Rugby World UK – August 2019

Why not? We travelled back

and told the ref before the

2002 Heineken Cup final to

keep an eye on Neil Back!

WHAT DO

YOU THINK?

Send your views to

rugbyworldletters

@ti-media.com

Front Row

TOM YOUNGS
LEICESTER CAPTAIN AND HOOKER
You’ve got to celebrate your little wins
in a game and if that means you get a
good turnover, say, you celebrate that.
Some guys will celebrate in people’s
faces. If someone did that to me I
wouldn’t be that bothered, it doesn’t
faze me. I’d be more annoyed about
the fact we’d turned the ball
over and I’d be thinking,
“What do I need to say?
How do we fix that?”
You can’t remove emotion
from the game. In football,
players sometimes take
their shirt off after scoring
even though they know they will
be booked. It’s the same in rugby.
Imagine you’re hanging on and you get
a vital turnover. It has to be celebrated.
The emotion’s all there, the hype’s all
there. Now that celebration might go
overboard a little but it adds to the
game, and if you can rattle the
opposition you’ve won a
psychological advantage
off them – you’ve put
them ‘off task’. Rugby is
meant to be edgy. It’s
built on emotion and
usually the team with
the most emotion wins.

BRYAN REDPATH

FORMER SCOTLAND CAPTAIN

Celebrating a big moment must stay

within the boundaries of respect, and

not overspill into winding the opposition

up. What are you celebrating? Are you

celebrating because an opponent

has made a mistake? Or because a

team-mate has done something well?

Celebrate the good things but

don’t be arrogant and try to

wind someone up, as that

leads on to something else,

a vendetta that carries over.

In the recent U20 World

Championship, the referee

penalised an Australian

player who clapped near the

face of an Irish player. He had already

warned the team, so he was correct to

make that decision. You can’t take away

that raw emotion but show respect.

The same with the Maro Itoje incident

against Glasgow Warriors last season;

keep that emotion, Maro, but harness

it in the right way or

it could come back

to bite you when they

next tackle you.

Don’t patronise

anyone. Take away

the arrogant, petulant,

winding-up stuff.

Simon

Kai

Ellie

Ellie

What a weekend. We travelled

back in time and saw Jonah Lomu

play against England in 1995.

Couldn’t you have stopped

waitress ‘Suzie’ from poisoning

everyone before the final? :(

Wow, that’s twice-

in-a-lifetime stuff!

Kai, you can’t mess with history!

WHAT IF...

Time machines existed?

PICS

Getty Images

TRANSPORT XV

Lots of pace in this back-line submitted

by Mike Long of Wakefield, and tonnage

aplenty up front. Send your alternative

XVs to [email protected]

1 Tank 2 Tu g 3 Tractor

4 Airbus 380 5 Cruise ship

6 Houseboat 7 Matatu

8 Zeppelin

9 Tuk-tuk

10 Aston Martin

12 Jet-ski

13 Hovercraft

14 Concorde

15 Red Arrow (Hawk T1)

11 Bullet train

Raw emotion

Jaden Hendrikse

celebrates a South

Africa try at the

U20 World Cup

Conor

Kai

Simon

Simon

There is one thing

you’d never change...

Okay, that is funny, but what’s to

stop us going back and changing

everything? It would be chaos.

No amount of tinkering will

stop Mark Cueto from putting

his foot in touch in 2007!

Oh yeah, what’s that?

Should rugby clamp down on in-match celebrations?

FACE-OFF

Kai