In 5 days I leave London for the relative calm of South Wales, so my time is consumed by box-packing and wrapping up those websites I’ve got left over from the past few weeks. At perhaps the worst possible time, I decided to revamp my MB Web Design website and this one concurrently. The latest WordPress release has largely fuelled this change, it really is fantastic by the way.

I’m starting a web design blog via MB Web Design and letting this one be my personal venting place.  A side effect of being linked to from my business site is that this blog got a pretty large pagerank very quickly, and resultantly has been a big attraction for commenters. Sifting through the hundreds of comments to moderate is rather a drain on my time, so I’m going to relax the emphasis on this site for the time being. (And also plug the Pagerank leak from the business site*)

* For the smart arses: Pagerank doesn’t mean anything, blah blah blah. Tell that to the 440 commenters in the last week or so.

My fiancee finished her final exam yesterday, with fingers crossed I say that in a month or so she will officially be a doctor. When business success goes to my head she will always be there to remind me that I just sit at a desk all day, and that no matter how much money I make, my job doesn’t save lives. (There is a rant about people not appreciating the hard work of doctors, but that can wait for another day.)

I’ll check back in a couple of days to report on the move.

Up yours everyone who wants to rain on our (well-deserved, hard-earned) parade.

“It’s only Wales”
- Jean-Baptiste Ellisalde

“Looks like it’ll come down to an England, Ireland Championship decider”
- Austin Healey

“So, Andy, can Scotland really beat England?”
- John Inverdale

“The sportsdesk team could expect to beat Wales at Twickenham (laughs)”
- Ian Roberston

“It is not a matter of whether England beat Wales – that is a given – but by how much”
- Paul Ackford

“Wales are just the Ospreys, and if England can’t beat a club side at Twickenham it’s a pretty poor show”
- Ian Roberston on Radio 5Live

Wales beat England at Twickenham for the first time in TWENTY years today.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

A calmer existance and the appetising prospect of freelancing fulltime from my home office beckons.

I can’t wait.

Louise – nudged into it in no small part by myself – applied to Wales for her foundation training as a doctor, and got in. This is the good news. The bad news is that competition is fierce for jobs in South Wales; nobody wants to live in the North or West of the country.  Of course, places like Rhyl and Bangor need doctors too, but unfortunately for them, their allocation of doctors will be the ones who were unsuccessful elsewhere and were given their spot via clearing.

She has ranked 8 or the 106 courses on offer in order of preference; now we play the waiting game. On January 22nd we find out if she needs to rank another 8 posts in order of preference from those with spots remaining. In other words, if we don’t hear anything on the 22nd, then we can safely presume that one of the original choices was successful. (We find out which one on February 20.)

Having jumped through hoops just to get a place with only a guarantee of employment for 2 years, she then has the significant task of passing her finals this May. I don’t envy her one bit. This year will mark 3 years since I graduated, and if I have to sit any other exam (other than my driving test) it’ll be too soon.

I’m now left with that deflated feeling one tends to get at the end of a party or on the night of December 25th – what am I going to do with my weekends now? I guess I only have a few months to wait until the Six Nations.

The competition really has been the story of the underdogs.

• England, after suffering a 36-0 defeat to South Africa in the pool stage, go on to reach the final.
• Argentina shock France on the opening night…
• …Then they wipe the floor with them in the 3rd place playoff
• Fiji steal a 38-34 win from Wales to knock them out of the tournament at the pool stage.
• Georgia come within a whisker of beating Ireland.
• Tonga’s amazing comeback (and near victory) against South Africa 30-25

The list goes on. It really has been quite amazing to watch, especially the better-than-expected performances by the so-called “minnows” of the rugby world cup against the established sides. I was in St. David’s Centre in Cardiff when Portugal scored against New Zealand, to an enormous, rapturous ovation by the Welsh AND Australian fans in attendance. The perceived gulf of standard between the minnows and the established nations is narrowing, but such sides really need to be in regular competition against other good teams. Once every four years simply isn’t good enough.

What happens next? Well, Wales have a friendly against the newly-crowned world champions South Africa in November. Wales, whose form has been disappointing at best, are without a coach. I am debating picking up some tickets to the game. The probability of witnessing a hiding is high, which would make this an unattractive prospect if I was a fair-weather supporter. Alas, I’m not.

In one respect I feel sorry for him – he had stated that the role of head coach was his dream job. For that dream to turn sour so quickly has to hurt. Add to that the stress that the last few months must surely have taken on his physical and mental health and you have a most unfortunate situation.

In another respect, I am glad he’s gone. For a substantial six-figure salary he’s done pretty much nothing with the squad. The Six Nations was a disaster, the only saving grace being our defeat of England. Having defeated our old enemy our previous failing were forgotten. Next, in preparation for the World Cup he fed England a third-rate side and we were left reeling at a 62-5 defeat at Twickenham. To show England the disrespect of fielding an untested team at Twickenham is bad enough, the very fact he’d consider playing anything other than our finest against our traditional enemy was a kick in the teeth for Welsh supporters. The final straw was our poor World Cup form, during which we only seemed to want to play in second halves. Simply not good enough.

Roger Lewis, WRU chief executive, went to great effort during the press conference to emphasize that Jenkins’ sacking did not constitute the finger of blame pointing at him, and went so far as to say the decision was for Jenkins’ own good. I don’t dispute that decision – though I consider myself level-headed enough to realise that there were 15 men on the pitch who played a large part in the Welsh failing – a lot of folk aren’t, and the WRU has pre-empted the witch hunt by ousting Jenkins immediately. Good call.

So, who next for Wales? Early names being thrown around are John Kirwan and Scott Johnson. I personally can’t see Scott Johnson returning to Wales, but according to the “next Wales coach” market that’s already opened at bookmakers William Hill, he’s the early favourite.

Words can barely express how utterly devastated I am. However, I am a product of my surroundings – the Welsh media are always giving us a false sense of hope, reminding us we are a rugby nation, our proud rugby history. Any days of Welsh rugby pride certainly are history – discounting the Grand Slam of 2005 we really haven’t done terribly much. We were awesome in the 1970s, sure, but were we world beaters?

It’s time for a harsh reality check for us Welsh fans – all of our grand victories are regarded by the rest of the world to be flukes. Every team has an off day. For every 27-18 whipping we give England, England marginally nip past by 62-5. Remember when we beat South Africa? Well that was 8 years ago, and the only time we ever beat them. Remember when we beat New Zealand? Er, no, me neither. Don’t get me wrong, I WANT Wales to win, and I want them to be great, but much like an alcoholic has to admit they have a problem before the road to recovery begins, so do we. And right now, the problem lies in Gareth Jenkins’ hands.

There is one school of thought which hypothesises that this loss to Fiji will be the catalyst for Gareth Jenkins’ departure/removal from the head coach position, a move that will no doubt be egged on mercilessly by the press in Wales. Do I think Gareth Jenkins should go? I don’t know. What I’d love to know, however, is just why the hell Mike Ruddock left. He led the Wales squad – a team largely the same as the squad which faced yesterday’s cruel fate – to a Grand Slam in 2005. Less than a year later he was gone, citing “family reasons”. (Incidentally, there are plenty of rumours around about the circumstances involved, though I doubt the real reason provides remotely as much gossip value. I’m not going to publish those rumours here for fear of a libel suit, you can ask around for yourself…)

I think there’s an interesting parallel between the Welsh rugby side and the English football squad. The Welsh media builds up the Welsh rugby team in the same way that the English press builds up the English football team and finger-points at their coach for their losses. We’re always supposed to “accept our defeats and come out stronger” or “learn from our mistakes”. The fact is, much like the England football team, we haven’t been any good for decades. The difference is, England won football’s World Cup. St. Jonny Wilkinson (and some other people too) won a rugby world cup.

And they don’t shut up about it.