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 |
Not going anywhere near the antisemitism thing, don’t know enough of the details.
Bojo seems to get away with a load of actual racism though.
LikeLike
OT, I was doing an engineering degree in the mid 80s and we were shown a report written by a combined chartered engineering group that said that unless we invest heavily in industry and especially the apprentice programmes we would be facing a huge skills deficit when the then current cohort of skilled trades people retired.
Now we use builders from Poland etc because they are good and affordable, we use data analysts from Spain, we bring nurses in from all over Europe etc
LikeLike
@Ticht – I’ve always thought that was patronising bilge from Heseltine (something he’s good at). I don’t believe Labour had to move as far as Blair did to win in ’97 and there was scope for them to do more (and not do some things that they did or not in the way they did them) after that. I also don’t think it’s good enough to just accept pretty much all the tenets of Thatcherism just with a rebalance towards a bit more public spending which is where that thinking leads.
LikeLike
For fans of budgie smugglers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/rugby-union/50763376
LikeLike
Chimpie – I thought I’d already covered that quota with the penis fish article.
LikeLike
CMW, there was research done at the time which showed that John Smith would have won but not with as big a majority as Blair managed.
Blair is the only Labour leader in my lifetime to have be re-elected as PM and he did it twice, and for the things I disagreed with, particularly the slackening of the checks on the financial sector that allowed for the bad bets to be rolled up with good ones and given a Triple A gold star rating by the agencies which led to the world wide crash, there was a list of over a hundred progressive achievements during the period 97-10, from preschool to secondary to tertiary, from minimum wage, from hospitals to rough sleepers etc
It takes a long time to build something, it only takes an instant to break it, and we had decades of the Tories hacking away at the safety net – care in the community for example. I read in the Big Issue at the time that CITC had lead to up to two thirds of people who were sleeping rough would previously have been cared for in appropriate institutions and that they were suffering from very serious mental health conditions such as schizophrenia.
Every single progressive piece of legislation the Blair government got through was opposed by the Tories
ach, I’m going to stop now, but I don’t think the UK wants the government I want, they keep rejecting the offer.
LikeLike
the, err, fat inkeeper worms were tastefully covered in that video at least. Not lying brazenly around onna beach in full view.
LikeLike
Ticht – I don’t disagree about there being many achievements of the Blair governments, but so much of it has been very easy for the u nscrupulous bastards to roll back. I do think this is in part to do with a lot of it being of the spending more money in existing structures kind. Also doesn’t help that some of the money was raised in ways that have turned out to be causing long term damage.
I certainly agree with your last statement. I am also coming round to your view that Scotland (part of which is one of the three parts of the UK that I really love) would be better off going it alone. UK dead in a ditch and all that.
LikeLike
Scotland out!
LikeLike
Embra in!
LikeLike
Bit of a mix-around from last week. Handy bench.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Assume that’s similar wasps to last week. a bit powderpuff up front, some decent backs.
LikeLike
That’s my interest in the pish cup covered.
LikeLike
Christ. Will this European rugby never end?
LikeLike
https://images.app.goo.gl/iMNNSNja6UyxxarFA
LikeLike
Work Xmas party tonight, so at least I can try and drink myself into oblivion.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Am at home tonight, so at least I can try and drink myself into oblivion.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Weekend jaunt to space, so at least I can try to drink myself into oblivion.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I drank myself into oblivion last night
LikeLiked by 1 person
Out drinking tonight, but will try to avoid the oblivion part.
LikeLike
No like for that bullshit, Chimpie. Boo!
LikeLike
Didn’t realise Oblivion was mandatory
LikeLike
Oblivion is also the enemy of getting home sans UIDs.
LikeLike
also not conducive with tiling tomorrow (again).
LikeLike
Lovely work Yos. A chuckle a minute, something to warm the cockles of this darkest o f dark days.
LikeLike
LikeLike
A lot of tiling going on, Llama.
You are copying one of these on your bathroom wall, aren’t you ?
https://www.getty.edu/publications/romanmosaics/catalogue/excavations-antioch/
LikeLike
It’s the porch this time.
I’m sure some archaeologist will dig up my tiling in a couple of thousand years time and wonder at the awesomeness of it.
LikeLike
would be nice if they could get on and impeach that orange shitgibbon.
Not holding my breath though.
LikeLike
‘Jeremy Corbyn has indicated he will quit in “the early part of next year”, but declined to take personal responsibility for Labour’s election disaster’
Nuffink to do with me guv. Brexit’s fault.
LikeLike
Stop waffling politics chimpie
LikeLike
Weedgies
LikeLike
Jones gets a run out in a strong team for once.
glasgow really need a someone to come through at FB.
LikeLike
glasgow have made an offer to big Naks to try and shore up their powder-puffness. Nothing confirmed though.
LikeLike
Now if that doesn’t count as a steal I don’t know what does.
LikeLike
Ha! rumours of Nick Abendanon to Glasgow. That’s an odd one.
LikeLike
Chimp,
https://www.rugbyrama.fr/rugby/transferts/2018-2019/transferts-nakarawa-file-aux-fidji-et-signe-a-glasgow_sto7573431/story.shtml
LikeLike
Anything that opens up the possibility of a new Jackson to somewhere gag gets my official thumbs up.
LikeLike
Wasn’t he one of the original ‘Going Well in France’ and ‘Should be Getting and International Call Up’ brigade?
LikeLike
an
LikeLike
My docking station is called Oblivion.
LikeLike
I think it’s cute that you gave it a name.
Mine’s called Toshiba.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mine’s called Hawksworth
LikeLike
Hang on, that’s just an electrical testing label.
LikeLike
Oblivion. Abendanon hope all ye who enter here.
It’s galactic, not an ‘office’ in the spare room.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“Wasn’t he one of the original ‘Going Well in France’ and ‘Should be Getting and International Call Up’ brigade?”
That was mostly Steff, no? Needed a bit of Abendanon to prove it wasn’t just a one-off. Plus, they had Mike “Always Beats the First Tackle” Brown at the time.
LikeLike
Love seeing job apps where the applicant has an email that is their surname+y+bear@blah.com
LikeLike
To cap off a shite week, I have been trying to track down two parcels that were delivered about 5 days ago, but we got a delivery card from DHL saying a neighbour had signed for it as there was no-one home. The delivery card bore the name of a someone who doesn’t exist.
Turns out the parcels were signed for by a woman temporarily renting the flat on the same floor as us, the one which is always a short term let for health tourists from the Middle East. I managed to raise an answer today from her and her fellow occupants, who explained they signed for the packages but left them outside their door in the hallway. Not inside their flat, not outside our door, but outside their own fucking door!
One of the packages contained an iPhone Mrs.Iks had bought on Ebay for an elderly friend. This is going to run and run, but it’s a mess of idiocy, blame and complication that we really could do without.
LikeLike
I’m sorry to hear that, Iks, but what idiots to leave the stuff outside!
LikeLike