was good enough considering he is playing out of position.

So quite a bit for the coaching staff to digest, once they have replayed the video they might spot that we urgently need to find:
1. A frightening front row
2. A more balanced back row built around a specialist number eight
3. Some skills in the centre to go with Tuilagi's bulk
4. An all new back three

Highlights here if you dare watch - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/21817341


Full player ratings from the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/9935261/Six-Nations-2013-Wales-v-England-player-ratings.html
 

Hating the English when it comes to Rugby

James Corrigan writing in the Telegraph explores an obvious but uncomfortable truism, which is that when it comes to sport every Celt loves to see England lose.  As the England rugby team cross the Seven Bridge for the final showdown of the Six Nations we can be sure that every Welshman and 90% of Scots and Irish will be hoping the Welsh can inflict a drubbing on the "Red Rose".  Let's not forget the French who will also be hoping "les Rosbifs" get roasted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/wales/9932980/Six-Nations-2013-Heres-why-the-whole-of-Wales-and-Scotland-and-Ireland-want-to-see-England-humiliated.html

Our band of brothers - beating Scotland!

Since the all conquering sides of the 1990s and the world cup winning team of 2003 its been open season on the English and how the Celts have loved it.  There have been dark days.  We English remember with acute pain the terrible failures in the final matches at Murrayfield in 1990 and 2002 against the Scots, at Wembley in 1999 against the Welsh, at Lansdowne Road in 2001 and again in 2011 against the Irish.

I know many Englishmen who are affronted by the bad manners of our Celtic cousins, where is their sense of Britishness they ask.  They find the whole thing tiresome and unfair!  However the rest of us love the hatred, history and rancour, it makes the winning so much sweeter.  And of course when it comes to armed neutrality we can mix it with the best.  Whenever Wales play and lose to Samoa I am happy to don a grass skirt and bang the drum for the Pacific Islanders, I could no more support Wales than boil my own head in a vat of tar.

COME ON ENGLAND

Now is the winter of our discontent

I visited Winchester Cathedral a couple of weeks ago and whilst wandering around this wonderful Gothic church I came across plaque telling me that an ancient sepulchre had been removed for restoration.  Apparently this stone coffin contained a jumble of  bones belonging to some ancient Kings of Wessex – Canute and his wife Emma, a number of Ethelred and Egberts most of whom had the unhappy suffix ‘the unready’.  I am not sure how one restores a pile of old bones but it is clearly important work.  



After looking round and on our way to a wonderful lunch at The Wykeham Arms  my wife mentioned how sad it was that we had missed the sepulchre and the bones.  I made the mistake of asking how these old bones might enrich our lives and I am reminded of her frosty response by the recent discovery in Leicester.

News that we have laid our hands on the remains of Richard lll, the last Plantagenet King of England, is exciting and particularly so for a little known Canadian furniture maker called Michael Ibsen who shares Richard’s DNA.  The excitement started last September, when a team from the University of Leicester announced they had found a skeleton with apparent battlefield wounds during excavations of the Grey Friars site (the historical burial place of the defeated King).  Anyway, the test are in and it’s a fact - the team have indeed found the skeleton of King Richard.  Additionally, the skeleton showed signs of injuries consistent with wounds received at battle of Bosworth (1485), where Henry Tudor defeated Richard to become Henry Vll. 

The Fields at Bosworth - where Richard fell in battle

Richard is one of our most controversial Monarchs.  He was  fingered for the murder of the Princes in the Tower by Shakespeare and his reputation has been in tatters ever since.  So how will getting our hands on his bones make any historical difference, sadly for me the inconvenient truth is that it probably will help inform the debate around this much maligned King.  The wonders of modern science will be able to tell us quite a bit about this unfortunate soul with the crocked back and broken reputation.  Already the boffins can tells us that many of his 'wounds' were a the results of blows after he was dead, which tells us something about his victor.  All of this now makes me sorry for my flippant and dim witted remarks in Winchester. 

I am still hoping this is an elaborate hoax designed by Mr Ibsen to help sell his new range of four poster beds!  Whether this proves to be true or not he should change his name to Michael Plantagenet and put his prices up.

The next question is where should he be reburied - there will be voices in favour of Westminster Abbey and York, but I think he should remain in Leicester the closest city to where he fell.  Its been good enough for 500 years, why move him!