I bought a car…

So recently, my beloved first car, a Kia Cerato gave up on me and passed on to life at the scrap-yard. My mum had the car before me and it served the family well, racking up a couple of trips to Ireland, Wales and finished off with me running it around Devon whilst I finished university.

I was unsure where to go next – do I go alone the Vauxhall route, do I go for something else? Who knows what car is right for them. But, driving past the “used Volvo garage” with my dad, coincidently in his Volvo, we popped in. Somehow, we left and I was the new owner of a Volvo C30.

It cost just under £6k and had 24,000 miles – what a dream. I immediately fell in love with the car, it’s comfort, smoothness, engine size (1.6 – bit of an upgrade from the 1.4 Kia).

Now, I’m about 2 months in to my Volvo experience and every time I go out I enjoy the car as much as the first time. I’ve taken a trip from Portsmouth to Plymouth via Haslemere and back (just over 500 miles) on less than a tank of fuel; and the car was an absolute dream. I regularly drive the hour or so daily commute to work and have had no issues.

Now, although my Volvo experience is limited, it is something I would recommend to other young drivers looking for a long term car. Fantastically comfortable and the car performs excellently – the best of both worlds.

What a shame that the C30 is no longer in circulation! But I look forward to seeing what the V40 or others have to offer in years to come.

What happened?

It’s taken me nearly two days to get over the shock of the England game. Never before has a game of rugby made me feel happy, sad, ecstatic, confused, angry, shocked and amazed within forty minutes.

Firstly, congratulations to Wales. They didn’t play pretty rugby, but on this occasion, doing what needed to be done worked well. They closed out games and had the ability to understand where to play and how. A few big shifts from influential leaders, Wyn Jones in particular, really showed their class.

Secondly, a massive congratulations to the England women on another Grand Slam. They displayed tremendous professionalism throughout the tournament and have paved the way for other unions to professionalise their respective female teams. With England leading the charge for female development across international rugby, it is safe to say that it won’t be many years until we have a fully professional Six Nations.

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Scotland, wow. Who knew they had 15 identical players? I say this because the 15 that went in at half time, were certainly not the 15 that played the second half. If they were, then give me some of Gregor Townsend’s motivational speech to listen too before the gym because that stuff is clearly the best pre-workout on the market.

But England, boy… oh boy. They have, as Jones called it: “a problem”.

From an armchair viewers point of view, England lacked leadership. Similarly to Clive Woodward’s after match thoughts – there wasn’t a player under the posts who had gathered his troops around and barked orders like a general. There wasn’t a moment where the captain – or leaders in the team – stepped up to make a big call and change the patterns or regain some composure.

There never seemed to be anyone who wanted the game to calm down, gather the ball and play safe rugby. Drawing parallels with the ’03 World Cup team, England missed key voices – no Johnson, Dallaglio, Hill, Wilkinson, Greenwood or Robinson. There wasn’t a coach running on the pitch to show/ direct the players to something that they clearly missed.

Jones understands that leaders take time to develop, but with 4 games left until the first World Cup match, there is not long to get it right.

(Picture credit of The Independent and the BBC)

Final Six Nations weekend…

This weekend is set to become another spectacle in which three different teams could win the competition.

Certainly a weekend to look forward too.

The rugby this weekend is going to contain a lot of ‘Ifs’. So I’m going to start:

IF Ireland can harness the power of “Paddy’s Day” and find their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they will beat Wales which will stop their effort to win the Grand Slam… Every Englishman’s dream.

But all of this is only possible if England can edge it against the Scotland in the poor weather. Which, again, is no small fete as the poor weather will suit the Scottish players.

Yet, if the Scottish settle into their – arguably – favourable conditions and upset England at Twickenham, the competition is left to the Cardiff result to see who wins.

From an English perspective, it is nice to see that Jones has opted for Slade’s flair in the centre, combining with the power of Tuilagi. Jones’ forward pack has gone from strength to strength, developing one of the best back-row’s that have taken the field since Back, Hill and Dallaglio. For me, this is perhaps his best side we can field right now… on front foot ball, at least.

A weekend to look forward too! Who knows what’ll happen.

England squad announcement

So after naming Teo and Tuilagi in the centres for England at the weekend, it is clear that Jones has given up all hope.

By playing two overweight, slow and boring players, he has single handed-ly removed any small chance England had of creativity and dynamism in the middle of the park.

A boring and uncreative stand-off with no flair in the middle except two very boring ball carriers only leaves the thought that it’s going to be a very boring game for the wing pairing.

Surely a game against Italy is the chance to give other squad members game time and experiment with something different? Maybe a Ford, Farrell and Slade combination? Or allowing Robson his first international start..?

It seems clear to me that the game plan is reverting back to the England attitude of “bigger is better”, removing the traditional rugby value of skill and flair.

Worrying times from the management team… let’s hope they add some interest to that back line ASAP!

Rugby review

So after a period of intense reflection, it is safe to say that England’s game plan was one dimensional and lacking in any sort of innovative pernache that a world beating side needs.

They displayed all the showings of a class team, in the first half against Wales. However, when it came to cementing their performance and consolidating where they left the game at half time – they were nowhere to be seen. Although Wales grew into the game and became stronger, it was only through a lack of English creativity that they were afforded the opportunities to take the game.

Owen Farrell, yet again – although humbly admitting his own performance was not up to scratch – looked out of depth. He was too slow to play at fly-half in a game of this level. He failed to ignite the fuse of Tuilagi and Slade who made easy work of an over-weight French center partnership. With various key play makers on the pitch unable to change the course of the game, was it not the chance for Eddie Jones to make some aggressive tactical substitutions and bring Robson and Ford on? Change the scope and direction of a game plan that obviously was not working how is should.

Now, do not think I am disregarding the difficulty of playing in Cardiff. The atmosphere is intense – I have never played there, I cannot comment what its like – but I have watched an awful lot of rugby. That gives me something marginal to comment, at least.

I didn’t think the forward pack were too bad, to be honest. They fronted up and matched Wales’ physicality and often showed them up at the set-piece. It’s time for England to seriously consider where they are trying to go and who they want to take them there – for me, Farrell is not the one to play at 10. He never was. England always looked far more dynamic and effective with the Ford and Farrell combination – they have been playing like that for years so why did it need to be changed, Eddie?

Moving on –

I found the Scotland v France game to 1) highlight the incredible weakness in depth that Scotland have, and 2) show just how unpredictable France are.

For the second game in a row, Scotland turned off at half time and played themselves out of the game. However, it was down to bad luck for France that their plethora of disallowed tries could not count – they were on for a near record score.  The brief consensus is that French guile and flair has returned… look out world rugby!

Moving on to the Italy match…

What an amazing 60 minutes of Italian passion. They played Ireland like a team possessed. Many will say that the only reason that happened was because Ireland weren’t very good – however, can we not accept the Italian brilliance as the reason Ireland were not good? Italy have developed at an outstanding rate under O’Shea and Catt – long may it continue!