Now that all that distractive World Cup nonsense is out of the way, we can all concentrate on rugby that really matters*: the Big Cup and the Pish Cup.
*Until your team falls out of it, then it’s the league, obviously.
EnzoM has summarised each Big Cup team’s chances nicely, except for one small error, later corrected to read ‘Ulster by 50’.
On the telly this week
Friday 15th November
| Gloucester 20 – 25 Toulouse | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 16th November
| Bath 16 – 17 Ulster | 13:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Glasgow 13 – 7 Sale | 13:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| England 17 – 15 France (women) | 13:10 | Sky Sports Action |
| Barbarians 31 – 33 Fiji | 14:30 | BBC1 |
| Leinster 33 – 19 Treviso | 15:15 | BT Sport 3 |
| La Rochelle 12 – 31 Exeter | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
| Ospreys 13 – 32 Munster | 17:30 | BT Sport 3 |
| ASM 53 – 21 Harlequins | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Scarlets 20 – 16 London Irish | 19:45 | S4C |
| Bordeaux 40 – 30 Wasps | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 17th November
| Northampton 25 – 14 Lyon | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Connacht 23 – 20 Montpellier | 13:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Scotland 3 – 17 Wales (women) | 15:10 | BBC Alba |
| Racing 30 – 10 Saracens | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |

Embra v Bordeaux Begles
Schoey, Willemnse, Cecerelli, Toolis, Gilchrist, Bradbury, Crosbie, Mata
Pyrgos, van der Walt, Sau, Scott, Bennett, van der Merwe, Kinghorn
Fenton, Bhatti, Berghan, Douglas, Barclay, Shiel, Hickey Taylor
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Your heroes:
O’Sullivan, Herring, Moore
Henderson, O’Connor
Reidy, Coetzee, Murphy
Cooney, Burns
Stockdale, McCloskey, Marshall, Ludik
Addison
R: McBurney, McCall, O’Toole, Treadwell, Timoney, Shanahan, Johnston, Gilroy
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Your villains:
Falgoux, Ulugia, Slimani
Jedrasiak, Timani
Yato, Lee, Iturria
Wee Greeg, McIntyre
Raka, Moala, Toeava, Betham
Abendanon
R: Tadjer, Uhila, Zirakashivili, Lanen, Dessaigne, Parra, Lopez, Naqalevu
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Edinburgh bringing the noise with that squad. Lovely.
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Bourdeaux looked ok v Wasps. Hope they turn up and give Edinburgh a game rather than the usual away in Europe performance we get from many French clubs.
Or, in a nutshell, hope Radrada plays.
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He does:
https://www.ubbrugby.com/actualites/7201-la-compo-face-a-edimbourg.html
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That’s a beefy back row.
Hope we can do something decent.
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So many names. Many of them I don’t know.
Dragons: Jordan Williams, Dafydd Howells, Tyler Morgan, Tom Griffiths, Will Talbot-Davies, Arwel Robson, Tavis Knoyle; Aaron Jarvis, Ellis Shipp, Lloyd Fairbrother, Matthew Screech, Max Williams, Ben Fry, James Benjamin (c), Taine Basham
Replacements: Rhys Lawrence, Josh Reynolds, Chris Coleman, Joe Davies, Huw Taylor, Luke Baldwin, Jacob Botica, Connor Edwards
Enisei-STM: Nikita Churashov, Davit Meskhi, Hendrik Marais, Dmitrii Gerasimov, Bjorn Basson, Ramil Gaisin, Alexey Shcherban; Nika Khatiashvili, Stanislav Selskii, Innokentiy Zykov, Uldis Saulite, Leighton Eksteen, Mikheil Gachechiladze, Andrey Temnov, Jeremy Jordaan
Replacements: Shamil Magomedov, Ewald Westhuizen, Azat Musin, James Brown, Aleksandr Budychenko, Konstantin Uzunov, Earll Douwrie, Maxim Gargalic
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Yos – I always make sure I have Maximum Gargalic in my cooking.
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Marler is a right laugh
BordBeg aren’t exactly mucking about, that could be a very good game tomorrow, hopefully with the Scottish horses winning at a canter
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Except in gargalic soup. You don’t want to overdo it.
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……….and a chap called Innokentiy at tight-head……………………
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Leighton Eksteen in the second row is strange. Unless it’s not the Leighton Eksteen who was a fly half in the same school tean as Duhan vdMerwe and Warrick Gelant. Also a couple of old (Blue) Bulls lads in there. Bjorn Basson, great on attack terrible tackler, and Earll Douwrie, he’s really young 21 or 22.
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And the Godfather of Shortened Line-outs Mr James Brown on the subs’ bench.
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………….anyone else following the Impeachment Hearings?
Fiona Hill (coalminer’s daughter from Durham) really showing up well
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Interview with Glasgow’s Ratu Tagive, well worth a read
https://amp.rugbypass.com/news/ratu-tagive-glasgow-warriors/
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Marler been mushroom hunting with Craigs, and ate the wrong ones.
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Ticht – very good, thanks for that
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Good on him, and his missus as well.
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Sbt – wrong?
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An Oxford English graduate explains why metaphors are only good if they literally explain the thing they’re being a metaphor for:
“My point is that it is a poor metaphor. Works at a sentimental level but not literally.”
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“An Oxford English graduate explains why metaphors are only good if they literally explain the thing they’re being a metaphor for:
“My point is that it is a poor metaphor. Works at a sentimental level but not literally.””
Where’s Claws when we need him?
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Watching a shitload of porn … Ahem, start again … Watching a shitload of World Cinema (specifically Korean and Japanese stuff) before it gets banned.
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We’d better stop calling the beginning of the universe The Big Bang then. As there was no atmosphere no bang could possibly be heard so it’s a poor metaphor.
Stupid science.
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Couldn’t have seen it either, as there was nothing outside it to view it from.
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Wilkommen in der DDR:
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This intermittently working space bar is literally driving me INSANE.
Where’s frigging IT?
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OT – same with the cambrian explosion. Nothing blew up.
And something about a died/not died Cat.
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Having said that The Greenhouse Effect is a poor metaphor as greenhouses do not warm in accordance with The Greenhouse Effect.
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This is funny
https://thebrexitparty.com/
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….they’re good!
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CMW, From today’s Times:

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Who said that metaphor thing? Bloody hell.
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That’d be Adam Boulton, Political Editor at Sky News and proud owner of an MA in English from Oxford University.
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Adam Boulton bellend
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Ah that explains it, Adam Boulton is a professional twit.
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Also, hate to say it but the big bang did make a sound.
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Unless we’re talking the tree falling in the forest and there is no one around type thing
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Pffft?
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This is also quite good, though a bit too close for comfort
https://www.thetorymanifesto.com/
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BB – that’s made me giggle outrageously! The Big Pfft!
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The big bang made no sound outside of the big bang itself as there was no matter to carry the acoustic waves.
Ticht is right that within the big bang there was noise cos there was stuff there.
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OT: blog-killer!
Or is it that there’s no noise because we’re all outside the Big Pffft?
Anyhow, I went to see Emily Thornberry speak today, and I think I have a girl-crush on her. She was great.
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Oh shit, it’s new post day, isn’t it? Bear with me….
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Thaum, no matter what people think of Corbyn and his shadow cabinet, they have to be a better alternative than the outright cruelty of austerity that has hamstrung these countries for nine years, all the while increasing the national debt massively – that money went somewhere, despite draconian cuts to public services.
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D’you know what, Ticht? A Corbyn government is the first one I could actively look forward to since I’ve been able to vote. I’m fed up with the naysayers.
*Back to composing new post*
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Seems Mr Maximum Garlic didn’t make much impact on the World Cup. There’s not a lot of him to be fair.
https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/player/38155
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Okay, new post up shortly, as soon as I give it once-over….
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