Take commotion in your stride, Brian

Nov 1 2007 COMMENT by Sean McGuire, Liverpool Daily Post

POOR Brian Ashton, a decent bloke by all accounts, must be pulling the long knives from between his shoulder blades and pondering the meaning of loyalty when he wakes up this morning.

No sooner has the euphoria over England’s gallant run in the rugby union world cup begun to die down, than some of the team’s senior players are eagerly slagging their coach off, in the most public ways possible. Why?

Well, in the case of Lawrence Dallaglio, the motive is clear: he has a book to sell, and nothing sells like controversy – except, sex, drugs and corruption but not even Lawrence is accusing Brian of any of those. While Mike Catt has fallen for the propaganda that he is one of the elder statesmen of the team and should therefore throw in his tuppence-worth for good measure.

The guy who comes out of all this with, for me, a much enhanced reputation, is Phil Vickery.

Phil says very simply that Brian did a good job, they tried to do their best, they got to the final for God’s sake when all the pundits had written them off and said they’d be lucky to beat Samoa, and that is that; I think Phil is right and that Lawrence and Mike are wrong.

I hope that Brian Ashton is taking all this commotion in his stride. In an era when some coaches think they are more important than the players, he comes over as a sensible, moderate chap who has a grip on his priorities and understands that it is only a game.

He should go home to Leigh, see a few of his old mates and get down to his local on Saturday night to watch the second rugby league test match between Great Britain v New Zealand: fast, skilful, exciting rugby, go on Brian, you know you prefer it really!