OvallyBalls can now reveal that our operatives have made secret recordings of discussions that took place some years ago. Names may have been changed to protect the not-that-innocent.
Wrigel Nay: Right, chaps, this salary cap is a bit awkward, eh what? If we are to DOMINATE the Premiership and the European Cup, we need you players. And obviously you won’t play as well if you’re not millionaires.
Basil ‘Bog’ Brush: Well, y’need the motivation. I coulda gone inta footba’, and got my money for nothing, and my chicks for free. In rugby, I have t’ make a lo’ o’ no-arms tackles, and tha’ stings a bi’ sometimes.
Maro Match (melodiously): Uhmm, I’ve got lots of arms; I’m like an octopus, mate. Uhmm, but every extra 100 grand grows another arm. Plus, it’s fodder for my political campaign chest.
The Puny Voles: We’ve got our private doctors and personal massage therapists to pay for. It’s not cheap being injured all the time. We are reduced to pretending to go on Z-list sleb programmes to survive. And it’s boring, so the finest Dom is in order.
Maro Match (melodiously): Uhmm, Classic Dom?
The Puny Voles: Nah, mate, Dom Pérignon.
Wrigel Nay: Don’t worry, chaps, I have a plan. You set up some limited companies, and we ‘invest’ in them in lieu of salary.
[Collective sound of gum-guard-sucking.]
Wrigel Nay: I’ll have my people contact your people to explain it all. [Drones on until everyone falls asleep.]
On the telly this week
Friday 8th November
| Connacht 11 – 42 Leinster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 2 |
| Edinburgh 20 – 17 Dragons | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Sale 28 – 18 Wasps | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 9th November
| France 10 – 20 England (women) | 13:10 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Gloucester 12 – 21 Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Zebre 7 – 31 Glasgow | 15:00 | Free Sports |
| Ospreys 14 – 16 Kings | 15:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Cardiff 30 – 17 Cheetahs | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1* / S4C |
| Munster 22 – 16 Ulster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1* |
| Scarlets 20 – 11 Treviso | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
*Both of these cannot be right. But that’s what the site says.
Sunday 3rd November
| Exeter 17 – 22 Bristol | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
” Some diesel we used to lubricate the bullhorns froze in the winter”
Think it goes gelatinous close to zero Celsius – hence the heating coil in your average car…. but freeze solid probably requires -10 to -20C….
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@Chimpie
Unfortunately not. Late 90s I was in Aus doing tourist flights.
Never flown the Arabian Gulf, and my SE Asia stuff was in the 00s
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Never driven a forklift though
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Think I’d take the north sea over slogging around in the middle of a baking desert. Nearly gave me heat exhaustion, that did.
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*goes on trip down memory lane*
Drilling rig I was on in Indonesia blew out about 2 weeks after I was on it. ’twas a bit fortunate for me, but quite a spectacular site according to people who witnessed it.
Some of those drilling rigs were right shiteholes, populated by some real morons. It was a good experience but not something I miss particularly.
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sight
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Speaking of cold, I heard something on the radio the other day, anyone under the age of 35 has never experienced a month of below average temperatures, apparently.
Which leads me on to a question raised at the “afters” of last night’s whisky tasting. I had to renew my residents parking permit yesterday, I don’t have any problem with paying for parking, it’s just one of these things. Nor do I really have a beef with having to pay a bit extra as my 2.4 litre Ford Galaxy is counted as “High Emissions”, but it did set me thinking, my car is 16 years old, do I account for more or less emissions than if I’d replaced it every three or four years?
It seems to me that the manufacture of cars would account for greater emissions than driving a big lunk of a thing that only does 30 mpg.
We came up with the idea that retro-fitting some kind of electric motor would be the ideal thing, what do youse lot think?
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What would be the carbon footprint of an electric motor and the disposal of your glorious 2.4 litre Ford engine? To be honest, I have no idea about the technical side of these things, but it does strike me that your footprint would be larger by replacing your vehicle every three years or so.
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“Drilling rig I was on….. blew out… populated by some real morons.”
I’m starting to see some self awareness in the llama.
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Yes ticht. Huge amount of embedded energy / emissions in car manufacture.
Got to account for everything in the life cycle, mining of the materials, refining, transport, operation of factories etc. I may have ranted about this before, but replacing a car every few years even if it is relatively efficient is not being in any way environmentally friendly. Not sure how the figures stack up exactly, but a 10-20% increase in efficiency over a few years is not going to make up for everything else in the manufacture over a short timescale.
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oooh, hangover boy wakes up.
Nice bit of cheese on toast should help with that throbbing heid, dry mouth tasting of poop & sick feeling.
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I’m fecking tired more than anything. Could have called in sick and slept forever.
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How do they sort out residency for this new player?
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https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/gloucester-rugby-stop-selling-beer-3515496.amp
Think this is a bit petulant/unnecessary from Gloucester. However this plays out, this is exactly the kind of thing that is going to create an ongoing sourness and nastiness in rugby for a long time.
Have also enjoyed the spectacular lack of self-awareness from Quins (Danny Care mostly) of all teams bitching about another team cheating.
At this stage as a Sarries fan, part of me would rather we just take the hit and create a fortress mentality and just get the season over with so everyone can move on – especially if the statement by the club is true and that we won’t need to sell players to comply with the cap this year.
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ProWoo goes to BBC . Return of the truly awful Scrum V plus Monday night highlights specific to Wales, Scotland and NI.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50339697
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I know you’re feeling sore about this and no-one likes their team in the doldrums but Sarries’ cheating was long-term and massive. It is far worse than Bloodgate and if you think Glaws having some lols about it with beer sales is even worthy of comment, let alone more likely to create any ongoing sourness and nastiness than the industrial cheating itself, then you’re very misguided.
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This is a desperate, vain selection. Jarrod/Tovey axis is spectacularly misguided. Only seven forwards is also pretty hubristic.
Whatever is left of the supporter base will turn on Mulvihill if it’s another defeat.
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How do they sort out residency for this new player?
Large, invasive, white shirt and shorts, lousy ball handling, but keeps coming back for more? No idea.
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I don’t believe I said that Bloodgate was worse or that the beer selling would create more unpleasantness than the original issue – just that it would add to it.
Just observing that from a Quins perspective it’s a little hypocritical to be going so hard in on this around how the punishment isn’t enough given I seem to recall people thinking the fine they got for Bloodgate was a bit light at the time.
As to the beer, it will impact the guys who own that companies income and ultimately their livelihood and that of anyone else who works for the company so seems an unnecessary thing to do.
But thanks for the summary dismissal.
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Something to put the United back into UK (as well as everyone else uniting in loathing against biscuitman):
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/RugbyWorldCup2019/venter-calls-england-tactics-in-world-cup-final-ludicrous-20191107
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What we all know is that England should have waved a white flag in front of the bull whilst simultaneously collapsing in a pained heap at scrum time to get the Bok weapon denuded. Think I’ll htrow my hat into the ring for new Bok coach.
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***Tiptoes out to buy a hat so as not to look stupid when the throwing starts.***
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Snatches a little Friday siesta steal to go with shiny glod trophy.
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The real scandal of that story is that they consider selling off the beer at £3.50 cheap.
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Think the OB evilness scale may need a re-calibration.
Has Chris Ashton been surpassed as the new embodiment of all that’s bad?
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Everyone knows that Scotland are the new baddies on the block after flicking the Vs at DBWR.
Embrace it.
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“YOUR”
CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE BRISTOL BEARS
15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Tom O’Flaherty, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Sam Hill, 11 Alex Cuthbert
10 Joe Simmonds, 9 Nic White
1 Alec Hepburn, 2 Jack Yeandle (capt), 3 Harry Williams
4 Jannes Kirsten, 5 Jonny Hill
6 Jacques Vermeulen, 7 Matt Kvesic, 8 Sam Simmonds
16 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17 Billy Keast, 18 Marcus Street, 19 Sean Lonsdale, 20 Don Armand, 21 Jack Maunder, 22 Gareth Steenson, 23 Jack Nowell
Home debut for Hogg; England lads straight back in to 23;
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@FFB I won’t say any more after this because I know it’s hurting but Saracens have been found (review aside) to have massively and systematically cheated the system over an extended period of time. As a result they’ve fucked the Premiership, fucked the Not Heinie Cup, and gone some way towards fucking rugby up too.
So to my mind any unnecessary sourness and nastiness in rugby has been directly inflicted by Saracens and Nigel Wray.
Again this is more directed at the club than you and I don’t mean any personal offence.
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‘Everyone knows that Scotland are the new baddies on the block after flicking the Vs at DBWR.’
And now DBWR want a public, grovelling written apology. they can stuff that up their collective hole.
Chimpie’s new evilness ranking (high evilness to low)
Sarries
DBWR
Chris Ashton
Pro14 reffing
Craigs
PRL
Scotland
Scotland not even in the top 5
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“Some interesting back stories here….helicopters, oil rigs…”
To be honest the main characters in my never-to-be-written Alistair Maclean style thriller were always going to be based on Utna and Suavo and nothing’s changed.
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“any unnecessary sourness and nastiness”
Has anyone actually tried the beer?
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@ticht
I read that in the Guardian recenty and it’s complete hogwash. The range they take the data from is only from about 1945 to around 1980. Everyone who knows climate history knows that this was a period of significant cooling (hence the “we are entering an ice age” hysteria in the 1970s). And for the next 20 years temperatures increased and there appears to be a period of stabilisation (i.e. not significant growth or reduction) since then. So of course everyone born from the 1980s onwards has never known below “average” temperatures if you take a cooling period as the average.
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The notion of a pint of Bath Ales ‘Barnesy’ makes me feel more queasy than the Sarries lager even if the former would very likely be much nicer. I think I’d give the Sarries stuff a go.
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I just went for a work lunch where I was bought 3 pints. Not sure if I feel better or worse now.
Mildly evil it would seem.
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I also had a large big mac meal.
Just so you know.
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hree pints of evil mild would go down well just now.
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In more of a decent quality lager-y mood meself.
Fortunately there’s some in the fridge for later.
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‘Mildly evil it would seem.’
Making the top 5 isn’t mildly evil.
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Craigs………………….you need to love yourself just a little bit more
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Slade – I need to go to sleep
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Pint of numbers, is it?
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It was 3 session ipas.
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Fridge-based produce is Innis & Gunn
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This ain’t going away anytime soon.
https://www.theoffsideline.com/scottish-rugby-world-cup-sanction/
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“I read that in the Guardian recenty and it’s complete hogwash. The range they take the data from is only from about 1945 to around 1980. Everyone who knows climate history knows that this was a period of significant cooling (hence the “we are entering an ice age” hysteria in the 1970s). And for the next 20 years temperatures increased and there appears to be a period of stabilisation (i.e. not significant growth or reduction) since then. So of course everyone born from the 1980s onwards has never known below “average” temperatures if you take a cooling period as the average”
I’m not sure stating a fact is “complete hogwash”. There has to be some sort of benchmark, and if they did take that datum line time period they are doing the same as NASA.
Here are NASA’s findings which show an increase from 1880 to around the time of relative stability from mid 1940s to the latter part of the 1970s, then the steeper increases after that.
I assume there isn’t enough data to plot the graph before 1880, but it does look like the period of 1945 to 1980 is the best time period to use as a baseline as it is the most stable.
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it works better if you put the link in, you dolt!
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
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Gah Yosoy, what is a pint of numbers? I know this, but I can’t remember.
Are Cardiff planning to out-jizz the Cheetahs? Looks lightweight and puts the mental in experimental with Evans and Tovey side-by-side.
The Drags are still shite, but at least so far it’s been coherent shite, which is a step-up from Jackman’s mindboggle.
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Chimpie, I find that WR, or more correctly WR under Gilpin’s direction, conflating of the victims of the typhoon and the complaints over their shambles of a “contingency plan” for matches during Typhoon season is sanctimonious bullshit, and is meant to publicly shame the SRU. I think the SRU should donate the £70k to the disaster fund but make it clear it isn’t payment of the fine. They should then seek to take WR to arbitration, but WR won’t agree of course, as the article says that would involve putting their own deeds and processes under a microscope.
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MrIks, is that a strong selection of Dragons that is headed up to Edinburgh tonight?
We are looking fairly strong, accounting for injuries and lay off periods after Japan
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