Six Nations Table 1947 - 2004

	Plyd	W	D	L	F	A	Pts	Avge
France	237	141	15	82	3665	2777	295	1.24
England	237	121	23	92	3611	2712	266	1.12
Wales	236	118	14	104	3254	3310	249	1.06
Ireland	235	93	15	126	2866	3395	201	0.86
Scotland	236	88	14	138	2779	3450	186	0.79
Italy	25	3	0	22	424	955	6	0.24

Dan

Lovely bloke.

Gypsum

Once upon a time, all the gypsum used for building materials in the UK was mined here, with obvious environemtnal effects on the landscape. At the same time, power stations were burning fossil fuels, whic resulted in a lot of sulphur oxides being pumped into the atmosphere, causing acidification of the ecosystems from the resultant acid rain.

Sulphur scrubbers were added to power stations to improve their environmental effectiveness. However, the power stations had a problem in that the process produced a lot of solid waste which needed to be dumped. However, this solid waste is more or less the same as the gypsum being mined, so the power stations decided to sell it in place of mined gypsum. The output from all UK power stations supplied most of the UK's building needs, with the following results:

1. power stations no longer produce so much acid rain;
2. gypsum mines are no longer needed;
3. the power stations' environmental processes became financially self-supporting;
4. power costs were reduced in the long term as the power companies had an extra source of income.

A superb example of "win-win" environmental practices. It also shows that everyone's waste is valuable to someone else, with some ingenuity!

Smells

There are several odours that I cannot face:

• peeling oranges


• tea


• cream or milk

10 things to do before I die

I keep making this list and then forgetting what is on it, so I'm recording it here so I don't forget...:

1. Stand for Parliament.
   
2. Travel round the Peloponnese and take in all the archeaological sites of Ancient Greece.
   
3. Have a conversation in Greek with a Greek in Greece without them realising that I am British.
   
4. Score a try in a competitive rugby match.
   
5. Record a CD of my own compositions.
   
6. Take 5 wickets and score a 50 in a competetive cricket match (not necessarily in the same game!)
   
7. Get to a level of fitness that I can walk up hill s without being out of breath...
   
8. Learn to play the guitar to a reasonable level of competence.
   
9. Finish reading Dostyevsky's "Crime and Punishment"
   
10. 
    

I still have to decide on the last two (Dostoyevsky might not stay on the list), but the rest should keep me reasonably busy!

The Future of World Rugby, including the Six Nations

There was an extremely good article in this month's Rugby World about the future of the Six Nations tournament, in which an extremely good suggestion was made, to include Argentina in an expanded 7 Nations.

In my opinion, this has fantastic value to spread high class rugby. Argentina are obviously not European, but their inclusion would give them meaningful competition and greatly assist their development. Air travel is now such that a trip to Argentina could easily be undertaken by the rest of the European countries. Each of the current Six Nations would travel there once every two years, and Argentina would have an annual tour to play their 3 away games on the trot.

The travel distances are not that much more than between Australia and South Africa in the current Tri Nations.

Ideally, Argentina and the Pacific islands would be included in an expanded Tri Nations tournament in the Southern hemisphere, but due to their own reprehensible behaviour and self interest, the SANZAR countires have ignored the possibilities. They are behaving as protectionists, in their own short term commercial interests without thinking of the future of rugby as a whole. For rugby to flourish as a world sport, and not just a minority sport played in a few countries, it needs to develop within new nations. It needs to be in the same position as football, where 24 different teams have been semi finalists, and a further 15 have been Quarter finalists (see: the RSSSF data). Compared, to this, 6 countries (S. Africa, England, Scotland, N. Zealand, Australia and France) have reached the Quarters in every tournament they have entered - only 12 countries have ever reached the Quarter Finals.

Argentina are very hard to beat at home, have fanatical support, are extremely
good in the forwards and reached the World Cup Quarter Finals in 1999. The world has already let Romania slip back to second class citizens. They were among the top 6 countries in the world in the early 1980s but were repeatedly refused entry into the VI Nations. Even now, Italy's place in the tournament seems under jeopardy. The future of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga in making a credible challenge is in doubt - they are being used as nurseries for the All Black and Australia and only get meaningful games during the World Cup. The Pacific Islanders team that toured before the last Tr-Nations tournament was competitive, if lacking in experience, but SANZAR missed a chance in including them in the expanded Super 14s, instead adding more teams from Australia and South Africa.

One annual trip by Argentina to Europe, with each of the European teams making a journey to Argentina once every two years, is hardly that much of a hardship! It would also guarantee each team 3 home games rather than 2 or 3 as present in the 6 team tournmanet. It hardly weakens the tournament either!

If rugby is to survive it cannot remain parochial and only played at the top level by a handful of countries. One interesting match will be the Heineken Cup match between Biarritz and Munster. Biarritz are a French Basque club, and they have mnoved the match to the nearest big football ground. This happens to be in Spain! They are playing in San Sebastian at Real Sociedad's ground. Probably the biggest competetive rugby match to have been played in Spain, and can only serve to increase the popularity and exposure of the game there.

Indeed, Italian rugby has come on such that this year's home games are being reported on the front pages of the national papers rather than being lost in the middle.

So, back to Argentina - they have been consistently good but need to be assisted by the rest of the rugby world to get decent competition and thus to develop.

Brian Moore's commentary for the England vs France game

Brian Moore was an extremely good hooker for England for a long time. I have no doubt that he was a very competent solicitor. If I remember rightly he was a partner in a firm of solicitors. He is fiercely English and a great English supporter. However, all the above do not make him a good pundit or commentator for the BBC. He is incredibly biased towards England, as witnessed in the England vs France game last weekend. Examples include:
- screaming for the French full back to be sent off when he threw the ball into touch (a good pundit would have accepted that while this was a professional foul, the referee was able to use his discretion).
- stating that there was no way that the French were ever going to score and that England had the match won, just before the French landed four penalties and won the game...!
- complaining about the penalties being given by the referee.
- failing to spot that the French were getting back into the game and being very dismissive of the talent available to them.
- being very rude about the Frrench in general (actually this is probably not a crime...)
- comments like "who know what the French are thinking?": he is employed to give an insight into this!!

Scottish Rugby

Scotland are currently not a particularly good rugby team. This does not mean that they will always remain so, but they have 5 or 6 decent players (White, Bulloch, Cussiter, Taylor and Paterson), and a load of journeyman players. They played out of their skins against France and were desparately unlucky not to snatch a win (which on form they would not have deserved, but on the day they did). They played well in the first 20 minutes against Ireland, but were then outplayed for the rest of the game. They have improved out of all recognition since last seasona nd particularly the autumn internationals, in which they were absolutely dire.

Most rugby pundits, and indeed all but the monst one-eyed Scots, would agree with the above assessment. Dan, however, does not, and claims that the Scots are more or less the best side in the VI Nations. Everyone is obviously entitled to their opinions, and I await Dan's justification for these with interest.