THE SUNDAY HERALD REPORTS

Six Nations Awards
By Alisdair Reid
So that’s it for another year. The Six Nations is over and it’s time for a trawl through the memories that survived all those nights of Bacchanalian excess. Time to reflect on the tournament’s highs and lows, its pulse-racing matches, its dramatic endings and (in the case of Scotland versus Italy) its even more dramatic beginnings. Time for some brickbats and bouquets. Time, in other words, for the awards...
Comment
THE RAY Charles Award for Video Analysis just has to be given to Donal Courtney, the Calcutta Cup television match official who allowed Jonny Wilkinson's try' against Scotland when all the replays showed that the player had put his foot in touch. Frank Hadden knew it wasn't a try; Brian Ashton knew it wasn't a try; everyone in the press box knew it wasn't a try; my budgie knew it wasn't a try and he died three years ago. Unfortunately for Scotland, Courtney's wayward opinion was the only one that mattered. The contrite Wilkinson expressed his embarrassment with an imperious touchline conversion.

The Nostradamus Award for Dodgy Prophecies falls, as always, into the hands of the sporting press. But this time our rear ends were not exposed by confident assertions of a Scottish Grand Slam or an Italian whitewash, rather the prediction that the first few bars of God Save the Queen would bring howls of outrage from Irish fans when it was played at the historically resonant Croke Park for the first time. When the band did strike up, the anthem was greeted with respectful silence and polite applause at the end. Whereupon, Ireland proceeded to blow England away, running riot as they collected their 43-13 win.

The Coco Chanel Award for Feeble Handbagging is taken by Brian O'Driscoll, a mesmerising runner but a hugely unimpressive slugger when push comes to punch. The Irish captain had already looked a little out of sorts in the early stages of his side's match against Scotland at Murrayfield, but his temperature needle went off the scale when Chris Paterson nudged Ronan O'Gara off the ball. O'Driscoll came flailing out of the green corner with a flurry of punches and all the febrile menace of a deflating blancmange. The punches all went well wide of their intended target, but Paterson would scarcely have noticed even if they had caught him full on the chin. The Scottish skipper simply looked puzzled by it all.

The WilliamWebbEllis Award for Rugby Innovation goes to the new scrum-setting procedure, in which front-row players must touch each others' shoulders before engagement. Grizzled old props of yesteryear were spluttering into their pints of Watney's Red Barrel about the sheer girliness of it all - "Next thing you know they'll be pecking each other on the cheek," moaned one - but the routine looks here to stay and it has certainly tidied up some of the nonsense at scrum time.

The Sir Clive Sinclair Award for Rugby Innovation is given to the IRB directive on straight feeds to the scrum. Did you notice a difference this year? Me neither.

The outright winner of the Anne Robinson Award for Fuelling Welsh Indignation is Mauro Bergamasco, the Italian flanker. Bergamasco's haymaker decked Wales fly-half Stephen Jones during the sides' match in the Stadio Flaminio last weekend, a blow that could have led to a red card had referee Chris White spotted it. Instead, Bergamasco stayed on the pitch, compounding his offence (in Welsh eyes at least) by scoring the winning try. White, of course, is an honourable runner-up in this category; his infamously muddled advice to Jones in the closing stages denying Wales the draw that an easy penalty would have given them.

The Boy on the Burning Deck Award for Loyalty is handed to Edinburgh flanker Dave Callam, one of the successes of Scotland's Six Nations campaign. While many of his colleagues were exploring employment opportunities elsewhere, Callam committed himself to club and country for the good of his fledgling Test career. And how was he rewarded? By being left out of the starting lineup for yesterday's game in Paris, that's how.

The Andrew Carnegie Meets Mother Teresa Award for Charitable Giving is shared by Scotland half-backs Chris Cusiter and Phil Godman for their generosity towards Italy in those six incredible Murrayfield minutes as the visitors helped themselves to three tries. Godman's mistimed kick led to the first, after just 19 seconds, while a couple of misplaced Cusiter passes handed Italy tries two and three. As if to prove himself Godman's equal, Dan Parks celebrated his return to the side for the next match, against Ireland, with the charged-down kick that led to Ronan O'Gara's first-half try.

The Committee saw no reason to remove the Jonathan Ross Award for Too Much Hair from the clutches of Sebastien Chabal, the conspicuously hirsute French flanker. It is a little-known fact that the famous Lascaux cave paintings in south-west France were simply preliminary sketches in the Chabal design process, and you certainly suspect that cutlery is something he can live without. Still, the mighty Frenchman is an impressive figure in action, and bound to bring youngsters into the game, fired as they must be with enthusiasm for being smashed to pieces by an 18-stone Neanderthal with garlic breath.

The Golden Gooseberry for Sheer Sourness found its runaway winner in the shape of Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan in the aftermath of his side's Triple Crown-clinching win against Scotland last weekend. Rather than celebrate the achievement, O'Sullivan launched a scathing attack on an unnamed Scot whom, he claimed, had tried to choke Ronan O'Gara in the, er, dying moments of the match. Could he prove it? No. Had his players reacted in a way that suggested there was any truth in the claim? No. Did the citing commissioner find a shred of evidence on the match video? No. Has O'Sullivan's reputation been enhanced by the affair? What do you think?

The Wrong Day for a Blinder Award is presented to Harry Ellis, the England scrum-half who celebrated his recall to the Test side with an exquisite performance against Scotland on the championship's opening day. Ellis offered a masterclassasa thorn in the side of the Scotland defence, who were harried to distraction by the Leicester player's brilliance. It was one of the finest individual performances Twickenham had ever witnessed, but Ellis delivered it on the same day that another player made a return to the England ranks. Ellis laid the foundations of victory, but the man-of-the-match awardwas taken by a certain Jonny Wilkinson.

This article was posted on 18-Mar-2007, 08:47 by Hugh Barrow.