…or do we just expect far too much?

Personally I think it’s a combination of the 2, we are a bit rubbish and we certainly do expect too much of our national teams.

At the weekend I had the pleasure of watching both our national Rugby teams get stuffed. Please remember the we invented the sport of Rugby. First of all in a game that we were hotly tipped to win easily (why, our tournament record was shit?) our Rugby League team got hammered by New Zealand. Despite a mini comeback at the end of the first half this was not a close game. We were well and truly battered. At no point in the game did we even look like winning, never mind making it a stroll in the park. You could hear the frustration in the commentators voices, they REALLY believed that we were better than our performance. Our mistakes were basic ones, the sort that can happen in any game but the truth was that throughout the whole Rugby League World Cup England were making more mistakes than anybody else. You know what lads, maybe we’re not that hot after all? Maybe the team did as well as they could but we were just beaten by a better team. In fact maybe that result saved us from the embarrassment of annihilation against Australia in the final this weekend.

Following on from this was the England -Australia Rugby Union test at Twickenham, the home of Rugby Union. Under Martin Johnson we’ve had one good result, unfortunately against a team that is certainly nowhere near the pinnacle of world rugby. So why did we expect so much? Yes we fluked a result in the last world cup against the Aussies but have we really looked that strong since? The six nations was a major disappointment so why is there that assumption that we are just better than other teams? It’s screwed up. Again we ended up well beaten. Exactly how many times did we break the line? Compare that to how many stupid penalties and handling errors we had. Our pack our “rock”, unstoppable. They we’re looking out on their feet by the end, beaten by the Australian forwards in almost every aspect of the game. Sorry but again it looks like we’re just not that good, certainly not yet anyway.

Our national teams have a history of being buoyed up by the media to be better than what they are. On top of the rugby defeats we have a cricket team that was just hammered in the second test against India and tomorrow night our pride and joy, the football team will play Germany in Berlin. How many of you think we’ll be doing well to get a draw out of this? That’s right none of you because we all assume that despite the rankings and facts that we’ll win, probably by 2 or 3. I really really really hope that we do but at the back of my mind, buried deep is that little bit of realism that just nags away “we’re not actually that good you know”.