Will Scotland benefit from playing at home? Will Ireland be able to achieve what the world’s number one team were unable to do playing at Twickenham? Answers on a postcard. Or below the line.
International rugby on the telly this weekend
Saturday 24th August
- Scotland v France 13:10 Premier Sports 2
- England v Ireland 14:15 (kick-off 15:00) Sky Sports Action & Sky Sports Main Event
Ovally Balls 
@yos
The only game in that pool I don’t have a modicum of fear over is Russia.
Our flakiness and lack of consistency could really do us over. Japan in the last game may well be make or break time.
Maybe I should have more faith in the ladz
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Pool B is probably the most predictable 2 qualifiers.
Probably followed by D. Fiji don’t seem to be exactly flying at the moment even though there’s talent there. Georgia a bit too one dimensional to seriously challenge.
England will likely top pool C. Would say France to qualify but Argentina seem to have a habit of beating France and turning up at world cup time. USA to battle but come 4th.
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Skinner oot, Swinson “invited to train with the squad”
Big Richie not getting a look in.
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@Yosoy
Samoa have lost to the USA in their last two games against them.
They also struggled to even qualify for the tournament.
They are really crap at the moment. They will not trouble Ireland or Scotland at all. Japan will also run them ragged,
@Chimpie
USA would be expected to beat Tonga, but they have a short turnaround before that fixture.
Ps. I watched most of the games in last months PNC.
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Swinson in? Whit?
Has Larger Gray shat in Toonie’s porridge or summat
Skinner is a loss, he was looking good.
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@’pro
Watched a few of of the PNC games. Samoa didn’t look great but they’ve got a few decent players in there and may improve come WC time. never underestimate Scotland’s ability to be flaky.
Japan looked in fine fettle.
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Lunchtime touch rugby season off to a VERY good start as the White T-shirts overcome the Colour T-shirts in a hard fought 12 tries to 10 victory. Cardiff Legend yosoy led the scoring for the Whites with 4 tries, the pick of them being all 4.
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My knees really hurt.
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Chimpie, Larger Gray seemingly turned down the chance to join the squad as he has just become a new dad, which is fairy nuff, though at 30 years of age he probably won’t get another chance to play in a world cup.
However, he probably factored in that he would just be holding tackle bags for a week, it’s not a real shot at the squad which is announced in six or seven days time
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Yeah offer of a week to hold bags would be great for a youngster, but when your established, older and just had a wean it’s not tempting when you’ve little chance of making the squad.
Fairynuff from his POV. I’d have liked to see him in the squad though, still think he’s got a lot to give.
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Gee.. Richie Gray seems to have gone – in my eyes anyway – from up-and-coming young thing to not getting “another chance to play in a world cup” in a flash
(could say same of myself I suppose – another bloody birthday next week…where does the time go?)
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As I’m here – didn’t see the ENG vs IRE game (fortunately) at the weekend – away with the family in west Clare – dolphin watching and swimming in “pollock holes” (google it) – so luckily we were a bit out of contact.
Difficult to know if they’re undercooked or possibly over cooked – Autumn 2017 to Autumn 2019 had pretty much unprecedented success for Irish rugby (extend that back to summer 2017 for the guys with the Lions) – maybe everyone else was taking it handy while we blew ourselves up….
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quiet today, innit?
Chimpie’s ruminations on the Scottyland squad
LH: Dell nailed on. Think Reid probably in second place as a solid Scrummager, Bhatti may have played himself out after the previous week.
Hooker: Rambo, Brown (if fit) nailed on with large nails, then, although his darts and discipline concern me a bit, Turner. Stewart’s time will come at some point.
TH. Nel, Z-Fags, Berghan probably covering LH aswell.
Locks: J-Gray, Gilcho, Toolis, Cummings (would probably have been Skinner over Toolis or Cummings but for injury).
BR: Tough one. Watson nailed on. Otherwise a bit open . Would personally go for Bradbury, Thompson (think he showed up well on sat), Ritchie & M-fags. Sacrilege I know with no Barclay, legend that he is. Strauss has certainly played himself out. Reckon Toonie will go with Wilson & Barcs though, strangely he won’t pay heed to my opinion.
SH: Greig (someone’s got to referee), Price & Mini-Horne
FH: Finn & Hastings
Centre: Johnson, R-Hutch, Jones & Taylor (Reckon Toonie will go with Horne, Taylor, Johnson & possibly Harris – had his best game for Scotland on Saturday)
Back 3: Hogg, Maitland, Seymour, Darce (harsh on HornKing but can’t leave Darce out)
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‘The 29-year-old become a father to son Ostin at the end of May.
“Due to family reasons and returning from injury, he decided he couldn’t commit to the World Cup,” Wilson added.’
Ah, I take it from that it wasn’t necessarily Toonie’s choice to leave him out of the original squad. Big decision to make but probably a sensible one from a personal point of view as that would have been months away at a critical time.
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@trisk
I was just thinking the same thing. I’ve still got it in my head he’s early 20s or something.
Stupid time.
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You’ve got 30 in your squad I think, Chimpie. 17 forwards and 13 backs. Room for one more. I’d sling Seymour out for Kinghorn. Barclay must go. Highly intelligent player and you may well need some of those smarts.
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Silly me
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Most of the RWC squads named so far (that I can be bothered to research) have gone for a 17/14 split. Italy have gone 18/13.
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A rumour that South Africa are going to tap up Felix Jones to be their new attack coach.
Note to Deebee: FJ was attack coach at Munster – famed for their glorious all-out attack play.
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Ha. He’ll fit right in with the boks. Pill – roosting & biffing.
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Yosoy, 17/14 seems the better mix for me, the short turn around between games means there will be a fair number of knocks in the forwards, but 18/13 is taking a risk of exposing your backs.
Skinner getting winged was a shame for him and for us, but I think our squad is pretty flexible
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@yos,
Fiji went 18-14, no?
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@tomp
That’s the kind of rule breaking I respect.
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France for their final warm up v Italy:
Maxime Medard; Damian Penaud, Sofiane Guitoune, Wesley Fofana, Gael Fickou; Romain Ntamack, Antoine Dupont; Louis Picamoles, Yacouba Camara, Wenceslas Lauret; Romain Taofifenua, Arthur Iturria; Rabah Slimani, Camille Chat, Jefferson Poirot (capt)
Replacements: Guilhem Guirado, Cyril Baille, Emerick Setiano, Felix Lambey, Francois Cros, Baptiste Serin, Virimi Vakatawa, Thomas Ramos
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That one is 8:10pm Friday on Premier Sports, btw.
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Evenin’ troops.
This is going to be fun…..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-49475108
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England have gone with a 17-13- Ben Youngs split;
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That’s a brilliant initiative BB, but you can just see in your mind’s eye what’s going to happen with some of those iPads.
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Ticht – Oh, I can very well imagine. The whole thing is shrouded in secrecy – no-one seems to know exactly when these things will arrive and start being used. It might also mean that I’ll lose some of the computers in my library. Which won’t necessarily be a bad thing.
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Also – do you ever happen to watch the Repair Shop? Tonight’s programme has a luthier fixing up the bass guitar used by the bass player from Hot Chocolate!
Amazingly, I’m in agreement with a Heritage article about the programme…
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2019/aug/26/most-moving-show-television-we-should-all-watch-the-repair-shop
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BB
Well, at least they’ve done some thinking.
It’s my view that if some of the kids find ways to thwart the security, then the project will have succeeded. :-)
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Yep, the mister is partial to the Repair Shop. Think I’ve seen that episode.
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Thaum – it will be the same firewall that the council currently use – which umpteen kids have managed to get round over the years! But they finally get found out – usually by a grumpy librarian!
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Well, it’s practically impossible to police the entire internet, unless you go down the route of only allowing approved sites, which is ridiculous.
I trust you will be sneakily adding this site to the Favourites list of all fruit-based tablets that fall into your hands.
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Been looking at tonight’s football fixtures. Hadn’t realised the FA Cup had started so checked out the results from the weekend as this evening there are replays. My eye was drawn to Romania FC. There are non-league outfit founded by, um, Romanians 13 years ago. Nice story: http://fcromania.com/history/
Absolute favourite player is left midfielder Maradona Chiriac.
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I must say I’ve never been tempted by a tablet myself; it’s my opinion that they’re mostly for technological know-nothings like managers. And I very rarely use my phone for anything other than calls / texts / photos; I drag my laptop with me whenever I travel. I like to have a proper computer.
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There will be some subjects that will be able to use the new technology well – I have a Travel & Tourism class in most days, and a lot of that is checking out travel websites, etc. But English do a lot of typing in the senior years for folio work – we are ‘supposed’ to be getting blue tooth keyboards. How that’s going to work, who’s going to keep the keyboards (coz I’m not), plus they’re changing the printers, classrooms are getting Apple TVs and we’re even changing phones!
The school librarians are supposed to be getting ipads too (from a different source, as we’re not part of education even though we work IN education), so that will be fun getting used to.
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Thanks for the heads up on that programme, BB.
I watched it up to the guitar going back to the owners, but I’ll check it out again, it’s a nice gentle sort of show.
The guy had absolutely the right idea about fixing the bass up – in fact there is a whole side of the industry that spends a lot of time making brand new guitars look old, and people pay three times and more the new cost for someone to bash it about for them.
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World Cup Watch
Georgia beat Southern Kings 24-20, presumably it was a second string team they had out
Jersey beat Russia 35-22 in Moscow.
Speaking of which, anyone seen a young (for here) prop, formerly of Jersey, now in Embra?
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BB – interesting; good to have the perspective of someone working with this!
Are there really ‘travel and tourism’ courses? Erm, wouldn’t history and geography cover that territory, or is all how to get the best deal for the Costas and the drinks?
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Yup. I tend to see S5/6 classes doing it – usually consisting of 3 or 4 pupils who can rush through the course in a couple of months, and about a dozen kids who’ve landed in the class coz they either can’t do anything else or don’t want to do anything else and spend the year faffing about.
https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/65337.html
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Oh I see, it’s for people interested in working in the industry rather than ‘how to find the hottest beach for your tan and cocktails’. Still a bit dodgy imo.
When I were in high school – this was in the US – the school district owned a farm, and had a farming course that got you two science credits (you had to get a certain number of credits in various disciplines to get your high school diploma). The course was mostly populated by the bampots, and a couple like me who were quite interested in farming but also thought it would be a bit of a breeze, as it was.
I’ll never forget the module on the various methods for castrating sheep, one of which involved a knife and your teeth.
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How to artificially inseminate a cow has also stuck in the old memory banks.
First, put on the shoulder-length glove. Then clear out the shit from the intestine, as you stick your arm up there to feel where the insemination rod is going. Try not to get kicked….
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ticht,
The Kings were winning that pretty handily until a late Georgian comeback. You can watch it here: https://1tv.ge/en/news/georgia-vs-southern-kings/
This is the Kings warm-up for the Pro14. The Cheetahs topped the Currie Cup log with their lads and have a semi-final coming up with the Sharks. The Cheetahs’ll either be knackered or well up to speed by the time Pro14 comes around. Could be a tough staff for Glasgow.
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I think Dad was glad he was a shepherd and rarely worked with cattle.
Mind you, when castrating male lambs he usually just used a rubber ring….
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My boss in France moved there as an artificial inseminator, then when he was there he found there was a huge demand for fencing contractors, and the rest as they say…
I always kept artificial inseminator in the back of my mind as an answer in case I was ever asked by a stand up comedian what I did for a living, you know the way they do to use you as a butt for a few jokes, I thought being an AI would throw them, I was going to say I was a turkey wanker. Never got the chance.
Mind you, the quick ones are good. I was at a comedy club where a magician/comedian was working and he asked a guy who was a wee bit tipsy and loud what he did for a living. “I’m a magician” the guy said.
“Well fuckin disappear then” came the reply.
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Tam, I hope the Kings and Cheetahs do show up well, they been very poor so far in the competition and it’s made a bit of a mockery of it to be honest. Aye they’ve had a couple of shock results, but normally those fixtures are bankers for the opponents.
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Cheetahs were ok their first season, reached the play-offs, but, yeah, must do better. The Kings have got some money now and have attracted some players to PE. Cheetahs have got a few lads from Western Province / Stellenbosch University, plus the splendid Ruan Pienaar’s back in Bloemfontein.
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I had forgotten about Pienaar, I imagine there were a few hopeful glances from Belfast when he quit France.
He is getting on a bit now, mind, great player though.
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BB – the rubber ring was another option. Less stressful for the castrator, but surely much worse for the sheep.
The bloodless burdizzos seemed the most humane option. Nowhere in any of this was anaesthetic mentioned, mind you.
Pienaar! I did not know he’d quit France. I hope he returns to Belfast some day as a coach or something.
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