Week Two made Irish eyes very sad. But Welsh eyes leeked with joy, when the Wallabies didn’t quite manage to hop into the lead in the second half. Uruguay failed to repeat their magic from Week One. Otherwise, the results were more or less as expected.
Week Three’s biggest clash is looking like England v Argentina, although no doubt there will be some surprises in the other fixtures.
We’ve also got some Pro14 and that English Premiership Cup thingy to look forward to.
Exciting (?) rugby on the telly this week
Friday 4th October
| S Africa 49 – 3 Italy | 10:45 | ITV4 |
| Glasgow 21 – 25 Scarlets | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Leinster 53 – 5 Ospreys | 19:35 | Premiers Sports 2 / TG4 |
| Worcester 19 – 34 Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 5th October
| Australia 45 – 10 Uruguay | 06:15 | ITV |
| England 39 – 10 Argentina | 09:05 | ITV |
| Japan 38 – 19 Samoa | 11:30 | ITV |
| Kings 20 – 31 Munster | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Zebre 28 – 52 Dragons | 17:00 | Freesports |
| Cheetahs 63 – 26 Ulster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Cardiff 11 – 19 Edinburgh | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 / S4C |
| Connacht 41 – 5 Treviso | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 / TG4 |
Sunday 6th October
| New Zealand 71 – 9 Namibia | 05:45 | ITV |
| France 23 – 21 Tonga | 08:45 | ITV |
| Northampton 28 – 54 Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
Tuesday 8th October
| South Africa 66 – 7 Canada | 11:15 | ITV4 |
Wednesday 9th October
| Argentina 47 – 17 USA | 05:45 | ITV4 |
| Scotland 61 – 0 Russia | 08:15 | ITV |
| Wales v Fiji | 10:45 | ITV/S4C |
Ovally Balls 
Well. Nastier.
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TomP – “Deebee, quite up to date in a way. They must have read Yuri Slezkine’s House of Government from 2017 that makes the Communism as religion argument.”
Yip. All faith and no logic or substance.
@Cat – other than Eben Etzebeth and his alleged involvement in institutionalised thuggery and racism, this is the nicest, gentlest Bok team imaginable. Lovely lads.
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Cuddly Boks v Cuddly Canada 1995 was just shown there
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Ticht, I agree with you on everything above.
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Maggie Alphonsi laying the smackdown in the dojo
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Except the ’95 bit. Dirty bloody Canadians. In a way though, it was great for our rugby as it thrust (Karl!) Chester Williams into the limelight and into the starting XV and made him an icon of modern SA rugby. Ironically, the iconic photo of Stransky’s drop goal has every Bok player in view, except Chester, hidden by the post.
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I am skeptical Deebee.
‘Snot a proper book side unless stocked with brutes, Neanderthals and possible serial killers. Or some combination of all 3.
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Book side? Fuckssakes. Fucking autocorrect.
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Brookside?
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It’s quite the obvious thing to say but in the amateur days there simply wasn’t time to practise back moves much beyond miss moves. Outside University teams no one could train too much. Hence why so many students got capped in the olden times.
Also the philosophy changed. Full backs before HO de Villiers and JPR weren’t used in attack but simply as last lines of defence. Another thing at the top level pitch and ball technology is far far better. Plus knowledge and information is more quickly and easily available so innovation can spread and be developed rapidly.
There would be something seriously wrong if rugby wasn’t better now than it used to be.
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“There would be something seriously wrong if rugby wasn’t better now than it used to be.”
The sport has been in a state of constant evolution since I first experienced it
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It’s quite something seeing big RG Snyman running on the open veldt
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Ah Kwagga, what might have been, a world cup in Japan when you could have been lining up against Zebre for Edinburgh
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I’ll take the steal then
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The government is now lying about what Merkel told Boris in a phone call.
This is not going to end well.
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Ticht, I’ve seen Gelant,Kwagga and Snyman off duty away from the rugby field. Snyman is an incredible size. Kwagga and Warrick muscular but normal human.
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Super individual effort from Cobus Reinach makes it three tries in ten miutes
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Don’t let up, amabokoboko. My avatar is resting on this.
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TomP, I went to a parents evening when my daughter was in her final year of secondary school, so 15 years old. One of her classmates was six eight or so (he hadn’t been measured for a while apparently)
He was athletically built and moved well, none of that awkward giraffe thing you see in some tall people. His game was basketball unfortunately
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Jesus. This is going to be horrible.
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Pro. I suspect they are lying. But what they are saying she said is actually true. they just want it to look like its the EU’s ‘opinion’ or ‘position’ rather than a self evident truth.
That truth being that in relation to the Irish border and the single market, any deal that doesn’t involve a customs union is effectively no deal, therefore a border and that this is a unique position the UK is in because of the particular issue at that border.
If only someone had thought of this and been saying it before eh.
They’ve got it in the public domain now though. Germany won’t let us leave properly. Quite blatant and quite scary tactics which will work a treat I’m sure.
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record score today? At least the highest of this world cup I reckon.
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They need to call this off.
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@pro
Have you got your mitts on the no deal readiness report yet?
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I’m going for 120 . SA cant keep up 94% possession surely?
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Ticht, I can imagine Snyman being quite the basketballer. Proper passing skills he’s got. I’ve mentioned this before but him and Schoeman in the same school pack is loads and loads of tight 5 handling skills.
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@Yosoy
Yeah.
The section on UK nationals living in the EU is rather different to what they told us in the referendum campaign.
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‘kinhell. Wonder when this starts being classed as a violation of the Geneva Convention.
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“Michael Gove in being Mendacious” Shocker. Join us after the ads for an in-depth look at the litany of falsehoods spewed out by everyone’s least favourite melted boglin.
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unlucky Canada.
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Can anybody offer me some reassurance that this couldn’t end up going very very badly. As in, proper violence?
Dom and Boris chose Merkel for a reason. They’re whipping up the ww2 fervour aren’t they?
What happens after no deal the first time fishing boats clash at sea? What’s likely to happen in NI?
What a feckin mess.
Hope I’m overreacting.
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That isn’t going to help, red card for Canada
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“Can anybody offer me some reassurance that this couldn’t end up going very very badly. As in, proper violence?”
Unfortunately all bets are off now, the language the Brexiteers are deliberately employing is in no way conciliatory
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Another red card for a T2 player in a game where the result is beyond doubt,
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@Ticht
Nigel arseface has just called for the EU to be ‘killed off’
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Silly boy. That’s going to exacerbate things.
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Oh, Canada
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@pro- while I tend to think it’s a shame that the T2 player got a red, I don’t think that one is really debatable.
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I honestly can’t believe the Boks are still playing Fat Franz Ferdinand. He seems to have been around forever. Mostly eating.
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Fattist joke kills blog. Wasn’t me, boss.
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I am not reassured.
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Ah well. Come on Canada!!
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Get In!!
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Just got out of a meeting. How far are Canada ahead by? Any chance we can reel them in with a superior bench? Am I being a dickhead? The answer is almost assuredly, and resoundingly, YES!
These matches are a bugger: as a Canadian rugby player I’d love to say I’ve played in a World Cup against the Boks/ABs/England etc and maybe even scored a try or kicked a few points, but on the other hand, all the Boks can get out of it is injuries and maybe keeping the bench players match fit for the bigger matches ahead. Does it serve the broader game well? I’m not sure. Would a World Cup with just the top 10 or 12 be a better tournament? I don’t think so. Not sure how/where one goes from here. Or possibly this complete mismatch masks the fact that the other Tier 2 and 3 sides haven’t actually been dicked to this degree and that progress can be achieved – look at Japan as the obvious example and look at the PI sides as the tournament has progressed, I suppose. Imagine what they could do with a large splodge of wonga and an honest administration, as Mark Thatcher may have said sitting in a jail cell waiting for extradition to Equatorial Guinea (it never, sadly, happened).
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Seems our best 12 has 2 on his back. What a waste of talent.
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Kwagga with an absolute howler there!
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I can’t believe the O’s didn’t give Hassler a contract
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Damian Willemse in for his 1st of the day. Entering dangerous territory for the Great KKK Bet.
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Pretty scrappy fare since I tuned in. Everyone looking for the glory step or pass.
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Crikey! Frans the Fatter gets a try in a Bok jersey! And he tackled someone earlier!
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