Week One has provided some excellent rugby, dodgy refereeing and unfortunate injuries.
I think we can all unite around Uruguay as WC champions.
Other competitions are also starting up, so cancel all engagements and be prepared to spend your entire weekend and parts of the midweek glued to the screen. Hopefully not literally.
For those of you who lack rugby preparation skills, let me remind you to order in adequate supplies of booze, fags and possibly food.
Exciting rugby on the telly this week
Friday 27th September
| Cheetahs 48 – 14 Glasgow | 18:05 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ulster 38 – 14 Ospreys | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Leicester 27 – 7 Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 28th September
| Argentina 28 – 12 Tonga | 05:45 | ITV |
| Japan 19 – 12 Ireland | 08:15 | ITV |
| South Africa 57 – 3 Namibia | 10:45 | ITV |
| Northampton 32 – 36 Wasps | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Munster 39 – 3 Drags | 15:00 | Freesports / TG4 |
| Southern Kings 27 – 31 Cardiff Blues | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Scarlets 18 – 10 Connacht | 17:15 | PS2 / S4C / TG4 |
| Treviso 27 – 32 Leinster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Edinburgh 50 – 15 Zebre | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 29th September
| Georgia 33 – 7 Uruguay | 06:15 | ITV |
| Australia 25 – 29 Wales | 08:45 | ITV / S4C |
Monday 30th September
| Scotland 34 – 0 Samoa | 11:15 | ITV |
Wednesday 2nd October
| France 33 – 9 USA | 08:45 | ITV4 |
| New Zealand 63 – 0 Canada | 11:15 | ITV4 |
Thursday 3rd October
| Georgia 10 – 45 Fiji | 06:15 | ITV4 |
| Ireland 35 – 0 Russia | 11:15 | ITV |
Ovally Balls 
@Ticht – we were a hell of a lot better against you than we are today.
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Just got lunch from a place called ‘inside mee’. I was going somewhere else but changed my mind.
Sex sells.
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Ticht, your boys really didn’t turn up to that game. Not sure about the reasons but they aren’t anywhere near as bad as they looked that day. You’ll cuff Russia and Japan no worries.
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Dova, we seem to be flakier that a suggestive tv ad featuring a young woman inna field.
We’ll get the BP against Russia but that final game against Japan is up for grabs
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The extra e on Mee is intriguing. What are they selling?
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Unless the Ref does you like he did Ireland, obviously.
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Malaysian. Looks nice.
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Shelled a try there. Several more handling errors. Wild.
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It was good Laz. I had rice with beef rendang, anchovies and egg. I now have an hour meeting with my boss in a small room.
Who doesn’t want to be him?
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More handling errors.
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Russian 7 deserves PotM. It’ll probably go to Sexton.
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More handling errors again.
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Several more.
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Boring scoreline.
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Rating: shit.
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The knock on to finish was a demonstration of artful honesty.
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I expect the Cat will be along later to update the overall ratings.
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I’m worried about Craigs’ boss.
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I’m more worried about people sharing a train carriage with Craigs later on
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Tombstone teamsheet
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Whats that all about?
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Fuckssakes. Used wrong account. Can someone delete that for me:
I see no reason to change any ratings so far this week. France were utter shit yesterday for a long time. So they don’t get to go up to Meh. Ireland were utter shit today (apparently).
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Bastard Andromedans. Coming over here and eating our galaxy.
‘The vast Andromeda galaxy, next to ours, has a violent past that will culminate in it eating our Milky Way, astronomers say.
The galaxy’s powerful past has seen it eat several smaller galaxies just as it will go on to swallow ours, researchers say.’
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Build a wall I say
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“‘The vast Andromeda galaxy, next to ours, has a violent past that will culminate in it eating our Milky Way, astronomers say.”
I thought there was so much space that the two would simply pass through one another …..where’d I hear that then?
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Gravity, innit.
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Hi Cat!
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/03/every-angelina-jolie-film-performance-ranked
Bye Cat!
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Comment on Ireland’s performance on the Graun:
Yes, it was only Russia, but a statement needed to be made after the Japan defeat. Pre-match, they talked like Dirty Harry, but today, they walked like Debbie Harry!
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only upside to today’s performance is we’re not ‘peaking’ at the group stage like 2011 and 2015 (unless Scotland was the peak……)
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He survived.
However, I’m more worried about what the food from Inside Mee is doing inside me right now.
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Huge match for the Boks tomorrow. Lose and we’re out. My cerebral analysis says we should stuff Italy quite comfortably, they’re not in our league, don’t have the depth blah blah blah, we’ve started to click under Rassie yada yada yada, but my gut (engorged by some rather tasty morsels at the conference lunch, courtesy of the government and taxpayer) says this could be a banana skin of hilarious proportions (if you’re not a Bok supporter).
Of course I won’t be watching, because I’ll be driving down to Clarens in the Eastern Free State, which is lovely, but I’d much rather be watching the rugby!
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Deebs – some phrase about stuffing and holes comes to mind.
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Craigs – Toad in the Hole? Haven’t had that in ages. Now I want it. Badly. Not really the season for it here, but I want it.
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“Donald Trump’s remarks just now were extraordinary.
Trump, currently under investigation for urging Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, again encouraged Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. On live tv.
Not only that, the president then urged China to investigate Biden.”
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Sounds like Trump’s been on the bidet again.
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Speaking of bidets, how you doing there Craigs old son? Keeping it all under control?
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@Deebee
Italy beat Canada by just 20 odd points fewer than the Darkness.
They’ve also been chucking the pill around a bit, with Campagnaro and Minozzi looking dangerous.
Their back row of Sergio, Polledri and Negri is really decent.
The Boks might have to wear them down and outmuscle them.
I know it’s only Namibia and Canada but things are clicking for Italy in ways I have not seen before.
Usually Italy struggle to pull away from the minnows without resorting to Ireland style rugby.
They have some jizz going on at the moment.
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Trump’s words make total sense from a political point of view. Make an impeachable statement in public, brazenly pretend it’s totally normal, dare the rest of the GOP to vote him out (they won’t, because cowardice). In an era of zero political shame and collapsing norms, it might just work.
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They will become one galaxy. It’ll take ages. The two central black holes will collide and become one bigger black hole. Solar systems in general will be unaffected in any material sense.
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Is Dirty Harry’s talk objectively better than Debbie Harry’s walk?
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Angelina has been in a weird mix of films. The GI effort was perfectly Oscary. Surprised it’s not top. Pushing Tin is great.
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I think ascribing that level of sense to Trump is dangerous. His brain isn’t normal.
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So, Ireland were shit, were they? Had to rely on live blog again, which did mention that the ball appeared to have been swapped for a large bar of soap. In any case, it’s job done for now, shit or not.
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@Thauma
Some reports suggest the humidity was a lot lower in Kobe today.
18 handling errors is certainly troubling.
Russia played with 13 men for a period in the second half and Ireland struggled to score.
I think it’s going to be hard to assess Ireland until the QF, when they can revert to type.
We know they excel at ‘tournament rugby’ so the struggles of the last two games might not matter.
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Expro – we’re not through yet. And if we do go through, we’ll be facing either the ABs or SA, which is not heartening for getting out of the QFs.
It could end up Japan v SA and Ireland v NZ. If that’s the case, GO UNDERDOGS!
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@yosoy, good to see Dan Baker there, but Lydiate at 4 is a bit surprising. A fair players I’ve never heard of, even by Drags standards.
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If it doesn’t embed, 3.21 – Picamoles leading with forearm / elbow 2x in quick succession
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Succinctly and (sadly) accurately put Chek. Take shame and responsibility out of the equation and you can act like Putin and most of the Middle East.
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A fair few players that should read, and my de ja vu is going off the scale with these posts.
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@Iksy
The 12, Tiaan Thomas-Wheeler, is worth keeping an eye on, although I think he’s still got another season of U20 rugby ahead of him.
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