Quarter of the story

Happy on the ship (picture http://bit.ly/rU0rED )

England weren’t the only team to exit at the quarter final stage, how have the other 3 teams have fared since then?

Ireland
Brian O’Driscoll is still captain( if they can patch him back together again), Declan Kidney is still coach, and pretty safe unless Ireland have a disastrous 6 Nations. World Cup? What World Cup?

South Africa
South Africans did what all passionate fans do when their team exits at the QF stage – they blamed the ref. Never mind aging players, dodgy tactics and even dodgier coaching, no Bryce Lawrence is the man who’s afraid to visit the Republic now, whose Facebook page ‘Petition to stop Bryce Lawrence ever reffing again’ has 84000 fans. The Boks has a bit of boozy night out of their own, but their fans kept it simple and blamed the ref. Pieter de Villiers kind of resigned but is reapplying for his old job

Argentina
I googled ‘Argentina rugby world cup dwarves’ and nothing noteworthy came out, so the Argentineans had a quiet world Cup, and no aftermath.

England
The world cup is a distant memory now for three of the losing quarter finalists, except for one. Dwarfgate, boobgate, ballgate, chambermaidgate, ferrygate, twikileaks, fines, expulsions, resignations, outcries – England’s rugby world cup campaign morphed smoothly into an episode of Eastenders. Moody is gone, Johnson is gone, Tindall was gone – but now he’s back! and RFU members are defecting like rats leaving a sinking ship, with the notable exception of Rob Andrew – he quite likes the ship. He may the only man left to pick a new England coach. Now, as an Irish fan, I should be sticking up for Andrews. Keep up the good work Rob! Director of Elite Rugby for life! But beating England when they’re crap is not much fun.

I’m no fan of some the England players, but I’m tired of all of this now. Apart from chambermaidgate which is completely disgraceful, they behaved like idiots, but so what? They were still putting their bodies on the line for their country, and they got beaten in the end frankly by a more talented French side. All I want now is for Andrews to be fired, the admin to be put into the hands of administrators, and for England to hire a decent coach. The next and only time I want to hear about English rugby is for their success or failure on the field. From the perspective of the other three teams, it’s time to move on.