Northern Hemisphere conspiracy..

CouchSmart

Scrum.com wrote:

Tour cover-up goes south
James Stafford
June 25, 2010




Rumours are circulating in the rugby world that the vast majority of players from England, Ireland, France and Wales were planning to keep quiet about their summer tour exploits.
The Six Nations sides boarded their planes a few weeks back with large numbers of key players missing - and those who were travelling apparently weary and jaded from a lengthy season. Results were expected to be dismal for all.
Investigative reporting has revealed that players, coaches and officials from the northern hemisphere met in mid-May to discuss the idea of making as 'little noise' as possible about their tours so as to avoid resentment and anger back in their own countries when things went badly.
Players and officials agreed to avoid major press conferences, writing blogs or doing too much publicity work so as few people as possible outside the hardcore rugby community would be aware of the tours. Players even went as far as to post fake Facebook profile updates claiming to be anywhere but on a rugby tour.
With rugby currently suffering from 'overkill' as seasons last ten or more months, it was thought that if little fuss was made over the tours, the average armchair fan would be unlikely to get up early each weekend to follow the doomed expeditions.
Indeed, at first the potential 'cover up' of the tours seemed to be a wise and shrewd move. In depth scouring of the internet has revealed the following results: The summer started badly for Ireland who lost at home to the Barbarians before utterly collapsing in their opening test against New Zealand. Last Friday it seems they lost another game but, as of press time, it was not confirmed who they were playing. England, meanwhile, lost their opening two games in Australia and apparently played with no sense of rhythm, structure or attack in either match. Wales lost what seems to have been a home game against South Africa (although our research has not made clear why Wales played at home in June to a southern hemisphere team) before getting humiliated by the All Blacks last weekend. France, not to be outdone, took a severe beating from South Africa.
In the early phases of the 'cover up' plan, players and managers were said to be extremely grateful that the summer tours coincided with the FIFA World Cup and Wimbledon tennis championships as this would lead to 'relatively low profile media analysis and criticism of negative results'.
Ireland and Leinster's Jamie Heaslip, who it seems suffered the ignominy of a red card in Ireland's 66-28 hammering at the hands of New Zealand in New Plymouth, is believed to have told his family and friends he has been on holiday in southern Spain for the past three weeks and nowhere near a rugby field at all.
"Jamie saw the amount of injuries and missing players before Ireland embarked on their tough tour down under and had a feeling things might not go well," said a source close to the Leinster No.8. "When he was selected to go with the Irish squad he didn't make much of a fuss about it, didn't even send out any texts or make any Facebook updates like he would before a Six Nations tournament. Only the most hardcore Irish rugby followers knew he was due to go down under. Then, when he went and got red carded for kneeing someone in the head against the All Blacks, he was glad he hadn't made much of a fuss.
"As most of the media is busy covering the FIFA World Cup and the like, his red card didn't get the exposure such a thing would normally get. Making things a bit easier, the match was only shown on satellite television and got almost no coverage on domestic Irish television at all. The next thing I know, Jamie's Facebook status is saying he's been in Spain 'chilling out' by the beach all weekend. I couldn't believe it."
However, the plans to keep things as low key as possible in relation to the summer tours took a turn when England unexpectedly won against Australia in the second Test of their series. Dozens of Facebook profiles belonging to English players and managment, which had originally claimed they were on holiday or taking a well earned break from rugby, suddenly changed to show images of celebration and joy on the pitch at Sydney after a shock English victory.
"Ben Youngs is claiming to be doing some DIY at home," said a Facebook friend of the Leicester scrum-half. "Yet five hours after he posted a message about having trouble getting the shelves up straight and needing to buy some new carpet tacks, he's suddenly claiming to have made his English starting debut and scored a 30-metre solo try. I mean, come on, pull the other one. It's got bells on it."
At present it seems Ireland, Wales and France are pleading with English officials to keep to the original media plan and toe the party line. Scotland players, however, were not part of the cover up plans as, in general, they deny going on summer tours most years.

This is actually a laughable article. I'm very tempted to make a complaint, he gives no evidence to support any of the claims by various sources. Surely he could have gotten evidence from facebook, nearly everything is in the public domain on that site.


Also questions why Wales played a home game in June, stating there's no apparent reason.. Except for the well documented reason of 10th anniversary of Millennium Stadium. South Africa were the first team to play there 10 years ago, this month.



Edit: It's a piss take, my bad. Now it's actually quite entertaining to read. I was afraid for a minute rugby was heading down football road :P

http://www.scrum.com/scrum/rugby/story/118330.html

thomond2006

haha I laughed.

wixfjord

CouchSmart wrote: »

This is actually a laughable article. I'm very tempted to make a complaint, he gives no evidence to support any of the claims by various sources. Surely he could have gotten evidence from facebook, nearly everything is in the public domain on that site.


Also questions why Wales played a home game in June, stating there's no apparent reason.. Except for the well documented reason of 10th anniversary of Millennium Stadium. South Africa were the first team to play there 10 years ago, this month.



What a poor journalist.

http://www.scrum.com/scrum/rugby/story/118330.html

The old humour detector not working?

CouchSmart

wixfjord wrote: »

The old humour detector not working?

Is it a piss take? If so it went totally over my head

marco_polo

See at the bottom of the article, he an Editor at theEastterrace.com

Crash

any time you read something like this, check if its also up on http://theeastterrace.typepad.com/

Digifriendly

CouchSmart wrote: »

Also questions why Wales played a home game in June, stating there's no apparent reason.. Except for the well documented reason of 10th anniversary of Millennium Stadium. South Africa were the first team to play there 10 years ago, this month.

Incorrect. The Millenium Stadium was completed in 1999 (in time for the World Cup) not 2000. Wales played S. Africa 11 years ago this month when stadium was still in process of being built. First test match in newly completed stadium was Wales vs France in August 1999.

CouchSmart

Digifriendly wrote: »

Incorrect. The Millenium Stadium was completed in 1999 (in time for the World Cup) not 2000. Wales played S. Africa 11 years ago this month when stadium was still in process of being built. First test match in newly completed stadium was Wales vs France in August 1999.

Ye you're right it's the tenth season since the stadium opened. Sorry to all the pedantic people out there.

Digifriendly

CouchSmart wrote: »

Ye you're right it's the tenth season since the stadium opened. Sorry to all the pedantic people out there.

Wasn't being pedantic just pointing out the errors in original statement. Still unsure if Wales vs S. Africa was arranged especially to celebrate 10th season or not.

CouchSmart

Digifriendly wrote: »

Wasn't being pedantic just pointing out the errors in original statement.

Sorry for being pedantic but that's what being pedantic is..

Digifriendly wrote: »

Still unsure if Wales vs S. Africa was arranged especially to celebrate 10th season or not.

Most of the articles at the time it was organised seemed to suggest it was to commemorate the first match played there.

http://www.bigcardiff.co.uk/cardiff-events.php?event_id=3889

Digifriendly

CouchSmart wrote: »

Sorry for being pedantic but that's what being pedantic is..

Not according to this - http://www.answers.com/topic/pedantic

CouchSmart

Digifriendly wrote: »

Not according to this - http://www.answers.com/topic/pedantic

Yes according to that, do you not understand it?

Also by posting that you're continuing to be a pedant.

I don't need to be taught English on a rugby forum and I doubt people want to read it here either. I won't be replying any further.