Well, the All Blacks went to the UK and Ireland for the Grand Slam and, as expected, waxed the lot of them.

This post on Public Address has some really useful things to say about the Grand Slam and rugby analysis in general.

Of more importance to me, however, with my visual nature and attention span of a gnat, were the links to a couple of graphics that make it clear what was really going on in the England vs NZ game, and also the differences between Northern Hemisphere and Southen Hemisphere rugby.

From The Times Online -- Must Try Harder: Stats, ratings and analysis

Also from The Times Online -- How the Southern Hemisphere teams are kicking the Northern Hemisphere's collective arses

Three years till the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Northern Hemisphere. There's time.

History Repeating?

Munster, that most unsexy of club sides, are up 16-10 over the All Blacks. We've been in this postion before, only that time the Munster side was made up of actual Limerickmen, rather than half the Auckland Blues.

Updates as they occour.

ETA1: Stephen Donald needs to start learning how to kick in the quiet or Im going to go over there and kick him myself. 16-13.

ETA2: And it would be nice if we could, you know, actually pass to people rather than space.

ETA3: Woo Hoo go Smokin' Joe! And youll never see a test team celebrate a try as much as they celebrated that one. 16-18.

Oh noes!

There's something very wrong with Dan Carter.

He's missed two kicks, one of which I could have gotten. Two!

Oh shit. Is he wearing silver undies?

Oh, there we go, he's finally gotten one. Thank fuck.

This is how I express my expressions

I watched (in the vaguest sense of "watching") the All Blacks play Scotland.

We won, which we should have, even with 'The R Word' back in full force.

And Corey Jane got to play for a whole half. (I like Corey Jane.)

The ref, for all his fondness for whipping out his cards, was distressingly good-looking. I'm sure there should be some law against refs other than Steve Walsh being attractive.

But there was one thing that really really stunned me, and it came after the game was over. Jamie Macintosh was asked what the coaches told him before he went onto the field. Apparently Jamie was told to "go out there and express himself."

WHAT THE FUCK?

Who in their right mind expresses themselves on a rugby field? (apart from Jerry Collins, and he got in trouble for that) Do you think any of the great teams of old were told to go out there and "express themselves"? If you want to express yourself - write poetry. Or whatever it is hippies do. But don't do it on a rugby field. It makes a mess.

I can imagine Colin Meads turning in his grave. I don't care that he's not dead yet. He's still turning.