The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

and it just becomes too much. You

crowd yourself with thoughts, you

crowd yourself with emotion. There’s

no freedom to go out and express

yourself, to perform and allow

yourself to make mistakes.

“Then, when things aren’t clicking,

you don’t know what it is you need to

go back to. You start changing

yourself and you start trying to be a

ball-carrier like Alex Dombrandt, or

you start trying to be a workhorse like

Tom Curry, or a breakdown specialist

like Sam Underhill. That’s not good

for anyone.”

Boyd’s decision to appoint Ludlam

Northampton captain was a

masterstroke, helping him to identify

those core traits and forcing him to

stop fretting about his own game.

“I understand now that I work well

when I feel more part of something,

when I feel like there are people who

depend on me,” Ludlam, who has ten

England caps, says. “It brings the best

out of me.

“If you are in a leadership role you

have got to be true to yourself. I am

an emotional player and workrate has

always been in my game — I just

didn’t know that was what my whole

game was underpinned on.

“To be able to figure that out

through captaincy, and taking the

focus off myself, is something that

I’ve been really thankful for.”

Managing those emotions has been

critical this week. There was a time

when Ludlam would have been

frothing about this game from

Monday morning. Indeed that is what

happened before his first Six Nations

start, against Scotland, in 2020.

Ludlam lit the touchpaper in the

week by declaring: “They hate us, we

hate them; it’s going to be a war.” He

meant it at the time. He had just

stepped out of a team meeting and

was fired up. “I remember waking up

on the Monday and thinking, ‘This is

Scotland week, I want to get selected,

I can’t wait. This is a historic fixture

the times | Saturday June 11 2022 1GS 17

Commentary queen’s legacy

Eighty-five years ago tomorrow,

Betty Belton, of Warwickshire,

dismissed Peggy Antonio with the

new ball to have Australia nought

for one at the start of the first

women’s Test match in England.

The last surviving player from

that game, Eileen Ash, died only

six months ago, aged 110.

Describing it for radio was

Marjorie Pollard, who two years

earlier had become the first

woman to commentate on a men’s

match for the BBC. Long before

Isa Guha and Alison Mitchell, and

70 years before Jacqui Oatley

became the first woman

commentator on Match of the

Day, Pollard was a trailblazer.

Tall and bespectacled, Pollard

had played hockey for England

for 16 years, scoring eight goals

against Germany in 1926 and 13

against Wales two years later. She

was almost selected to tour

Australia with the England cricket

team in 1934-35 but, by then 35,

was thought to be too old.

Turning to journalism, she

wrote for The Times, The Observer

and London Evening Standard

before being tried out for radio. A

BBC memo praised her “vigorous

voice” though noted she had a

tendency to “squeak at moments

of excitement”. She also had a

talent as a camerawoman, filming

hockey matches in colour and

making a video of the Coronation

celebrations in 1953 in Bampton,

Oxfordshire, which is

recognisable today as the village

used in Downton Abbey.

In 1926, she had founded the

Women’s Cricket Association. “We

were told: ‘You’ll never play like

men,’ ” she recalled after the war.

“That was an insult because,

strangely enough, we never

wanted to play like men. We

always believed we could evolve a

style of our own.” Within eight

years the “cricketesses”, as the

Daily Express called them, were

representing their country.

Forty years ago this spring,

mourning the loss of her long-

term companion, May Morton,

Pollard shot herself. She received

an obituary in The Times, which

noted she was a “great

sportswoman”. It would be 17

more years before women could

enter the Long Room at Lord’s.

Gin and tennis:

a dizzying mix

In hot weather, you must stay

hydrated. Randolph Lycett, who a

century ago reached the first

Wimbledon final at its present

site, took that to the extreme in

1921, when he played his quarter-

final in sweltering conditions.

In those days, they did not stop

at the change of ends

— chairs only

appeared at Wimbledon

in 1975 — but a player

could, as guidance put it,

“wipe his brow or moisten

his gullet as he passes the

umpire’s chair”. Lycett

moistened his with gin. Then, as

the match against Japan’s

Zenzo Shimizu went into a

fifth set, he ordered a

bottle of champagne.

And another.

This had an

effect. One report

noted how often

Lycett fell over. The

Times kindly blamed

it on the heat. He lost

10-8. Thirteen years

later the club provided

Robinson’s lemon barley

water.

THETAILENDER

Patrick Kidd

I tip my hat to

Sachin’s equal

A giant of cricket retired this

week. Twenty-three years after

she made an unbeaten 114 on her

debut for India at Milton Keynes,

Mithali Raj, below, has laid down

her bat. The leading runscorer in

the women’s international game,

having passed Charlotte

Edwards’s 10,273 runs last year,

her feats are legion.

At the age of 19 she

made a record 214

in a Test against

England; in

2016-17 she hit

nine straight

international fifties;

she captained her

country for 18 years

and averaged 53.72

when doing so. Only the

lack of a World Cup trophy

counts against her, the

closest being a nine-run

defeat in the 2017 final.

Even better, she liked to bat

in a floppy sunhat. Matching

elegance and magnificence,

Raj deserves to be as

respected around the

world as Sachin

Tendulkar.

PIC OF THE WEEK

Almost 80 years

after helmets

became mandatory

in the NFL, the

sport has brought

in a more padded

version for training

to cut concussions.

“We look like

idiots,” said Pat

Freiermuth, the

Pittsburgh Steelers

tight end, “but I’ll

take any extra

precaution I can.”

and everyone thinks there’s this

rivalry and I want to get after

it.’ I was building and

building and getting

emotional all week.”

There was a

predictable social media

backlash. Ludlam felt

emotionally exhausted

on the day and realised

he had put unnecessary

pressure on himself.

England won but it was a

key lesson.

“I don’t need to prove to myself I’m

an emotional person,” he says. “I

know now who I am. I know that,

come Saturday, I’m going to be

fizzing. I wouldn’t take those mistakes

back. It all comes down to

understanding yourself and

understanding how you operate. That

can only come from experience.

“I came in on Monday this week

with heaps of energy and had to pull

myself back a bit because if your focus

is, ‘I’m emotional, I’m excited,’ what

gets neglected are the details. That’s

not how you make history.”

Leicester spent the whole campaign

on top of the Premiership table,

while Northampton finished strongly

to qualify for the semi-finals in

fourth place.

This will be the first full-bore derby

of the season, given the two regular-

season fixtures were staged during

the international periods, when

England players were missing.

Ludlam sat with Ellis Genge, the

Leicester captain, to watch both

games. Off the field, they are good

friends and kindred spirits but there

will be no holds barred between them

come kick-off. That is the way of this

fixture.

Chris Ashton, now of Leicester but

then a Northampton wing, was

involved in two flashpoints, with

Manu Tuilagi and Alesana Tuilagi, in

2011. In the 2014 semi-final there was
      a red card for Salesi Ma’afu, the
      Northampton prop, and three yellows
      for Leicester, with Saints sealing a
      dramatic 21-20 win thanks to a late
      try by Tom Wood, who is retiring at
      the end of the season.
      “That semi-final is a core part of
      the club’s history,” Ludlam says.
      “We’ve got a chance now to create
      our own slice of history, our own
      moments that hopefully people are
      going to remember for years to come.”
      Ludlam will implore Northampton
      to follow the example of his father
      from those hostile boxing nights.
      “This is pretty much as big as it gets, a
      semi-final at Welford Road” he says.
      “My dad always said, ‘No matter
      what you do, put your head in the
      spokes, get involved.’ He says there
      are two types of players and he uses a
      big fry-up as the analogy.
      “The chicken gives its eggs but the
      pig gives its whole body — the
      sausages, the bacon, everything.
      You’ve got to be the pig in these
      situations — give everything, give
      your whole body to the cause, not just
      part of you.”

Leicester v

Northampton

Gallagher Premiership

semi-final

Today, 4.30pm

TV: BT Sport 1

DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES

who is smashed again, but he feeds
Biggar in time to release the fly half
into space behind two decoy runners.
The ball is spread to Alex Coles then
Furbank and in only four passes and
five seconds Saints have reached the
opposite wide channels, before Tommy
Freeman speeds to score in the corner.

The key to the system is the

defence’s difficulty in identifying which

of Biggar or Hutchinson will take the

ball first. It is ultimate heads-up rugby

and is akin to the “fluid” attacking

mantra that Eddie Jones championed

in the autumn, when Marcus Smith and

Owen Farrell were successfully

deployed as two playmakers in

England’s 32-15 win against Australia.

Leicester will put up a far sterner

defensive test than Irish or Newcastle:

Saints boast the second-fastest

attacking ruck speed in the league this

season (3.29sec), but Tigers are the

second best at slowing ball (4.04sec).

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