England 26 New Zealand 12: World Rugby champions, did you say?

Forget the All  Blacks, England are the best rugby team in the world. Don't laugh, the evidence could well be indisputable in a couple of weeks time. I am, of course talking about the other code of the game. The one they started up in Huddersfield many years ago ''t'get some dosh for t'players.''

I guess many the Hooray Henry losers who watched New Zealand beat Australia in Saturday's RWC Final still have hangovers after their six-week oval ball of non-qualifying celebration. But earlier this evening I watched a team of white-shirted Englishmen hammer world champions New Zealand in front of a euphoric crowd at Hull's KC Stadium. And there was not a single chariot around, sweet or low.

The occasion was the first of three Test matches between England and New Zealand, who have pinched the mantle of world's best from their Antipodean cousins in recent years. And surprise, surprise, the men in white 'rose' to the occasion as only an English team can (as opposed to 'do').

Oddly enough, the clinching try was scored by Wigan Warriors captain Sean O'Loughlin, whose name sounds more in keeping with a jolly green giant on the Irish after-dinner circuit.  The reality is that O'Loughlin is Wigan born and bred and it's hard enough trying to decipher his accent  in St Helens, let alone in the lah-di-dah corridors of rugger power. Not that he is ever likely to follow Sam Burgess on his international Twick or Tweet merry-go-round. He'd need an interpreter and as far as I know there's nobody on earth who is fluent in both English and High Wiganese.

Sean O'Loughlin...scored  England's clinching try

Now I have to confess that as a true Welsh patriot, I am a rugby union person. I don't have the divided interests of former players like Jonathan Davies, who seems able to switch codes in the commentary box almost at will not you, Carling). Jiffy also seems to rather confused about his nationality at present. A Welsh-speaking Welshman, he was heard this evening to utter the unutterable over a microphone as England celebrated victory against the Kiwis. He called them 'we'.
Shame on you, Jonathan. Next thing you'll be telling me that the late Bill McLaren was from Trimsaran.

At first I thought I was imagining the whole unlikely scenario of England beating the All Blacks.  I was doing my usual early-evening channel-hop and there it was. BBC2, live rugby action with England battering the hell out of a bunch of burly black-shirted Kiwis.

My senile brain gradually absorbed the fact that in recent years England have become pretty much the best in the business when it comes to the 13-man game. My recollection is that Australia ruled the rugby league show for almost as long as the All Blacks have been the most remarkable sports team on earth. Apart from a couple of momentary blips when they crashed to No.2 in the rankings, they have been the best in the business for as long as I can remember.

The first nation to win three World Cups, first to win back-to back-crowns and in Richie McCaw led by a unique warrior who has won 131 of his world-record 148 Test matches. I was in junior school last time Wales beat the All Blacks. We've lost to them perhaps a dozen times since then, and even in the golden era of Gareth Edwards and Barry John, only once come close to repeating the feat.

Now you can bet that the McCaw birds of Kiwi-land will be ruling the roost until the next Worldwide Webb-Ellis is invented.

The big question is whether England are on the verge of putting the rugby league world to whites. 

Rugby ref Nigel on top of world as Britannia waves the rules

'Now listen, Christopher. Who's in charge here?' Nigel Owens puts England captain Chris Robshaw in his place

TWICKENHAM will raise a special cheer for the Best of British as the Southern Hemisphere's greatest rivals battle out the 2015 Rugby World Cup Final.

The home nations may have been brushed aside without even troubling the semi-final fixture schedule. But while New Zealand and Australia have been unquestionably the two best sides, hosts England deserve some credit it too. Not so much for their dubious achievement in becoming the first host nation to be knocked out in the pool stages, but for making a more than decent fist of organising a hugely successful programme which enabled fans throughout the country to taste live action at the unlikeliest of venues.

Who will ever forget Japan's unbelievable victory over the mighty Springboks in Brighton, of all places? Or mighty France running out in the unlikely setting of Milton Keynes? Or the eventual finalists lining up for action at Aston Villa and Newcastle United's historic football stadiums?

One thing is for certain. Britain - or to be specific a diminutive Welshman with a penchant for witty one-liners - will wield more influence on tomorrow's result than any individual player. And that includes New Zealand skipper Richie McCaw, the most-capped player in history, who will be making his 148^th appearance in All Black colours. When it comes to rugby refereeing, Nigel Owens is, quite simply, the best. He is also around 5ft 6in of fearlessness – and the bigger the trangressor, the harsher the admonishment he's likely to receive from no-nonsense Nigel.

Take, for instance, Scotland fullback Stuart Hogg's dive against South Africa at St James' Park that would have done any Newcastle United striker proud. ''Try it again and come back in two weeks to play,'' Owens warned red-faced Hogg.

Openly-gay Owens is also happy to make self-deprecating comments about his sexuality. In one match, after a particularly wonky Harlequins lineout, he chided the hooker: '"I’m straighter than that one.”And when he was invited to Buckingham Palace earlier this month, along with players from various countries, he announced on Twitter: ''Well I have met a few Queens in my time - some of you even say I am one. But on the way to Buckingham Palace now to meet the real one.''

And what do tomorrow's mighty combatants think of little Nigel? 


Well, let's just say that the All Blacks like him, while the Wallabies do not exactly bounce with joy over the results of previous matches he has officiated. Which is one reason why I take McCaw's reigning champions to become the first reigning champions to successfully defend the trophy - and also the first to win it three times. The score? Around 20-12...and if I get it all wrong, I'm signing off immediately until 2019.

Scoreline? Around 20-12...and if I get it all wrong, I'm signing off immediately until 2019.

Shower of Scotland? Not Laidlaw's Rugby World Cup heroes

Over to you, Southern Semisphere – the 2015 Rugby World Cup is yours, just as it was in 1987,1991, 1995, 1999, 2007 and 2011. Every time the tournament has been played, that is, with the exception of the lone occasion England’s Jonny Wilkinson dropped in to deny Australia the trophy on their own soil 12 years ago.

But what a bonny fight Scotland’s perceived no-hopers put up before losing 35-34 to a controversial last-minute penalty decision against form team Australia. Written off by everyone bar the Princess Royal and themselves, they seemed to be heading for the last four when Mark Bennett’s interception try under the posts powered skipper Greig Laidlaw and his men into at 34-32 lead amid a feast of tries at Twickenham.

Ironically, the heavens had just opened and rain was bucketing down as Bennett dived in to restore the pride of the Shower of Scotland, last season’s winless Six Nations wooden spoonists.

Perhaps significantly, Bennett was wearing the No.13 shirt and after a last-minute lineout in Scotland’s own 22 went awry, out-of-form Wallabies goalkicker Bernard Foley landed the decisive penalty to complete the quarter-final humiliation of the Northern Hemisphere.

Wales, France and Ireland had all been KO’d over the weekend by South Africa, New Zealand and Argentina respectively. Ireland, like Wales decimated by injuries to key players, took the field at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium as favourites to beat the Pumas. But the South Americans, who have become a genuine world power since joining the Southern Hemisphere championship, stormed into a 17-0 lead in the opening 20 minutes and survived a brave Irish fightback to complete a 43-20 rout.

So who are the real winners and losers of this amazing tournament, whose crowds already top two million? Well, England’s failure to reach the knockout stages has to be top of the losers list. But for me the biggest disappointment has been ITV’s unpredictable match coverage by a hotch-potch of unknown commentators and C list ex-players I’m not talking about the studio panellists but the faceless voices that pipe up with drivel like (pre Australia v Scotland) ''After the break, we’ll have the best of Antipodean ambition and Caledonian courage’’ and (at final whistle) ‘’There will be no Caledonian quickstep on the streets of London tonight’’.

It’s the ultimate embarrassment to see one of these anonymous intruders thrusting a microphone in the face of a squirming losing captain moments after the final whistle and asking: ‘How does it feel to lose in the last minute?'' 
Bloody great, Jimmy - isn't it obvious?

Bill McLaren, rugby misses you. And please come back soon, Auntie Beeb.

Wales, the Springboks, the All Blacks and Howard Kendall

MY beloved Wales may be out of the Rugby World Cup, but I reckon we won almost as many new friends as did the nippy little dazzlers from Japan.

Warren Gatland’s injury-ravaged squad were on a hiding to nothing after losing key backs Lee Halfpenny and Rhys Webb in their final warm-up game against Italy. By the time they faced South Africa in Saturday’s quarter-final, they had been reduced to taking the field with two fourth-choice backs in centre Tyler Morgan and fullback Gareth Anscombe. Not to mention a brilliant fly-half in Dan Biggar whose goalkicking preparations include a passable impression of the symptoms which led to my being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

A hwyl new bawl game: Michael Caine in Zulu

That we beat England at Twickenham and ran Australia and the Springboks so close is testimony to the never-say-Dai spirit known in Wales as ‘hwyl’. If you don’t know what hwyl is, try nipping over to South Africa and asking a few descendants of the Zulu warriors who overran our (Rorke’s) Drift defence. Not that we managed to beat the South Africans in 1879, either. Must be down to having Englishman Michael Caine as our commanding officer - but not a lot of people know that.

For all Wales’s courage, at least we went out of the 2015 Rugby World Cup with our honour intact. That is more than can be said for the French, who found themselves suffocated by a black New Zealand cloud in Saturday’s second quarter-final. The 62-13 scoreline suggests that South Africa will also be blown away next weekend and that Richie McCaw’s champions will become the first nation ever to win two World Cups in succession.

Football has had its great international teams like Brazil and Germany, cricket had the era of West Indian invincibility and, more recently Australian dominance. But only in rugby union has a single nation dominated the world game throughout my lifetime. A tiny nation with a similar three-million population to Wales, not to mention around 80 million sheep.

Kendall in his Blackburn days

HOWARD KENDALL achieved a lot in football. In fact, he was a legend. At 17, he became the youngest ever FA Cup finalist, later captained Everton to the Football league title in 1970, and for good measure went on to become the Toffees’ most successful manager ever. He also liked a drink, which became more and more apparent in his increasingly flushed visage at Goodison Park press conferences as the years rolled by.

I don't think he'd had a tipple the day he laid into me at Ewood Park. But I have never forgotten the rudeness of the Blackburn Rovers player-manager at that impromptu after-match press conference in the early 1980s. It was during the early days of hand-held tape recorders and this particular inquest was held in a corridor near the changing rooms with perhaps a dozen reporters milling around.

I was armed with notebook, pen and an untested tape machine. Fearing that the new gadget might not work, I quickly pressed the record button, placed my notebook on top of it, and stood jotting down Howard’s words with my other hand. I made no attempt to hide the machine, which Kendall spotted immediately.

“If you’re going to use one of those things, at least have the decency not to try to hide it,’’ he rapped, clearly irritated and pointing to my notebook sandwich. It would have been bad enough had the innuendo been correct. But this was positively embarrassing.

I’ve spent the last 30 years wanting to put the record straight so if you are listening up there in God’s-Own Park, Howard, now that you know the truth, I accept your apology. However, it’s too late for you to climb up there alongside turnip head Graham Taylor and West Ham’s genial John Lyall as the most polite and approachable managers I came across during two decades of covering League football for the British tabloids. There were also bosses and players some of my colleagues preferred to avoid. Keep reading this blog and I may just tell you about them....

As for Howard Kendall, he and I did have one thing in common. My other half and I called our two daughters Hayley and Lisa – and so did Howard and his wife.