Chris Rattue: There's a sombre lesson here for us

One of Wayne Rooney's most famous lines was caught on a security camera, outside a Liverpool brothel.

"I'll shag you for fifty pounds," yelled the young superstar.

Just another day in the life of a remarkable young England footballer who has found a very forgiving nature in his compatriots for his various endeavours.

When it comes to the recently departed English football manager, however, hell hath no fury like a nation disappointed.

Listen to the critics, and you'd believe Sven Goran Eriksson has done something akin to shagging a nation for £25 million.

The wrath of England has been aimed at the Swede following England's spectacular dive when faced with a determined Portuguese tackle in Germany, and to be fair to the critics, they were unhappy with his pre-tournament work.

But from go to whoa, the many Eriksson non-believers have had an easy escape route. They can turn on England by turning on a foreigner this time, heaping all the manure on a Swede while ridiculously-priced footballers are portrayed as a generation of stars misled by a loon. And that's what England has mainly done over the past two days, although David Beckham has also copped a fair share.

But the unpalatable truth for England is that, once again, their players - at the very highest level - just aren't good enough to win the trophy.

England only needs to look at the extraordinary number of imports who provide the skill in their premiership, and the make-up of champions Chelsea who have been collecting more foreigners even as the World Cup played out, to get a clue as to where many of their problems really lie. How many titles have England ever won? How often have they performed with aplomb on the greatest stage?

The English reaction has not only involved turning on their own foreigner, but ignoring others. It's almost as if Portugal weren't there, apart from Cristiano Ronaldo who is charged by some with using the plight of a teammates' jewels to steal England's crown.

Yes, Eriksson ran on the pitch and tripped all of his own players up.

A lesson for us all, you might say. Over years of failure at rugby's World Cup, where you may only have to win a couple of real games to earn a parade up Queen St, we've pilloried the All Black management under the hare-brained assumption that New Zealand is stacked with the best test players in the world.

A man with a white stick could guide us to the Webb Ellis trophy, yet we keep ending up with dogs as coaches, goes the theory.

Along the way, we've collectively failed to respect the wondrous magic of French rugby, the iron will and power of South Africa, the sublime skill of Australian backs and the necessary cunning of their pack.

It is also a painful duty here to note the rippling muscle of England, and that's not to mention their forwards.

An All Black coach even came up with a lame-prawn excuse about deliberate food poisoning, with the sort of scant evidence that should have made the rest of us sick.

Most importantly, I'll cringe as much as the next person over our reaction to the 1999 World Cup defeat against France, who produced a spell of instinctive and cohesive rugby that we might never see at such a price again. We certainly had trouble seeing it at the time.

They were exhilarating on that never-to-be-forgotten semifinal occasion, and before anyone cites French skulduggery, remember that the rest of the rugby world doesn't quite share the squeaky clean image we have of ourselves.

And so, do we really lay all the blame on these occasions at a coach's door.

Yes, Eriksson got some things wrong. Picking Theo Walcott, for instance, was a brain explosion, but would England really have been marching triumphantly towards Berlin had he written down the name Jermain Defoe?

You could argue tactics and selections forever and a day. For mine, Rooney should play behind a striker where his close-quarter bumping and grinding - the sort he gets paid millions to do, rather than the sort he will gladly pay £50 for - could be perfect for the linking job. He, unlike many of his colleagues, is genuinely world class.

France's Zinedine Zidane is perfectly placed behind a striker, the maligned Francesco Totti has shown the odd defence-unlocking touch for Italy, and Germany's supremo Michael Ballack shoots, creates and dominates the way Rooney could be used, although they are of a different style.

But the key point about the World Cup is that teams build their spirit and playing momentum during the tournaments, the way Germany and France and Portugal have done, and the way England and Brazil did not. These are the foundations which allow what class you have to win out, and it is not just a coach who encourages that.

As a believer in the theory that it is great players who make great coaches, rather than the other way around, I would argue that Eriksson's detractors, while raising fair points, are only painting a few strokes of the whole picture.

France, in particular, have overcome pre-tournament internal strife, and old legs. The key to their game, as opposed to England's, is that the French are being driven by attacking players of genuine, history-making class beyond what is available to any English coach.

Ludicrously, among the charges against Eriksson are that he failed to get his players into the right mental condition to nail the winners during penalty shoot outs. Instead of putting the players on the mat, Sven should have put them on the couch. Can you imagine the tabloid mirth had he actually done that?

Frank Lampard alone had enough opportunities to sink Eriksson's detractors. Quite frankly, Lampard looked like a cart horse who was out of his depth. Another of England's wonderkids, Joe Cole, is still prone to party-tricks, which are hardly of Eriksson's making. English football appears to be suffering from the same unfounded yet innate superiority complex about the quality of its players that exists in our rugby.

We've had some great test players in the past couple of decades, but probably fewer than we would like to imagine. We've also had a fair few clunkers. It is the legendary players of the past who made the black jersey great. Just pulling it on does not a legend make.

There has to be a mad arrogance at work to lead Graham Henry and his cohorts to place so many ordinary Super 14 players within cooee of a silver fern. But at the same time, there are positions in New Zealand rugby where we are not at true top-class test pace. Henry is dealing in abundance, but not always with riches.

Would Ali Williams or Jason Eaton make a South African or English pack, are our hookers of John Smit ability, can we really say the country has a test No 8, Piri Weepu and company are hardly of prime George Gregan class, and we'd need a mad scientist with Frankenstein visions to concoct a centre of Stirling Mortlock's standing. I don't even spy a fullback with Chris Latham's match-turning tricks.

As for the wingers, talent indeed, but the necessary qualities are spread rather than concentrated in two men.

Henry has embarked on a selection policy that suggests the selectors subscribe to the myth of vast rugby treasures in this country. English football is not the only sport that deludes itself. For now Henry's mad scheme only partially obscures that at the core of the plans, there are positions to fill where we should have only very moderate faith.


A quiz

Answer: Tana Umaga, Conrad Smith, Ma'a Nonu, Casey Laulala, Isaia Toeava, Mils Muliaina.

Question: You devise it (hint - No 13 has become a lucky guess).

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Veteran Herald photographer Paul Estcourt has a much-treasured story concerning the legendary Yorkshire and English cricketer Fred Trueman, who died this week. During the 1959 MCC tour, Estcourt and other youngsters were turned away by the visiting players after approaching them for autographs during the match against Northern Districts at Seddon Park. But not the down-to-earth Trueman. The fast bowler and famous raconteur produced from his top pocket a piece of paper listing all of the players, with autographs besides each. Needless to say, this item is still stored carefully away.