Jonny Wilkinson est a terre, mais les Irlandais, les Italiens et les Francais sont a donf... a donf et le quinze Francais est pret a realiser un nouveau grand chelem, si il reussit a battre le XV a la rose a Twickenham lors de son prochain match.
Les anglais ont mordu la poussiere, bouffe les pissenlits par la racine, ont pris une deculottee, une bonne fesse irlandaise, 43-13!!! A ce sujet, je fais une copie de l'article du Sunday Times de ce jour, c'est tellement bon! (
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby/six_nations/article1434677.ece)
Les Francais sont venus a bout des Gallois et les Italiens, qui avaient fait une bonne premiere mi-temps contre les Francais en ouverture de ce Tournoi 2007 ont enfin conquis leur premiere victoire a l'exterieur, chez les Ecossais (Cedric n'a pas fini de pourrir Alastair notre Ecossais prefere...).
Du rugby comme on l'aime.
Bises a tous,
MC SebT
England Croke
England received a warm welcome from the Irish fans at Croke Park, who revelled in a record 43-13 defeat for Brian Ashton's team
David Walsh
LATE LAST evening, all that was left of rugby’s first season at Croke Park were workers carrying bags of litter from the periphery of the pitch. By then, most of the debris had been cleared and England’s battered team had been mercifully taken away. At 43-13, a record defeat in the championship for the visitors, it was as much a massacre as a match. Just the way the Irish wanted it.
It was the most absorbing occasion and a quite brilliant Irish performance. The home fans and their team arrived at the Gaelic Athletic Association’s (GAA) fine stadium to deal with one of the older enemies and to help bury the ghosts of history. They nailed the ghosts and buried the men in white jerseys. All week, the talk in Ireland was of moving on to a new, better future. This morning the future will seem like the promised land.
Four tries to one hardly tells the full story of Ireland’s dominance, nor of the ferocity of the battle and the excellence that the home team achieved in wet and difficult conditions. But, there it was, a scintillating Irish performance, and elsewhere a first ever away victory in the championship for the wonderful Italians at Murrayfield and France impressive in winning a fine match against the Welsh. Never has the RBS Six Nations Championship seemed so alive, so thrilling.
England coach Brian Ashton can be excused for not sharing in the joy that vibrated in Dublin. How often does an England team concede 43 points in a match? From Ashton, there was straightforward honesty: “They [Ireland] were sharper, fresher, fitter. We were beaten all over the pitch. It was a reality check for us. We were stuffed.”
Like turkeys. And there were no excuses from any in the England camp. “We just didn’t turn up,” said Mike Tindall. “You can’t play like we did in the first half and expect to win Test matches.” England trailed 23-3 at the interval and it could have been worse. But we speak too much about a game when this was far more than that.
There was a surreal atmosphere around Croke Park, for this had always promised to be one of the greatest occasions in Irish sport. Two hours before the game, it was barely possible to get to the bar in any of pubs on Dorset Street, close to the ground. The big man who pushed you out of the way offered a cursory “Sorry” and said he had “to get his drink quickly, so as not to miss the national anthems.”
Tickets were selling for €1,500 a pair and a man from Co Down rang the national radio station and made his offer. He was a plumber by trade and installed bathrooms for a living. Now, he said, if someone could get him two tickets he would, for free, install a new bathroom suite in their house, shower not included. But a nation, not sure whether it was hosting a rugby international or a symposium on political reconciliation, turned a deaf ear. A bathroom for two tickets, there was no value there. When the police and army bands got themselves into position for the playing of the anthems, there wasn’t an empty seat in a stadium that holds 82,500.
For weeks, there had been animated debate about the playing of God Save the Queen at the home of gaelic games but we knew before the first note was played what the reaction would be. When Phil Vickery, the England captain, led his team out, the applause was on the generous end of respectful and the reaction to the anthem was almost reverentially respectful.
And then Jonny Wilkinson set the ball down on the grass, 14 Englishmen gathered behind him; 15 Irishmen lined up in the other half and the overwhelming thought was how wonderful that it has all come to this. Our battles are now sporting and the only hurt is on the scoreboard. Somehow, from the second the two teams emerged from Croke Park’s tunnel, it seemed the Irish were somehow more fired up.
They sang their songs with a passion that was vibrant, they contested the early exchanges with the steely-eyed concentration of the utterly focused and England’s players seemed caught up in a ferocious storm they did not quite understand. In a stadium so central to Ireland’s cultural identity, it was as if the rugby men wanted their place in history too.
Perhaps that’s one part of the story but, more likely, it was an Irish team playing for their lives. Before the Six Nations began, Ireland had been spoken of as potential Grand Slam winners. That dream died against France two weeks ago and last night there was a sense that if the team lost again, the damage would be irreversible. Two home defeats at Croke Park; too much to bear.
A gigantic tricolour spread high on the front of a building on Dorset Street, within shouting distance of the stadium, carried a message that hinted at the politics but screamed at a greater imperative. "Bod," it said, referring to the Irish captain Brian O'Driscoll, "save our gracious team". It was that important for Ireland and that's how they played.
To pick from more recent history, there was a time when Irish rugby teams offered nothing much more than boot and bite. It became fashionable to denigrate that approach but it still has a place and when it is combined with a little method, let us say the opposition have a game on their hands. And for 40 minutes, England couldn’t handle it.
Great occasions, of course, depend upon the quality of the contest and yesterday’s match owed a lot to the manner in which England recovered from that first-half mauling. They got into the game in the second half, David Strettle scored a fine try and for a few minutes there was the possibility of the game becoming a cliff-hanger.
At one wonderful moment, the 7,000 Englishmen in the ground attempted a rendition of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Remarkably, it seemed almost an affront to the occasion and the Irish crowd’s reaction told the story of the day’s mood. It booed a little at first and then settled for more conventional support for its team.
The greatest response, though, came from the team itself. Because after the Strettle try and a short period of English pressure afterwards, Ireland regained control and scored the most wonderful try through the right wing Shane Horgan. That score was converted by Ronan O’Gara and Ireland were out of sight. When the score is 43-13, there isn’t much room for debate.
It was Ireland’s fourth consecutive victory over England, a statistic almost as startling as the sight of rugby team at this historic stadium.
When Jonny Wilkinson eventually set the ball down on the grass, the overwhelming thought was how wonderful that it should come to this. Our battles are now sporting and the only hurt is on the scoreboard. Yet there is some importance still attached to the winning and losing and, from the first moment, you could see the Irish were more fired up. They had lost their dreams of a Grand Slam two weeks ago in a home defeat to France and to lose again would be too much to bear.
“We didn’t want to leave Croke Park with two defeats,” said Brian O’Driscoll, the Ireland captain. “We wanted to say ‘thank you’ to the GAA for allowing us to use their stadium and it worked out.”
A gigantic tricolour was spread high on the front of a building on Dorset Street, within shouting distance of the stadium. It carried a message that hinted at the politics but screamed at a greater imperative. “Bod,” it said, referring to O’Driscoll, “save our gracious team.” It was that important for Ireland and that’s how they played.
Great occasions, of course, depend upon the quality of the contest and yesterday’s match owed something to England’s recovery from that first-half mauling. They got into the game for 15 minutes of the second half, the impressive debutant David Strettle scored a fine try and, briefly, there was the possibility of a true contest.
Ireland’s response though was magnificent. They regained control and scored the most wonderful try through the right wing Shane Horgan and how appropriate was the manner of the score. The authoritative Ronan O’Gara floated a high kick for a man who once was a fine gaelic footballer and, in the style of that sport, Horgan soared towards the skies, made the catch, and broke England’s hearts as he fell to ground.
Even the most die-hard GAA man would have applauded that. Or perhaps he would have claimed that it took a young man who started out playing gaelic football finally to kill off the English.
