I couldn’t believe what I was seeing with the Barbarians game. The commentators noted that there were over a 1,000 Unions caps shared between the 30 starting players – I would have thought that the majority of these were on the Barbarians side
And yet, it was quite clear that none of the Barbarians team were able to run and pass the ball at the same time. For what is supposed to be an elite standard of the game, the standard of skills (if that is the right word) were quite appalling. I would have attributed it to a friendly if it weren’t for the vast majority of the players in the recent world cup equally unable to execute these skills
But, worst of all was the lack of effort from the Barbarians team. The replacement scrum half in particular was an embarrassment, there were at least two tackles that not only did he not try to make, he actually tried to get out of the way of the runner
If, as gutterfax says, the 52,000 people there did pay an average of £35 each, they should start a class action lawsuit against the Barbarians team for not providing the service they paid for... i.e. a team prepared to turn up and play rugby with even an ounce of personal pride
After this weekend’s game and the current climate of commercialism in the Union game , I would be surprised if the Barbarians concept lasted many more years
There's more chance of my car turning into a marshmallow. This will all have blown over by the new year and normal service will be resumed.
