大象传媒

I propose a further category - team manager whose head bears the strongest resemblance to Mr Bean's head pumped full of custard.

I nominate Martin Johnson - though of course others may disagree.:

Loving the Andy Powell section!

How about the epic fail award for epic failure?

Flannery trying to scythe Alexis Palisson legs off is pretty high up as is Brian Moore commentry during the French game and of course Powell driving a golf buggy down the M4 is good but Powell has his own catagory so is exempt so my choice is Paul O'Connell trying to gain himself a promotion to the Irish captaincy by attempting to kick Brian O'Driscols head off.

Anyone else think of anything that belong on that list of youtube moments?

Love this! Really funny. Agree that you need a section for 'the coach' : stay or go. Martin leave the building please. I've never channel surfed more than during England's 2010 campaign. Rotten stuff.

Tom - how about most football (i.e. Soccer) like behaviour on a rugby pitch award. The title is a bit long winded but there are two clear contenders. In second place Mr Steve Borthwick for gesturing to the ref in the England v Italy game that he should issue a card. But the clear winner is Mr Lee Byrne who collects this special award for his Didier Drogba like dive in the dying minuets of the Wales v Scotland game.

Ah the alternate awards are back, good job Tom.

Kearney has to join Fluety in the biggest dissapointment section. Stop advertising for Nutri-Grain and learn how to run a few decent lines! Possibly add Sexton to this as well. Billed as the new wonder kid of Irish rugby, and ended up with a kicking rate of 37%, while ROG? 100%. Bad times.

Award for Blindingly biased comments/commentary, one of rte contributors and some of my fellow irishmen for claiming Flannery didn't mean that kick on Palisson. Excuses ranging from: his reactions are slow, when he started the kicking motion Palisson hadn't picked up the ball, Palisson ran into Flannery's boot. If his reactions are slow how come he managed to reach around and catch Palisson before he hit the ground. Fantastic. Oh and probably any Welsh comments directed at Shane Williams. Great player still, terrible tournament though, like a lot of home nation players.

Oh also Mr Powell isn't the only 6N player with a colourful history when it comes to mixing golf carts and alcohol...

Post Lions tour blues make a contribution to the lower standards for Ireland and Wales.

The why wasn't he seleceted award -

Clearly got to be Ben Foden as a winner

The follow the party line award -

Anyone in an England shirt

The settling old scores award -

Special mentions to Andy Robinson who I half expected to come out with a Keeganesque rant before the England game, also Harinordique would was subtle enough to just come out with I want revenge.

For me the winner was big Lawrence Dallagio who has had a pop at everything about the English camp all six nations...not sure who upset him!

Best 606 line....

'Shane Williams runing around like a demented Corgi with a chilli up its B*m.'

Nothing against Shane but what an image. Made me chuckle

The "We Didn't Come Here To Play Rugby" Award: France in Cardiff. Can anyone recall them mounting an attack?

The "Give Up On The Drop Goals, Mate!" Award: Craig Gower. Trinh-Duc against England would get an honourable mention, only somehow it went over?!?

The "Golden Donut" Award: Wales, for the first half against France. (Runners up: France, second half against England)

The "How Many Times Do You Want It On A Plate?" Award: Italy, versus England.

The "Let's Make It Interesting..." Award: Wales, against England. And Scotland. And France... [sigh]

The "Where Were You When I Needed You?" Award: Gavin Henson.

The "Quarterback" Award for Best Forward Pass: Jonny Sexton to Brian O'Driscoll.

The Bj酶rge Lillelien Award for Comedic Objectivity Failure: Jonathan Davies, during Wales' last attack against Scotland.

The "Ed Wood" Award for Worst Cinematography: Those ****ing overhead cameras, that surgically remove all sense of what is actually going on.

POC for the 'Hey everyone I am at Glastonby and I am people serfing award' For his ludicrous people serf V France.

How about shortest ever Six Nations? Aurelian Rougerie coming on, making two of possibly the biggest tackles in the tournament only to be brought off injured 3 minutes later

The "Ed Wood" Award for Worst Cinematography: Those ****ing overhead cameras, that surgically remove all sense of what is actually going on.


Haha, agreed!

The Kevin keegan award for being a false messiah: Mike Tindall, does anyone expect him to be fit for next years 6 nations.

The steamroller award: Beattie for running over several Ireland defenders on his way to a cracking try

The hero to zero award: has anyone in their career been lauded and then criticesed as much as Jonny Wilkinson. His manager is probably second.

Favourite commentary quote of the 6N:

Irish RTE commentator as the camera shifts to a shot of the helicopter camera above... "I hope Andy Powell's not driving that!"

The "I don't know what I'm doing" award goes to Martin Johnson; there's quite a bit to choose from but specifically:
1 - Game 4. Lewis Moody dropped. Game 5. Lewis Moody captain...urmm?
2 - Mike Tindall hauled off against France for the crime of running incisive lines and providing the forwards with a target enabling quick ball for 2nd phase attacking rugby. John Wells must have been in tears by half time.
3 - And finally for the quote along the lines of: "In hindsight it's easy to say that not picking Foden & Ashton earlier was a mistake". Everybody in the country wanted them picked in the autumn. EVERYBODY. Aggghhhh.
Still, people learn from their mistakes so at his current rate by 2015 we're going to have the best coach in the world.

Award for 'Attempt at being a fully grown rugby player' - The 5 foot 5 body of French winger Marc Andreu.

"Most costly error
Who said putting Steve Borthwick in charge of stirring team-talks?"

It definitely wasn't Butch James....



'Johnson's decision to appoint Steve Borthwick as England captain for the tour to New Zealand was greeted with acclaim at Bath, his club. Butch James, who won the World Cup with South Africa last autumn under John Smit, described Borthwick as the best captain he had played for. 鈥淗e has all the attributes,鈥� James said. 鈥淎s a leader and a motivator he is special, as he is as a player. Smit was a fine captain, but Steve is something different. You can come into Bath on a match day chilled out, but once you've experienced one of Steve's team-talks you are flying.鈥�'

I don't know why but all of the players seem to really rate borthwick as a captain.

sourdust, I disagree with your award to France for "we didn't come here to play rugby award" as England deserve that for their performances in both Rome and Edinburgh!

Whilst Andy Powell has provided the most comedy value this tournament check out the controversy section on craig gower's wikipedia page, he makes AP seem like a choirboy!

Johnsons treatment of moody was certainly baffling,

Robbo277 - Safers have always had a funny sense on humour - he was probably worried about England as a decent force and thought supporting him would hinder us!

A bit of theft from the Guardian but:

Most ironic moment of the 6 Nations -

Foden scoring Englands best move of the 6 nations by a country mile and possibly saving the coaching staff he criticised for not picking him in the Autumn!

Worst punch of the 6 Nations:

Delon Hartley vs Scotland, it was a limp effort at best.

The i'll get my big brother on you award:

Mirco Bergamasco for being a little S*** constantly through every game.

Best Commentary moment
=======================
I was stuck in the car whilst I was listening to Ian Robertson and Gavin Hastings describing the last 5 minutes of Wales v Scotland.
Its the closest I have come to hearing two men crying on air . Robertson was rambling in disbelief and Gavin's montone voice seemed to just die out in the back ground as he buried his head in his hands.
It was torture !!

Am I the only fan of rugby who cannot see the logic or fairness or consistency in the ridiculous rule allowing the player at the back of the ruck to be impervious to access? It is ludicrous to allow a player to monopolise the ball without anyone being able to touch him. I thought rugby was a contact sport! Not in this special dispensation. His teammates can lawfully obstruct the opposition from getting to him. In open play this is deemed "crossing". In a scrum setting the scrum half can track the ball through the pack. No-one can do this in a ruck. Who knows where the ball is apart from the one who has it? If a player runs into his own side in open play that is offside: not in a ruck. This rule needs to be scrapped. Anyone else feel as stongly as I do?

Idiot award for the backroom boys who still insist the best thing for the 6Nations is to impose rule changes just before it starts so even the refs dont understand the game.

BIBRUM
The rules have to be put back to pre ELV ie2003 and left alone. Only then can the supporters who love the game have their game back. Rugby Union has been taken apart and bits lost so now it no longer works.
Sir Clive Woodward tried to warn us but no one listened.

Italy / England as worst match? Nah. You forgot Scotland / England.
At least Italy had a bit of a go.

Can't blame you for blocking Murrayfield from your mind though; if there was ever a game where you wished the rules allowed both teams to lose, that was it.

It's not the rule changes that have messed up the game of rugby. It is the IRB ruling to referees to be stricter at the breakdown. Attacking teams are scared witless about losing possession on the whim of the ref's whistle. Let's give the attacking team more opportunity to maintain momentum. Suggestion: tackled player does not have to release ball when tackled. Adopt maul laws and give the attacking team, say, five seconds to continue moving forward or "use it or lose it".

Spectator of the Year: Ibanez's Mother in Law!

Another rival for quote of the tournament Bothwick vs Ireland. After repeated Irish infringements at the scrum the ref eventually awards England the penalty and brings both captains in, and tells BOD to tell his front row to stop collapsing. Bothwick looks at Brian and with no irony goes 'Yea tell them it's really dangerous'. What a pillock...

Definitely Ibanez's mother-in-law for best spectator!
Brian Moore should win the "Obviously watching a different match award" for most of his commentary, especially his one-eyed rants against the referee in France v England...

...although, Steve Borthwick may have him beaten with his "...we did lots of fantastic work" comment after Italy and England failed to play rugby for 80 minutes.

Jonathan Davies wins the "Audible only to dogs" award for his final minutes of commentary on Wales v Scotland and Andy Robinson could win the "Sour grapes" award for his claim that Lee Byrne had dived in the same match (watch th replay, Andy).

Carnage, I agree with you about Bergamasco: so new category Best Slaphead Of The 6N 2010? (except I wouldn't deliver the award by hand).
What about:
Best Tackle
Biggest Bleeder
Best Crowd

Best Comment (although I can't remember who said it before the France Vs England game: "I think we may have a bit of a fight between the two teams today." No kidding!

The Gerald Ford Award to Martin Johnson for failing to see any value in a player that can carry a rugby ball and run at the same time.

20) "The i'll get my big brother on you award:

Mirco Bergamasco for being a little S*** constantly through every game."

That is absolute gold carnage.

How about the "oh no I've made a prat of myself" award:

1st place for me goes to Alun Wyn Jones for his trip in the England game. 2nd place for me goes to Scott Lawson's attempt to join the Welsh team by climbing over the top of the ruck to meet them and get himself sin-binned. 3rd place goes to Martin Castrogiovani for just generally being an a**e.

And The award for the least impartial commentator:

Only one winner. Mr Jonathan Davies for screaming "Come on" during various welsh attacks in both the Scotland game and the France game.

Best live text ...Ben Dirs?

Bastareaud is taken down by Tindall, who's is all over his opposite man like bubble-wrap, but Flutey is pinged for being off his feet. Parra slots his second penalty from bang in front. That woman sitting in front of Martin Johnson wants to watch herself, she could find herself engaged in a spot of knuckles if she carries on celebrating like that.

Typical Dirs gotta love it.

The Panglossian award for the team 'going in the right direction' goes to...

It's a tie between england and wales!

If you are looking for a player suffering a Lions hangover look no further than Jamie Roberts he did nothing for Wales all tournament he looks a one trick pony at the moment

The Opting for "experience" over talent award goes to Warren Gatland for picking Gareth Cooper. We could have just played R.Howley for god's sake.

How about most over-hyped player of the tournament by the British Press - winner: Bastareaud. He ran in 2 tries against scotland and slipped one pass out of a tackle against BOD. That's it. Even the french sports "bible" l'Equipe didn't place him in the team of the tournament (Hook and BOD in the centres in case you were wondering).

"Why didn't they hire me to ref this game?" - Award goes to Brian Moore for constant reminders that he is now a qualified ref. Described all the technical refereeing faults of the game but not really any play.

"we must stand and ovate France"

"Ovate"?! Please leave the poor English language in peace. First we had "to medal". Now "ovate" - which, according to my dictionary, means "egg-shaped, as a solid, or in outline; oval". Which is entirely appropriate to a rugby ball, I suppose.

@rulechangecrazy, nobody listened to Clive Woodward because he brought up the most boring rugby ever! If I was to make the game exciting again, he would be the last one on a very long list I would listen to.

@amgriffiths, English is not my mother tongue but I think he means ovate from ovation as opposed to ovulate from the "egg-shaped" thingy you were talking about...

Most costly error Mike Blair keeping it in play? He gets too much stick for this; if he kicked it straight out, it would have been a penalty to Wales on the half way line, straight in front of the posts. This should have been the case when Michalak did the same, as it is considered the same as delibrately throwing the ball out of play. At 24-24 I would have kept it in play as well and hoped for the best, rather than giving Stephen Jones that chance to make it 27-24.

best crowdsurfing in a six nations match - Paul O'Connell v France
best team - italian forwards + welsh backs
best moments - shane williams whenever he gets the ball, jonny wilkinson pentalty just as he came on v france, brian moore commentary, start of rugby league season

@Charles Absolutely he does - but you can't just create a verb from a noun and hope it exists. The word 'solution' exists, but you can't 'solute' something!

#40 - "nobody listened to Clive Woodward because he brought up the most boring rugby ever! If I was to make the game exciting again, he would be the last one on a very long list I would listen to."

Nonsense. Woodward played winning Rugby (wouldn't we all like a bit of that every now and again?) and played to the strengths of his team. On occasions this may not have meant flinging the ball around at every opportunity, but on many other occasions it was a joy to watch. Best examples that spring to mind are the tests in the Southern hemisphere in 2003: When the forwards needed to put in the hard yards against NZ they did so and we claimed a memorable victory. When the game was there to be played against Australia we did so again and tore them apart. That game also included a 40m rolling maul that was an absolute joy to watch despite the fact we never saw the ball. In the 6N from 2001-2003 England got the balance between being brilliantly entertaining and brilliantly efficient spot-on.

Soor, just had to get that off my chest!

Suggest amendment to the "crouch, touch, hold, engage" call from ref to include: "waitforit,waitforit,waitforit," between "hold" and "engage."
Obviously the ref.s would need to attend a training course, held by a British Army RSM, to develop the manic scream necessary for compliance.
Encouraging ancillary words like: "You'orriblelittleman" ,or, "doyouwantmetogetthedettolan'thewirebrush,you'orriblelittlebleeder?" etc etc. coud be added. Any more suggestions?

How about the "Where is Andy Powell When You Need Him?" award...
Scotland v England, 2 men injured (Kelly Brown and Ugo Monye) and a broken golf buggy needed for the stretcher. Surely Andy could have got it moving?

I absolutaly believe that the RFU should awarded the "Ostrich in the sand award" on two accounts;
1) by believing that we can produce a world class England side from a Premier League that has probably has less than 20% of its players eligable to play for England (it sais it all when 2nd rate journey men from the s Hemisphere who cannot make it at home, here to top up their pension funds, are still better than their English counterparts!
2)believing that they control English rugby...everybody knows the premier league does!!

Where to from here fellow bloggers?

Lots of predictable anti-English awards in this article, and lots of 'aren't wales amazing' patting them on the back in equal measure.

Very dull awards as well.

some good stuff here chaps.

my suggestion would be

the "who are you and why are on tv" award....

The little blonde woman who came close to getting a slap from Johnson in the France game.

The Bi-Polar award obviously must go to our brothers north of the wall

Lose to Italy - beat Ireland

Go figure

award for most tedious, biased commentry goes to Brian Moore.

realist7 - firstly, it's called the Premiership, not the Premier League, and secondly, I don't know what the % of English qualified players is in the Premiership but it is certainly more thatn 20%. That would amount to three English players per team. I'd welcome an example when that has ever been the case.

chris - my vote for 'who are you and why are you on television' award goes to the guy sitting next to Austin Healy when he does his video analysis. What an enigma...

I'm already looking forward to the 2011 awards, now that MJ is confirmed as sacrificial hippo to lead England into the Rugby World Cup.

"Manager most likely to bring back Wade Dooley at lock" ?

You heard it here first...

the kicking the ball directly to touch deliberately thing. I don't think it's a penalty offence. But like you say, in other instances where you deliberately do something that accidentally results in a scrum to the opposition, it's a penalty. Like a deliberate knock on or deliberately throwing the ball into touch. Probably something that needs looking at and clarifying. There is an argument to be made that as the ball has never actually re-entered play legally the opposing captain should be able to ask for the kick off to be taken again, even if 80mins is already up. It also seems to be me referees aren't consistent here, I'm pretty sure a couple of years ago the positions were reveresed. Wales were leading the Aussies and the Aussies had just scored. 80mins was up by the time the kick off was to be taken and Stephen Jones asked the referee if he could kick the ball straight into touch. The referee told him no. So he kicked it live.

France's kick off wasn't a legal kick off either, it didn't go 10 metres. Denying the crowd a bit of potential excitement. I guess that's the thing, you're selling a product these days, the Scotland Wales game will go down as one of the best finishes ever in International Rugby. The France/Wales game could've been right up there too potentially. It's not a rule I've seen come into play too often but it could be a rule change they can look at. Makes the game more exciting at the death.

Matt_Lacey12 (#38), you beat me to it.
I was going to suggest the "I'm a qualified referee now, don't you know? - award" for Mr Brian Moore.

But judging by the number of times in his commentary that he has to admit that his initial assessment was wrong and the on-field referee was right is rather scary. Thank goodness he isn't actually taking the field!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The "Inexplicable Refereeing" award goes to Bryce Lawrence, for England v France.

The "Impartial Commentating" award, I give to Brian Moore (joke).

The most Brutal One-on-one Face Off in the Entire Six Nations:


Never mind, Monye vs Brown...

Watching Martin Johnson get grilled by Sonia McLoughlin after every England game, is like watching the cop in Reservoir Dogs being tortured by Mr Blonde. The way England have been playing recently makes it probably the most entertaining, barbaric, gruelling part of any of their games.

She's like a lioness picking up her unruly cub by the scruff of the neck, then dropping it down the toilet and flushing it out to sea.

If the interviewer was male, MJ would probably dump tackle him or choke him with his own tongue, but Sonia being an attractive blonde woman, as well as the bravest person on these islands, is the kryptonite to his beefcake bravado.

By the France game, MJ had clearly cottoned on that the only way to deal with Sonia, was to give answers so long, she didn't have enough time to flay his hide with the razor-like barb of her tongue.

What a woman...

Ste Thomas wrote: Spectator of the Year: Ibanez's Mother in Law!

On a similar note, how about the 'Person I'd Most Like to Smack in the Entire Championships' award for Ibanez's mother-in-law. As ever, there was a lot of beer flowing that night and I thought my missus was going to tear the pub's screen down at one point. How we wanted to win just to see that lady's face! Oh well.

Possibly a bit harsh, but I'd also recommend the 'Most Anonymous Lock' award for Lewis Deacon.

Or the 'Captain Caveman Award for Person who Most Looks Like Adam Jones' going to Martin Castrogiovanni.

The 'Serve you Right' Award must go to the many Welsh spectators who left the ground 10 minutes before the end of Wales v Scotland, enough said!

The 'Arsene Wenger Award for the Team who is Never Beaten, but Sometimes Scores Fewer Points than the Opposition' goes to Wales!

Only kidding Welsh supporters! I much prefer watching you lot.....

"Least opposition friendly facilities" Murrayfield

From the Scotland v England coverage Robinson et al seemed to be in a nice spacious conservatory, Johnson et al in a telephone box!

The "My God! How many empty beer tins are in my living room award" goes to me......... for the Wales v Scotland game. Come to think of it, the Wales v England game, Wales v France, Wales v ..... (you get the picture)....

Another one for the Andy Powell section - On the Wales U18 Youth tour to Edinburgh he managed to flood the bathroom at the hotel when he filled the bath up to the top and then couldnt understand why it all poured out when he got in!

Worst Accent by a Commentator

Eddie Butler very time he did his Allo Allo when France were playing

" ... what was Scotland scrum-half Mike Blair thinking when he opted not to kick the re-start straight into touch as time ran out against Wales"
Possibly he was thinking that had he done so the game would not have ended but rather would have continued with a free-kick to Wales ...

See IRB ruling to this effect: