Rapid action called for!
First half of the season almost over and a few interesting and, mainly. positive developments. Top priority for the Union is to get rid of the Argentinian thug Fernando Iraizoz from Swedish rugby. He left Spain last year after being repeatedly sent off and carried on in the same way for Enköping. He was reported to the police for assault as well as to the disciplinary committee after attacking the young Swedish international, Nils Edström, who has now retired from rugby. And the latest reports from his new club, Spartacus, suggest his filthy and cowardly behaviour on the field has continued. He has already seriously damaged Swedish rugby and should never be on a rugby field again. Let´s see some strong action by the Union before some even more serious incident takes place.
Men´s championship
Turning to more positive issues, there are certainly more teams playing this year and one or two of the leagues are developing promisingly. The new six team format for the Men´s championship has kept the scores down a bit, but two games have been near the 100-mark as teams struggle to fulfill the many long away fixtures. It´s still a three horse race, however, with Hammarby coming out on top after the first round of matches. As long as they beat either Exiles or Enköping in the second round they will retain the top spot leaving these two teams, who have met in the last seven finals, to contest the semi instead. Are we seeing a change in the balance of power with Hammarby moving ahead of the others? Time will tell, but the outcome this year is fascinating.
Exiles vs Hammarby with Exiles completely dominating the first half saw a turn-around in the second with Hammarby´s forwards scoring two tries when Exiles were yellow-carded and then pulling away to win 21 –13. The match was played in pouring rain and about 5 degrees and with quite a few players missing from the Exiles line-up. Exiles pack is much stronger this year and they more than held their own against the Hammarby juggernaut who nevertheless put up a fine display to take the match in the closing minutes. Exiles then faced Enköping in a game which I felt was at a much higher level. Significant for me was the way in which the Enköping pack was outplayed throughout, the first time that Exiles have achieved that for many years. With ten minutes to go, Enköping looked down and out, 8 – 16, and if the last pass had gone to hand twice it could have been 8 – 30. Instead they didn´t go to hand and Enköping raced away from far out twice to nick it 20 – 16. The third of the big three games saw Enköping take an early 14 – 0 lead over Hammarby, one try from a floated pass to the fast man Borg on the wing and the other when the defence stopped after what was obviously a knock-on. But Hammarby came back once again, outplaying the Enköping pack and scoring with their grinding ten-man rugby to win more convincingly than the 17 – 22 score suggests. I´ve seen Hammarby dominate the Enköping pack in the past, but without the confidence to get over the line. Now they have that confidence and Enköping may find it hard to re-assert themselves.
What of the other three teams? Pingvin failed to score and were beaten heavily away to Hammarby and Exiles. Against Exiles they narrowly avoided a 100-pointer, yet they still looked and played like a team for the full 80 minutes. Watching Gothenburg out of the corner of my eye at the same time on the next pitch as Hammarby ran in 80-odd points it has to be said that they did not look like a team for any of the 80 minutes and it came as no surprise that Pingvin beat them with a bit to spare a couple of weeks later in Gothenburg. Surprise package are Spartacus, a very modest team last year who in successive home games drew 14 – 14 to Enköping and only lost 0 – 14 to Exiles. It has to be said, however, that their pitch is small and that no team will score many points against them there, especially on a wet and windy day. Spartacus are also turning into an ex-pat team and with Alan Letele returning to action they are probably favourites to get to the semi-finals, while Gothenburg seem to be heading for the drop.
So who´s going to win this year? I´m not sure I would want to bet on the outcome. Enköping seemed to me to be on the blink last year but their imported second row and flanker, along with utility player Youngman were just strong enough to see them through against Exiles. This year, with no real second team or juniors they seem to have a very thin bench and it will only take a couple of injuries for their level to drop quite a bit. Ostensibly they have a strong back division, but in fact the only two with scoring potential are Bobby Nave, who is back to fitness after a so-so year last year, and the improving sprinter Tobias Borg on the wing. Their pack is, in my opinion, no longer a match for the current Hammarby or Exiles and they will have to raise their game considerably to retain the title. Hammarby are probably on the whole marginally better than last year. Key player Roger de Jager didn´t stay long in retirement and they have a useful new back in South African Kyle Dutton. Try-scoring potential in the backs is not high against the better teams, but they are a very difficult team to beat and don´t mind winning with ten-man rugby. They would have to be narrow favourites to take their first title. Exiles are getting stronger as the season goes on and are still in with a shout despite losing the first two key games. Their pack is stronger than last year with a very mobile new prop, David Fairley, a giant second row ”Tower” Chamberlain and an excellent No 8 Rhys Allen, while the backs are just as good. The new stand-off Dustin Eaton reads the game well and in full-back Ian Gowland they have a match-winner. Utility Australian Dylan Schofield has returned, this time as player-coach. We´ll see what Exiles are made of when they play Hammarby and Enköping in successive weeks in August. Don´t write them off just yet, however. I think we could well see an All-Stockholm final for the first time this year.
Div. 1 for Men
Another success story this year has been Div 1 for Men with all six of the teams evenly matched. Attila, also an ex-pat team nowadays, are favourites to take the automatic place in the top division with Södertälje or Vänersborg going for the qualifying matches against Pingvin (?). Perhaps a measure of the level of rugby in this league is that leaders Attila struggled to get a draw against Exiles Twos last week, but it is a competitive league which is all to the good.
And so to the Ladies
On the Ladies´ front we are already down to four teams with a rather uninspiring campaign so far. Göteborg seem to be well ahead of the rest with Exiles probably the only team able to give them a game. The four-team league in August/September will be complicated by the fact that the first two rounds will clash with the World Cup which means that Göteborg and Exiles will be weakened far more than Malmö/Pingvin and Enköping. This would seem to favour Enköping who will meet Göteborg and then Exiles in the first two rounds when the World Cup is on, while Exiles meet Göteborg twice when both are at full strength. This could well lead to an Enköping – Göteborg final, although the outcome of that would not be much in doubt.
Sevens and Cup
Also positive to see the number of clubs which are managing to turn out second teams on a fairly regular basis and some old/new teams being revived.
Finally, plus points to the Union also for getting together more or less functioning seven-a-side and cup tournaments. Disappointing that Exiles have withdrawn from the sevens finals after hammering Hammarby a couple of times and remaining undefeated in the preliminaries. But with 8 of 12 players unavailable, a 30.000:- bill to compete and a cup match also in Malmö a couple of weeks later, something had to give.
Rugby coverage in Swedish mass-media
I´d like to say a few words as well about the coverage our sport receives in various forms of mass-media in Sweden. As everyone knows, this coverage is patchy, to say the least. To my knowledge, the only papers to give regular match reports are Enköpingsposten EP, Uppsala Nya UNT (Uppsala and Enköping) and Trelleborgs Allehanda TA (Pingvin). UNT and TA can be read on the web, while Enköping post all EP-articles on their own website. The Union does a reasonable job in informing about current events, but it is not really their duty to provide match reports or other background information about the clubs. They had a debate page some years ago but this tended to be highjacked by the anonymous, foul-mouthed lunatic fringe and was stopped. Nature abhors a vacuum, however, and soon other alternative blogs appeared. The first of these was Team Sweden Rugby created by a well-known West-Coast pundit.. No doubt started with the best intentions this rapidly degenerated into a farago of rumours, malicious gossip, conspiracy theories and a vehicle for the aggrandisement of the founder. It is written in English with appalling grammar and spelling, occasional profanity, and with the odd incursion into excruciating Swedish. Not really much of a contribution to our understanding of Swedish rugby.
True Sweden Rugby was created as a reaction to the previous blog, attempting to give a more balanced account of Swedish rugby. In that respect the anonymous blogger has succeeded. With no apparent axe to grind he writes in coherent English about games and other aspects of Swedish rugby.
So that leaves the clubs to report on their own activities. And some of them do it very well. In Stockholm, Attila are working hard to build up a comprehensive web-site, Södertälje are also not bad, while Hammarby are more patchy. Exiles are usually pretty good at covering all their matches, although other improvements to the site are needed. Uppsala can often ride on the coattails of the UNT while Enköping, although occasionally missing out on the ladies´ team, has the best coverage of all. A local TV company provides 3 – 4 minute summaries of most home games, Enköpingsposten has a couple of articles a week on rugby and their club director has taken to writing sensible introductions to matches and match reports.
On the West Coast, Spartacus and Vänersborg can usually be relied on to provide match reports while Gothenburg seems to be struggling.
In the South, Pingvin has a fairly patchy coverage nowadays, especially the men, as is the case with Malmö. All in all, with a bit of detective work, one can get a fair idea of the state of the game each week, although one would like to see a bit more effort being made all round. A welcome development is that, although there is always a bit of bias towards the home team, very few match reports are of the ”We wuz robbed, referee was a disgrace”-variety.
