Something About Rugby.

This past Saturday (10/10/15) and Sunday (11/10/15) has seen the final pool/group games in the 2015 Rugby Union World Cup. These obviously decided who would play whom in the quarter finals and who would go home.

The build-up began on Friday (9/10/15) with the news that the UK Crown would not be holding a Coroners Inquest into the death of Anni Dewani (nee; Hindocha). This was the latest instalment in a long running saga that began in Cape Town, South Africa in November 2010.

Essentially massive homosexual Shrien Dewani was pressured into marrying Anni Dewani. On their honeymoon in South Africa in November 2010 he paid hitmen to kill Anni Dewani freeing him from the marriage and allowing to live as a socially acceptable widower rather then a suspiciously single man who seemed to have no interest in women.

Although I think this was just a private citizen acting as a private citizen it happened just before the start of the COP16 climate change meeting in Cancun, Mexico. By that point we already knew that the next year's COP17 Summit would be held in Durban, South Africa. The Durban platform that was devised at COP17 is the basis for the new climate change agreement that is set to be signed in just 49 days at COP21 in Paris, France.

Both in terms of the security plan for COP17 and for the sake of their tourism industry generally the South Africans were initially very keen to bring Shrien Dewani to justice to send the message that South Africa isn't a country you can visit to murder people and get away with it.

Unfortunately the story was too much of an opportunity for the UK to resist. For example the Dewani family are based in Bristol, UK. Although I think I only visited the place once I have quite strong ties to Bristol. 

Also while the Dewanis are British citizens and the Hindochas are Swedish citizens they are both ethnically Indian and have strong ties to that nation which is very important in climate change negotiations. Added to that South Africa actually has a large ethnically Indian population and barely a week seems to go by when the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party aren't embroiled in some corruption scandal or other involving wealthy Indian families.

As a result the UK stepped in to protect Shrien Dewani from justice. Following a 4 year extradition process South Africa finally bowed to pressure from the UK and dropped the case in November 2014. The request for a Coroners Inquest was the Hindocha family attempting to re-open the case.

If the England rugby had gone on to meet the South Africa rugby team in the quarter-finals the timing of the decision would have been excellent preparation as we were left speculating over whether the UK was protecting South Africa for the decision it imposed on them or criticising them for the decision they imposed on them.

As it turns out England didn't qualify so the story was left to be recycled as the British Crown backing South Africa in its quarter final against Wales who defeated England knocking them out of the competition.

Unfortunately Ireland decided to get in on the action with the deaths of 10 people in a fire at the Carrickmines gypsy/traveller site in County Dublin. Back in 2011 the UK got in a lot of trouble - including with the United Nations (UN) - over the eviction of the Dale Farm gypsy/traveller site in Essex. Also in my younger, wilder days I have lived on the fringes of that secretive world.

What Ireland was looking for was help defeating France to avoid New Zealand in the quarter finals. Watching Sunday's (12/10/15) game you could see why Ireland felt they needed help because they're clearly trying to focus on the skilled aspects of the game rather then brute force. However by the sheer volume of handling errors it's clear that Ireland's skills aren't strong enough to defeat New Zealand who can also do brute force.

I don't think Ireland needed to bother because ever since they were billeted in Croydon - Asylum Seeker Central - it's clear that France are in for a rough time at this tournament as punishment for the Calais refugee crisis.

Despite winning the game fairly and avoiding New Zealand in the quarter finals afterwards Ireland popped up again with the shooting of a police officer in domestic incident in Omeath, County Louth which right on the border with Northern Ireland.

The fact that the suspect has been identified as a dissident Republican brings in all the current arguments over Northern Ireland's power sharing assembly. Louth is also the constituency of Republican Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

Also at the time Turkey started it's bombing of Kurdish targets in Iraq which was accompanied by the Shoreham Air Crash I commented that Turkey bombing Kurdish targets in Iraq in response to the Suruc bombing made about as much sense as the UK bombing County Meath in Ireland response to the Shoreham Air Crash.

I chose County Meath to make this point because County Louth sits between it and Northern Ireland.

I may be back later to add some stuff about the purely technical aspects of the game of rugby. However at this point I've not even checked my messages.

11:10 on 12/10/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 15:50 on 12/10/15 (UK date) to add;

Shortly after the Ireland v France game ended I got re-Tweeted that day's summary of the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - air-strikes

Unfortunately at the time my phone didn't tell me that it was a re-Tweet making me think that CJTFOIR were no longer blocking me. As I was working out if and how I should acknowledge this development my phone was being really difficult running slowly, failing to connect to the Internet and eventually just switching itself off.

The final game of the day was between Japan and the USA. Unlike the vast majority of the traditional rugby playing nations neither of these two countries are part of the UK Commonwealth. They are though two powerful, technologically advanced nations that have been working together on the US "Pivot Towards the Pacific"  and the associated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

As a result the game felt to me like the UK putting pressure on both nations to reveal what they knew. For example rather then being played at a big stadium like Twickenham they were forced to play at a tiny rugby club in Gloucester which really underlined their lower status in the game.

To make matters worse to watch that game I had to record the season premiere of "Homeland" on my Chinese made DVR bringing in a whole extra level of technology.

So basically it was events conspiring late on to spoil an otherwise rather enjoyable day.

Due events in Turkey I was unable to watch England's final game against Uruguay on Saturday (10/10/15). This was annoying because after the England v Australia game I pointed out that England conceded a lot of penalties for collapsing the scrum by failing to drive straight.

I then realised that if you didn't automatically know what that sentence meant I had no way of explaining it. A couple of days later I thought one up;

Take the fingers of both your hands and wiggle them about. Then interlock them so the index finger of your left hand goes between the index and middle fingers on your right hand and so on. Once you've got your fingers interlocked force your knuckles together as hard as you can.

That is pretty much what a scrum is with the tips of your fingers being the legs of the players all trying to hook the ball back to there side of the scrum. The force of the knuckles is what is known as; "the drive."

Although the main objective of the scrum is to get the ball back to your own players teams can try and gain a territory advantage either by pushing the other team back or wheeling the scrum around. This involves rotating the scrum so the opposition's defensive line is left facing in the opposite direction leaving the attacking free to go on and score.

When wheeling a scrum it's important that the players keep driving forward while the movement comes from the gradual edging of the players feet sideways. What England have a tendency to do is to push harder on one side of the scrum then the other in an effort to move it around that way. During the Wales game they weren't picked up on it while in the Australia game they were.

While I'm here I should also try and explain the passage of play that many people blame for England losing to Wales;

Around the 75th minute England won a penalty five yards/metres away from the Welsh try-line/end-zone. They could have used this to kick a goal scoring 3 points and levelling the game at  28-28.

Alternatively they could have put the ball into touch and used that to set up what is called a "Rolling Maul." This basically is when the attacking side tries push the player holding the ball through the opposition defensive line. If that was successful England would have scored a 5 point try and then possibly a 2 point conversion allowing them to win the game 32-28.

The angle for the kick was really tight so England instead went for the rolling maul. As a result the last 5 minutes of the game was one group of really big men trying with all their might to force their way past a group of equally large men who were trying just as hard to stop them.

It was actually a very masculine version of how the 2015 Superbowl ended. However where the Patriots were able to force their way over to score England weren't.

The thing that annoyed me about Wales' performance against Australia was that around the 60 minute mark Australia had two players sent to the sin bin meaning that for 10 minutes the game was played with 15 Welsh players against 13 Australian players.

Wales then sort of got fixated on using this weight advantage to force a rolling maul across the Australian try-line giving them a 13-12 lead. All the while their supporters were just willing them to pass the ball out wide and simply run though the gap in the Australia defence.

They didn't and after scoring a late 3 point penalty Australia went on to win 15-6 in a game without a single try.

16:35 on 12/10/15 (UK date).