I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Rob Andrew but he certainly knows how to rub people up the wrong way:

“In no particular order, Andrew expressed his disquiet that the Welsh referee Nigel Owens had been sighted in the same hotel as the All Blacks prior to last weekend’s Test in Auckland, slammed the local media for inaccurate reporting, rubbished claims by Graham Henry that England had been cheating in the scrums and suggested that Richie McCaw should wear a white jersey to reflect the amount of time he spends in offside positions. In a couple of respects he may well have a point but his timing was hardly immaculate.

Had England actually won the first Test by a 17-point margin rather than been hammered 37-20 there might have been more high moral ground to seek. New Zealanders would have been too busy conducting an inquest to care about Andrew’s opinions, justified or otherwise. Instead, the former England fly-half has risked making the same error as Sir Clive Woodward on the 2005 Lions tour, failing to appreciate that winding up the locals does not win many international games in the southern hemisphere. All Blacks, like Australians, have no huge preference about whom they beat but, above all, they hate losing to England. To sledge them publicly is to galvanise them still further. If the English management were really clever they would smile broadly at every attempted slight and invite Henry around for tea and crumpets, rather than enter into the same old yah-boo-sucks routine.”

With thanks to the Guardian