Recently by Brian Dick

There have been some pretty harsh things written about the England players and management during the tour to New Zealand, described in various national newspapers as disastrous, calamitous and disgraceful - in some cases all three.
I will leave the off-field shenanigans to those who know more about the circumstances of the alleged incident. My only comment is that it will be sad if through a combination of the cult of celebrity and their own inability to deal with the attendant fame, rugby players go the same way as footballers and become front page fodder.
On the field England were beaten twice - and soundly. The concession of nine tries and very little idea about how to attack the All Blacks is a pretty damning indictment of the current coaching regime.

If I ever possessed the desire, or indeed the intellect, to become a lawyer I would base my specialism on the old Barber's Maxim that suggests no matter what happens to the economy people will still need their hair cutting.

The same principle applies to rugby union and litigation. As long as there's an oval ball and H-shaped posts they'll be some club or player that needs a brief. My children would never go hungry.

And so it proves again this year. While the climax to the National One season came several weeks ago the standings have still not been finalised. The players have packed up their kitbags and gone on holiday but the suits are fighting with the vigour one would expect from a relegation threatened team defending its goal-line.

Two West Midlands clubs are at the heart of the action. The fates of Pertemps Bees and Coventry hang in the balance. The blood, sweat and tears shed over the course of eight months and 30 games is rendered insignificant when compared to the cases argued by the club's hired legal guns.

I was at the recent replay of the Sam Doble Memorial Match at Billesley Common and - accuse me of naivety - I was pretty disappointed with what I saw.

I didn't expect the star-studded British Lions XV that turned up for the first game in 1977 and didn't go thinking it'd be anything other than a knockabout in the sun.

In fact I left feeling it hadn't been too bad an afternoon with some entertaining rugby, excellent performances and more old faces than an early edition of a Who's Who.

But having bought a DVD of the original match my sense of loss became acute. Forget the fact Phil Bennett, Gareth Edwards, Gerald Davies and JPR Williams weren't present on the Common, by comparison the modern version was still sterile.

In the last eight months I've watched nearly forty games of rugby in person and countless others on television and, though I can't be 100 per cent sure, have probably seen more than 150 tries scored.

The other day at Goldington Road someone asked me which is the best try I've seen this season and I had to be honest and say I couldn't recall one that stuck out head and shoulders above anything else.

Given the itinerant nature of my job - I watch most sides quite regularly but none week in week out, it occured to me the quest to find try of the season should probably start with the playes, officials and supporters of our local clubs.

Dan Norton has scored a couple of crackers for Moseley as have James Aston and Uche Oduoza for Bees. Of all West Midlands National League sides Coventry probably integrate forwards and backs better than anyone else which means Butts Park must have seen a few quality ones.

And even though Stourbridge's season ultimately ended in the disappointment of missing out on promotion they have had some great fun along the way,.

I am not by nature the sort of person who views change with suspicion, instead I try to take the view that if something is inevitable the best course of action is to find positives.

I could never, therefore, be described as a traditionalist. To me traditions are not entities that have existed since the beginning of time, they have themselves developed through changing circumstances. If they have a beginning so they must have an end.

But I do get a bit touchy about the Six Nations. Rugby Union has known unprecedented change in the 13 years since professionalism was introduced. Virtually nothing has escaped untouched, neither the club game nor the representative sport.

Yet there are certain non-negotiables that give rugby its defining character. Principles that separate it from rugby league or other versions of football. The Six Nations is one.