Wednesday 6th May: 09:30

My grandson’s birthday today.

I did suggest that there might not be a blog yesterday, and now our season is done and dusted gaps in producing this drivel might become a more frequent occurrence. It’s bad enough during the season when there is a paucity of guff to write. When the season is over finding stuff to write about other than the weather, and the miracle of flight over the south east, is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Whilst there is a nip in the air this morning it is a gorgeous one. Clear blue skies. Marvellous. Clear blue skies are not what we are seeing over the Twickenham following the report into this season’s Six Nations delivered by the RFU. Steve Borthwick keeps his job. Wow, what a surprise. Despite the appalling lack of success during the tournament it would be folly for the RFU to get rid of him this close to the World Cup, and with the coffers still creaking, and costs rising, a huge severance payout would be madness in the extreme. I understand that Borthwick is a really decent guy, but if there is a criticism, he does love the technical side of the game, and he is never far away from a spreadsheet. That is one of the reasons England failed. They had a game plan, which centred around kick, kick, kick in attack, and big beasts defending like rabid dogs in defence. When both failed, which when it counted, they did, they were always going to be up against it. It was only against France when all was lost that the playbook went out of the window, and the players played what was in front of them. It wasn’t all about tactics and a lack of a cutting edge, discipline was also a factor. When you play on the edge discipline can be your downfall. That is something that can be fixed however. So dear reader, it is Mr Borthwick until the end of 2027.

What makes matters worse for those who follow England is the unquestionable depth of talent at England’s disposal that week in week out performs brilliantly for their club but fail when they pull on the white of England. That I’m afraid does come down to tactics and game plan. A talent is a talent, but if that England shirt is akin to a straightjacket, what do you expect?

As an aside Gavin Mairs in The Torygraph states ‘Borthwick should not answer to suits in system that belongs to an amateur era’. Yep, there lies another problem. If you have policies and procedures, and the games direction of travel, that is developed by those whose experience of rugby at the very top of the game is the exhorbitant beer prices at Twickenham and the free lunch beforehand then you are doomed. That is what was voted through just last week, and what has held back Welsh rugby for decades. I rest your honour!!

Now, the other thing taxing people’s minds is the furore around the alleged duplicity of the French broadcaster, and the TMO’s failure to see incidents of great seriousness. If, as it is alleged, the French TV company were duplicitous then what can the TMO do. For the record, as a TMO Ben Whitehouse is invariably thorough and usually right, unlike when he referees perhaps. The excellent Robert Kitson, writing in The Guardian, suggests ‘the screen-obsessed, finger pointing, hair-trigger arguments’ need to stop. He takes us through each of the contentious incidents and brings an objective but reasoned argument that says, nothing much to see here so lets all calm down. He also says the platitudes and knee jerk comments from pundits don’t help. I have said for a while the likes of Austin Healy, Ben Kay and David Flatman should be assigned to the care home for rugby pundits. All too often they say stuff for the sake of saying something but also to be controversial. It doesn’t help. What it does it makes those sitting at home think it is ok to berate the match official. I can state with certainty that the behaviour of spectators and coaches right down to the kids levels has got significantly worse this season. The article is well worth reading.

For the record, there are way too many occasions when coaches of kids think they are coaching England at the World Cup, and parents think their child is the next Henry Pollock or Ellie Kildunne. The berating of referee’s has to stop. It is an impossible job which most do brilliantly at all levels of our great game. They deserve our respect and our thanks.

The Premiership and the URC return this weekend, as does the Women’s Six Nations. Happy to forecast a comfortable win for England and France. Ireland will beat Wales.

OK, that’ll do. I’m really into reading fiction right now, 1984, the political parties leaflets that drop through the door, and anything that comes out Trump’s mouth. The last actually drives me mad because he is such a jerk. A jerk who by a single act has thrown the world into chaos.