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 |
Ovally Balls 
1. Why do the likes of Owens and Tipuric need to play this fixture when they’re not allowed to play in the Scarlets/‘spreys European ties either side of this match? Rested should be rested.
2. Full round of Pro14 the same weekend as this.
3. Massive Turk bias. Pivac out!
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Harris is a solid enough option, he’s grown slowly into the position. Can’t help thinking there are better options though.
Jones defo needs to move or something. He’s disappearing.
Centre is a bit of a problem area, mainly cos while there are actual options who’s actually on form? I’d say there’s a strong case for Hutchinson and Scott being front runners for IC (view Hutch as a 12 really). Johnson has done decently, but think its time to ease Horne the elder out. As for OC not really sure. Bennett is going well again thankfully, Taylor just isn’t up to his previous stellar standards sadly, Harris still in the mix I’d say. Jones needs game time desperately. Grigg? great pro14 but not really international I’d say.
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RE yoof, McDowell at weedgieland looks like he could be good. Taylor at Embra has really come on this year, looks like he could be v. good (unfortunately for Dean, who’s likely reached his ceiling at prowoo level)
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All this centre potential and look what we ended up with at the WC.
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It’s all Scotland centres this, Scotland centres that.
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@chimpie @ticht
I’ve kind of missed the story with Huw Jones – looked the biz in 2017/2018 – dropped out of sight…. loss of form? injury? face not fitting?
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Why is James Davies not in that squad? Anti-Turk bias
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Yos, it does seem a bit short-sighted by the WRU to be chasing the gate money from this fixture and disadvantaging the Welsh pro 14 teams in doing so, that is peak SRU type thinking.
Shame the Scottish sides aren’t playing Welsh opposition that weekend.
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I’m guessing he’s one of the broken crew seeing as every other back rower in Wales has been selected.
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@ticht
Everything is peak WRU. I don’t think we’ll see the end of this type of nonsense until they finally own all Welsh rugby (as well as Westgate Street in Cardiff).
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Trisk, Jones has struggled to replicate his Scotland form in a Glasgow shirt, he has shown it in dribs and drabs but not consistently. There is a school of thought that he performs better with Pete Horne playing 12, I’m not sure.
It’s a Catch 22, he needs a run of games but needs to find form to warrant being selected. I think with Rennie leaving at the end of the season the new coach might have a differing view.
I’d take him at Edinburgh in a shot.
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When he’s not being selected for Glasgow, can Jones find a game in the Suoer 6 thing?
And how’s that going?
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Super 6 has only just started, Tam, it’s mainly for decent semi-pros and academy players at the moment, it would be great if it could develop into the sort of standard of the RFU Championship, but that is a long, long way off.
Jones is one of the highest earners in Scotland, it’s a total waste to have him playing there
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Bit of a waste him not playing anywhere but I get you.
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We are like South America, says Nige. Democracy is in crisis apparently. He says through his lying, shit eating, grinning cunt face.
Grrrrr.
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Apologies. I had a wobble.
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no, it’s not you – just the earth shaking on its axis
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I take it this isn’t Nigel Owens?
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Mr Ex Como Trader Man of The People Pint Puller and Shit Talker.
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@craigs – don’t worry I think everyone gets to have one of those wobbles about Farage.
I had a brief one last night at the TV when they were covering the Prince Andrew thing and cut to a comment by Johnson of all people about his view.
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Beadle – he is so full of shit though. And people believe him. At least Boris doesn’t try to pull off a normal persona.
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You are completely right. I can’t understand his appeal at all due to all that fakery.
When I try harder to think about it, I briefly wonder what it might be about some of my beliefs that others can see are ridiculous but I’m oblivious to, in the same way as Farage fanboys. Johari’s Window-like.
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Eric Cantona is never less than interesting
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/nov/19/eric-cantona-democracies-dictatorships-manchester-united-interview
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Beadle, I think that populism works because it’s easy. We all want simple solutions and standing in front of a large poster with tens of thousands of people queuing on it, and spouting the “message” that these people are a threat to you is easy.
You can get people to vote however you want with base politicking. Austerity has been awful for the vast majority, but it has killed some and the situation as it stands is not tenable, so I think it was easy for the right wing populists to point a finger at the EU and blame them, shamelessly, fuck I even read a headline in kipper (know your enemy!) that said the biggest threat to workers’ rights here was the EU.
It’s brazen.
Which reminds me of something I was talking about the other day with friends and we brought up the Alexi Sayle gag about how Austerity is the idea that the 2008 financial crash was brought about by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton.
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@ticht
I love Alexei Sayle. Very talented way of cutting through the BS.
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“In another rather tense moment, Vindman corrected Nunes after the congressman referred to the Iraq War veteran as “Mr Vindman.” “Ranking member, it’s Lt Col Vindman, please,” he said.”
very nicely done!
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Just caught the Clermont highlights… Uh oh. Friday night will be spicy. Probably too spicy.
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Clermont. Great at home but don’t travel brilliantly.
Ulster by 3
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‘a £58 tuning fork and rose quartz crystal kit. When struck against the quartz, the fork produces a frequency that amplifies the healing properties of crystal’
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Someone sound the woo klaxon
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I’ll increase that to Ulster by 6. Because.
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Who else is playing at the weekend? I’m too lazy to look.
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Is that just any tuning fork, Chimpie, does it matter what note the fork produces?
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……….watch out for Raka on Clermont’s wing…………..
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Buggered if I know, ticht
If you’re taking the woo train to it’s logical conclusion there must be a specific frequency hence fork for the crystal
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There we go. Resonance, innit
‘Most of us don’t understand resonance and how it impacts our brain, our body and our nervous system. Tuning forks can create resonances which settle mind and body, and crystals have highly ordered atomic structures that amplify resonance. It may no be common knowledge but its perfectly logical’
‘logical’
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There are some intriguing games coming up Chimpie – Glasgow v Hoggy is one, but the fixture I think I’m looking forward to most is Munster v Racing, I just hope the Parisians take a full strength side to Thomond, it could be a cracker
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‘Susanne Oberbeck sings sexually charged songs in a German accent while standing topless and sporting a moustache – and at last she’s found an audience that understands her’
At least someone has found happiness.
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Just spent 20 minutes bashing a tuning fork against my noggin. To be quite honest, I don’t feel much better and I could have produced more pleasant tones by playing the piano.
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Ulster groundstaff shouldn’t be cutting the grass at the Kingspan this week.
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Yos – I just watched 15 seconds of Susanne Oberbeck and can confirm that she’s lucky to have an audience at all.
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Ospreys continue to bring through local talent by giving some lad from Porthcawl a chance.
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Ticht, that’s a terrific interview.
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Have already started on the brandy in anticipation of the Big Debate. Am not playing Spaffer lie bingo, though – would be paralytic five minutes in.
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This is one of the funniest stories I’ve ever read: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/19/arron-bankss-private-twitter-messages-leaked-by-hacker
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Free tip to Banks: if you’re going to surrender your domain, make sure you’re not relying on it for anything important.
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Looks like Shaun Edwards’ next job is managing Hungary’s football team
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Thaum, the trouble with that is any really interesting exchanges will just get lost in the shitstorm of fake ones, and in fact if I were in Banks’ shoes I’d probably employ a couple of plooky youths to bombard twitter with invented stories and memes about this for a couple of weeks
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*watches 20 seconds of the ‘debate’. Dies*
*watches Wayne Hennessy make a double save. Lives again.*
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Yos, the only thing that would make me watch that “debate” is, errr
In fact nothing will make me watch that debate, I’d rather rewatch Edinburgh losing to Benetton in torrential rain from a couple of weeks back, or maybe even the worst game of professional rugby I’ve ever seen, which was Edinburgh v Os three of four years ago, kick tennis for 80 minutes, and the kicking was shite.
Edinburgh lost.
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