English game has traded respect for arrogance

ON RUGBY:Key players in the English game could learn from former coach Andy Robinson who spoke recently of the need to respect opponents first in order to be respected, writes GERRY THORNLEY

SO THERE it landed in the inbox at 11.24am yesterday morning, the email from the RFU declaring Delon Armitage had been suspended from the England Saxons squad. You read on and learned this followed his arrest on suspicion of assault in a Torquay night club after the Saxons’ win over the Wolfhounds on Sunday night before being released on bail. You couldn’t make it up. Or maybe you could.

This followed on from Danny Care’s exclusion from England’s Six Nations squad arising from his drink-driving conviction in early January. Coming hard on the heels of all the various off-the-field escapades which blighted England’s World Cup campaign, you’d have thought they’d have known better. Or maybe not.

You wouldn’t have envied the travelling media who accompanied Martin Johnson’s grim-faced, miss-behaving lot in New Zealand. Not a lot to write home about, or at least not of the rugby variety. Some dwarf throwing, booze and a blonde with a newly-married member of the extended royal family. An episode with a chambermaid, particularly unfortunate given the residual ill-feeling in New Zealand arising from England’s 2008 tour, which had been overshadowed by allegations of sexual abuse levelled at four England players.

A member of that travelling media crew, who’s probably been on more tours than he’d care to remember, said it was comfortably the most miserable experience of its type he had known.

In one sense, and only one sense, you’d have some sympathy for the English players. Their off-field activities are probably more closely monitored by the media than anyone else’s. In the leaked reports investigating England’s World Cup campaign one of their players was anonymously quoted as saying Irish players had been in the same Queenstown bar where their infamous dwarf-throwing had taken place “but I think they might have taken the press with them”.

No they didn’t, and those days are long gone, but the Irish media don’t have the same prurient interest in the nocturnal activities of players, and nor does any other media by comparison. The French, for example, do not have a tabloid press which would revel in such stories as the infamous English night out in Queenstown and, rumour has it, offer €100,000 for the full story.

None of this is meant to adopt a high moral ground on behalf of the Irish media or Irish rugby players. After all, Welsh rugby – which certainly has not been without its celebrated individual stars – operates in even more of a high-profile bubble than English rugby, yet their penchant for attracting front-page headlines instead of back-page headlines appears to have abated, or at any rate is tolerated less, particularly in the national set-up. Witness the non-drinking culture under new captain Sam Warburton in New Zealand.

Much of the lead seems to come from the circus that is English football’s Premier League, where the star culture is all pervasive and where, of course, rugby has a huge job competing with football. Even in one or two quality British papers, if it’s a story involving Jonny Wilkinson, Danny Cipriani or Gavin Henson, it is more likely to receive coverage. And some handlers/agents/advisers seem only too keen to exploit this.

When Henson appeared on Sky’s Saturday morning magazine show Soccer AM to tap further into his star culture by first revealing his penchant for body shaving and self-tanning, one Welsh team-mate was so embarrassed he had to cover his eyes from the screen.

Perhaps Chris Ashton has the same advisers as Henson. He plays in personalised boots, has made a TV commercial, has a column in the Daily Mail and signed a two-book deal at the age of 24 with Simon Schuster. Ashton too appeared on Soccer AM recently in the midst of his suspension for pulling Alesana Tuilagi, which was the first item on his segment. This was followed by Manu Tuilagi’s famous punches on Ashton, while other topics were the dwarf-throwing night and his bungee jumping in Queenstown.

The one item that touched on “rugby” was that which has made him more famous than anything, the swallow dive he patented after his length-of-the-field try against Australia in November 2010. Johnson had initially disapproved of the dive but when Ashton repeated his showboating after one of his tries in a 59-13 win over Italy in last year’s Six Nations, the English manager relented. One could argue, as some have done, this was the day Johnson fatally lost his authority, the day the teacher lost the classroom. It is also seen by many opponents as disrespectful.

But of course, in all of the light-hearted Soccer AM appearance, there was ne’er a hint of regret about anything. This is not to single out Ashton, who is also in a protracted and less than harmonious parting of the ways from Northampton to join Saracens, but one could argue that he typifies the swaggering and posturing typical of Northampton and some England players such as Dylan Hartley, Courtney Lawes, the aforementioned Armitage, and a host of others.

Andy Robinson isn’t the first rival coach or player to accuse English players of being “arrogant” (think of Imanol Harinordoquy and others in the past). But he’s quite possibly the first Englishman, and it is born out of disappointment in his countrymen’s behaviour and especially the manner in which English players celebrated their match-winning try against Scotland at the World Cup.

Armitage took exception to the charge of being arrogant, but one ventures nothing upset Robinson more than the English celebrations after Ashton’s 77th-minute winning try in that pool decider. The same was probably true of supporters in the facial line of Armitage at the Aviva last August or Ashton at Thomond Park last October as they appeared to mouth abuse.

Self-confidence, as epitomised by Northampton, can of course be a good thing but so often you are struck by how little respect they seem to have for opponents and hence the lack of credit to opponents who have just beaten them. But this can be self-defeating, for Northampton were still bleating about perceived wrongs on Twitter the following Wednesday prior to their home defeat to the Scarlets two nights later. All of which is all the more surprising given coach Jim Malinder is such an impressive individual.

“Respect is important,” said Robinson at the Six Nations launch in London last week in explaining his accusation of arrogance. He highlighted both the need to earn it from opponents and to have it for them in return.