It’s been a tough week for England rugby coach Stuart Lancaster. After losing to Wales at home, his team now face the daunting prospect of beating Australia to stay in the competition. WalesOnCraic has obtained exclusive access to Stuart’s diaries, which are of course, all fictional.
Sunday 27th September
Terribly restless night. Woke up to a message from my mother telling me Sunday dinner was cancelled. My Yorkshires went to the dogs instead, a bit like Robshaw’s decision making last night. Friends are few and far between this morning, even Prince William is doing selfies in a Welsh shirt. Hasn’t anybody told him Will Carling is his father? Safe to say, things went pear-shaped for England. The morning papers are calling for Robshaw’s head and for mine. But who would employ me after making such a tragic mess of the most well-resourced rugby side in the world? It’s all over for me in rugby. I’ll have to go back to teaching. I suppose there’s always the Question of Sport captaincy to fall back on for Robshaw. Knowing him, he’d answer ‘kick to the corner please Sue’ on the picture-board round.
Monday 28th September
Spent all day in my Pennyhill Park suite, staring blankly at the wall and drinking Darjeeling from the posh china. My wife rang me in tears to say some hooligans have torched our gnomes and sprayed ‘Bring back Moyes’ across our greenhouse. The perils of living within the Manchester Education Authority. I still have that sickly, exiled feeling of doom in my stomach. A bit like Julian Assange must feel, only this time it’s me who’s been assaulted– Biggared by the whole Welsh team. I’ve received faxes from Russia, Venezuela and Scotland offering me refuge. Uruguay told me I can piss off, their rugby is improving. All those broken dreams. The devastated ambitions; the colossal, execrable humiliation. Beaten by a bunch of job-shy benefit-scroungers who marry their own sisters. I can’t believe it, this just isn’t happening. Mike Brown is the only one with something to celebrate having won that staring competition with ITV, looking like a body-double for Trainspotting’s Mark Renton.
Tuesday 29th September
It gets worse. Our best player has left the squad. We roomed Billy and Mako Vunipola together because neither of them can read; they just watch cartoons. But that meddling midget Danny Care saw screenshots of Billy’s birth certificate going viral and read it out to him. Care never misses an episode of Neighbours so knew to tell Billy that Brisbane is in Australia. Vunipola’s last words as he drove off with a massive smile on his face were “I just found out I’m not English, woohoohoo”. Mako is still with us for now, but very lost – we had to put Peppa Pig on for him to take his mind off it. Let’s hope nobody tells him he was born in New Zealand. A deathly pall of depression fell over the coaches as we realised we had to call up Nick Easter. He’s just turned 46 for Christ’s sake. Worse still, it means we have to select Haskell against Australia. My spirits rose slightly when Andy Farrell pointed out that Haskell’s lack of vision, lack of hands and head-down, arse-up cluelessness in the tackle-area will be perfectly suited to the way we play. Every cloud has a silver lining I suppose, or so says Michael Hooper as he pisses himself laughing with Pocock.
Wednesday 30th September
It’s good to be back out on the training field, although Nick Easter got on everyone’s tits. As did Care, hanging round him like some arse-licking mini-me whose big brother’s just been let out of borstal. Easter gave it the big one. He was all ‘I’ll dominate this’ and ‘I’ll dominate that’ – and they call me the ‘effing dominator’. What a cock – the only thing he should be dominating is the Just for Men bottle. He’s older than half our coaching staff; like a fatter version of Nick Knowles. Let’s hope he transforms our forwards the way Knowles can liven up a toilet. During the session, I let Rowntree spend half hour explaining to Dan Cole what supporting your weight means and then took control of the team run myself. After writing instructions in crayon to show Sam Burgess where the backs go, we had a decent run through. We looked slick with George Ford at 10 but there’s more chance of finding rocking-horse shit than him getting picked in front of Farrell. I told Ford if he wants to get picked he needs to get his Dad back on the coaching staff.
Thursday 1st October
Our morning session got off to a bad start. Before training our coach driver asked for a quiet word. He asked if the RFU would pay to have the front windscreen of the coach blacked-out. He told me he only took employment with Stagecoach to drive OAPs to Stonehenge – nobody told him he’d be subject to this level of humiliation and abuse. Then the Sports Council of England left a message saying plans to erect a Stuart Lancaster statue outside Twickers have been scrapped. One loss to the old enemy and I’m treated being like an Ebola virus that’s gone airborne in HQ. Surely the nation needs something timeless to remind them of the great performances of my reign. What about that great All Blacks win at home? We even managed to get Barritt a try that day. Wasn’t that good enough for the fickle public-school bastards? Instead of a statue, I saw Barry John suggest that they name the Severn Bridge after me, so that Welsh fans can be reminded of our most memorable performance every time they cross back into Wales. Barry who?
Friday 2nd October
Last minute preparations went well with the RFU sending me a welcome vote of confidence. Brendan Rodgers gets one of those every week, along with fake tans and teeth whitening. I saw Matt Giteau was tweeting his delight at me staying put. At least I have some friends left. There has been some fallout over selection. Barritt over Burgess? The Opta Stats showed Barritt made 12 metres during the Wales game, and that was from the whitewash to the anthem line. But we had to pick him because Burgess looks bloody stupid with ‘LEFT’ and ‘RIGHT’ painted on his boots. And then we had a farcical moment when Jamie George came in asking about selection and we all thought he was the cleaner. None of us knew who the f**k he was. Anyway, it’s do or die tomorrow against the convict Limeys. It’ll be all “aah look mate”, “strewth” and spin from that former fat bastard Shane Warne about the useless Poms. We’ll show them. They might have Rolf Harris but we’ve got One Direction. The only trouble is, every defence in world rugby knows it.
