My rugby supporting ladder

Rugby is one of those games where I can happily get into watching a match even if my team aren't playing. For domestic I don't really have *a team* if I can make it I'll go and support Rotherham Titans at their home games. I have a friend who is a mad Tigers fan who is kind enough to take me along to matches and it is only polite to support them when he does, even when they play west country teams who I tend to support over other clubs but not with any great loyalty to any one. Internationals are a different matter watching 15 man test matches or sevens I have a scale of support as follows.
England
Wales
Scotland
Ireland
New Zealand
Fiji
Samoa
Italy
France
Kenya
Any other team
Argentina
South Africa
And the bottom of the list but never supported as they are the bottom of the list and below every other team is Australia.

You can't get me, I'm part of the Union

I have mentioned this before (in Can't play the game? Change the rules) but this time we can all have our say about it, so if you would like to have your say on the "Experimental Law Variations" go to http://www.rfusurvey.co.uk/

Hat-tip: A Very British Dude

The shafting of Bryan Ashton.

The first two years of Clive Woodward two second place finishes in the 5 Nations and losing in the quarter finals of the World Cup is backed and goes on to form one of the great England rugby sides.
Brian Aston a second and a third in the 6 nations and a *runner up* finish in the World Cup and is dumped.
When it was first mooted that MJ would join the setup as Team Manager it was spun that it was to free up Brian to be a focused head coach. But now he is in charge of the whole shebang, but only after a further three tests, two against the All Blacks, and while there are specialist area coaches under him with Brian goes the only Backs coach. While I think Brian is to dignified to do anything Darrell Hair like and sue, it seems a shame that they will get away with treating him like this.
All in all about as well managed as the Tony -> Gordon hand over and it will probably turn out about as successful.

The angry post.

Several people asked me what I though of the idea of making our children swear an oath of allegiance. I didn't post it before because a blog post with "Oh do fuck off" in 1440 point lettering could offend.

The list of people who should try and find something more constructive to do, because at the moment they are just wasting everyone's time utterly, includes Lindsay Hoyle, the ASA and of course Jacqui Smith. No she hasn't done anything much new, she is just still banging on about ID cards. I think we should have a locked cage match between her and Bruce Schneier about how her scheme just won't work.

In other news the following are true of course: I am angry at the poor performances the rugby and cricket teams put in, congratulate JW on his record, I'm hopelessly optimistic about the results from the next test for each team, thoroughly board with both the US primaries and the stupid mud slinging in the London mayoral elections. Oh and it is nice to see a bunch of my friends finally seeing Delia for what she is, useless.

Rule 22.8

Lots of commentators on the game of Rugby Union have started calling for the points value of a drop goal to be reduced. I have a better idea, they should suggest altering rule 22.8 which current reads:

22.8 BALL KICKED DEAD IN IN-GOAL

If a team kicks the ball through their opponents’ in-goal, into touch-in-goal or on or over the dead ball line, except by an unsuccessful kick at goal or attempted dropped goal, the defending team has two choices:
To have a drop out,
or
To have a scrum at the place where the ball was kicked and they throw in.

Now I am assuming that successful drop goals are not mentioned as the ball is dead as soon as the points are scored, so if we remove the reference to the "attempted dropped goal" then any drop goal attempt that fails will trap this law. So anyone considering if they should take a punt at the sticks will have to think very hard about how likely they are to slot it, especially from distance.
On the other hand, most of the people calling for this are from Tri-Nation sides that traditionally don't take drop kicks, so maybe we don't need to change this at all.