Allez Les Bleus

It’s a sad old story when the most enjoyable moments of last weekend’s Calcutta Cup battle at Murrayfield were the frequent TV cutaways to Scotland coach Andy Robinson giving an Oscar-winning performance as the world’s angriest man. In his playing days he was known as ‘Growler’ but there wasn’t much growling here: near demented hysteria, flailing arms, and lip-readable damnation of the referee and all his works. He was one step away from banging his head on his desk. And you couldn’t really have blamed him. The referee allowed England to get away with a whole heap of skulduggery at the breakdown, Dan Parks hit the post twice and a Scottish victory would have had a poetic justice. But this was a brutal game: rugby as war not sport, and not much fun either apart from a frenzied last ten minutes when both sides seemed to forget their battle orders.