Here comes the World Cup! Oh, and an English Premiership Cup match too.
Exciting rugby on the telly this week
Friday 20th September
| Japan 30 – 10 Russia | 11:45 | ITV / S4C |
Saturday 21st September
| Australia 39 – 21 Fiji | 05:45 | ITV |
| France 23 – 21 Argentina | 08:15 | ITV |
| New Zealand 23 – 13 S Africa | 10:45 | ITV |
| Exeter 28 – 14 Bath | 15:15 | BT Sport 3 |
Sunday 22nd September
| Italy 47 – 22 Namibia | 06:15 | ITV |
| Ireland 27 – 3 Scotland | 08:45 | ITV |
| England 35 – 3 Tonga | 11:15 | ITV |
Monday 23rd September
| Wales 43 – 14 Georgia | 11:15 | ITV / S4C |
Tuesday 24th September
| Russia 9 – 34 Samoa | 11:15 | ITV4 |
Wednesday 25th September
| Fiji 27 – 30 Uruguay | 06:15 | ITV4 |
Thursday 26th September
| Italy 48 – 7 Canada | 08:45 | ITV4 |
| England 45 – 7 USA | 11:45 | ITV |
Ovally Balls 
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Wotcha.
It’s been a, er, something World Cup so far.
Ratings
NZ: Good
SA: Good
Italy: Good
Ireland: Good
Wales: Good
Japan: Meh
Scotland: Shit
Tonga: Shit
France: Shit
Argentina: Shit
Georgia: Shit
Namibia: Shit, obviously.
Russia: Shit
England: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? Utter shit.
Caveat- missed Australia v Fiji, so as much as I’m tempted to say they’re both shit cos reasons, that’s probably unfair.
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Am deeply worried that the Blackness are going to stroll this.
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Cat – Trudeau ain’t playing
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Also, should I do upper cathedral ward or the nightmares next?
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Have you got the key for UCW from Yhargul?
If you have, then do that next. The Nightmares aren’t particularly hard, but UCW is short, scary as fuck and loads of fun. There’s a dirty cheesy trick to avoid having to fight all the brainsuckers I can tell you if you struggle. Just make sure you spend all your insight before you go there.
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On the basis of the second half shouldn’t the Wales rating be Good/Shit?
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I was tempted to downgrade them to Shit too for that, but on the balance of everything, I think they can have a Good rating. It’ll be the last one I give them.
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@Craigs- also you need the gesture from UCW before you go to Mensis. Well, you don’t, depends if you’re interested in the Chalices or not, but it’s essential if you want to kill Queen Yharnam.
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Yep. And I’ve switched on the shortcut at the nightmare of mensis. Reckon I can go to the amygdala in the frontier too. I just went the wrong way and was fucked up by a winter lantern.
I’ve been into the ucw and got to the wolves and brain suckers. Then got scared and went into the chalice dungeons.
Then I went on holiday and took a hiatus for about 2 months.
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Do I want to kill the Queen of Yharnam though? 🤔
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Released my feelgood update too early.
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You do. The whole stinking mess is arguably her fault. Also, there’s some new bosses and shit. Even if the Chalices are a chore. But you get the best weapon gems in the chalices.
And who doesn’t want to fight Amygdala with only half your health…
You’re not far from Micolash in the main story now, but you need the Blood Rock from Mensis that you can get after killing the twat. It is inordinately hard to get though- multiple winter lanterns and some precise jumping.
You have left: the Celestial Emissary (UCW), Ebby (UCW), Amygdala (NF), Micolash (Mensis), Wet Nurse (Mensis). Then a bit of admin- getting the umbilical cords- then Gherman if you choose to, and the Moon Presence (if you got the cords).
Are you going to do the Old Hunters- I wouldn’t even dream of attempting it below Blood Level 100- but NG+ opens that up.
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With the chalices do I keep following them further and further down? Need to do some vial farming as well iirc.
The biggest fucker was getting to the castle at mensis, then fighting all the spiders, then killing the hunter on the bridge.
So I cheated, ran past, found the shortcut and then went back and stabbed him in the back. And then hacked him over and over.
Love this game.
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That’s not cheating. That’s sensible.
He’s not actually that hard with the right weapon. He’s stupid and you can stunlock him. The run up to the castle with the giants is fucking hard though.
Next up you have the midgets (kill them all), with the two big guys before the lift (kill them). Some dogs, a second shortcut (hit it, it’s really easy to die by accident to Micolash) and the boss. You actually aren’t far. You’ve missed some chunks and some runes, but you don’t really need them.
The Chalices suck. You mostly have to do them all to get materials to keep farming. They aren’t actually that hard until you hit the Defiled Chalice. Then it’s a total nightmare. The rest of the story chalices are quite easy- Isz has the best farming spot in the game too.
Check the order, it’s online. The non story ones are procedurally generated, so in theory there’s infinite combinations of them.
What weapons are you using- The Axe still? Have you done Cainhurst?
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Been playing Arkham Knight. Which is not good. Someone forgot it was a Batman game and decided to make a tank simulator instead.
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Axe and Ludwigs blade. Little bit of tonnitrus thrown in.
Yeah, did Cainhurst. Isn’t there a brain to kill too
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Did you get the Evelyn?
The Brain is in Mensis, after Micolash. You need the “Make Contact” Gesture from UCW to get it to give up it’s thing. It’s not really a boss though.
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Yeah. Although I might have sold it. Why?
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Best gun in the game. By a lot.
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Will buy it then.
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Wait until NG+ Your timing will be off if you start with it now, and I think it’s quite expensive. You might have to level up Bloodtinge too, which definitely is not worth it at this stage.
Your goal is to max your main weapon. Don’t worry about the sidearms.
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Best get cracking on the ucw.
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Rugby World Cup’s on. Hurray. Time to break open the Bloodborne chat.
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Tomp – sorry, we’re we interrupting something?
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Pretty obvious what happened in that game. Think we would have biffed them if we’d been on it properly second half. Georgia did a good job, though.
Terrific cameos from both reserve 9s.
The Georgian 10 inherited Madigan’s hair.
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Ffs, autocorrect.
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‘snot really been a huge amount to say after round 1. There’ll be more after round 2. Particularly if England don’t improve, then the self-flagellation will start in earnest.
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I suppose we could bag on Scotland’s utter ineptitude (probably the single worst effort so far), but that would involve complimenting Ireland. And nobody really wants to do that, either.
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One thing related to what ticht mentioned on the previous page about the Watson injury. The ruck in almost every game is a disaster. Most of the penalties for holding on today were after the defending jackal had his hands on the ground before going for the ball. Wales got some, Georgia got others. The best way to remove those big lads is coming in from the side and that will cause injuries. It’s a horrible situation.
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” then the self-flagellation will start in earnest”
Once a public schoolboy, always a public schoolboy.
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I’m actually not that bothered about England’s performance. There was not a lot on the line.
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Ha, Kitty, Ireland have produced probably the best display of round 1, and as such are nailed on for the Final. Kind of amused by the Pros comments after he watched the highlights, cos in the highlights they looked to be playing a great brand of free flowing, off loading, foot dancing rugby. Was only in the full game that you could see the imperious grinding of Scottish hopes into dust with Sag pleasing, forward driving retention game.
England? Yep, be very afraid. Start loading up on the liniment to soothe those weals. Cat o’ nine tails ? Particularly liked the clip of Slade shouting at Daly for over running the pass, does this show up a fractured camp? Daly and Slade appeared to pretty much ignore each other. Its all coming down like a house of cards.
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I suppose we are all entitled to disagree.
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Anyways, time to get behind LOS TEROS.
http://uru.org.uy/
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@cat
“I suppose we could bag on Scotland’s utter ineptitude”
I know there’s a kind of theory out there that you can ‘get after’ Ireland’s defence by throwing the ball around
eg Wales vs Ireland in 2018 6N – where a game that was “in the bag” at 70 mins got quite tricky when Wales went wide as a last resort…and the earlier game vs Italy…
(Technically, if you get it right you can get after most teams that way)
But trying it from first minute seemed weird… I’m not an old-school “up the jumper” type but it’s the 1st game of the RWC, “must win” really – unless you fancy your chances vs NZ.
Ease into it – kick to the corner, compete at the lineout, pressure the defence and see they cough up an early pen or a scrum for a knock on … (ok I’m advocating playing the way Ireland do) .
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2011- England absolute pish v the USA in the first game. Said something along the lines of what Craig said.
2015- England mediocre against Fiji. Said something along the lines of what Craig said.
This time around, they were total pish against Tonga, and I’m kind of bored of this pattern now.
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And it was pissing it down too, to make it harder to play like this.
Ireland have given the best performance so far. Not that I particularly want to admit that.
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Mind, we were utter shit all thru the Pool stages in 2007, and nearly mugged the Boks in the final.
In fact, come to think of it, we were utter shit in the quarter and semi too.
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In 2011 the first game was v Argentina, no? England were pretty rubbish, mind.
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The 2003 England team had a few tougher than expected pool games.
And the 2007 team were heroes in the qf and sf. I don’t care what anyone says and no I’m not prepared to look at any evidence to the contrary.
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England have the highest points difference so far.
#awesome.
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“then the self-flagellation will start in earnest.”
Knives, pitchforks and torches are out big time for Toonie in sections of Scottish social media.
They seem to think we have some sort of entitlement to beat Ireland despite losing 19 of the 25 matches since we won the last 5N.
Ireland came into the tournament ranked no 1 in the world, their provinces have won 7 Heineken Cups, been runner up 3 times and have won 11 league titles since 1999.
We’ve had one league title and a couple of silvers.
We are a very easy side for Ireland to beat as we just need to be squeezed a little to put us off the high tempo all singing and dancing game, basically our defence is very poor and we just don’t have the fizzy cality or street smarts to do to others what the ABs did in rope-a-doping South Africa on Saturday.
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“And it was pissing it down too, to make it harder to play like this”
Our U14s played a game earlier this year – 10-0 down at ht. Lashing down – no let up at all. 2nd half with the wind – just kicked long and waited for oppo to drop the wet ball in their 22. Win the scrum (which is pretty much a given at U14s with the put-in – limited push allowed), put the bigger lads in the 10-12-13 channel and truck it up to close to the line and go wide when the defence got sucked in… won 15-10
It wasn’t great rugby in one way in that French/Fijian “run it from anywhere” style – but it was great in that they “played the conditions” and admirable that they worked it out for themselves – made no attempt whatsoever to run any ball in their own half, put boot to ball and let the opponents self destruct.
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This why I like Rugby. More than any other team sport it seems that you have to adapt to the conditions and/or opposition.
And things like precision, control, knowing what to do at certain times, having a strong set piece, doing the basics right (Ireland) is far more important than flair most of the time. You can’t have one before the other.
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“The 2003 England team had a few tougher than expected pool games.”
Well, essentially England had peaked around dishing out that thrashing to Ireland in Dublin in the 6N and the 13-man resistance vs NZ – they seemed to be on a fairly sharp decline from that high point that meant 2003 RWC was never the gimme it had appeared to be 6 months earlier
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Trisk – which is why they are heroes. To a man.
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SunbeamTim:
– I think Daly is under pressure from Eddie with the switch of Slade to Fullback.
Eddie wants Slade on the pitch and egos are starting to clash – All good early Tourni stuff. It will either oblige Daly to up his game at 15 or, barring injuries, compete for a wing slot. When CJPN is back (an Eddie favorite) then wing is looking pretty crowded.
Slade will play at least part of every game at 13/15 imho………………………
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These look great: https://global.canon/en/event/rwc2019/special/viewpoint.html
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@ticht
“They seem to think we have some sort of entitlement to beat Ireland”
Just thinking back to the last few 6N games – 2017, Ireland arrived late to the ground and pretty much arrived late to the match too – what was it 21-5 down after 30 mins. 2018 – Scotland wasted a few good chances before Ireland pulled themselves together (it was only 7-0 after 40 – Ireland got a try in injury time). 2019 – it was 12-10 Ireland at halftime which included one gift ..
So if you look at it “glass half full” – there were some grounds for optimism…. flip side was that in 6N Ireland did keep Scotland fairly quiet – the try was an intercept and only score the second half was a pen.
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