Twickenham test enough to get the dander up

FRENCH NOTES:I hope Twickenham is covered in a sea of green that will inspire Ireland to tear the English team asunder, writes MATT WILLIAMS

IN THE Twickenham car-park the open boots of Jaguars and Land Rovers were swarmed by supporters. They wore tweeds and plaits of the English gentry. They were engaged in banter until our team bus passed, then the hilarity stopped.

The glass of champagne paused midway through its arcing journey from table to mouth. The story teller stopped mid-sentence and they all stared at us.

It was the coldness in their eyes that stays with me to this day.

I have sat on team buses entering stadiums all over the world.

At Johannesburg’s Ellis Park, our bus was pelted with oranges injected with vodka (so they could legally be carried into the ground). When the juice and vodka was sucked dry they were recycled as missiles. Their pulp smeared our windows to inform us how we would be treated once we walked on the field.

Driving into the Millennium Stadium a highly-cultured Welshman dropped his pants and showed us his hairy, pimply, bum. In both these cases the messages were blunt.

At Twickenham the messages are always deeply mixed.

The empire and those they conquered are present. There is always friendship and wonderful hospitality. There is opulence and the British class system.

Twickenham’s messages are intertwined with all that has been the English experience. If a country’s national rugby team personifies the quality of its people then the national stadium tells you much of their culture.

To me, Twickenham is a magnificent stadium with a magical atmosphere. Every single time I have been there I have been treated wonderfully. Yet, for all the hospitality and bonhomie, there remains the unstated utter belief of English superiority as a birthright. That is Twickenham’s veiled reality.

Willie Anderson told me he thought I had the problem, not the English. “You are Irish-Australian, with a Welsh surname and you have coached Scotland. The only anti-English box you don’t tick is having French blood.”

I could not bring myself to tell him that my Wicklow-born grandmother was a Tallon and the name is indeed French. Somewhere back in the past, one of the Wild Geese returned home with French blood. My Irish family was nationalists and my Australian family has been involved in the fight for an Australian Republic for many years.

Yes Willie, I ticked all the boxes.

As head coach of Scotland, I had the pleasure of meeting Queen Elizabeth II and I was completely charmed by her good nature and intellect. I thought she was a wonderful human being, but I don’t want her as Australia’s head of state. I want an Australian. That is not anti-English, it is wanting a political system that is pro-Australian.

At my first formal dinner as Scotland coach, I faced a moral dilemma with the royal toast. Before I could comprehend what was happening, the entire room was on its feet saying, “the queen”. At future dinners I stood respectfully and, as every other sinner in the room said, “the queen”, I very quietly toasted “Ned Kelly”. After the British troopers shot or hung the Irish-Australian bush ranger, they proceeded to cut off his scrotum, have it tanned and made into a tobacco pouch, which was presented to the governor of Pentridge Jail in Melbourne.

When I first took over Scotland, I was privately told that if I won the Six Nations I could be honoured with an MBE award. That is to become a Member of the British Empire.

I respectfully told the gentleman that my family had been press-ganged into the British Empire and for over 800 years been fighting to get out. Little did I know that I soon faced the same fate as Ned Kelly. I am lucky the chairman of the Scottish Rugby Union at the time did not smoke.

At Murrayfield in 2004, England played their first game in Britain after winning the 2003 World Cup and, in a close game, defeated Scotland.

I visited the English changing-room to offer my congratulations to Clive Woodward and his team. I spoke to Matt Dawson, who I knew from coaching Leinster against Northampton, and nearby were two young men who were familiar yet I could not quite place them.

I did not wish to seem rude so I reached over and I shook hands and said, “G’day.” They were very polite and well-spoken kids. I looked at Matt and said, “How do I know those two?” Dawson had a wicked smile on his face.

“This is the heir to the British throne, His Royal Highness Prince William and this is the next in line to the throne, His Royal Highness Prince Harold.” Oh.

I again shook hands with both and said, “Sounds like a big job. See you mate.”

I briskly walked from the room and did not look back.

Like their nan, they were very nice people.

The English rugby men I have got to know over the years, like Martin Corry and Richard Hill, are great people and I always find them fantastic company.

So, here is my dilemma. If individually they are all so bloody nice how come collectively as “the English” I don’t like them? Maybe Willie is right. Perhaps I am unfairly anti-English and I am generalising racially to the detrainment of English people. Perhaps I am letting my Irish heritage and my desire to have an Australian Republic conflict with England’s right to have a culture of its own choice?

Maybe I am simply paranoid and in my paranoid state I imagined the condescending attitudes of my Saxon friends who were at all times treating me as an equal. I was simply being an ignorant antipodean for toasting Ned Kelly and I was an ungracious git for disregarding the possible, however unlikely, prospect of the British MBE?

Dear reader, you will have to decide.

What I do know is that it’s St Patrick’s Day and Ireland are playing England at Twickenham.

I am a simple man. I can do nothing but to accept my predisposed genetic disposition against all things English and wish for Twickenham to be covered in a sea of green, that will inspire Ireland to tear the English rugby team asunder.