Thriving Under No Pressure?

It's that time again. In most major sports, every couple of years, there is some form of major International championships. 2011 is no different, this summer we have proudly sent our Rugby Union teams crusading off to New Zealand in the quest for the holy grail of the Rugby World Cup (RWC).

Although this time there does appear to be a difference. England are travelling, not as holders as they were 4 years ago, but with a somewhat lower weight of expectations. Of course we expect our boys to go over there and show those colonials a stiff upper lip and a resolute defence, but from the point of view of actually winning the tournament, this must be the least pressure these players have faced for several years.

We all know that whenever England sends a team off to a world championships with any expectation, in almost any other sport, it's practically a national characteristic that they'll stutter unconvincingly through the early phases, lurch into the quarter finals to renewed optimism before crashing out dramatically in a choice of one of half a dozen self-inflicted disasters.

This mainly comes from the football team's (still) amazing inability to match hype with talent every 2 summers. However, this has also recently reared its head in Athletics, with a much-hyped Team GB managing to spectacularly shoot itself in the foot, whilst still achieving the "goal" set for it in terms of medals (a paltry 8). The England cricket team pretty much epitomised the stumble and fail model in the recent ODI World Cup, despite a previous impressive, and unlikely, victory in the less vaunted Twenty20 World Cup.

The Rugby World Cup of 2011 has also got off to the same kind of start as England usually bless us with. A ship shod and indisciplined performance against a spirited Argentina had many supporters purely thankful for any win. A demolition of the two minnows in the group, Georgia and Romania, will not serve to mask the deficiencies of this team, but will set up a clash with Scotland to decide who avoids New Zealand in the next round. At the moment, this is as far as most England fans are bothering to look.

Which all perhaps points toward a lack of expectation which can benefit Martin Johnson's team. In 2007, as holders we were crushed by South Africa in the group stages and barely rated comment for the next 3 weeks before upsetting Australia and France only to lose heroically in the final.

It would seem that this inability to live up the intense media scrutiny and hype, causes pressure which your average Englishman doesn't appear to handle well at all. For us amateurs, think of those missed blacks at snooker or pool, those double faults at critical times on the tennis court, or speaking from personal experience, the complete inability to take a penalty kick (happily not just us amateurs). Even the serene Jonny Wilkinson appeared to get the yips at exactly the wrong time yesterday.

We can hope however, that this national trait can actually be beneficial this time; can England without expectation manage to achieve as much as they did in 2007? Surely the team may start to enjoy the freedom to be less predictable than we've seen so far? It must certainly mean that plan B, and perhaps plan C will be developed. Let's allow the flair players (we have a couple) to get their hands on the ball with no fear of failure. And if we lose spectacularly playing high-risk rugby against the likes of Australia or South Africa, let's at least say that's how we want to play and praise their efforts. I know we'd all rather go down in a blaze of glory.