There were no excuses because the conditions were ideal, but so frantic was the pace that without a steady hand or a sure touch mistakes were unavoidable.Stransky is normally the coolest head in such situations, but even he suffered in the general mediocrity and was not helped by Austin Healey’s erratic service from the base of the scrum Healey himself had reasonable grounds for complaining. After that the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, better known as the Doldrums, lies in wait. The first boat through will most likely be first into Fort Lauderdale after the race across the Caribbean trade winds. Last time the race was won and lost on this stretch when Chris Dickson lost his mast on Tokio and Ross Field found the fastest way across the Doldrums for an unassailable lead. One can only hope that similar changes in fortune will bring this race once again to the boil.. LAST week I lunched with a club owner whose views on rugby are well worth listening to.

There were, he contended, just two areas of discord between the top 12 English clubs and the Rugby Football Union. One was the structure of the domestic season, the other, the composition of English teams playing in Europe. Neither problem, he felt, was insurmountable, and both could be solved by reasoned debate and pragmatic compromise. Two days later, the clubs unveiled their laughably one-eyed vision for the future which, with monumental arrogance, seeks not only to control the game in England and Europe, but to dictate the terms for the playing of international matches as well.

So much for the reasonable face of club ownership.
What is really scary is that the men running the show seriously believe that they are professionals, yet their charter is pure fantasy. They have laid out extravagant plans for ground improvements, youth development and the creation of excellence when they are already up to their necks in debt just running their clubs. So how on earth do they intend to fund those grandiose schemes? From sponsorship and television? No way.The clubs want to be treated like their counterparts in football’s Premiership, blithely ignoring the fact that they are not exactly comparing like with like. Football’s elite are paid hundreds of millions of pounds by television to screen their product at peak viewing times.