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 |
Commiserations to all of you in the UK. It wasn’t a perfect wedding but I expect the situation to be worse after the divorce, particularly since the proceedings will be lenghty and acrimonious. What a waste!
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Switched on the tv this morning to find gove pontificating smugly. Gave the boak that did. what a way to start the day
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Them English sure want their brexit
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Now we’re all going to get brexited. Right up the hole
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Me and Corbyn down the pub enjoying our unemployment
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Except he’s still employed I guess.
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Following a bout of winter storms in northern California, “thousands” of pink, throbbing, phallic creatures wound up pulsating along a beach about 50 miles north of San Francisco, Bay Nature reported.
According to the nature magazine, these 10in wrigglers are marine worms called fat innkeeper worms, but they are known colloquially as exactly what you’d want to call them: penis fish.
These penile figures typically burrow under the sand, far beneath the feet of beachgoers, but the recent storms brought on some waves that swept away the layers, leaving them exposed.
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Fuck
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He’s being awfy vague about when he steps down is ol’ corby. Gotta get the succession in place
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Is Swinson (Jo) a conservative plant? Don’t think she could have played it better if she was.
Alternatively just a strategy custerfark of staggeringly immense proportions.
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I actually think that this was the second least worst option of the realistic results we had available (those being hung parliament, narrow Tory majority, Tory landslide). I’d have preferred a hung parliament and a second referendum, but this vote clearly shows that Remain would have lost. But having a thumping majority at least means that Johnson is no longer in thrall to the fringe nutters like the ERG, so will perhaps negotiate a softer Brexit with a longer transition period. Also, he just wants to be popular, so I think he will loosen the purse strings a bit.
The big danger, of course, is that he does a trade deal with Trumpface that flogs off the NHS. That is a grim thought.
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“this vote clearly shows that Remain would have lost”
This is probably the most important thing to take away from it. There was no way out. Electorally speaking for Labour at least in the areas they lost last night it’s hard to get away from feeling that the likes of Caroline Flint, Ian Lavery etc were and are right. Would probably have struggled in some of the Remain voting areas then though.
And of course none of that stops Brexit from being a really stupid idea.
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I like your optimism Dab. however the cabinet still has the stunning ‘talent’ of the brittania unhinged mob like Truss, Raab, Patel, plus JRM. A ghastly crew who are not going to be exactly shy about a cut welfare for poor tax breaks for rick type agenda.
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Fuck.
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@Chimpie – Swinson like quite a lot of Liberals prefers a Tory government to a Labour one so in that she’s got her wish. This is one of the reasons we can’t just add LibDem and labour votes together and say if they all voted tactically they’d beat the Tory in such and such a place.
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You don’t need to rely on politicians to do nice things.
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Someone give Ticht a nudge, he seems to be stuck.
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Chimpie – he’s looking at a picture of the washed up penis fish. Give him time.
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Up yer hole OT!
*sniffs*
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@iksy
I knew you’d like that one.
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I am a long way from the UK (both in space and time) but I have no idea how the majority vote to give poundland Trump and the austerity crew 5 years to fck them all in the arse.
I get that media manipulation etc.. But that cant explain this. Corbyn and his crew are idiots. Real idiots.
Still, its pretty clear what England wants. And they will get it. Good luck.
Scotland have a clear mandate to seek independence. Will BJ and his massive majority allow it? If he doesnt, what then?
Wales, north is blue, south is red. Will get dragged along with England.
N Ireland?? Who knows
This is properly fckd up
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Yeah , but Tony B liar, Iraq……
Halcyon years sandwiched between decades of conservative govts wrecking the country for the profit of the few. FFS
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“Wales, north is blue, south is red.”
Yes the gogs have rather let themselves down. With a bit of help from East and narrow-definition West Wales.
“Will get dragged along with England.”
Would regardless.
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@utna
100% correct. And we’ve known that for over 30 years. Putting him up as leader ends up with the Tories winning seats like Heywood & Middleton, and ex-mining town of Leigh (Labour since 1922).
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@CMW
Was up in N Wales 3 or 4 yrs ago. Once you leave the mountains and hit the north coast (Clywd as was) you hear far more accents of Lancashire and Merseyside than you do of N Wales.
You are right with your “regardless” comment. Not sure that, economically, Wales could break with England. Nor, despite the pride in country, do I think there is much of a genuine “moral” will to do so.
Scotland though…..
Wonder if P Cymru ever did an SNP and reinvented themselves as a progressive modern European socialist party rather than a fringe nationalist group, would things change?
Dont forget, it wasnt long ago that SNP were as (relatively) irrelevant as PC
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@Utna – Plaid have already tried just that. For a few reasons it doesn’t really wash.
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Obviously a full on Remain supporting right-wing-of-Labour Party is exactly what the Brexiters of the Northeast, South Yorkshire etc really wanted.
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@CMW
You are no doubt right.
I am seriously pssd off right now and looking for pastries. Not finding many.
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@utna
It was North Sea oil suddenly making independence potentially economically viable that led to SNP growth since the 1970s. It still looked viable at the independence referendum. However since then oil prices have tanked so Alex Salmond’s promises could never have been honoured.
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Whilst this is a shit result (out of a choice of shit results imo), like Dab I’m quite relieved that we don’t have a hung parliament.
At least we know roughly where we will go now and can make the best of it.
This will impact people harshly but the evidence is that they voted for it. I’m hoping that the left learns a lesson here and changes tact. It might take a Trump 3rd term to make that happen though.
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That was Salmond though. Sturgeon is a whole different kettle of fish.
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Morning, everyone. Momentum wankers very positive this morning. Talk of a “30+ year project”. Unbelievable levels of shitness.
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On the plus sides after months of playing her cards close to her chest the Little One has finally confirmed that her seemingly imaginary character ‘Professor Doctor Cheesepuff’ that she spouts nonsense about is really none other than yours truly.
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I’d previously been ruled out of the running when under questioning in the bath she would be drawn no further than to announce gnomically that “Cheesepuff is a Great Man”.
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“However since then oil prices have tanked so Alex Salmond’s promises could never have been honoured.”
Why UK’s oil and gas revenues are dwarfed by Norway’s
https://www.businessforscotland.com/uks-oil-gas-revenues-dwarfed-norways/?fbclid=IwAR0dIdpGONnnXqmjTvh8W4WpFfXqFdyq7rdnLXxyblB-t0w4-R1VaaMcAKY
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Might as well take the vote off all these pricks that voted for Boris (and I’m sorry, we can pontificate about the Labour Party all we like, but the section of voters in the North and Midlands who have gone Tory need to own it) and give it to 3 year olds.
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thousands of pink, throbbing, phallic creatures wound up pulsating along a beach about 50 miles north of San Francisco, Bay Nature reported.
Ah! So that’s where the Brexit Party supporters were. It’s very scary as to what may unfold now. If Bojo the Clown decides he can go charging into Brussels with his own bunch of pink throbbing phalluses cheering him on and stick it to the EU, it’ll get nasty. If his majority allows him to be more confident, perhaps he’ll be less prone to bluster and bullshit. Not sure which way that’ll go. The prospect of having JRM anywhere near the levers of power and influence is terrifying though.
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Eldest learned a lesson this morning in not bullshitting people who know what they’re talking about when she asked me to sign her reading diary to say she’d read all of Through the Looking Glass. Not knowing who any of the characters in the second half of the book are isn’t getting anyone a signature.
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Enzo – haha maybe they won’t learn anything then
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So, are we having a sweepstake on what vile, unconscionable, disgusting behaviour the next Labour leader will be guilty of?
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@ticht
I love that link. Most interesting one to me is this: “The UK Government pays oil companies to extract oil – rather than getting paid by firms who are extracting these valuable UK resources”. I’d never thought of it like that.
That sounds to me like some big engineering firms in the UK in the 1970s pulled a fast one on the politicians and civil servants on how they should deal with extracting oil. Reminds me of the more recent Sizewell C nuclear power station.
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CMW – harsh. But maybe this is a double bluff.
My 3 year old told me a detailed story about how he went to the doctor yesterday because he’d hurt his head.
I can confirm that he was bullshitting me but it was too much fun to get angry with.
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The second sentence is undoubtedly true and raises new (same old) questions as to what Welsh identity is/is going to become – there’s already a schism and it’ll only get more profound.
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OT, I haven’t checked the figures, but if they are real and Norway generated a £29Bn surplus in the same time as the UK made a £23M loss from the same sector, we are being seriously shafted by the current/ongoing government policy.
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Good article (as you would expect) from Gary Younge.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/labour-why-lost-jeremy-corbyn-brexit-media
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@Ticht – I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m pretty sure that next leader is dangerous.
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CMW, I’ve only read the headline so far and I’ll read the article after posting this, but I’m often reminded of something Tony Blair said Michael Heseltine told him.
A young Blair was despairing out loud about Labour’s continued failure at the polls and Heseltine said to him, “Labour will win when it wants to”.
Of course you can’t really mention Blair without people shouting IRAQ at you, but I think Heseltine is still correct.
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@ticht
@ticht
couldn’t let that HTML slip stay uncorrected
We have been for 40+ years. Norway used their money to create a sovereign wealth fund, and also to manage the currency to stop the economy from suffering from the Resource Curse – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse We spent our oil money on paying people to be unemployed in the 80s.
I have a theory that the industrial collapse of the early 1980s was largely the result of North Sea oil pushing up the value of the pound making our exports uncompetitive. Something Norway avoided, I think – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513009348
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*sigh*
What to say about Corbyn? he should be resigning immediately after that shellacking. Don’t see how his position is tenable. Resign and get a leadership contest and let someone else build up an actual opposition. That doesn’t appear to be the plan though.
Yes he was on the end of a lot of fake news and general bollocks, but he was never effective in holding government to account, had dubious advisers around him & was, amazingly, even less popular than bojo. that takes some skill.
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