And here are my choices:

The IRB, International Rugby Board, has announced last Monday the shortlist for the IRB Player of the Year 2009.

Unlike the previous years when the candidates were up to 5, this year sees an extended list of seven nominees: 2 for Ireland with Captain Brian O’Driscoll and no.8 Jamie Heaslip, Australia’s Matt Giteau, Tom Croft of England, Francois Steyn and Fourie du Preez from South Africa, and the evergreen Richie McCaw of New Zealand who already won the award in 2006.

The winner will be announced, together with the IRB Coach of the Year and IRB Team of the Year, during the final weekend of November Tests.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Brian Gerald O’Driscoll

Ireland Captain and British & Irish Lions, Brian O'Driscoll

COACH OF THE YEAR: Ian McGeechan

Ian McGeechan, British & Irish Lions Head Coach, South Africa Tour 2009

 

TEAM OF THE YEAR: 2009 British & Irish Lions

 

2009 British & Irish Lions

Five days after the “Event” I finally found the time – and the strenght – to write about it. During these past days I’ve been thinking about what to write and the problem was that I hardly had something to say about the game itself because my whole day has been devoted to the attending the kids who were the standard-bearers during the National Anthems.

So, when you find yourself with 6 children, 4 of them aged under 8, to look after in a gigantic stadium with 80.000 people attending the game, well the least you can do is to turn yourself into Father Goose, or in this case, Mother Goose… And trust me, it can be extremely weary but most of all it can be scary: the idea to lose a child in such a bedlam is frightening!

Then, to this trifle, you should add the fact that the very clever event organization gave us the the seats in 2 different sectors (bloody hell!!!), so I had to send the oldest two (2 of my Under12) to seat 50 meters apart, while the rest of us was given the worst seats ever, in the first row at ground level with huge parapets at eye level. I am 5′2 and I couldn’t see anything… so go figure what the kids could see from there too….

Anyway, busy as I was looking at the two Under 12 far away, and babysitting the youngest who kept on asking for attention, you can easily imagine that I hardly saw anything and all I got was a stiff neck! In the end I even had to give up the idea to follow the action live and watched some of it on the mega-screen… how I longed for my couch and TV set!

All in all, this has been one of the most terrifying experience of my life.

Italy v New Zealand, 14-11-2009, Stadio San Siro, Milano Italy

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture, but the aforesaid conditions undermined also my photographic skills.

Dan Carter wearing the Chicken Rozzano colours (courtesy of Luca Fazzo)

I know I’ve been quite lazy lately and I didn’t post much here. In my defence it must be said that I’ve been very busy both with my daytime bloody job and on the pitch.

My boys have been playing a couple of Tournament in the meanwhile as well, and faced some hard lessons but also easy wins. The hardest lesson came from the Rho Tournament, where both Rho Rugby and Velate Rugby proved to be too strong for us, and what really failed us was the tackling area. Actually we must say that we didn’t work much on tackling since the beginning of the season because our Director of Rugby suggested to work first on using spaces, offloads and support play, and that’s what we did. And this paid off in our first tournament: the other teams were quite weak and we had most of the possession, so our defense was never put to the test. But when we faced more organised teams we – and the boys too – realised that working on tackles is a priority. And that’s what we did in the past 2 weeks despite the small number of players due to the spreading flu!

Anyway, our next tournament will be on Sunday in Pavia (again), where we already won 2 tournaments out of 2, but before that we have another great event ahead on Saturday: the Italy v New Zealand test-match at Stadio San Siro in Milan! And what’s even better is that both the boys and staff won’t be simple spectators of the event, actually we will be part of it since some of our Under 12s and Under 8s, along with boys from other 3 Milanese clubs, will be the standard-bearers; some of our Under 16s will be the ball boys and the whole Under 10 will play a four-sided tournament just before the test-match.

What an incredible experience will be for them in front of 80.000 people (!!!), and me too, since I’m going to be the standard-bearers escort. So, in case you’re watching the test-match on TV or at San Siro and see a mad girl chasing Richie McCaw… well that “girl” could be me!

Chicken Rugby Rozzano Under12, Rozzano Tournament 11/10/09 - Good kicking technique!

Chicken Rugby Rozzano Under12, Rozzano Tournament 11/10/09 - Perfect offload

Chicken Rugby Rozzano Under12, Rozzano Tournament 11/10/09 - I like it when they hold the ball in both hands!

Chicken Rugby Rozzano Under12, Rozzano Tournament 11/10/09 - Luca charges with good support

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaja

Three years have passed since she was silenced and her killers are still “unknown”.

They might have taken her life but her words are written in the stone and her piercing eyes  are still searching for truth.

“You can blow out a candle
But you can never blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher”

Simple Minds

I don’t really think I can do it… not even my new Adidas shorts can convince me that I want to coach children!

I know they are our future, blah-blah-blah.. and this scares me even more because what I saw last Tuesday at the training session, really puzzles me: an eleven years old child in tears because, from his own voice, “I’m nervous“, or a 8 years

My worst nightmare

old, again in tears, because another child didn’t respect the rules of the Sparrow game! What the hell is going on here??

Moreover we don’t have enough coaches to cover all the minirugby teams so, our Director of Rugby is trying to convince me that shifting from team to team is a positive thing! This means that in the first 30 mins of the session I’m working with my co-coach with the U12 (which should be my official team), then the next 45 mins I should relieve the U10 coach, who is also the fitness coach and has to work with the Junior teams. BTW, the U10 is actually composed of 15 or more screaming and whining children from 5 y.o. to 9 y.o!!!

And the icing on the cake is that our DoR wishes that, after some time, all children will recognize the 3 coaches as their own coaches. I told him that this is Utopia and reminded him how Thomas More ended up!

In my experience children need reference marks, and shifting coaches are the opposite of it. If then we add the aggravation that the three coaches do not communicate (no common coaching plan or such), the mix is really high-explosive!

I don’t really know how long I’ll be able to stand this…

After a sabbatical year, away from Rugby fields, I’m back in the saddle…

Yesterday I had my first training session with my new club and team. Or I should say… “teams”. As a matter of fact, I had to work both with Under 10 and Under 12, and probably, in the next future, I’ll be also working with Under 14!

To tell the truth, I don’t like being the “joker in the pack of cards”, because if I work with all these teams and can’t focus on one only I find it very difficult to plan a training session, or the week sessions, let alone a quarter. I’m afraid I’ve always been the type of coach who has to plan things and I don’t enjoy that much to play it by ear. Moreover I don’t think I could get along very well with the other Under10 coach… I don’t know him much but he definitely gets on my nerves.

I really hope this is just a phase…

Benetton Treviso, Italy Champion 2008/09

As I’m preparing to leave for my holidays at last (I’ll be around Japan from 05/08 to 21/08) a huge controversy bursted into Italian Rugby: Benetton Treviso and the Veneto region, also known as the “Italian Wales” for its rugby tradition, have been cut out of the Magners Celtic League.

Aironi Viadana and Pretorians Roma have been chosen by FIR, Italian Rugby Union, to represent Italy in the 2010/2011 Magners League, causing a major turmoil in the Italian rugby world.

As the riot grew, FIR’s Chairman, Giancarlo Dondi, declared his will to riconsider the Board voting… anyhow it will go, our Union proved once again its deficiency at judging and doing the best for our Rugby.  No wonders that IRB rejected Italy’s bid to host one of the next Rugby World Cup (2015  England & 2019  Japan).

Send Rugby to the Olympics!

There are millions of reasons why Rugby should be an Olympic sport, that’s why every Rugby enthusiast should sign this worthy petition.

Rugby is not new to the Olympics, actually the sport debuted at the 1900 Paris games. It subsequently featured at the London games in 1908, the Antwerp games in 1920 and the Paris games in 1924. Shortly after the 1924 games, which earned the United Staes the Gold Medal, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) cancelled rugby union as an Olympic sport.

Now we can make a difference here and bring back Rugby where it belongs even though in its “Sevens” version.

The clock is ticking fast – the Olympic Committee will soon make a decision and choose two out of seven competing sports – among them squash, golf, baseball karate and of course Sevens Rugby.

Sign the petition at Olympic-Rugby and spread the word….

from IRB website:

“Sevens is an ideal forum to show rugby in the Olympic Games” – John Eales, Australia

“I see no reason why it would not be unbelievably supported in an Olympic context” – Keith Wood, Ireland

“It allows some of the other countries an opportunity to express themselves and certainly from a spectator point of view it would be wonderful” - Lawrence Dallaglio, England

“For me playing in the Olympic Games would be the highest achievement as a rugby player” – Agustin Pichot, Argentina

2009 LIONS TOUR SERIES

Jamie Robertson and Brian O'Driscoll, future and present

What an exciting British & Irish Lions tour has been… I can’t really remember the last time I enjoyed a rugby game so much. And here I really enjoyed all three test-matches! They had all the elements of an epic battle: pahtos, physicality and huge talents. And despite the Lions’ defeat in the serie, I must say that they came out of it as moral winners.

They washed away the bad memories from the 2005 tour to New Zealand, and restored their honour, playing with great pride and passion.

They all came out of this tour holding their heads up with the consciousness that they gave it all. No regrets.

Before the beginning of the tour I pointed out some players to watch and, apart from the unlucky Jerry Flannery was ruled out even before leaving because of an injury, all the other players that I pointed out were really outstanding throughout the tour: Paul O’Connell proved to be an excellent Captain, David Wallace was solid as a rock, and most of all, Rob Kearney shown everybody that he is the Irish fullback for many years to come.

Rob Kearney is desperate after the 2nd test defeat

Other players who really impressed me were the evergreen Brian O’Driscoll, who still has so much talent in him, Jamie Robertson, Alun Wyn-Jones, Tommy Bowe and Lee Byrne. A special mention is for Simon Shaw, the oldest member of the party, who at 35 played the game of his life! Who said that old dinasaurs are useless?? I really wished to see Danny Grewcock pairing with O’Connell too!

What came out of this tour is that Northern Hemisphere rugby is still competitive and that, with a bit more time at disposal they would have been able to fill the gap with Southern Hemisphere physicality and fast pace. And most of all, legend Coach Ian McGeechan has left a very important legacy behind: he left a future for the Lions.

20/06/2009 – SOUTH AFRICA v B&I LIONS 26-24 (Absa Stadium, Durban)

27/06/2009 – SOUTH AFRICA v B&I LIONS 28-25 (Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria)

04/07/2009 - SOUTH AFRICA v B&I LIONS 09-28 (CocaCola Park, Johannesburg)