'From ancient times to the present, dancers have expressed ideas, stories, and rhythm with their dance. They use a variety of dance forms that allow free movement and self-expression, including classical ballet, modern dance, and culturally specific dance styles. Many dancers combine performance work with teaching or volunteering in order to fulfil social imperatives.'

'Dancers work with choreographers, who create original dances and develop new interpretations of existing dances. Because few dance routines are written down, choreographers instruct performers at rehearsals to achieve the desired effect' -
Juillard Dance School.

Rugby, on the other hand, is not intended to be ballet, is it?

Rugby and ballet don't belong in the same sentence in my book but you'll be surprised to find theirs is a new era of rugby, I call it Rugbyish!

Performance Rugbyish is just like ballet. It's choreographed, bleeeauch !

When I hear that the Springboks design their outcomes for narrow margins against the Home Nations or that the All Blacks play a 'nail-biter' against Munster, I think WWF wrestling. I can't stand the stuff, I don't know about you.

Who wins in WWF wrestling? Is there ever a legitimate winner?

I mean, if a sporting commission investigated the 'rehearsed' nature of wrestling, I'm sure there wouldn't be too many raised eyebrows at the fixed nature of the sport. I don't watch it, so I don't care ... but rugby is something else.

Or is it ?

Rugbyish is a performance sport just like WWF wrestling and I hope a sporting commission can be established to look into this before it's too late.
Who wants to watch performance Rugbyish ?

I'm told that the Springbok squad will try to perform another 'nail-biter' this weekend against England and that two outcomes have been choreographed. (Don't read any further if you'd like the surprise!)

1.  South Africa will run it to the wire - a victory by less than seven points, only if England can't lift their clogs and win believably.

2.  South Africa will gift England a nailbiting victory, revenge for the RWC Final as a much-needed boost for Northern Hemisphere rugby.

Terrible isn't it ?

I'd much rather watch teams battle it out on merit but looking back through my rugby almanack, I'm left wondering. At what point did performance rugbyish take over the sport ?

The IRB should be shot at dawn, if you ask me!

But, what can we do ? Wherever you are, whoever you support, enjoy your SHOW this Saturday!