How one’s ex got the other axed

Cro vs magnon in the world of rugby

I'm not making this up, for those readers who have never heard of rugby or of the English team. They stank up the place in the latest world cup, in New Zealand recently.
It wasn't bad enough for them to play badly, and they did. They had to mess around off the field, too. They were messing with a chick working at a hotel, insulting her and treating her like a piece of meat. Of course, British journalists love this stuff.
One of them, Mike Tindall, who happens to just have been married up with a minor princess was just doing what comes naturally when your ex-girlfriend just shows up, out of the blue, in New Zeland. You give her a kiss in front of cameras, on the lips.
I mean, he was just married, a month ago.

The worst of it is that they're all walking calculators. They can figure out how much money their each action will bring in. Unfortunately for them, they didn't get the winnings from many games, because they lost most of theirs.
Anyway, to top it off, the coach, who seems to be a softy, and an ex-player, Martin Johnson, could not coral the boys, so he quit.

Now, the secret report on the English Rugby RFU has leaked out, wiki-style.

checkitout:


Damning reports expose something rotten at heart of England rugby
The leaked reports into England's Rugby World Cup fiasco reveal a culture of avarice, division and confusion in the national team set-up
o Robert Kitson
o The Guardian, Wednesday 23 November 2011

The reputation of English rugby has already received a hammering but the leaking of the confidential reports into the squad's recent Rugby World Cup debacle is as heavy a blow as any. Any pretence that England were unfortunate victims of circumstance in New Zealand has been blown out of the water and replaced by a litany of examples of avarice and muddle-headed thinking.

Some of the details contained within the documents published by the Times will cause apoplexy among those supporters who paid good money to follow the squad. To hear players openly criticising their team-mates for being money-obsessed and detailing the full extent of the divisions within the squad makes it obvious why Martin Johnson felt the need to resign last week. It may even be that the latest revelations will make it considerably harder for the RFU to find a coach prepared to dip his toes into such toxic waters.

The culture within the squad would appear to be even worse than it felt to onlookers at the time. The captain, Lewis Moody, has already stepped down from international rugby but it would seem inconceivable that the bulk of the squad can possibly be retained for the start of the Six Nations, even with Johnson gone and a new broom appointed. Of the coaches, only Graham Rowntree emerges with any credit. Sponsors will recoil in horror, as will anyone remotely connected with the RFU. It is impossible to think of a squad which has returned home so openly at odds with itself. Divisive senior players, ineffective leadership, weak management – every single depressing box has now been ticked....
Further trouble could yet be brewing, with Mike Tindall's appeal against the £25,000 fine imposed on him by the RFU due to be heard on Thursday. The 33-year-old was fined and dropped from the elite player squad following an RFU investigation into his conduct during the now infamous evening out in Queenstown. The Rugby Players' Association described Tindall's fine, which was handed down by the RFU's elite rugby director, Rob Andrew, as "extraordinary" and "unprecedented". The appeal will be heard by the RFU's acting chief executive, Martyn Thomas, whose own time at the union is about to end. As judicial processes go, it has already been interesting to say the least.