Those who know the album well will also know that it makes its way to its climax with the great artist at near full, awesome stretch in I Feel a Change Comin On, before he winds up the whole outing with the great belly laugh Its All Good.

I Feel a Change Comin On, which is a further sequel to the transcendent The Times They Are A-Changing, follows an earthy ditty called Shake Shake Mama, which is little more than a pallet cleanser after Dylans wondrous spiritual tilt This Dream of You. This Dream is the only song on the album written by Dylan alone, and is surely his most moving hymn since his hat tip to William Blake in Every Grain of Sand. It is superior, in my view, to Blowin in The Wind (as perfect a piece of work as that song most assuredly was and is).

To return to the point, This Dream sets the stage, after a quick shake up mama, for the climax that is I Feel a Change Comin On. This extraordinary song is itself resolved in two lines that I, like many others, originally heard as:

Some people they tell me

Ive got the blood of the lamb in my voice.

The line could not be delivered more perfectly, more powerfully, and yet, as Christians will know better than me, does Bob really say that the lord Jesus speaks through him? Whoa Bob! Steady on old chap. That is a line humans dare not cross in their own name. I instinctively shrank at the same time as I thrilled to the sound of the delivery.

Of course, I heard it wrong, like many others, for the real line is the title of this post. And then, I thought about it again, slowly, every time that the line returned, which is now already countless. Together Through Life threatens to be the first CD that I play all the way through to the other side, in the way that we used to think needles wore vinyl.

To get right down to it, in fact Dylan does not claim anything at all. He only reports what some people say.  And anyway, he certainly literally does have the blood of his land in his voice. The American Civil War is one of his most enduring lyrical repositories, along with several other bloody storehouses. Yet, if I was an Aboriginal Australian, could not the suggestion that you have the blood of the land in your voice sound as blasphemous as the blood of the lamb to a Christian? And, as I am of Irish Celtic descent, does it not offend my own ancient aboriginal beliefs? The mystical life of the ancient Irish was a place where the barriers between the material and spiritual worlds were never high. For my forebears, the earth was home to a great civilization, an underworld inhabited by the tribes of the Goddess Danu (Tuatha De Danann) and known as Tir na n-Og, or the home of the ever young, the source of Druidic mist, the abode of immortal spiritual loveliness and the font of inspiration, revelation, wisdom, knowledge, poetry and prophecy. To suggest that someone could have the blood of this land in their voice would blaspheme everything my ancients held sacred, in the way that the lambs blood might chill the graves of Christians.

But the meaning rises ever higher, for can we not believe that anyone who opens themselves to the collective culture of the worlds music has the blood of all of us in their voice? Is there any purer way for us poor old often dumb and hopeless human beings to convey the meanings that arise from deep within our souls? Thanks Bob. Vale David:

I know I’ve dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don’t have much time
Faith has been broken tears must be cried
Let’s do some living after we die

1. Kevin Rudd, like John Howard, wears glasses and describes himself as a fiscal conservative, so this is really a victory for John Howard, and the luvvies have lost again, if only they’d realise that we are all creepy conservatives now, really.

2. Stanley Melbourne Bruce’s first name started with “S” and he wore spats whereas John Winston Howard’s starts with “J” and he wears tracksuits, so 2007 is completely different to 1929, as proved by the scientific fact that these are two completely different years, really.

3. Someone, probably John Pilger or Julia Gillard, called the former Howard government “fascist” recently, forgetting that fascism occurred in Italy a long time ago and this is Australia today, so s/he is clearly wrong, really.

Go Gerry, make my day, really.

Update: Gerry goes for the crocodile tears (consolation prize for 2. above, although we failed to mention that Stanley lived on the outskirts of Melbourne, not in Bennelong, and the more recent of the two old PMs faced a celebrity candidate, so that’s why it’s completely different, this week, really).

Three high-profile frontbenchers from NSW Mr Turnbull, Brendan Nelson and Tony Abbott are already set to fight for the poisoned chalice of leader of the Opposition.

How good is this?

‘No reason to get excited’, the thief, he kindly spoke,
‘There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let’s not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.’

Bob, crazy lovely brilliant bastard that he is, always says the Liberals would blow up their own head office to win office. On the third last day of the 2007 campaign, the Navy plucked 10 children and six adults from their leaking wooden boat in the Timor Sea. Ten children. The Ellis theory, in reverse! Not to be outdone this time, perhaps, the ALP has forced the Liberals to expel two members busted impersonating Osama bin Laden on behalf of the opposition. It’s wild, in the last hours.

Kevin Rudd has revealed his first five priorities as prime minister if Labor wins government at Saturday’s election. They are:

1. Ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
2. Negotiate with states to reform the hospital system.
3. Begin roll-out of high-speed broadband network and connections to schools.
4. Upgrade trade training centres in secondary schools.
5. Begin negotiations with US and Iraq for staged withdrawal of Australian combat troops by mid-next year.

Mr Rudd said that Christmas Day and Boxing Day would be the only holidays for a Labor cabinet this year as they began putting policies into action, and that he would use the Lodge in Canberra as the prime ministerial home. He said he wanted to be known as “an education prime minister”, someone who fundamentally transformed education. Mr Rudd, the hot favourite to be elected prime minister on Saturday, told the Sunday Age that the last week of the campaign would be “very tight and tough”, but said he had plenty of petrol left in the tank. “Fighting and raring to go, mate,” Mr Rudd said. “I’m moving from fourth to fifth gear, and certainly in my own personal engine there is capacity to move into sixth gear as well.”

Sounds good to me, except I guess repealing WorkChoices has to wait to the next parliament? Can’t something be done immediately? How about some real experts going through the pile up? What about an independent inquiry? What about an open-ended standing royal commission into the Howard’s government’s 12 years of crimes against humanity? Can’t we at least have Kevin Andrews in the stocks for tomato practice at Martin Place for just one day? How about Tone Abbott in an all-comers boxing tent? Joe Hockey on a stick? OK, the first five will do. *Sigh.*

Update: Classic Bill Leak.

You just have to read Missing Link to appreciate that the Prime Minister comprehensively stuffed up, with his sorry but no I don’t mean I apologise for I will only take credit so I’m not to blame routine. The trajectory was always a high-wire act, carrying sufficient risk to leverage the difference. As it happened, the PM crashed into himself coming the other way in mid-air and fell into the net. The game’s up. The stride’s been broken. The water has been muddied. The government’s difficult message has become garbled. The LNP’s re-election strategy is a smoking ruin.

We’ll have to wait to see how sentiment swings, of course. There’s no telling the mythical Australian punter’s mind. But it’s now hard to see any way for the PM to turn. Hope the cricket gets interesting. To think, it all looked so clever on PowerPoint.

Mr Howard defines ground zero. Will you back me in the next rate race? You don’t like WorkChoices, but it’s an anti-inflation, anti-rate plan to save your house, plus an unemployment rate of 3 per cent. The ALP has inflation-fueling unions which will let the rate monster out of the cupboard. Back me to save your house against your job and income under WorkChoices, with the lowest unemployment since the early 1970s. What is it? Make up your mind. Risk a perilous rate rise or a cosy rat race?

I suspect this will be the crucial test of Kevin Rudd, at least this time. No doubt there’s a political theory on how he should manage the moment for everyone able to have a political theory, and I’d hate to make the calls. I could more comfortably run a political campaign for an enemy. There’s a crazy freedom in being a mercenary, when it’s just a job, a paycheck, key performance indicators and a pile of bullshit.

Alas, my disapproval of the Prime Minister is in perfectly inverse proportion to my approval of the alternative. Such high stakes are excruciating. I can barely watch, let alone wish to be responsible. For two bob, I say Mr Rudd must meet this moment head on. No resting on opinion polls, slick advertising, small targets or whatever. The response must be full frontal: an all-guns blazing, scorched earth, take no prisoners, empty the purse, spectrum-dominating rebuttal, in a gentle Ruddster kinda way.

Cold showers all round colleagues and comrades. Perhaps I’ve got one of those war-zone afflictions, and I don’t want to sound all Dennis Shanahan, but I reckon some timely reminders are in order. John Howard has a Hawke-Menzies election record and anyone who thinks this guy hasn’t got a plan to win back office is off their scone. If you believe for a half-second that Mr Howard hasn’t figured his trajectory on the possibility of the Reserve putting up rates, you haven’t seen him shovelling demand into the place by the truckload. Mr Howard will leap all over an interest rate rise like a Tampa he hasn’t seen since 2001, or the truth we haven’t since he ran on trust.

A rate rise will define economic management front and centre. The PM will leverage WorkChoices into the bridge, killing his biggest negative with his biggest negative, whichever you think his biggest negative. In Howard’s position, the risk has to be proportionate to the distance he must make up. It’s all worked out on PowerPoint.

‘So what?’, I hear Liberal die-hards snorting. ‘The opposition leader always wins the debate, and Mr Howard always wins the election.’ Perhaps, but I tend to think it works like the advertising theory which says that, no matter how clever your pitch, it’ll only carry if it confirms an existing preference. Opposition leaders may have won the debates before to no avail, but that was in contexts where folks were, at the least, undecided on their preference. You can’t dress up a turd with lipstick, as they say, nor a poor leader with smart words. But in the current context, with Labor ahead, winning the debate may help win the vote. The entire show struck me as a free advertisment confirming the nation’s pre-existing preference. Mr Howard didn’t even try lipstick.

Update: Newspoll has stuck its head out in calling 58-42 to the ALP after the government’s triumphant first week. I gather this would have been gathered by Sunday night, pre-the debate. It’s crucial to maintain discipline, but imagine that you are a Howardophile this morning, wondering what comes after the triumphant first week. Another tax plan, for a triumphant second week? Should little children be allowed to watch public humiliation of this degree?

Sadly, the most unpredictable of World Cup tournaments has come down to a damp final between the world’s two most widely disliked teams. Apart from all its cultural baggage, England is disliked because it specialises in the grimmest of rugby spectacles, the 10-man game of territory and goal kicks. South Africa is disliked for its rough-house approach to the game, for a take-no-prisoners attitude to the rules and the violent boundaries of the contest.

Still, as the discussion has turned toward all week, the Springboks are an all-round rugby team, embodying attacking prowess, along with forward strength and a kicking game. Thus, the Springboks enter the 2007 final finding themselves in the unaccustomed position of being the crowd favourites among fans worldwide.

The implicit challenge for both teams is to provide an exhibition of rugby that proves them worthy of the title of world champion. Oh yes, the winner will have legal rights, but will this convince anyone? Will anyone really accept that a grim, percentage England victory will entitle the Poms to anything but technical bragging rights? Can anyone seriously believe that England has a better rugby team than the All Blacks?

England has a better chance of winning the game than it does of convincing people that it warrants the crown that comes with the territory. On what we’ve seen so far, only South Africa can save the credibility of the World Cup. On form, the Springboks should win. For the good of the game, they must win.

Update: With a 15-6 victory, South Africa has lifted the William Webb Ellis Trophy to claim the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Congratulations to the Springboks. Bugger you Crazy Eddie. Thanks referees, linesmen and ballboys. Bring on the Tri-Nations!

In some ways, watching rugby on television is more enjoyable than the live experience. At half-time these days, for example, you discover that, without warning and not so much as a how’s your father, beg your pardon or thank you very much, the code’s money-grubbers have sold off the rights to your ears. At the ground, we have no protection from the inanities of the evil contemporary pollution that we too politely call advertising being poured into our earholes, from where it makes its way to offend whatever grey matter and aesthetic sensibility we might still possess. With television, at least you can mute the flood of this modern junk.

On the other hand, some aspects of the game itself don’t translate onto the small screen, such as the rolling maul. Nothing in rugby can attract, mesmerise and thrill a crowd like a rolling maul. Perhaps it’s the surprise of its appearance that grabs stadiums. Many plays have the potential to become rolling mauls, but usually you’re lucky to see a single good maul per match. At the ground, you can feel the crowd focusing when one of these rolling monsters begins to take shape and go forward. If the pack make a few metres, the applause will also begin to roll, and it will rise, metre by metre. If the maul rolls long enough, it cannot but provoke the whole house into a mighty roar, the like of which can never be conveyed by television.

I’ve not been alone in favouring the rolling maul as one of the weapons that the Wallabies should have developed to defeat the All Blacks. It’s obvious that France and South Africa have put enormous work into perfecting the extraordinary feat of teamwork, strength, discipline and skill that is required to get one of these things off the ground, and then keep it that way. The logic appeals, because a good maul will draw all the opposition’s forwards in, creating space for line breaks when the ball is finally let out. Thus, this weekend we’ll see two teams that are among the best exponents ever of one of rugby’s unique features, having practised it to a very high degree as an integral part of the thinking they’ve put in over the last four years to defeat a standard that’s already flown home to New Zealand.

How will the RWC semi-finals go? Everyone in the world bar their own supporters would love to see the Springboks go down to the Argies, as unlikely as that prospect seems. No doubt each and every tragically hollowed-out Wallaby fan will be barracking for France over England. Whatever the results, I expect to see more of those great rolling mauls, even though it’s a real pity that this will only be on television.

Update: Another bleak result, with the Poms winning 14-9 in a close contest that could have easily gone the other way. The tragedy of it was that the French completely forgot they were French, and tried to beat the English at their own game. With this crazy thought in their heads, they blighted their attacking skills, surrendering their superb rolling maul and clever running backs to the field-goal option, which kept returning rested Pommie forwards to the mid-field. What a sad state of affairs we’ve come to, given that we look like being reduced to supporting the Springboks to deny England an unthinkable sequence of Cups. Can the Argies save the world at the 11th hour with a miracle finish? I wouldn’t put my house on it. Woe.

Update: South Africa won 37-13. I didn’t see the game, but the reports suggest I didn’t miss much. Going into the final, I guess we’re all Springboks now.

Australia’s rugby record against England starkly confutes the notion that ability is a simple function of resources. England has over 700,000 rugby players; Australia has fewer than 70,000. Yet, more often than not, we flog the place on the field. Of the 33 Tests decided over the last 100 years, the Wallabies have won 20. Despite a playing pool 10 times our size, England’s First 15 hasn’t been much more than half as good as the Wallabies.

Along with everyone else in the rugby world, bar those poor unfortunates who actually live in the place where the sun don’t shine, I expect the Wallaby victory roll to reach 21 on Saturday night. The dangers are the English scrum, Jonny Wilkinson’s boot and the Pommie propensity to go the niggle. If the Poms are good for anything at all, they’ll give us a fair measure of how far our scrum has come since that dark day when we fell apart at Twickenham in November 2005. We’re also likely to get an idea of the tactics Knuckles has dreamed up to counter the field goal, which will be just as vital against the Springboks, should we manage to go all the way.

To see Australia crush England into the French dust would be a joy to behold. Such a result is not beyond the realm of possibilites. But, as hopeless as they have been in the pool games, I don’t expect the reigning World Champions to bow out without a decent fight. Nor do I think a walloping is necessarily the World Cup winning way for the Wallabies. Remember 1999 dear fans. Gradually, Australia lifted through the tournament, rising to the challenge of each match, but rising no further than necessary. I’ll be happy, so long as we’re not on the plane home Sunday.

Go the Wallabies!

Update: Some great rugby reading in today’s paper. Wayne Smith has a pearler of an overview (Knuckles is doing a star turn – if the Wallabies win the Cup, he should start his own tv show). Mark Ella is spot on, as usual, with a perfect summary of the form so far. And then there is this strange one from Simon Barnes, an Englishman who climbs up on his high-horse to declare that he is not “neo-colonial, possessed of a born-to-rule mentality, a racial supremacist, a little Englander, a snooty bastard, an avoider of baths, an oppressor, a cultural elitist, a snob … a racist, Pope Hadrian IV, a Black and Tan, Oliver Cromwell, the Duke of Cumberland, an anti-Catholic, an anti-Protestant, Edward I, a silencer of Celtic languages”. He concludes that the “England-hating O’Neill is (a) pathetic, (b) a bigot and (c) locked in the past,” therein disclosing that he has missed the bleeding obvious, which is that John O’Neil is a headline hunter and Simon Barnes’ scalp is now in his trophy bag. Go the Wallabies!

Update: I wish I could say that the better team lost. Or that we wuz robbed. Or that they were lucky. I wish I could say anything at all, except the dreaded truth, which is that England outplayed Australia. Even worse, the 12-10 result doesn’t reflect how much better the Poms played. Hats off to their forwards in particular, who dominated, not so much in the scrum, where we sort of hung on, but at the breakdown, in a way that I would have never believed possible. So comprehensively did they throw the Wallabies off their game, it seemed as though they had an extra player, or two or three, on the field. Well done and deserved England. Four more years of gloating Pommies. Oh, the pain, the pain. It’s only a game, right? Oh, the pain …

In the biggest scandal since Phar Lap, Australia’s chance of a third rugby World Cup may have sunk this week, thanks to some Dirty Pierre infecting the great Bernie Larkham. Australia was always only an outside chance, assuming our champion 10 would be on the paddock, on song. Without Larkham, a Wallaby World Cup is not impossible, only unimaginable.

For Australia to be good enough to take the tournament, sans Bernie, the Wallabies will have to become something that we have literally not seen before. New forces will have to emerge. The players who still have latent potential will have to stand right up, fully realising themselves, immediately.

We do have guys still developing. Think of Matt Dunning, who has made so much progress. No question, there is more to come from Berrick Barnes. Adam Ashley-Cooper could fully arrive, or turn up like he did against the All Blacks earlier this year. Wycliffe Palu is growing through the tournament. Giteau is having the time of his life. There will come a day when Rocky Elsom will defeat one of the rugby superpowers single-handedly, as could Morts. Can Nathan Sharpe pull another finger out? George Smith is, perhaps, the only Wallaby who we definitely know can’t get any better, since he’s already the best.

The Wallabies can’t be written off. But the news of Bernie’s nobbling will have put a big smile on the face of every sheep in New Zealand, which has never defeated Australia in a World Cup match. In the meantime, Knuckles’ boys have a meaningless game against Canada this weekend, a hiatus, an effective gap in the schedule, into which we have sent the reserves, to break their cabin fever and get their names on the list of participants. There’s no point in even running any moves, as few of these players will be executing them, come the big time.

More interesting is England vs Tonga. Will the Poms become the first Cup holder to die in the following pool? A delicious humiliation may loom. The other hot game is Argentina vs Ireland. If the Argies get up, the Dirty Pierres will face the Blacks in a quarter-final in Cardiff, in their own World Cup! Think of Bernie, and call it Karma.

Go Tonga! Go the Argies!

Update: Rugby is a demanding template, and fans must endure many desulatory exhibitions, as we did last night in Australia’s horrible 37-6 win over Canada, about which the less said the better. With my spirit low, I met a friend for a drink afterwards, where I saw most of the Fiji-Wales game. From the mind-numbing to the utterly sublime. If you missed it, read Stephen Jones’ match report, which begins: “Well, how many greats do you want? Perhaps the greatest World Cup game ever played, perhaps the greatest feast of rugby and the greatest range of attacking palletes. Perhaps the greatest upset, and perhaps the final condemnation of all those who would rather that great rugby nations such as Fiji were given their own minor-countries tournament to mess about in. This was one of those games that you will need to sit with the video in a darkened room to believe that it ever happened.” And that’s just for starters. It was an epic. If it’s replayed, don’t miss it for quids.

Update: The quarter-finals are, in order of playing times: (1) Australia vs England; (2) New Zealand vs France (at Cardiff); (3) South Africa vs Fiji; (4) Argentina vs Scotland. As anticipated, this means that the sequence facing the Wallabies is: (1) England; (2) the All Blacks (or France); and (3) the Springboks, assuming that the Boks can get past supercharged outsiders, Fiji and Argentina. The end of the pools also means that the first consolation prizes have been distributed, with Tonga, Wales, Italy and Ireland securing automatic qualification for the 2011 World Cup. Go the Wallabies!

Bernie Watch: In comments, Fred Argy advises that, writing in todays (i.e. Monday’s) Canberra Times, Bernie says he is now jogging!

It’s been a great week for Wallaby fans, with the team winning more positive copy than it has received all year, or two. Well and good, although it’s way too early to start getting carried away. Continuous improvement must be the watchwords for the Wallabies in this World Cup. Australia will put Fiji to the sword on Sunday. But that’s less important than creating a trajectory of continuous improvement through the tournament, which we must do if we’re to steal the thing.

The priority must continue to be on developing our forward play, our scrum, our rolling maul, our pick-and-drive, our counter-attack from breakdowns, for this is where we must eventually match the All Blacks, assuming we get into the semi-finals. The test in playing Fiji lies not in being able to win, and win well, but in being able to maintain, nay positively improve, our teamwork, particularly in the forwards.

In the backs, all eyes will be on the baby superstar, Berrick Barnes. Mark Ella puts his sensational tour into perspective in the Oz today. Fiji will also see the return of the Coopster, who is starting in 13. This is where he says he feels most comfortable, and where Captain Morts reckons Coops will spend his future. The player most desperate for a big outing is Lote Tuqiri. Wayne Smith reviews the problem today. I suspect Knuckles and Co will give him until the finals to show up, but the sooner the better.

Go the Wallabies!

P.S. England versus Samoa could be a cracker. Can Jonny Wilkinson make a difference to these no-hopers, or will the Pommies totally disgrace themselves? Go Samoa!

Update: OK, we won 55-12, scored seven tries, gathered the bonus point and cemented a place in the quarter finals. But for mine, it was the most unsatisfying Wallaby game of the year. The forwards were a dog’s breakfast and the team was sloppy all round. I’m disconcerted by the fact that we’ve already let in more tries than the two previous times that we’ve won the Cup. No way did we look potential World Champions. Maybe this was the let down we had to have. Maybe any team from which you subtract George Smith, Bernie Larkham and Stirling Mortlock is going to look relatively second rate. Having proved their detractors wrong; now the Wallabies have to prove they’re really up for the full tilt.

Crazy Eddie Watch #5: “Rocky Elsom has panned former coach Eddie Jones for turning the Wallabies into a boring team. Elsom suggested leading forwards were banned from showing any adventure on the field and lived in fear of making mistakes before Jones was sacked two years ago.” It’s a big story, getting bigger.

Crazy Eddie Watch #6: “It was reported this week that some of the senior Springboks were considering not wearing their blazers until the South African Rugby Union gave Australian coach Eddie Jones a blazer. But the union said a condition of Jones’s employment was that he would not be given a blazer.” Doncha miss him?

Crazy Eddie Watch #7: From the tapes: “Look John, I know youve got Australian rugbys interests at heart, but did you really have to have Rocky Elsom trash my reputation like that saying that I turned the Wallabies into the most boring side in the world, that I was a control freak who paralysed all the players natural attacking flair because they feared if they made a mistake I would peg them out over an ant bed coated in honey? But you did do that, Eddie, didnt you many still bear the scars from the bull-ant bites? Yes, well you have to set the team parameters from the word go.

[Sign the Bone Growden Petition.]

Before a full house at one of rugby’s great theatres, the Wallabies face a huge World Cup match in Wales on Saturday. The position of the Wallabies is somewhat analogous to Rudd Labor’s over the Howard Government. Australia should win easily, except that the recent record of poor results between the nations at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium nags like hell.

If Australia is to be a serious contender for the 2007 Cup, this is the match in which the Wallabies must lay waste to the ghosts of northern tours past. We’ve won 11 of the last 13 Tests against Wales, but haven’t defeated the country at the Millennium Stadium in the two matches we’ve played there since 2001. Showing early glimpses of the post-Crazy Eddie era, we played a drawn Test, 29-all, at the ground last year.

The Wallabies are aiming up. The messages from the camp have all been similar. Rocky Elsom has been reported to have the “serious shits” about Wales’ record, and is “going for the jugular”. Nathan Sharpe has repeatedly said that the past mistake has been “taking the foot off their throat”. George Smith has shrugged off the home-ground advantage that Wales swindled out of the French in the IRB vote, and is reported to be looking forward to slaying Wales before 75,000 of its fans. Canadian assistant coach, former Wallaby Glen Ella, has predicted a “bloodbath”.

I’ll settle for a narrow win and an appreciable improvement. Knuckles has made some interesting changes. The return of Guy Shepherdson as tight-head prop in place of Al Baxter is to be welcomed, for what will be a major test for this pack, and a crucial base for building its confidence going into the finals. Expect a big game from Dan Vickerman, who’s playing his 50th match for the Wallabies. If we do smash the Joneses, Williamses, Thomases and Jenkinses early, Smithy will no doubt put his feet up to give Phil Waugh a much needed airing.

In the backs, the left wing’s a worry, where the replacement for Adam Ashley-Cooper, Drew Mitchell, hasn’t yet convinced that he’s mature enough for top level international rugby, even though he can excel in the lower grades. The All Blacks treat him as snack food, and he’s bound to be tested. On the other hand, it’s great to see Scott Staniforth (right) on the bench, who can take over if the kid gets trashed. If Mitchell stands up, watch for Knuckles to do the switch, giving Greegs an early shower in favour of Gits at 9 and Staniforth taking 12. This second-half re-orchestration of the backs has been sensational in its precious few outings to date.

Although the Welsh will be prepared to die on their pitch, the Wallabies will go in firm favourites and we’ve got good reason to be confident. All the players should be better for their Japan romp, where they looked the goods, and everything about the team seems in fine fettle. Perhaps just to annoy John O’Neil, Knuckles is even talking about staying on as coach! The stars look well set. Yet, like Rudd Labor, there can be no chicken counting. Until the job’s done, discipline is at a premium.

Go the Wallabies!

Crazy Eddie Watch #2: Dig this. Eddie “calculated that that scrums took up no more than eight minutes of playing time and so he would devote precisely eight minutes of training time to the set-piece.” What next? Eddie calculated that the players spent more time training than playing and so he would devote the games to training?

Update: A 32-20 win at Cardiff will do me, anytime! Good show Barnsey. Boy Wonder had a first-half blinder. Cliffy Palu also stood up. Much to be digested … later. The immediate takeaway: hurdle jumped.

Crazy Eddie Watch #3: From the Oz: “Connolly’s concession that Barnes’ current form hadn’t warranted selection earned him another media pilloring, but the sub-text clearly was that Barnes was left so confused and hesitant after constantly being tongue-lashed by Eddie Jones that he ended up showing nothing at all for the Queensland Reds. ‘He said he felt like he had been standing in a mud puddle at the Reds,’ said Connolly…”

Crazy Eddie Watch #4: From Tim Horan: “Before the tournament, former Wallabies and Queensland coach Eddie Jones questioned the durability of Australia’s forwards, in particular backrowers Rocky Elsom and Palu.”

[Sign the Bone Growden Petition.]

Time allowing, I’m aiming to blog the Rugby World Cup, with a minimum of one post before each Wallaby match, updated with the result. For the duration, I will live in a Sydney Morning Herald free-zone, as I refuse to share the tournament with the bias of Fairfax CEO David Kirk and the loathsome Greg Growden. All rugby fans are urged to do likewise.

It felt strange. I’ve bought the Australian many times. Indeed, I bought all the Sydney and national papers daily, frequently along with papers from other states, for decades. Yet, never before have I gone out to buy, and only buy, the Australian, as I did this morning. I’m glad I did. The 20-page 2007 Rugby World Cup Souvenir Edition (not online) is of a quality well above the rubbish served up by the All Black Morning Herald earlier this week. Wayne Smith, Bret Harris and Mark Ella are a big cut above the appalling Kirk-Growden crew.

To the action. As we stand on the precipice of the 6th World Cup, let’s be clear. Australia is not expected to win its third William Webb Ellis trophy, or “Bill”. The All Blacks are, and are fully entitled to be, hot favourites. Behind them, I rate France because of the home ground advantage – provided it can get through its “pool of death”, where France faces both Ireland and Argentina. Although neither South Africa nor England can be written off, and while Wales, Ireland and the Argies are also to be fully respected, I rate the Wallabies the best outside chance.

Following the coaching change from Crazy Eddie Jones last year, Australia’s international rugby form began to come back in 2007, when the Wallabies were the only team in the world to defeat the All Blacks. Defence is at a premium in the Cup, and the Wallaby defence is among the world’s best, if not the best. Likewise, our line-out is top class, thanks largely to Dan Vickerman (right), giving us an attacking set-piece. We also have valuable Cup-winning experience. The scrum is our weakness, but has improved such that we might now expect it to hold in top company.

The key to this Cup, I suspect, will be the contest at the breakdown. In attack, we have to offload in the tackle, or go into either rolling maul or pick and drive formations. The days of simply rolling over to set up quick phases are gone. Everyone is awake to this tactic, and hence the oppositions are refusing to commit players to Wallaby breakdowns, leaving them free to crowd our halves out. This means that we have to either keep our movements going through offloads, or purposefully force the oppositions to commit players. In defence, we must treat the breakdown as a base for launching counter-attacks.

But the grand strategies are for the weeks ahead. Tomorrow night the Wallabies face Japan in their pool opener. The bar should not be set too high. All the Wallabies need do first up is find their feet and feel out their combinations. A 20-30 points winning margin and an intact defensive performance will suffice. We can leave the 100-nil all guns blazing approach to the pool games for the All Blacks. The rhythm the Wallabies should be looking for is a gradual building of momentum through the tournament, with our standard lifting to meet the competition as it intensifies.

Knuckles has made a smart decision in giving young Berrick Barnes a start off the bench. There’s no question that the Wallaby ace is the wizard named Stephen “Bernie” Larkham at No 10 (right). But watching Bernie play is in equal parts enthralling and nerve-wracking, given that he’s both injury prone and heavily targeted by the opposition defence. An early shower for the maestro in favour of his Cup understudy is the way to go first up, especially as Barnes won his selection despite poor form this year and needs time on the paddock. I also hope Stephen Hoiles and Adam Freier get at least the lion’s share of the second half.

After a promising 2006, Barnes’ poor recent form was almost certainly due to Queensland having had the grave misfortune of being coached by Crazy Eddie. In this light, a story about Al Baxter in today’s Australian is one of the most heartening to come out of the Wallaby camp. Like a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder, Baxter has become one of the first players to speak publicly about the harrowing experience of the Crazy Eddie era. It’s a fascinating glimpse of what I expect will be a lot more to come. With “the Wallaby Work Index” now mercifully in the bin, the “feeling amongst the squad at the moment” says Baxter, “is the best I’ve ever felt.”

The story augers well. Let the great battle commence. Go the Wallabies!

Update: Whacko! In a sensational tournament opener, Argentina smacked host nation France 17-12! Go the Pumas! The pool of death, indeed! Go Ireland!

Update: A good Wallaby opener. 91-3 and 13 tries to – more importantly – nil. This was the leg stretch that the Wallabies needed. The rampaging Rocky Elsom (right) was a great sight. The Rock had a sensational Super 14 followed by a less spectacular Test season. Tonight, he looked set for the big Cup that he has to have. The forwards showed discipline. Smithy scored the try of the match for mine, with a tackle and a steal in which he freakily never left his feet. So far, so excellent.

Update: Justin Harrison assesses the Wales match.

Update: Growden-Haters Unite! You can sign the Bone Growden Petition here.

As regular Troppo rugby tragics know, I’ve been on the case of the most reviled journalist in Wallaby history, the Sydney Morning Herald‘s appalling Greg Growden, for some time. Thanks to my vast rugby spy network, the mystery about why Growden hasn’t been sacked has been solved, and is here exclusively revealed.

First, a quick reprise. Greg Growden is misleadingly referred to in print as the SMH‘s “Chief Rugby Correspondent”. The truth is, he has never played rugby, he has no interest in rugby and he has no idea what rugby is about. His title is 100 per cent crap. Growden is actually paid by the SMH to sniff Wallaby bedsheets and publicly beat the minutest of stains up into capital offences. Gregs obsessiveness over all things trivial off-field is in perfectly inverse proportion to his abject lack of interest in the game itself, which is, of course, why he is so reviled.

Last week saw classic Growden. Two 29-year old Wallabies stayed up drinking with friends in their hotel room till 5 am, in their own time, with no obligations the next day, like all free 29-year olds do, at the least, if you’re lucky, on a slow and responsible night. Because they were subsequently found to have unknowingly been in the proximity of some people who were subsequently in the proximity of an incident with a taxi driver, Growden sniffed their sheets and demanded that they be sacked.

Yes, the coverage was barking mad and directly against the interests of Australian rugby, not to mention offensive to the inalienable human rights of all free 29-year olds everywhere. In an earlier Growden discussion, I raised the question of why the SMH would pay someone to rubbish the game to the extent of him becoming intensely despised by Sydney’s rugby fans (and I think only Sydneysiders can really know how intense Growden-hatred is, at least among the fans in these eastern parts):

Anyone who writes about rugby without a genuine feel for and love of the game may just as well not bother writing, if he is aiming to write for the games fans; full stop. If he is not writing for the fans, who is he serving? Rugby league fans? His stupid self? Perhaps he is on the take from somewhere? Who knows.

Well folks, the word is now out, and it’s two words – David Kirk. Who’s David Kirk? David Kirk replaced Fred Hilmer as CEO of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd, the owner of the Sydney Morning Herald, on 17 October 2005. David Kirk is also All Black No. 843. David Kirk played 17 Tests, 11 as captain – the highest office under the Silver Fern. David Kirk was the captain, half-back and one of the three try-scorers in the final of the only All Black World Cup victory in 1987. Captain Kirk is, in other words, a de facto Kiwi Governor-General, an NZ President in absentia, an All Black Immortal, the only man in the history of the land of the long white cloud to have ever led the most fanatical rugby nation on earth to a World Cup. Australia has won two World Cups. All Black No. 843 now runs Fairfax, which employs Greg Growden.

Case closed. My sources are mixed on whether Growden is an unknowing tool in the Fairfax-All Black conspiracy to disrupt the 2007 Wallaby World Cup tilt. In any event, for the tournament’s duration, the paper should be called the All Black Morning Herald. Everyone I know is planning on switching to the Australian. The serious concern is over John O’Neill, who some claim has a media vanity highly susceptible to dangling the Wallabies at the end of a confected David Kirk-Greg Growden rope.

Update: David Kirk profile (the SMH, but dig the giveaway pic!). About Fairfax NZ.

Update: (Wed.) It went in a flash. Mr Dylan was in form. One minute it was “Cat’s in the Well”; the next it was “Watchtower” and he was waving goodbye. I’d call it for the new songs, which shone like precious stones – “Workingman’s Blues’” and “Nettie Moore” the most precious of all. Yet, I’m interrupted by the transcendent “Hard Rain”, and the experience of being drilled by “HW61″. The biggest surprise was “Spirit on the Water”, which has grown a second half to die for. We were privileged with “Masters of War”, and he nailed it, to the ground. For nerds, the sound was a bit muddy at the outset, specially during “Times” (a surprise!), but it cleaned up beautifully (I’d pick the moment as “Cold Irons”, which isn’t on this set list*). The lead could’ve been louder, but the bloody Entertainment Centre probably couldn’t have handled it. The band cooked, at a low boil. The only disappointment is that a Dylan concert never feels complete without “LARS”. Perhaps he’ll play it tomorrow night. Thanks Bob. And no, I’m informed that he didn’t speak when he grabbed the microphone at the end. Settle.

[*I may have this mixed up with "R&T", which the set list gives as the Bobster's first number on the organ (can anyone clarify whether "Cold Irons" was played before "R&T", or have I muddled the two?). Another controversy has broken out over "When I Paint", which immediately preceded this (my) confusion (and within which Bob cut a couple of natty quitar solos!). He definitely didn't sing "back in the land of Coca-Cola" (I noticed, cos I hate that line). I heard "back in the land of rum and cola", but others claim "back in the land of rum and Coca-Cola". Unless he repeats the number tonight, this one may have to go to the bootleg ref.]

Update: More reviews here (something was happening with “Hard Rain”, but you didn’t know what it was, did you Mr Mills?).

Update: (Thurs.) The many splendoured Mr Dylan. It was almost an entirely different show tonight (set-list here). Very Blonde on Blonde, speaking of the devil, but country. And when I say country, you give this band a sniff and its Hank Williams and Gram Parsons all over the place. Yet the night belonged to Bob’s big canvasses – “When the Deal Goes Down” (yes “soul to soul”), “Aint Talkin’” and “Visions of Johanna” (fck!); monsters unleashed by that gravelly mango and courvesoir voice. New songs didn’t signature the second night like the first. Nor was the audience as warm – last night we were afloat in a sea of rolling applause – although the sound was better. Loved “Levee”. “Spirit” was different again – can’t wait to see where this one ends up. “Thunder” is a work in progress, fascinatingly. All the sidemen are, of course, superior; but I have to mention George Recile, who is one swashbucklng time-keeper. If I had to pick, last night was mine, but I know many Dylan fans will have preferred tonight. Short Sydney season Bob; too short, but lovely. Thanks. Hope you pass this way again before long.

Update: More reviews. As expected, the fans have gone dippy over the 2nd night.

Update: More ovations in Melbourne (and “LARS”!). Bob Dylan is in triumphant form.

It is a Howard government lie to allege that the states are responsible for interest rate pressure, without a good supporting case. I have heard no case; only a generalised political slur. It remains true, moreover, that the states did not promise to keep interest rates down; the Howard government did. In blaming the states, the Prime Minister is also implicitly conceding that he lied when he promised, as this is an admission of him not having had the power to do so.

Then again, he didn’t promise to keep rates down, did he? He only promised to keep them lower than a Labor government would. As this was a promise for which there could be no counterfactual to test its keeping, he actually promised nothing. Thus, the whole story is one big lie from beginning to end. And so it goes, on.

Update: So, the Liberal Party did positively promise to keep “interest rates at record lows”. In fact, the promise was made zillions of times in media adverts. This presents the PM with the problem that, while he may have personally promised a non-promise, the Liberal Party trumped him with a real promise, live on television, featuring Ratty the Megastar, zillions of times. How will this unfold? Will the PM retell a version of the famous lie about how he, as a leader of the Coalition of the Willing, APEC, his country, the government, his party and the television adverts, was not advised; and had he known he was making a real promise, zillions of times, he would have “never ever” dreamed of so doing, honestly? Will the Liberals reinvent the famous lie about non-core promises, and admit they were just joking? Will this government be laughed out of office?

As regular Troppo rugby tragics know, the journalist that I, and tens of thousands of other Sydney fans, hate with an unquenchable passion is the SMH‘s hilariously named “chief rugby reporter”, Greg Growden – the most ignorant rugby writer to have lifted a pen in the history of the game. Bored with rugby, bored with the Wallabies, bored with the World Cup, these days Greg takes his cheque for stalking the coaching and admin staff. For late comers, our Greg’s obsessiveness over all things trivial off-field is in perfectly inverse proportion to his abject lack of interest in the substance of the game itself.

To come to my point, so bored is Greg Growden with Australian rugby, this week he’s been breathlessly promoting Robbie Deans as the next Wallaby coach. That’s right. While the Wallabies prepare for the biggest games of their lives in the globe’s second biggest football tournament, our Greg thinks that this is all so shit-boring that he wants to spark debate about the next World Cup. The nub is that Shrinkden Growden says Deans’ appointment is virtually a “done deal”.

Let’s get some perspective. The idea of importing a Wallaby coach from New Zealand implicitly says that there is no such thing as an Australian way of playing rugby or, if there is, that it should be junked. Greggy doesn’t realise that this is what he’s saying, of course. Greggy Poo doesn’t realise very much about anything at all. As every real rugby fan knows, it remains that countries have their own traditions in playing the game. The Pommies play 10-man rugby, the French play with flair, the Boks play dirty, the All Blacks specialise in forward power and the Wallabies play … yes, the running game, the great game, the Australian game.

The question about whether Deans should be invited to coach the Wallabies is really a question about whether Australian rugby should converge with All Black rugby. I think this would be sad beyond tears, for, like most Oz fans, I love the running game. OK, I agree that there may be a decent argument to be had about all this. That’s not my point. The idiocy in this, the capital crime here, is that the SMH‘s so-called “chief rugby reporter” is garrulously pontificating on a subject about which he doesn’t have a friggin’ clue. Let’s hope John O’Neill does.

Update: The only silver lining in the SMH‘s appalling rugby coverage is that it makes work for the Australian, where the excellent Bret Harris cleans up Growden’s ugly mess on Deans and other sundry figments of the Herald nutjob’s imagination today. At ease tragics. All that has happened is that the ban on a non-Australian coaching the Wallabies was removed during the Flowers era, making it theoretically possible that Deans could get the job. As it is also clear that Deans wants to coach the All Blacks, and as this is likely to happen after the Blacks repeat their fatal propensity to choke come World Cup time, the running game looks safe. If the loathsome Greg Growden reports on the World Cup, I’m switching to buying the Australian, exclusively, for the first time in my life.

Update: Nick Farr-Right Jones calls it like it is: ‘”Sitting in the dressing shed with five minutes to go before a test with a Kiwi coach doing the revving up … I don’t think so’. Farr-Jones said the risk of tinkering with the very fabric of Wallabies’ culture was too great to pursue Deans, despite the success enjoyed by the Canterbury Crusaders mentor.” See also, analysis by Jim Parker in comments. Meanwhile, back in the real world, England has served notice, opening its season with a record breaking win against an understrength Wales. No 8, Nick Easter, led the way. Danger Man, Jonny Wilkinson, kicked 7 conversions and a penalty.

Effectively, it has come to pass that the personal credibility of the Prime Minister as an economic manager has been completely blown out of the water. Either that is true, or the Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, has no credibility as a witness.

The very person who the government must depend upon for public credibility as an economic manager has not only seized its entire reputation on this for himself. On his own word, he forged that very reputation despite John Howard, who couldn’t manage interest rates and always threatened ruin with profligate election spending.

In one foul biographical swoop, Peter Costello has robbed John Howard of his critique of Kevin Rudd on economic management, the only weapon left in the government’s armoury. Don’t take my word for it. Ask the Treasurer.

No doubt everyone on the government’s side of the political fence will mumble their way through this disaster, gesticulating about what punters think, growing weepy over the great political partnership, praying for rabbits, hats, and so on.

From where I sit, the only credible conservative political option in the wake of this disclosure is for Howard to retire for Costello. This would induce a honeymoon and tighten the race, which would, at the least, save some of the furniture.

Will Ratty go? How hard has the araldite set on the prime ministerial bottom? The sight of a besieged monarch fighting his way to the gallows would be ugly.