Oct 14 2007
Best comeback ever?
Only four weeks after being awful, the England Rugby Union team is now marvellous. It’s been a quite dramatic turnaround; the Rugby World Cup pool game between England and South Africa back in September saw England receive a 36-0 thrashing and led to the widespread belief that England had not a cat in Hell’s chance of defending their crown. Headlines such as ‘Worst World Champions Ever’ proliferated (ahem) and many observers doubted whether the team would even qualify for the tournament’s knockout stages. Fast-forward four weeks and, by beating hosts France, England have booked their place in next week’s final, amazing all but the most patriotic of pundits and giving themselves the chance of being the first nation ever successfully to defend the Webb Ellis trophy.
So how did it happen? God only knows, but it seems that being so totally written off engendered in the English team a bloody-mindedness and a ‘back to basics’ approach that enabled them to slowly battle back towards form. After that, a combination of scrummaging power, fortunate bounces, last-ditch tackles, immense heart and keeping Lawrence Dallaglio off the pitch until the dying seconds has seen England to their current, unfeasible position. Their matches haven’t been flashy, but even the neutrals must have admired their spirit.
But despite this comeback of Barrymore-like proportions, the fact remains that England’s record over the past four years has been poor. Before last week’s shock victory over Australia, the team had won just 19 of their past 44 games. So we can still justifiably, albeit bizarrely, call England the worst world champions ever even at the point where they could become the best world champions ever. Go figure.
On an entirely unrelated subject, I have just discovered that I am taller than the average Brazilian. Admirável! But shorter than the average Lithuanian. Po Kelmais!