Can this RFU plot get any thicker?

A newsflash illuminated the shadowy corridors at Twickenham late last night — the resignation of the poker-faced head of the RFU's counter-deception unit, Dr

Niccolo Machiavelli.

'I have lost the plot,' he confessed

to reporters waiting beneath the

Red Rose emblem above the

entrance to Rugby House. 'This

has never happened to me before

but there are so many twists and

turns I don't know who's coming

and who's going. I'm out of here.'

Staying put: Shaun Edwards will remain with Wales despite England coveting him

Quite what tipped the master of

intrigue over the edge is not clear,

but suffice to say that the

machinations over Brian Ashton' s

position as head coach have proved

too much for an old fox who

thought he had seen it all.

It had,

after all, appeared to be an open-and-shut case of a new head coach,

Martin Johnson, replacing the old

one until the RFU muddied the

waters at Tuesday's briefing.

Heaven knows, some of the spin

put on what Francis Baron had to

say on the subject defied belief.

One magazine referred to the chief

executive 'clarifying exactly what

had been happening in recent

weeks'. Clarifying?

Another headline may have

proved too Machiavellian even for

Niccolo: 'RFU plots England role

for Ashton.'

Ashton, in case it has been

forgotten, has a role, that of head

coach, although for how much

longer is anyone's guess. The two

principal facts of the matter ought

not to be obscured.

Firstly, Johnson will be appointed

as England's all-powerful head

honcho next week, unless the RFU

make even more of a mess of the

exercise — in which event he may be

inclined to think he would be better

off doing something else.

Secondly, Johnson starts with a

clean sheet of paper and the names

on his wishlist do not include

Ashton's.

The one at, or near the top of it,

will have to be rubbed out. Shaun

Edwards has shaken hands with

Warren Gatland on a deal to stay

with Wales and a handshake in

Edwards' book is as good as

signing a contract, which makes any

attempt to coax him back across

the border too late, at least until

after the 2011 World Cup.

To gauge the full extent of the

English mess it is necessary to go

back to the beginning, to last

September and the heap of manure

left as a result of England's 36-0

pasting by South Africa at the

World Cup.

Some of the ex-captain's inner circle let it be known

their man was so appalled by what

he had seen from England that he

could be persuaded to do

something about it out of a sense of

old-fashioned patriotism.

Miraculously, England did their

Phoenix-like bit in rising from the

ashes, after which Rob Andrew

decided against a formal approach

to Johnson.

Having reappointed Ashton a few

days before Christmas after a

two-month review in his capacity as the

RFU's director of elite rugby,

Andrew hardly envisaged being

under pressure to do a complete

u-turn three months later. The Six

Nations, and more specifically the

pitiful defeat at Murrayfield,

condemned Ashton among a certain

faction within the management

board, who believed he had not

delivered.

The goalposts had not so much

been shifted as taken down. Any

plan for Ashton to continue with a

new specialist coach, Austin

Healey, to join John Wells and Mike

Ford, would have been given short

shrift by the hawks who were now

demanding more decisive action.

Within 48 hours of the Six Nations'

end, Andrew turned to Johnson.

In the best of all RFU worlds,

Captain Colossus would have

readily agreed to come back in the

faintly vague role of team manager

and ridden shotgun for Ashton. It

would not have taken long for

Johnson to have made his position

clear, all or nothing, and for both to

have realised here was the

opportunity of a lifetime to shape English

rugby for the next two World Cups.

Johnson took his family off to

Devon for a planned holiday to

think it over. Once he had agreed

to do it, a fourth meeting on

Tuesday tied up a few loose ends.

Johnson headed to Anfield to

support Liverpool's ejection of Arsenal

from the Champions League;

meanwhile, Andrew turned south

to confront the fall-out behind his

momentous signing with a lot of

explaining to be done.

Ashton had been sure all along

that the arrangement he had with

his employers held good and the

team manager would be a person

of his choice, and his alone. He

didn't want anyone who would

'interfere' with the rugby side of

the business. His favoured

candidate was ex-England captain Phil

de Glanville.

He was not disabused of that idea

until a few days ago and informed

the 'manager' would be rather

different to the one he had in mind,

Unable to get to the bottom of

what is afoot, Ashton has had the

demoralising experience of reading

that he could lose his own job any

day, yet has found the dignity

and inner strength to discharge

his duties as best he can in unnecessarily-fraught circumstances.

Today, for example, he is scheduled

to chair a preliminary selection

discussion on the squad for the June

Tests in New Zealand.

They are, by the way, of crucial

importance towards determining

whether England regain their

ranking among the top four by the end of

November, thereby qualifying for a

top seeding. The competition will be

tough; the Springboks, All Blacks,

Argentina, Australia, France and

Wales are all in contention.

Johnson will not be in New

Zealand. His second baby is due to

coincide with the first All Black

Test in Christchurch on June 14

and after his wife's difficult first

pregnancy he is putting family first.

Someone, therefore, will need to

take temporary charge of the

national team and, while Graham

Rowntree will surely be one of the

chosen few, it is difficult to see how

Ashton, who has a one-year rolling

contract, can survive in any

meaningful position.

Maybe that marked the point

where Dr Machiavelli lost the plot.

Cape Town loses Lions Test after 117 years

Cape Town, where the

Lions played their first

match in South Africa

more than a century ago,

has been removed as a

Test venue from next

summer's tour.

For the

first time since their

pioneering visit 117 years

ago, the best of British and

Irish will be denied a Test

match in the city where

they made a winning start

to two of their last three

Test series.

In a complete reversal of

the last tour, when the

Lions won the rubber with

successive wins at

sea-level, two of the three

matches against the

Springboks will be at

altitude — in Pretoria and

Johannesburg. Durban will

be the exception, which

breaks a Test link with

Cape Town dating back to

the 19th century and Cecil

Rhodes himself.

As Prime Minister of the

Cape, Rhodes made the

inaugural tour of 1891

possible by underwriting

the cost of the 30-day

expedition. 'Let them

come,' he said, banishing

fears of the expedition

being abandoned as an

expensive folly. 'I shall

stand firm for any

shortfall.'

Ever since then, the

Springboks have never

failed to turn the Lions

tour into a veritable gold

mine. Next year's will be

down to the bare bones of

10 matches, three fewer

than the last time but the

maximum in a calendar so

congested that the first

match clashes with the

Premiership Grand Final.

If

Wasps get there, it raises

the intriguing question of

how Ian McGeechan and

Shaun Edwards, the Lions'

putative coaches, can be

in two continents at the

same time.

The full Lions itinerary:

May 30, 2009 v Highveld XV

(Rustenburg), June 2 v

Golden Lions (Johannesburg),

June 6 v Cheetahs

(Bloemfontein), June 10 v

Sharks (Durban), June 13 v W

Province (Cape Town), June

16 or 17 v Coastal XV (Port

Elizabeth), June 20 v South

Africa (Durban), June 23 v

Emerging Springboks (Cape

Town), June 27 v South Africa

(Pretoria), July 4 v South

Africa (Johannesburg).

Sorrell has last laugh

Kevin Sorrell has seen at least

50 internationals come and go at

Saracens since making his debut

as a teenager in September 1996,

when they used to play at Enfield

Town.

How rewarding, in the

here-today, gone-tomorrow

world of professional sport, that

he should still have been there

last Sunday, literally at the centre

of Sarries' wonderful European

Cup knock-out of the Ospreys.

Not many thought the Fez Heads

had it in them but their Welsh

opponents could have done

without giving them a gratuitous

piece of mickey-taking motivation

when James Hook attempted to

catch Glen Jackson's punt behind

his back.

After succeeding where

England had failed against Wales

at Twickenham, Sorrell was

entitled to the last laugh: 'Maybe

we should enter a team into the

Six Nations next year ...'

•
England have turned down

a formal request from New

Zealand to play the All Blacks in

California later this year. The

proposition, with the potential to

generate anything up to £10million,

is a non-starter because part of the

RFU's peace deal with the

Premiership clubs includes a

maximum of 11 Tests in non-World

Cup years and England are fully

booked for next season.

At least they are doing their bit to

help protect the international

game from gross over-exposure, a

danger which does not seem to

bother the All Blacks, who will play

14 Tests in six months. They call the

proposed 15th, in the United States,

a missionary exercise, a neat

euphemism for raking in more than

a fistful of dollars.

•
A self-confessed Munster fan is

to join the All Blacks in June and

see for himself how they

operate. Roy Keane, Soccer's

Angriest Man as described by

New Zealand's leading

newspaper, will be welcomed

into the team's inner sanctum

before their one-off Test against

Ireland in Wellington, which

only goes to show that he will go

to the end of the Earth to make

himself a better manager.

'I've got the green light to have

three or four days with them,' he

says. 'I'll keep my head down and

try to plug into what they are

always about. I don't know if I will

be allowed into the team talks.'

If he's not careful, he could end

up giving them one, especially

with the Munster pack waiting to

sort them out at the end of the

week.