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 
“Not sure how that was only 1 red.”
One of them remembered to make a wish.
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@yosoy, cheers. It will probably compound the problem knowing my luck. Bloody iTunes.
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‘Mon ra Weedge!
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@BB, I concur
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Just watched today’s game. Should’ve been a red and (at least) a yellow.
Too easy for South Africa. A shame for them it went to uncontested scrums so early.
Polledri looked superb ball in hand in the first half. Thanks to his team-mates’ crass play not a chance.
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Doesn’t look like Kebble is coming back, big loss, he melted Samson Lee in the first scrum
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Schoolboy errors from Glasgow
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Sounds like a stonking game at Scotstoun…..
6-6 at the break.
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I really hate that, a penalty is conceded in the red zone and the defence then just lie all over the ball knowing nothing worse will come of it.
It should accumulate, there were three or four offences from Scarlets in that maul and ensuing ruc
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@ticht
It’s sometimes a disadvantage having advantage. Makes it so easy for defending teams because they can commit rugby murder and they’ll get punished for only the original offence.
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Yos, yep.
I like the term committing rugby murder
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Jackson has been poor and Scarlets profit from his shite kick
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Good score from Scarlets, mind
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Jackson to rugby gaol for that kick. Criminal.
Kieran Hardy is a good prospect. Forget the world class hookers, the Turks have been producing good scrum halves for a long, long time.
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Brad Mooar wearing the sort of cap that is la mode in Carmarthen mart. That’s going full Turk.
Purple patch here for the… er… Scarlets.
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Scarlets looking much the better side at the moment, it’s hard to see a way back for Glasgow at 9-20, they just have no idea of how to get beyond Scarlets’ rush defence
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I did wonder about the cap, Yos, you’d think he’d get one that fitted him, mind
Scarlets in again ffs
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Stuff it, I’m opening the wine
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Ticht! Mon, the wine was opened fackin hours ago.
Glasgow suffering from World Cup Missing Player Syndrome.
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Glasgow score!
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About bloody time….
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Lovely pass out the back by Jones.
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Glasgow in massive comeback excitement!
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Well, that lineout was Ulsteresque….
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(Except it came back on the Glasgow side.)
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Oh dear! Dropsies. Well, LBP at least.
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Ah bollox. At least we’ll be better when the season starts….
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Jamie Dobie brought that back for Glasgow. Promising kid.
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Bit more one sided in Dublin: 53-5 to Glory over the Ospreys.
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Yos – blimey. And that’s with a significant proportion of their first-choice players away.
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@Yos – gets it out of the way. Good fixture to have at this point. Thought Lydiate at lock could have made all the difference, but obviously wasn’t to be…
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@CMW
I didn’t watch it but I’ve heard they’ve picked up a few injuries, including the luckless Baker and the brand new lock.
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Thought Baker had disappeared for good (and didn’t know why though he hadn’t kicked on at all from a promising start). Popular with the Ystradgynlais contingent a while back.
Thaum’s surprise is surprising. Almost anyone would have roughly gone for that scoreline I’d have thought.
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And in the big game of the evening Cardiff Legends A lost 12-16 to Scarlets A. The A team competition is great for the young talent – like Scarlets new signing Ryan Lamb – to get some game time.
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CMW – I know the Bad Guys have despicable depth, but I thought even they would be hamstrung by missing players.
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@Thaum – they still have some good ones (including Fardy and Lowe as they still sign top level foreigners which is something that hasn’t happened in Wales for some time) and no useless ones though. Pretty much all the O’s good players are missing and they would struggle to beat Leinster B away even if they had them. If they win a game in the international windows this season home or away against anyone other than Kings/Drags/Italians it will be a miracle.
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“Jamie Dobie brought that back for Glasgow. Promising kid.”
Slipped through Edinburgh fingers, sadly, he looks a likely lad.
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Think Leinster have 14 players at the world cup and the O’s 9. Leinster probably have about 30-odd players you can imagine winning the league with while the O’s have fewer than 9.
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Os seem to be a bit in freefall, and it started last season.
Drags meanwhile treading water as usual – on the ocean floor.
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Plus another 3 or 4 ex-Leinster players at other Provinces – Conway, Beirne, Murphy and I think one more. And Leavy injured. Horrible depth.
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Carberry, duh.
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Have been watching this thing below. One of the fellas being interviewed looks very very unwell:
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I’d like to see a real life account of Leinster’s budget, they have an amazing depth of talent and hold on to the very best of what their academy produce.
I was just thinking today about how many times Sexton appears in away games in the league compared to T14 first choices – I was thinking particularly about Finn, but it goes for the teams across the board.
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@Iks – last season was quite a bit better than the previous one. They’ve been poor for a few years in a sort of not-too-bad one year, utter shite the next way. Haven’t really been genuine contenders (I know they’ve made semi-finals, but stand by this) since the last time they won the league with a very good team in very good style.
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@TomP – he looks in similar shape to quite a few folk wandering aimlessly round my work this week. He’ll be OK in the end. Sort of. Maybe. My week had a major upturn this morning when at the last moment I spotted a dead rat on the pavement on the way to work and managed to just avoid stepping on it. Something of a highlight I have to say.
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Need some music to cheer me up.
This’ll do….
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@BB – did my rat story not cheer you up? Disappointing.
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@BB – agreed with you about the Eddie and the Hot Rods song, in case that helps.
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I did once step on a drowned rat on leaving work at lunchtime. Then sat in the city centre eating a sandwich and was shat on by a bird.
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