Oooh, I’m so excited! Come on, Ulster! They are playing in orange, aren’t they? Or are they the ones in white and red? I can never remember. Oh, right, white.
Grand, they’re starting. Why do they kick the ball to the other team instead of hanging on to it? That’s silly. Now look, there’s going to be a scrum. I know what a scrum is. It’s a bit like a cuddle, but then they all stick their noses in each other’s arses and the wee fella chucks the ball in. Then the whistle blows and they do it all over again ten times.
Fantastic, Ulster have got the ball! Oh look, he’s kicked it off the field, the eejit. What do you mean, in the opposition’s 22? Why is everyone standing up for the Ulstermen? Oh, so that’s good then.
Some of those fellas trundling up don’t look very fit at all. They’re a bit fat, like. They should go on a diet: they’re supposed to be able to run around for ninety minutes. Oh, eighty minutes? Close enough. If they could run for ninety, they could run for eighty easily.
Why have the other side got the ball to throw in? We had it last. I think the referee has got this wrong. Look at that: the man threw it to his own team and now they’ve got the ball. Now they’re all over the floor and it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
Wa-hey, that Ulsterman’s got the ball! Whoops, he’s dropped it. Ach well, never mind, it is pissing it down and it’s probably a bit slippy. What do you mean, the others get a scrum? He didn’t mean to drop it. That’s just not fair.
Scrums are boring.
Hooray, a penalty!
Didn’t he kick it beautifully? I bet it’s because his mum raised him on soda farls. Oh, South African, is he? Well, never mind, I’m sure his mother loves him anyway.
HALF-TIME
Boys-oh-boy but that’s a fine figure of a man. Have you any idea if he’s single? I have three daughters. And no grandchildren. Except for two dogs. And they’re both spayed.
SISTER’S INTERJECTION
– Is that Andrew Trimble?
– Yep; how did you know?
– We used to catch the same bus to school.
– Was he nice?
– Yeah, decent bloke.
– He’s retired now; that’s why he’s doing commentary.
– Oh Christ, I feel old.
RETURN TO THE MOTHERSHIP
Have you got his phone number?
SECOND HALF
Oh, d’ye see that fella there? That’s Stuart McCloskey. He goes to my hairdresser. He has lovely hair, so he does. He doesn’t half darken the doorway when he walks into the shop though.
Would you look at that nonsense! All the other fellas are piling on top. That’s bullying. Why doesn’t the referee stop it?
Ach for fuck’s sake the referee is awarding a penalty to the other side! This is a travesty. What do you mean, failed to release the ball? It was his bloody ball and I don’t see why he should give it to them. That’s ridiculous.
Well, this is more like it. Brave boys running down the pitch and putting the ball down over the line.
What’s a TMO? Turd Match Official? Why shouldn’t you be able to throw the ball in any direction you like if you’ve got it?
See that. I was right. Ulster vindicated. I don’t know why there was any dispute.
Well, there you are now, Martin.* Match won despite the other’s side’s cheating and the referee being biased.
*I have no idea where this phrase comes from, but it might be this.
Note: as you may be able to tell, this was mostly originally written a couple of years ago. OvallyBalls prize* to the first person who spots the internal inconsistency.
*This may not be an actual prize.
On the telly this week
Friday 22nd November
| Ulster 28 – 13 Clermont | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 23rd November
| Saracens 44 – 3 Ospreys | 13:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Treviso 32 – 35 Saints | 13:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Toulouse 32 – 17 Connacht | 13:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Exeter 34 – 18 Glasgow | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| England 60 – 3 Italy (women) | 15:00 | YouTube (!) |
| Lyon 6 – 13 Leinster | 15:15 | BT Sport 3 |
| Munster 21 – 21 Racing | 17:30 | BT Sport 3 |
| Quins 15 – 9 Bath | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Cardiff v Leicester | 20:00 | S4C / BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 24th November
| Sale v La Rochelle | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Montpellier v Gloucester | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Willis Halaholo out of the Welsh squad with an ACL, so that’s his season done also.
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ouch!
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Owen Slot in The Times (behind a paywall so this link on the Wasps forum has the content) with the developments in the Sarries situaion:
http://onceawasp.com/forums/index.php?topic=1677.0
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Legends have also signed – re-signed – the non-legendary Filo Paulo.
Fucks sake.
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Welsh rugby continues to go from strength to strength as Allen Clarke leaves the Ospreys.
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So, this is good:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/26/birmingham-anti-lgbt-school-protests-judge-ban-permanent
This part is ironic:
“However Justice Warby lifted his earlier ban on social media criticism of the LGBT teaching. This acceptance of the argument for free online speech came after the intervention of Christian blogger John Allman.”
I wonder what that will do to legal arguments against hate speach.
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Oh good grief Gove & Hannan trying to do bantz down wif da kidz.
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So, salary cap scandal not going away soon then. Sarries getting more evil by the day.
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Everyone away listening to the new coldplay album?
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Top read ATL Thauma. TMO indeed!
Put me in mind of the day my mother ran onto the field in Risca to handbag the forward putting the boot into my brother’s head while he was pinned under a ruck. He never lived it down.
Oddly enough this Risca Cuckoo memory is brought to you from the rufty tufty station bar in Freiburg called Coucou.
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Is Filo Paulo Welsh for puff pastry?
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That’s abrupt with Clarke. Thought it was meant to be as right as rain once the Welsh squad players return.
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“Everyone away listening to the new coldplay album?”
If you mean listening to the sound of app confirming it’s deletion from my phone, then yes.
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@Beadle
Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I’d expect hell to freeze over first before any kind of useful apology emerges from Nigel Wray. The potential legal action from the other clubs is fascinating – if there’s a case to answer, hard to see how Sarries escape without further financial problems.
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Was it Faltering Fullback that was the sarries fan?
Bit of a nightmare for them this whole thing.
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Chimpie, it seems to me that the Sarries fans have been stiffed as much as the other clubs have, they thought their club had won fair and square, but now you question everything, eg how did they get so many good young players coming up through their academy system? Would that have been the same if the first team hadn’t been so successful?
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I’m helping the environment by not using energy to stream it.
Heroic stuff, when you think about it.
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To me this whole Saracens saga represents what’s wrong with the English rugby set up. I largely view the international games as more important but also understand that the clubs are businesses and there to make a profit.
You can’t prove potential earnings though. Any estimate is just that and is surely subject to regional variation. I think the punishment should be decided by the PRL and was fair in that case.
I do, therefore, think that it is time to move on by all parties. You can argue ongoing wrongness but this is just going to end up harming English rugby long term.
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Rugby……………..
Exeter 2nds beat Quins 2nds 45 – 0 last night
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Ha!
Stormzy – “Vote Corbyn, Johnson is a liar”
Michael Gove – “Stormzy is a better rapper than he a political analyst”
Former Tory MP Nick Boles – “What we should be worried about is that the same is true of Michael Gove”
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I started to wonder whether coldplay had gone semi-Prog with the long gap between posts.
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Nope, they’re just semi-crap as ever.
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Craigs, do clubs get prize money for where they finish in the league?
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“You can argue ongoing wrongness but this is just going to end up harming English rugby long term.”
So I’m to be arguing ongoing wrongness now. Thanks for the heads up.
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I’m happy to say I’ve never knowingly listened to a Coldplay song.
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You could Tomp. Carry on as you started.
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This is fun. Another party I won’t be voting for:
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Vote Conservative:
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Thaum – I’m tempted to post some Coldplay furra laff. But it would horrible. Worst rock band of modern times.
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Have a found a page that contains this:
“Following the death of Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch in 2012, Chris Martin and co. re-worked rap outfit’s 1986 hit, from their Licensed To Ill album. While the band’s arrangement of the song almost renders it unrecognisable, they arguably succeeded in giving it a haunting and beautiful feel.”
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“Coldplay invited James Corden to the stage to sing Prince’s iconic track, following his shocking death earlier that year. However, James – who was turning 38 the following day, got a lot more than he bargained for, when he was also treated to a birthday cake and a sing-a-long.”
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Mother of fucking christ:
“At LA’s Blasco Theater in November 2015, Coldplay achieved the almost unimaginable, making John Lennon’s classic seem just as emotional as the original.”
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All of those were written by someone who hates music.
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And also hates good writing.
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Probably hate my posts then.
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She/He/They said you were a hippie. A hippie accountant. The worst kind of accountant. But the best kind of hippie.
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Tam, re that Victoria Derbyshire clip and the woman in it – ah yes, the David Hume empiricist approach to experience and cause and effect, cutting tens of thousands of police does not lead to a shortage of police, deporting twenty thousand EU nurses does not lead to a shortage of nursing staff, encouraging the private rental sector and nine years of austerity doesn’t lead to problems of poverty.
(I may have misrepresented Hume for effect here)
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Ticht – I would have been tempted to punch that woman if I’d been present.
I seem to be having these strange and very unusual violent urges a lot lately. Must be an election on.
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Thaum, I’m genuinely left gobsmacked by people like her – she can see what the problems are but is so completely blind to the causes and the solutions, not that Labour or any party be the answer to everyone’s problems, but Labour at least strive to take away the grinding day to day poverty from everyone, Tony Blair’s Labour did that too
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Ticht – yep, me too. Cognitive dissonance in action.
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Just noticed my antiquated “be” there, no idea where that came from, must be my inner pirate talking
Labour be the answer, oh arrrr,
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That “be” is a feature of Caribbean English, ticht. I think you be channeling your fellow East Coast Scottish person Mr Michael Gove, who is also known for his mastery of that form of English.
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I think not, Tam
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Ticht – she’s misguided I agree. But some of that blame has to lie with labour. It’s a weird video to watch in light of the cuts under the tories.
I don’t think it’s unique to the UK either. Trump has a good chance of winning in 2020 even if he is impeached.*
* I read somewhere that this may not mean he’s gone. Although I haven’t checked whether this is true. If he does go it could well be another republican who wins.
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I still don’t understand why people who claim to like music would still listen to simplistic bad rock/pop music rather than to the works of thousands of supremely gifted artists since the 15th C.
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Flair – they didn’t have the robot voice then.
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Or milkshakes.
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“Trump has a good chance of winning in 2020 even if he is impeached.*
“* I read somewhere that this may not mean he’s gone. Although I haven’t checked whether this is true. If he does go it could well be another republican who wins.”
If he’s impeached and found guilty, he stops being President and Pence takes over. It seems unlikely to happen at the moment and may fire up the Republicans is the fear giving him a win against (God forbid) Biden next year.
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Craigs, to what extent are Labour to blame regarding what she says in the video?
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