SPECTATOR SPORT
IT WAS a merry old how-d'you-do down in the concrete dungeons under Cardiff Arms Park on Saturday evening after the England rugby team's morose and muscle- bound victory over Wales. Whether the amateur payers `professionalised' them- selves just by apparently asking for a £5,000 backhander to be interviewed by television and the press we will probably never know, such has been the smokescreen thrown up of apology, denial, misunderstanding and downright disin- formation. Certainly the antics of rugger's finest cauliflower-eared bruisers as they vaulted balconies, crept down fire-escapes or tiptoed through the tradesmen's entr- ance of the kitchens of the nearby hotel would have done credit to the troupe- training gospels of Mr Brian Rix rather than William Webb Ellis. All to resist addressing the scrummage of us scribblers, getting more furious by the minute, not so much because we hadn't been given a mundane 'Well, Brian, I'm chuffed for the lads' quotation to tag to our match reports, but because it was well past opening time and, these days, even that weak Welsh bitter has more tang and sustenance to it than weedy Welsh rugby. Or Twick- enham's hypocrisies. Feed me till I want no more.
Still, in the search for a fast buck there is no doubt that the England players had to strike quickly. This rugby season, to all
Bitter's sweet when rugby's weedy
Frank Keating
intents, runs through the summer and ends with the game's second World Cup in the autumn. There should be quite a bit of dosh sloshing around then and, fair's fair, a chap wants to know where he stands, not only with his conscience but with his bank manager.
It was a good ploy to incorporate the press in the first stage of the mutiny on Saturday: our 'end this shame now' out- rage might have been a phoney knee-jerk, but it embarrassed Twickenham's amateur bastion. By Easter, I guarantee, Twick- enham will have caved in totally. Which will leave only Ireland as the game's true amateurs, We are off to Dublin next week to see the greens play the French, who predictably beat Scotland on Saturday in a game as dingy in spirit, apparently, as that which the overtrained, uninventive English gave us in Cardiff. A spirited match, however, is the one thing invariably assured in Dublin. Ireland have a new coach and a new captain but, begob, you know they'll play as they always do and not ask for a penny piece to explain it all afterwards long into the carousing night.
That mudlarking sprite of a scrum-half, Andy Mulligan, who played in that effervescent side of 30 years and more ago with Jack Kyle, Tony O'Reilly, Cecil Ped- low, and the captain, the onliest Noel Henderson, once told me of the first pre-match team-talk he was in on, given by Henderson just a minute before they charged out: `Right, lads, let's decide how we're going to play this game? What do yo think, Jackie?'
`I think a few wee punts at the line would be dandy, and maybe young Mulligan here can try a few darts on his own.'
`What do you think, Tony?'
lasus, the programme here says I'm playing up against a midget. Just give me the ball and let me have a run at him.'
`What about you, Cec?'
`I think a subtle mix of runnin' and kickin' and jinkin' might just work out fine.'
So Henderson summed up as he picked up the ball: 'Right, that's decided, lads Jack's puntin', Andy's dartin', Tony's run- nin', and Cecil's doin' all three.'
Five-thousand quid? Cheap at the price in Ireland.
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