Rugby World Cup: England Are a Disgrace (Part 2)

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: October 8, 2011

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I wrote the first article in the middle of the Georgia matches. The old warning signs were there.

What was different was that, in my opinion, the off-field shenanigans had fuelled the on-field indiscipline.

I hoped that lots of serious rugby followers would read it and somehow find a way to get the message across. I half-hoped that somebody in a position of influence would read it and get Johnson to jump all over it.

Frankly, taking on and off field, England have been the most undisciplined "professional" international rugby side I can remember since.... England and a bottle of aftershave in Paris in 1982...

It cannot help professional discipline, teamwork or on-field performance if England are allowed so much freedom off the field... no doubt this morning Wayne Rooney will be vilified for kicking the calf of a Montenegro player, but Delan Armitage makes him look like a saint... and Matt Stevens has made a wonderful comeback from his drugs ban...

And what about those who don't indulge in the boozing, the lewd remarks and the womanising? Shontayne Hape did nothing wrong in the first match, but presumably has been frozen out by his more irresponsible teammates and a manager who has frankly done nowhere near enough to punish the miscreants, and, having lost in the quarter-finals, allowed English "professional" rugby to become the laughingstock of the world.

How did we lose that quarterfinal? Guess what? Indiscipline and indecision.

How stupid does Johnson look when it emerges that he ordered a "kick-off" between Jonny Wilkinson and Toby Flood to determine the kicker?



And having presumably won it, Wilko proceeded to miss his first kick in the match to settle England down.

But how we really lost it was five penalties for indiscipline in the scrum/loose (sound familiar?), lost line-out ball and an avalanche of handling errors (sorry guys, had one too many of the ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union

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