A Gulf In Class
‘IF George Bush can teach Tony Blair anything more, it is that any defeat of England in Sundays rugby World Cup final should be swiftly followed by an all-out shock and awe attack on Australia. That would, as the president might say, learn em.
| How to be not boring |
And such thrilling action would be out of kilter with what the Australians expect from the English. As the Sun says, Australians find Clive Woodwards men boring.
Former Wallaby captain Russell Fairfax says: England are killing the game. They are just so bloody boring.
Of course, the English would have to go some to match the boring attitude of the Australians, whose moaning before the game surely belies a fundamental fear that they will lose.
Meanwhile, the Mirror takes a gander at the Australian press. It sees the front page of the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the headline Hands up if you think youre boring above a picture of the England team waving to the crowd.
That is clearly a work of rare genius. And with the benchmark set so very high, is it any wonder that the highly-imaginative Australians who dream up such wonderful puns think the English are boring?
The stage is certainly well set for Saturday, when even if Australia lose they will surely talk long and very loud about how they are the true world champions because if points were given for artistic merit theyve be straight sixes to Englands run of zeros.
This is all, as the Mail says, laughable. As is story about Englands cricketers foray into Sri Lanka. The Mails headline says it all: Humiliation.
In the first one-day international in Sri Lanka, England batted first and scored a paltry 88 runs all out from 46.1 overs.
Those are the bald statistics, which look even less hairy when readers learn that Sir Lanka reached a winning total off 13 overs for the loss of no wickets.
The guys played similar shots to those they have been playing in Bangladesh, says Michael Vaughan, the teams skipper, but we got ourselves out more.
And so it was that England reached their second lowest one-day score of all time. Which is not boring. Just awful.’
Posted: 19th, November 2003 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
