Left field

Shooting the Rugby World Cup

In the latest installment, South Africa-based photographer Mike Hutchings describes the gear he can’t live without and what makes shooting rugby different from his usual assignments.

Reuters RWC Photographers #4 from Tim Wimborne on Vimeo.

In the xxx third installment, Sydney-based photographer Tim Wimborne describes what is necessary to keep the file fresh throughout the tournament and to satisfy different client needs.

Reuters RWC Photographers #3 v2.0 from Tim Wimborne on Vimeo.

In the second of a series of multimedia pieces, Bucharest-based photographer Bogdan Cristel talks about the focus required to cover the Rugby World Cup.

from Photographers Blog:

Climbing Eden Park

By Bogdan Cristel

After 40 hours of flying Bucharest - Amsterdam - Beijing - Auckland, I arrived in New Zealand; my first time in the Southern Hemisphere.

The first nice surprise here was that both my check-in pieces of luggage arrived on the same flight (I expected it to take a week and to be on the safe side packed a toothbrush in my hand luggage).

After a day of adjustment, with serious jet-leg (New Zealand is 9 hours ahead of Romania), slowly the Rugby World Cup started for me.

The first big assignment was the RWC opening ceremony and the first match. Reuters had three photographers covering it – Jacky Naegelen, Nigel Marple and me. When Tim Wimborne, our photo editor, asked if I wanted to be in an elevated position for the opening ceremony, I said yes without any thought. I had no idea what it meant.

Organizers held a dress rehearsal two days before the opening ceremony giving photographers a chance to check shooting angles and identify highlights. For me it was different – I was one of four photographers shooting from the stadium roof.

We were all equipped with harnesses and safety cables to attach working gear. All our equipment, about 20kg (44 pounds), was carried to the roof in a box, secured with rope, to our shooting position lest it fall on any spectator below.

Welcome back “le crunch” — we’ve missed you

There will be an extra buzz around Twickenham on Saturday and it will not be just because England fans know a win over France would set them up for their first Six Nations title for eight years.

“Le Crunch” is back, and then some. The fixture that was for so long the focal point of the championship gradually lost its allure as England dropped off the pace and Wales and Ireland became the main challengers, but with two wins apiece for the cross-channel rivals so far, it once again looks the pivotal match.

With the teams on course to meet again in the quarter-finals of the World Cup later this year there is an extra edge to the clash and just in case that was not enough, along came France coach Marc Lievremont to roll back the years with his extraordinary blast last weekend.

“We appreciate our Italian cousins with whom we share the same quality of life. We appreciate the Celts and their conviviality and then among all these nations we have one huge thing in common: we all don’t like the English,” he announced.

“This insular country, who always drape themselves in the national flag, their hymns, their chants, their traditions. They are people who one regards as a very proud people.

“We beat Ireland yet left Dublin with the encouragement of all the Irish who said ‘for pity’s sake, beat the English’. With the Scots, it’s the same thing. It is also what gives you strength against the English, more than just because of rugby.”

“Oh yes” the England players and fans must have thought when they first heard that, cueing flashbacks to the days when a few choice words from the likes of hooker Brian Moore would be enough for the French to implode, explode or more usually, both.

Don’t discount Ireland for the Six Nations

By James Illingworth

The 2011 Six Nations kicks off shortly in Cardiff with much of the pre-tournament hype suggesting a two-horse race between France and England.

England’s favourites tag among English bookmakers looks unjustified if it is based on one decent performance in November against Australia, with the 2010 grand slam winners France surely still the team to beat.

But one quirk of the buildup is that Ireland appear to have been overlooked as serious challengers, a point not missed by England coach Martin Johnson.

As his Welsh counterpart Warren Gatland was doing his best Jose Mourinho impression by announcing that his team are planning to ‘wind-up’ English hooker Dylan Hartley, Johnson was keen to remind us not to write off the 2009 grand slam winners.

After being installed as third favourites, Johnson suggested that Ireland have ‘slipped under the radar’, a tag that may play into the hands of Brian O’Driscoll’s side.

Munster’s demise in this year’s Heineken Cup has led to speculation that Ireland’s golden generation of players are past their best with the new crop of talent needing a few more years to find their feet at international level.

from Reuters Soccer Blog:

Football still offside in attitude to women

The British media furore over two television presenters’ sexist comments over a lineswoman at a Premier League match at the weekend has thrown the spotlight on the subject of women in soccer – be it on the pitch or off.

Sky Sports duo Richard Keys and Andy Gray have apologised for saying female officials “don’t know the offside rule” when they were talking about lineswoman Sian Massey at Saturday’s match between Wolves and Liverpool when they thought their microphones were switched off.

She in fact made the correct call on a big borderline decision that allowed a Liverpool goal to count.

Even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t be because she was female – or is someone going to tell me it was a woman who missed Frank Lampard’s “goal” that clearly crossed the line but was not given in the England v Germany match at last year’s World Cup?

The notion you need testicles to get your mind around the offside rule is sadly not restricted to Massey’s case, as female soccer reporters like me find out from time to time, even though things have of course improved over the years.

I have yet to be asked to explain the offside rule – although I am quite excited about the prospect I might be. One of my friends, a football reporter on a British national newspaper, was asked a couple of years ago by a Premier League manager at an awards ceremony to do just that.

She actually went along with his request but to this day regrets not thinking of a comeback along the lines of “You don’t understand the offside rule? No wonder your team keep losing!” I have plenty of ripostes up my sleeve for the poor person who tries to ask me.

Tri-Nations stranglehold a potential problem for rugby

Northern hemisphere hopes are raised at the start of every November but by the end of the month it has usually become crystal clear that the Tri-Nations’ stranglehold on world rugby remains as tight as ever.

Already, after the opening exchanges produced a 3-0 sweep for the south last Saturday, the imbalance is there for all to see.

Rugby’s problem, with so few major national teams playing the game, is that it will not be long before fans just get bored with the same old same old.

New Zealand were not exactly comfortable in beating England at Twickenham but they did win by 10 points and always seemed able to add to their tally whenever the hosts drew close.

Australia, despite again looking weak in the scrum, brushed past Wales 25-16 while South Africa shook off a dire Tri-Nations campaign to beat Ireland much more convincingly than the 23-21 scoreline suggests.

Those wins meant that since 2005, in all fixtures, the Tri Nations v Six Nations scoreboard stands at 79-16 in the former’s favour.

Six of the northern wins belong to France, though, in balance, 12 of the defeats – out of 12 contests – belong to Italy.

from Reuters Soccer Blog:

A South Africa rugby match is a whole other world

The contrast between the highly-controlled environs of the soccer World Cup venues and the likes of Cape Town's Newlands stadium, home to a South Africa v France rugby test on Saturday, was marked.

At Newlands, the supporter is king. For decades fans have turned up early with their own food and lit hundreds of barbeques, or brais as they are known in South Africa.

The wafting smell of smoke and sausage signals that the stadium is in range and is sure to quicken the stride of the arriving masses.

Every brai party is of course accompanied by groaning ice boxes of beer and wine and the story is similar at the country's cricket grounds where scores of permanent brais are supplied along with bargain-priced "meat packs."

The media are treated to a complimentary pre-match lunch, drinks and even a bag of the local dried meat delicacy biltong to munch during the match.

Things are somewhat different at the World Cup.

from Reuters Soccer Blog:

Symbolic moment as rugby comes to black township of Soweto

South Africa’s long standing racist past means it still a country of great contrasts but with the change in power and social dynamics come great ironies too.

The latest will be played out on Saturday when the citadel of black South African football, the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, plays host to a Super 14 rugby match involving the Blue Bulls, the team so beloved by the white Afrikaners.

Although it is almost two decades since South Africa’s political changes began, it is the first time a match of this nature is hosted in a black township and represents the potential of dramatic images as thousands of white fans from the country’s most conservative areas head into the biggest black township to watch their team in the semifinals of the Super 14.

For most of the whites it will be their first trip anywhere near Soweto, scene of much of the internal unrest against apartheid in the 1970s and 80s and today rife with crime.

To that end, the Bulls union have laid on trains from Pretoria to the station right outside the Orlando Stadium and will bus in thousands of others, who are being invited to leave their cars several kilometres away from Soweto and use ‘park and ride’ facility.

The Bulls have had to give up home advantage in Pretoria for their semifinal against the Canterbury Crusaders because their cathedral, Loftus Versfeld, is one of the 10 World Cup stadiums and FIFA have taken over the venue to prepare the turf and other facilities before the tournament starts on June 11.

Loftus, also used during last year’s Confederations Cup, will host six World Cup matches, including South Africa’s second encounter of the tournament against Uruguay on June 16.

The ultimate grudge match: When the Scots confounded England at Murrayfield

A slow and depressing decline after the glory of the 1980 grand slam was magically reversed during the winter of 1989-90 when England played rugby of skill, spirit and boundless optimism.

Nobody could match the English in Europe and their standards touched those attained by New Zealand and Australia, the pace setters in world rugby at the time.

South of Hadrian’s Wall, the Five Nations championship decider at Murrayfield on March 17 was considered a no contest.

While Scotland were greatly respected in world rugby without being particularly feared, England under Will Carling had made startling progress since their dismal performance at the first World Cup in 1987.

With the Five Nations championship, triple crown and grand slam at stake, Scotland under David Sole opted for a slow march on to the Murrayfield turf to a frenzied reception.

Suspicions that England had crossed the boundary from confidence to hubris were reinforced when the visitors spurned a kickable penalty.

Scotland led 9-4 at halftime and a Tony Stanger try after the interval turned the match. Carling appeared to lose command of his team with hooker Brian Moore calling the shots and the Scots eventually triumphed 13-7.

The myth of rugby’s Jonny Wilkinson

A rugby writer, with tongue only half in cheek, once said it was possible to gauge an Englishman’s entire outlook on life by ascertaining whether he was a Stuart Barnes or a Rob Andrew fan in the years between 1985 and 1993.

Barnes, a cavalier among flyhalves who passionately embraced the running game, played only a handful of matches for the national team. Andrew, an accomplished all-rounder but with a game based increasingly on kicking, became an England institution.

Predictably, perhaps, Andrew is now a pillar of the rugby establishment in his role as England elite director of rugby.

Barnes is a consistently entertaining and perceptive television commentator and writer.

In his latter role, Barnes stated in a newspaper column at the weekend what has long been obvious to many non-Englishmen, whatever their overall world view may be.

Joining the debate about the future of Jonny Wilkinson in the current England setup, Barnes said the passage of time had shown Wilkinson to be not so different from his 2003 World Cup winning colleagues Mike Tindall and Ben Cohen.

They all, said Barnes, were mightily effective for their country but exposed once outside coach Clive Woodward’s environment.