There is a favourite sport in Australia, more popular than rugby, cricket and that stupid game they play called Aussie Rules - presumably because they are the only ones who understand it and are daft enough to play it. It is called Pom bashing.
Australians have two main topics of conversation. How brilliant Australia is and how rubbish Britain, and in particular England, is. However, as they are a largely insignificant country, culturally and politically, situated somewhere south of Japan, the only way they can express their national power and pride is through sport.
And, let’s be honest, they have gleefully rubbed our faces in the dirt and kicked sand in our faces plenty of times through the years. For every Ashes triumph there have been a string of humiliating series defeats. For every World Cup Final victory there are plenty of hammerings on the rugby pitch.
Australia are, and you suspect always will be, better than us at sport because they invest so much time, energy and money into making sure they are.
They hate losing to anyone, but especially the English, not because we organise open top bus parades and party like it’s 2999 when we do secure a rare moment of triumph - although that is a red rag to a bull - but because, deep down, we are still seen as the arrogant, conceited colonial masters and they are the poorly treated, exploited convicts, sorry colonials.
At least they do when they’re not over here working in bars and restaurants in London and Edinburgh, enjoying the social and economic benefits of living in such an advanced country.
Do you know what really annoys me about all these people who complain about Polish people coming to work in this country? Nobody ever complains about the number of South African and Australian economic migrants who arrive each year because they speak English and are somehow seen as being like us, even though, by their own admission - or at least the head of the Australian Rugby Union - they hate the English because of our “born to rule� mentality.
Imagine if the head of the Polish Rugby Union - okay so they don’t play rugby - said something like that. The Daily Mail would devote 24 pages to telling their readers why eastern Europeans should not be allowed the enter the country ever again!
In fact, if England’s elite rugby director - former Newcastle Falcons coach Rob Andrew - had said we like to beat Australia because they are a bunch of former criminals, Australia would be up in arms from Darwin to Didgeredeggeredoroo (I made the last place up but you’ll hopefully catch my drift).
Which leads me nicely to Saturday’s Rugby World Cup quarter final in France. Australia are still smarting at the final defeat four years ago when our Jonny drop-kicked England to victory in the last minute, they have been sulking about it ever since and probably attach pictures of Jonny Wilkinson’s face on to the tackle bags in training to motivate themselves.
If you remember what happened in the cricket earlier this year, England won a thrilling Ashes series in 2005 and were embarrassingly whitewashed 5-0 in the return series in Australia. As I’ve said, Aussies can’t stand losing to England. They didn’t just want to regain the Ashes, they wanted to grind England into the dirt in the process.
Their rugby players will be hoping to do exactly the same thing on Saturday afternoon but I’ve had another one of my gut feelings. It’s not indigestion either. Do you remember how poor France were in the group stages of the football World Cup last year? They barely managed to qualify from their group and were under-fire back home.
Well, England have barely qualified from their group in the rugby and have also been under-fire back home. But, just as France reached the final where they lost to Italy on penalties, I have a sneaky suspicion that England might be coming good at just the right time.
Australia will under-estimate us and be so intent on dishing out a thrashing to put us back in our sporting place, that Jonny and company might just spring another nasty little surprise on them.
Failing that, if Australia crush us again, someone has suggested we wreck their economy by boycotting Australian alcohol. However, my favourite idea is to dissolve their parliament (can still be done in theory under their constitution) and ban any future sports funding! Ha, that’ll teach them....what was that about born to rule again?
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