Section:GDN 1N PaGe:39 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/8/2019 21:53 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Wednesday 7 August 2019 The Guardian •39Camaraderie not
warm-ups key to
fi ring up dragons
for World Cups
▼ Intense training is only one
aspect of World Cup preparation
DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGESAn entertaining new book
off ers an insight into how
Wales have prepared well – or
badly – for past tournamentsRobert KitsonI
t is about now in a Rugby
World Cup cycle, with just
over 40 days and nights in the
phoney war wilderness still to
endure, that the truth starts
to emerge. There is only so
much iron you can pump in a gym: if
anyone hoping to lift the Webb Ellis
Cup is not fi t by now they never will
be. You cannot fake it at a World Cup
and expect to have a realistic chance.
With a slew of warm-up Tests
shortly commencing for all the
European nations, nevertheless,
those seeking clues about the
prospects of Wales, England,
Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy
and others should not focus purely
on August’s results. Four years
ago, for example, England saw off
France and Ireland at Twickenham
before hosting the 2015 tournament
and still exited in the pool stages.
Scotland, conversely, lost against the
French and Irish yet came within a
midge’s whisker of the semi-fi nals.
Warm-up scorelines can also
be warped by variables: coaches
protecting star men, conditioning
experts trying to ensure everyone
peaks in October and early
November rather than August. If you
really want to know how a team are
feeling, studying their off -fi eld body
language or quietly consulting the
landlords of nearby public houses is
probably a better bet.
Because, as an excellent new book
based on the fi rst-hand experiences
of former Wales players makes
clear, champion rugby teams are
built as much on camaraderie and
self-belief under pressure as onfat tests and mineral water. Ross
Harries, the highly respected Welsh
rugby broadcaster, has spoken to
myriad ex-internationals about
their memories of representing their
country and the result, Behind the
Dragon , is a vivid, revealing and
often hilarious read.
The subject of World Cup
preparations is the source of rich
material. Twenty years ago, for
instance, Wales were about to host
the entire event. Assisting the
management was Steve Black, a
central fi gure in Jonny Wilkinson’s
career and a motivational guru like
no other. Blackie was universally
popular but his habit of staying
up all night to write 30 personal
letters to each member of the squad
sometimes caused him to doze off
during the day. Craig Quinnell recalls
being asked to do a session on a
treadmill without checking how long
he should keep running. “Twenty
minutes later you’d be blowing out
of your arse thinking: ‘When’s he
going to stop this bloody thing?’
Then you’d look around and he’d
be fast asleep.”
It was also Black who decided that
Wales should actively try to feel likeworld-beaters before the 1999 World
Cup had even kicked off. During a
camp in Brecon, Quinnell recalls
the players being told to climb
up the steps of the school cricket
pavilion and salute an imaginary
crowd before hoisting the imaginary
trophy. Some of the squad dutifully
bought into the idea but more
cynical teammates were less easily
persuaded. They were proven right:
Wales duly lost against Samoa in the
pool stages and were beaten 24-9 by
Australia in the quarter-fi nals.
Before 2003, it was a similarly
offb eat story. Before the tournament
Wales were beaten 43-9 in Cardiff
by a virtual England second team,
having barely touched a ball, and
spent the majority of their time
running up hills outside Pontypridd
and sand dunes near Bridgend.
Subsequently, their then coach,
Steve Hansen, had the idea of
billeting the team in self-catering
accommodation to encourage
them to cook for each other and,
as a result, bond more tightly. He
underestimated the desire of certain
squad members to save some of their
food budget by bulk-buying cheap
baked beans; after a week of beans
on toast, some players were found
to have lost so much weight the
cunning plan had to be binned.
Harries, who shares the same
birthdate as Tom Jones and has a
similarly fi nely tuned ear for an
evocative Welsh yarn, also revisits
the build up to the 2007 tournament,
before which England belted Wales
62-5. There was not much happening
in the small French coastal resort of
Pornichet where Wales were staying,
prompting the winger Mark Jones
to borrow a local sheep and hide
it in Dwayne Peel’s room while he
was out doing a press conference.
Not only was the video footage of
Peel returning to his wrecked room
comedy gold but the sheep also
turned out to have fl eas, leaving the
scrum-half itching and scratching
for several days.W
ales duly lost
against Fiji but,
interestingly,
have
outperformed
their neighbours
England on the biggest stage ever
since. In both 2011 and 2015 it
was not their warm-up form that
catapulted them to the latter stages
but truly brutal summer training
camps arranged by Warren Gatland
in places such as Poland. As Dan
Biggar says in the book: “We’re a
country where the easy option is
to be negative, to look for excuses
and to come up short. Gats refused
to accept that. Whatever the
circumstances ... we were going to
fi nd a way to win.”
And so to the summer of 2019,
which has so far seen Wales
slogging it out in the Swiss Alps and
England undertaking the fi rst of two
hot-weather training camps in Italy.
Everyone needs some competitive
rugby, of course, but in many ways
the die is already cast. Whoever wins
at Twickenham this Sunday and in
Cardiff the following week, history
suggests it will be a red herring.Behind the Dragon: Playing
Rugby For Wales by Ross Harries
(Polaris Publishing)Champion rugby
teams are built as
much on self-belief
as on fat tests and
mineral water
▲ Craig Quinnell comforts Colin
Charvis after the 1999 World Cup lossResults
Football
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Third qualifying round: First leg Apoel Nicosia 1 Qarabag 2;
Club Brugge 1 Dynamo Kyiv 0; Dinamo Zagreb 1
Ferencvaros 1; PAOK Salonika 2 Ajax 2; Red Star Belgrade 1
FC Copenhagen 1
UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE
Third qualifying round: First leg Ararat Armenia 1
Saburtalo Tbilisi 2; Riga 1 HJK 1; Sutjeska 1 Linfield 2
CARABAO CUP
First round
Portsmouth (2) 3 Birmingham (0) 0
Harrison 30 54, Close 40 9,913
LEASING.COM TROPHY
North: Group H Rotherham 0 Manchester Utd U21 2
South: Group F Swindon 2 Chelsea U21 3
TUNNOCK’S CARAMEL WAFER SCOTTISH CHALLENGE CUP
North: First round Albion 1 Hearts U21 4; Brora 6
Aberdeen U21 0; Fraserburgh 2 Ross County U21 3;
Hibernian U21 3 Elgin 4; Livingston U21 1 Formartine Utd 3;
St Johnstone U21 1 Cove Rangers 4
South: First round Berwick 1 Rangers U21 2; Kelty Hearts 4
Kilmarnock U21 0; Queen’s Park 2 Celtic U21 2 (Celtic U21
won 4-3 on pens); St Mirren U21 1 East Kilbride 0
VANARAMA NATIONAL LEAGUE
AFC Fylde 0 Chorley 0; Barrow 0 Harrogate Town 3;
Boreham Wood 2 Wrexham 2; Bromley 3 Ebbsfleet Utd 1;
Dover 1 Dag & Red 2; FC Halifax 2 Hartlepool 0;
Maidenhead Utd 1 Chesterfield 1; Notts County 1
Stockport County 1; Solihull Moors 3 Torquay 0; Sutton Utd 1
Barnet 1; Woking 0 Aldershot 1; Yeovil L Eastleigh L
Cricket
THIRD T20 INTERNATIONAL
Providence West Indies 146-6 (KA Pollard 58;
DL Chahar 3-4). India 150-3 (RR Pant 65no, V Kohli 59).
India beat West Indies by seven wickets.
VITALITY T20 BLAST
Hove Glamorgan 146-9 (DL Lloyd 50). Sussex 150-1
(PD Salt 78no, LJ Wright 56). Sussex beat Glamorgan by
nine wickets.
WOMEN’S KIA SUPER LEAGUE
Aigburth Southern Vipers 166-7 (DN Wyatt 54,
TT Beaumont 53). Lancashire 132 (NE Farrant 3-18).
Southern Vipers beat Lancashire by 34 runs.
Headingley Surrey 130-9 (HL Fenby 4-20). Yorkshire 121
(LA Marsh 3-17). Surrey beat Yorkshire by nine runs.Tennis
ATP/WTA ROGERS CUP (Montreal/Toronto)
Men: First round: M Cilic (Cro) bt B Klahn (US) 6-3 7-6 (7);
D Evans (GB) bt A De Minaur (Aus) 6-4 7-6 (6); J Isner (US)
bt J Thompson (Aus) 6-3 3-6 7-6 (6); R Albot (Mol) bt
G Simon (Fr) 6-4 6-2; G Pella (Arg) bt D Goffin (Bel) 6-4
7-6 (4); D Schwartzman (Arg) bt M Cecchinato (It) 3-6 7-6
(5) 6-4; F Auger-Aliassime (Can) bt V Pospisil (Can) 6-2
6-7 (3) 7-6 (3)
Women: First round: C Suárez Navarro (Sp) bt V Williams
(US) 6-4 6-2; K Siniakova (Cz) bt DR Collins (US) 4-6 7-6
(3) 6-2; Zhang S (Chn) bt A Sevastova (Lat) 7-6 (5) 6-2;
E Alexandrova (Rus) bt M Doi (Jpn) 6-2 6-2; V Azarenka
(Blr) bt C Giorgi (It) 6-2 6-2; T Maria (Ger) bt Zheng S (Chn)
6-3 6-4; I Swiatek (Pol) bt A Tomljanovic (Aus) 4-1 ret
Snooker
INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (Daqing)
Second round: M Allen (NIre) bt M Davis (Eng) 6-1; J Perry
(Eng) bt S Maguire (Sco) 6-2; A Carter (Eng) bt K Maflin
(Nor) 6-3; S Murphy (Eng) bt Yan Bingtao (Chn) 6-4;
D Gilbert (Eng) bt A McGill (Sco) 6-1; J Trump (Eng) bt
S Donaldson (Sco) 6-4; G Dott (Sco) bt S Bingham (Eng) 6-3;
Ding Junhui (Chn) bt Xiao Guodong (Chn) 6-1; J Jones
(Eng) bt R Milkins (Eng) 6-3; M Selby (Eng) bt B Woollaston
(Eng) 6-3; G Wilson (Eng) bt L Brecel (Bel) 6-2; J Higgins
(Sco) bt E Slessor (Eng) 6-3; Liang Wenbo (Chn) bt D Wells
(Wal) 6-4; T Ford (Eng) bt K Wilson (Eng) 6-5; A Higginson
(Eng) bt J Robertson (Eng) 6-4; N Robertson (Aus) bt
R Walden (Eng) 6-5
Baseball
MLB
Arizona 3 Philadelphia 7; Baltimore 6 NY Yankees 9; Boston 7
Kansas City 5; Chicago Cubs 6 Oakland 5; Cincinnati 7
LA Angels 4; Cleveland 0 Texas 1; Detroit 4 Chicago White
Sox 7; LA Dodgers 8 St Louis 0; Minnesota 5 Atlanta 3;
NY Mets 6 Miami 2; Pittsburgh 7 Milwaukee 9; San Francisco 0
Washington 4; Tampa Bay 0 Toronto 2; NY Mets 5 Miami 4
Fixtures
Football (7.45pm unless stated)
Uefa Champions League
Third qualifying round: First leg Basel v LASK Linz;
CFR Cluj v Celtic; Istanbul Basaksehir v Olympiakos
(6.45pm); Krasnodar v Porto (6pm); Maribor v Rosenborg
(7.15pm)
Uefa Europa League
Third qualifying round: First leg Slovan Bratislava v
Dundalk (7.15pm)
Leasing.com Trophy
North: Group B Oldham v Liverpool U23
Cricket (6.30pm unless stated)
Tour Match (first day of three)
New Road Worcestershire v Australians (11am)
Vitality T20 Blast
North Group: Grace Road Leicestershire v Warwickshire;
Northampton Northamptonshire v Durham
South Group: Bristol Gloucestershire v Kent;
Chelmsford Essex v Somerset, Chelmsford (7pm)Football
In briefChampionship
Forest issue suspension
over ‘racist’ postsPolice have opened an inquiry into
racist messages allegedly sent to
Derby County’s Duane Holmes
by someone claiming to be a
Nottingham Forest fan, who has
now been barred from matches by
the City Ground club. Forest became
the latest club to take action after
the opening weekend of the Football
League season was blighted by
reports of racist behaviour. “The
club are aware of some racist social
media messages, which have been
posted by an individual who claims
to be a supporter, and denounce
the conduct of the individual
responsible in the strongest
possible terms,” Forest said in a
statement. “The club will continue
to co-operate with the police who
are pursuing their inquiries. Whilst
these inquiries are ongoing the club
has suspended the ability of the
individual concerned from attending
matches.” Paul MacInnesLiverpool
Wilson joins Cherries
on a season-long loanThe Liverpool winger Harry Wilson
has joined Bournemouth on a
season-long loan after Eddie Howe
identifi ed the Wales international
as an ideal replacement for DavidBrooks. The Wales international
impressed in pre-season for
Liverpool, who placed a £25m
valuation on his head earlier in
the summer, but has been allowed
to leave as Jürgen Klopp can not
off er the regular fi rst -team football
he needs this season. Wilson, 22,
fl ourished on loan at Derby County
last season. Bournemouth will pay
a loan fee of £2.5m plus £500,000
in performance-related bonuses.
There is no option for a permanent
transfer and Liverpool did not
receive another off er they deemed
suitable for the player this summer.
Andy HunterWo lve s
Dadashov moves to
Molineux and leavesWolves have signed the Azerbaijan
international Renat Dadashov, with
the striker immediately heading
out on loan. The 20-year-old moves
to Molineux from the Portuguese
club Estoril, agreeing a four-year
contract , but will return to Portugal
for a season-long stint with Pacos de
Ferreira. PA MediaHarry Wilson gets
used to life with
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