Baa Baa (All) Black Sheep

This is a strange weekend in the European rugby calendar.

The Autumn Internationals are over, but they’re not…we still had the Boks/Wallabies All-Star Xv…er, I mean, the Barbarians, against the All Blacks at Twickers yesterday, and the Magners League is back in action, but in many ways it’s not, since Round 8 is little more than a training exercise for most of the clubs for the crucial home-and-away Heineken Cup matches to come for the next fortnight.

And yet we faithful oval ball supporters are supposed to accept the slight dip in standards regardless, and I for one have done my best to structure my weekend around the action in amongst all the family stuff and the X-Factor endurance so I can watch the action.

Of course the game at Twickenham was an entertaining spectacle, with Bryan Habana’s superb hat-trick the highlight, but apart from the colours of the jerseys and the actual victors on the day I found it hard to find too many comparisons with the 1973 encounter.

First of all, you had the ridiculous sight of the Baa-baas actually going for a 3-point penalty. Quite right for the crowd to boo.

But surely the reason the pundits love to harp on about the 73 match, complete with “the” try, is that the Barbarian team was mostly made up of home players? With the exception of Jamie Roberts and a few Italians, the majority of the players were from the southern hemisphere, and in a sport that is so steeped in tradition, I got the sense that the wool was being pulled over the paying spectators’ eyes in many ways.

Meanwhile in the Magners League it hasn’t been a good weekend for the Irish provinces so far, and with bottom of the table Connacht going to Cardiff and my Leinster sending their younglings to Newport, it doesn’t look like it will get much better.

Just what the hell is happening at Munster? Not only do their jerseys make them look like Liverpool FC, their league season is starting to look like theirs as well! And I have to say, I baffled at the way Tony McGahan was “rewarded” with a new contract during the week. Surely these decisions should be made over the off-season? Makes it all look a bit suspect when the team loses it’s fifth competitive fixture in only the first weekend in December!

Have to say it reminds me of Eddie O’Sullivan getting his contract renewed before a World Cup ball was even kicked in 2007.

Then there’s ROG. I don’t want to gloat over his poor form, because even with the Rise of Jonny Ten this season, he’s still a vital cog in Ireland’s plans to defend their Grand Slam in the New Year, and I definitely hope McGahan & Kidney between them can help him get his mojo back.

As for Ulster, they were all kinds of awful at Ravenhill on Friday night. Must’ve been a real sickener for the home fans who braved the atrocious conditions to watch them give Dan Parks kick after kick after kick.

Maybe I was premature in dropping my “Meaningless League” nickname, as it is clear that the first half of the competition is treated with virtual indifference by the IRFU, WRU and SRU respectively.

I mean, no real disrespect intended, but the presence of both Scottish clubs at the top of the table is testimony to that for anyone who looks at the history of the competition objectively!

But that could all change this afternoon if Leinster’s kiddies do the biz at the Dragons. Could be an interesting end to an unusual weekend of rugby.