It was a beautiful day inside the Space X Dome, this past Satursol, as the New Cardiff Legends played out the first Martian-wide final against their bitter rivals the Valles Marineris Miners. Both teams were the respective champions of their regional championships last year, so it was apt that these two giants of the sport met in the first championship final that encompassed all of the Martian worlds.
Despite their regional dominance, neither side had an easy passage to the final: the Miners had a troubled journey off-planet to Deimos to face this inaugural season’s surprise package, the Isuzu Southern Kings, in the semi final. The former Pro14 team – recently relocated to an underground base on the bad moon – have made good use of their unique 5G pitch and honed their grubber kick and chase tactics to perfection.
Sadly, it was not to be their sol as the visiting team benefited from a controversial sending off of the Kings’ star player – a clone of Phil Dollman – after a case of mistaken identity. The original Phil Dollman was adjudged to have raked the thighs of the Miners’ inside tighthead according to replays shown to all with access to BT Mars Sport (and those watching via streamed methods), which left the hosts having to play with just one full back. The Miners turned the Kings’ own grubber-and-run tactic on the home team as Valles captain Maxim Gargalic scored a try to go with two three point conversions and a rouge.
The Legends, meanwhile, did at least have the luxury of a massive semi [Ed: you all know what to say here] in the comfort of their own home. In the shadow of Olympus Mons, at the New Arms Park, the self-styled greatest club in the solar system overcame a plucky Arabia Terra Terrors team. Led by player-coach Thretton Palamo, the Terrors were in front by two scores to one and a half at the one-third turn, but were ultimately punished by a well-drilled Legends team. With a strong performance in both the upper and lower maul, the capital city slickers scored 11 final third tries, two rouges and three half-tries, the final of which went to fan-favourite, 53 year old Fau Filise. Cheered on by a home crowd basking in the late afternoon sol, the Legends put this one to bed just before New Caroline Street opened for business.
And so, to the final. The build up was somewhat tarnished by a Twitter spat between Miners star player Joe Marler (heavily linked with a move back to Terra at the Bristol Bears) and his Legends counterpart Gerald Davies 2.0. What may have started out as friendly banter only spilled over into mean-spirited heckling, cajoling and poorly thought out, irrelevant memes. If Martian rugby is to gain the respect that it has on the home planet, then it must place a ban on such pre-match behaviour. New Dublin-based Martian Rugby should not leave this boil unfestered.
As to the match itself, and for such a big occasion, the first two-thirds were nothing to write home about. Literally. Both teams were running on Earth time and didn’t turn up for kick off. President Elon Musk decreed that there would be no refunds for the two-thirds with no action and the capacity 300,000 crowd silently nodded in agreement as the third third kicked off. The Legends soon took the early-but-actually-quite-late initiative by kicking a rouge directly from kick off. In what must bring in a law change in time for next season, the Legends chose to use a lighter ball to kick off with which immediately sailed to the roof of the stadium to earn the game’s first point. However, the Miners soon got into the swing of it by making ground with their innovative knock on ploy. All year the Miners have made yardage due to their lack of handling skillz, and Satursol was no exception. Marler was held up just short of the half-try line and new signing Ruaridh Jackson knocked back rather than on with the same dotted line at his mercy.
The latter action resulted in Gerald Davies 2.0 sweeping up the loose ball and 19 sidesteps later he was under the Y-shaped posts for a full score of eight points. Filise converted from the touchline to add the extra three before President Musk dropped his handkerchief signalling the end of the match. Veteran captain Ioan Lloyd lifted the trophy – a Model Y Tesla handcrafted from the finest Martian calcium – to a backdrop of a grinning President.
The stadium soon emptied as the Legends fans – using their scarves as makeshift masks – departed to catch the last Tesla shuttle back to New Cardiff. For the Valles supporters, well, their journey would not begin until the following sol as public transport links are not yet well-developed in the boonies and the Musk submarine can only take two passengers at a time.
I am sure that there are Terra-dwellers reading this on their puny internet who have only seen highlights and do not yet fully appreciate that the game here has evolved into something that they are too dim to comprehend, but please note: this time next year a Mars team will travel to Terra for a three match series and, believe me, if you think that your Richie McCaw, your Gerald Davies (1.0), your Mathieu Bastareaud or your Ned Hanigan can save you, then you are grossly mistaken. We’re coming.
Reportage by intrepid OvallyBalls operative and space expert Yosoy.
On the telly this week
Friday 13th December
| Castres 22 – 10 Enisei-STM | 17:00 | epcrugby.com |
| Brive 24 – 10 Zebre | 19:00 | epcrugby.com |
| Harlequins 10 – 24 Ulster | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
| Racing 40 – 27 Ospreys | 19:45 | BT Sport 3 |
| Dragons 25 – 16 Worcester | 20:00 | epcrugby.com |
Saturday 14th December
| Connacht 27 – 24 Gloucester | 12:45 | BT Sport 2 |
| Treviso 25 – 22 Lyon | 12:45 | BT Sport 3 |
| Bordeaux 33 – 6 Agen | 13:00 | epcrugby.com |
| Calvisano v Leicester | 13:30 | epcrugby.com |
| Saracens v Munster | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Montpellier v Toulouse | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| London Irish v Toulon | 15:00 | epcrugby.com |
| Wasps v Edinburgh | 15:00 | epcrugby.com |
| Leinster v Northampton | 17:15 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Glasgow v La Rochelle | 17:15 | BT Sport 3 |
| Scarlets 46 – 5 Bayonne | 19:45 | S4C / epcrugby.com BT Sport 3 |
| Stade Français 16 – 18 Bristol | 20:00 | epcrugby.com / BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 15th December
| Exeter 25 – 10 Sale | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Clermont 52 – 26 Bath | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
They’d admire the ambition. pay peanuts you get monkeys etc. etc.
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I always attach a list of my demands, and go to great pains to point out that I am deigning to work for their stupid company.
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Impressed how much they have shoehorned RockTape into that.
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RIP Kenny Lynch
Here is the song he co-wrote with Chief Racist Buster Mottram
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Plus lunch expenses, obviously
You called?
How does the House of Lords work? Who gets to sit there and for how long? Seems people are getting in there all the time, but not sure if it’s just an ever expanding mass like the universe or if you have to shuffle off after a designated number of whiskies?
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Asking out of interest, not for a ‘friend’.
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@deebee
No. People die, basically. Puts an upper limit on its growth.
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But do they die quicker than new Peers are appointed? So I’m assuming it’s a lifetime appointment?
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they have a periodic cull if numbers get too high, so more wrinkled, aged bishops can be appointed.
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£5m fee pa paid into an offshore fund and nom dom status please.
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doesn’t hurt to ask
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I also want a fully equipped Batcave and Ol Musky as my butler.
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OT, another one from the cover of Band On The Run gone, then.
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@tomp
Parky must be worried
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My brother used to have a bad taste joke about Parkinson’s Disease. The punchline was “No, she just goes around telling everyone she’s from Barnsley”.
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I watched 6 Underground last night. Fairly stupid with no thinking required. This made me larf.
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‘Champions Cup revamp plans include fewer teams and two-leg semi-finals
• Plans under consideration involve 18 teams in six pools of three
• Sides from Premiership, Pro 14 and Top 14 would be kept apart’
Hurrah! More re-organisation.
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Wonder what the proposals for the pish cup are. Rename it the pisher cup or just flush it down the toilet.
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And call it ‘strengthening’.
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“A former Labour whip who lost his seat in the general election has had his clothes and private documents mistakenly incinerated by parliamentary staff.
Graham Jones, the ousted parliamentary candidate for Hyndburn in last Thursday’s general election, returned to Westminster this week to clear his office, which is close to the House of Commons chamber and Strangers bar.
When he opened his office door, Jones was puzzled to find that his room had been emptied. Four suits, four pairs of shoes, 14 shirts and a bag full of colourful ties had disappeared, along with several boxes of private documents.”
Brutal.
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Tidy darts indeed. Felt a bit sorry for the lad being booed on the doubles against Sherrock, as he seemed a novice at this level. She did great though, as did Suzuki who almost got there.
My darts are also Sherrock-pink, and I’ve got the urge to get them out again.
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Not the colourful ties!
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Craigs, the salary question is normal here, as is a photo and stating your age. So on one side every job application spouts the Equal Ops stuff, but you are compelled to invite prejudice in the selection process.
A company I applied to online kicked off with a compulsory age question, stating that they needed the data to differentiate between applicants with the same name…
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Chimpie, the six pools of three thing is weird, one team will have a weekend off as the other two play each other – what’s the point in that?
Also, they need to allow the South African sides into the competitions, they don’t really have an incentive to field Sooper-level players if they aren’t going to be allowed to play in the big cup.
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That Labour Whip should sue unless he missed an agreed deadline to clear his office. I think that is disgraceful treatment of someone’s personal belongings.
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that’s interesting. guidance on interviewing I’ve been given from HR is that we’re not allowed to ask applicants a lot of personal details such as age, appearance (e.g. photograph) marital / family status etc. either in the application or in the interview. Obviously we’ll see them at that point rendering the appearance thing moo.
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@Craigs – I tried to watch 6 Underground yesterday. I don’t think I’ve seen a worse edited film in a long time. The first 25 mins was just an unrelenting assault on the senses.
Shame Cat isn’t here, he’d have a field day with it.
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We watched 6 Underground on Sunday, and I agree with you refit. I managed through it as I was a bit hungover and it was just the sort of nonsense I was after.
It looked very much like it was made for an audience who have been brought up on gaming, though, and Mario Kart is about all I can take.
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A normal CV here would include at the start – and next to your mug shot – your date of birth, marital status, and sometimes if you have kidz.
Also all job adverts state the title of the job and then add M/F/D (Male/Female/Diverse). Some companies now use ‘all genders’, but there is an historic language issue about how genders are identified, so you can’t for example say Lehrer (teacher) because that’s men only. You also have to say Lehrerin to include women.
The UK system is much better I think.
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“The UK system is much better I think.”
We’re better off out.
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Kenny Lynch is a complicated one. I recall how often he played the ‘darkie’ in sitcoms and comedy sketches that riffed on him being nice and talented, yet putting him in his place as the joke and not the joker.
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CMW, the vibe in rufty-tufty land is ‘for dog’s sake leave!’ and the EU should stop pussyfooting around and get rid of the Insel, ASAP.
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@Iks – I would imagine the German government are at least relieved that the election result was decisive. Has there been much comment from them?
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Freedom from dodgy HR types based in Germany is as good an argument for leaving as I’ve heard so far though!
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Czechs (or Praguers it’s better to say) are bemused that Britain’s going as generally, until they remembered Munich and the stag parties, Britain was well-thought-of here.
The plutocratic Prime Minister Andrej Babis, much popular outside the city, immediately offered his congrats to the Tuppeny Trump.
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There’s a neat adapted joke about Babis, who’s not popular with cafe-dwelling book-reading university-educated types.
One evening a cafe-dwelling book-reading university-educated type is walking by the banks of the river in Prague when she sees a man fall in the river. She dives in and pulls him out. As he coughs up water the cafe-dwelling book-reading university-educated type realises to her horror that it’s the Prime Minister that she’s rescued. He tells the cafe-dwelling book-reading university-educated type, “Young lady, I am immensely rich and have great political power as prime minister. Ask for me anything and it will be yours.” The cafe-dwelling book-reading university-educated type thinks for a minutes and says, “Please, I implore you, don’t tell anyone it was me that rescued you.”
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I’m fairly sure that if I lived on continental Europe I’d look at the UK and think, “oh just fuck off will you? You’re always making it all about you, just fuck the fuck off.
Not you, Scotland, and maybe Norn Irn, you can stay as long as you like”
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No one likes seeing subs who are warming up behind the posts running on to celebrate with their team-mates but sometimes:
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Ticht, people here are not very happy about it and still can’t quite understand it. It’ll affect Czech business to a degree with increasing prices here and exports from here to the UK will be hit (25% of jellied sweets manufactured in the CR go to Britain).
What’s most confused people is how the process has developed and why it’s taken so long. I’d rather Britain had stayed in the EU but it’s become more agonising and embarrassing over the last 2 years. If anything good can come out of the election, it’s the hope that things’ll start moving soon (not a hope I’m overly keen on).
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But we’re going to Get Brexit Done!
Simples
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Fuggit. We are where we are. Just hoping everything works out for the best
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‘Best’
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At least we’ve got embra retaining the 1872 cup to look forward to.
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“Just hoping everything works out for the best”
Am just hoping everything works out not as shit as I fear it might.
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I think what Johnson got right is that advantages and disadvantages of being in or out of the EU were irrelevant to the communities he garnered votes in. People there saw their votes count when opting for Brexit against the perceived establishment, so voting for someone promising finish the job was probably a no-brainer.
Corbyn’s Void™️ just kept the choice simple.
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Neil Shipperley: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-50839639
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The MLR is getting serious:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/12/18/south-african-rugby-star-tendai-mtawarira-signs-with-dc-franchise-fledgling-us-league/
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There’s only 1 Mr iks. That should be enough. Instant employment.
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6 Underground isn’t a work of art. But it has it’s moments. Like the response to the spice girls song and the woman getting hit in the face by a pigeon whilst juggling a baby as the cars and bullets wiz past.
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The new Star Wars film is ridiculous but great!
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