Pro-14 semi-final playoffs: can anyone stop the Blue Meanies? Can our heroes defeat plucky underdugs Edinburgh?
Then there’s North Island v South Island where, as Iks says, How does one pick ‘my’ team in that N – S clash? Darkness or more Darkness? Sauron vs King Ghidorah? Who are the underdogs?
And some English Premiership matches with some rather gruelling-looking midweek fixtures as well as the weekend ones.
And …
Happy 60th to TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA!
On the telly
Friday 4th September
| Worcester v Bristol | 18:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Leinster v Munster | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Northampton v Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 5th September
| North Island v South Island | 05:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Rebels v Western Force | 06:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Reds v Brumbies | 10:15 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Saracens v Wasps | 12:30 | BT Sport Extra |
| Harlequins v Bath | 14:00 | Channel 5 / BT Sport 1 |
| Leicester v Sale | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Gloucester v London Irish | 16:30 | BT Sport 1 |
| Edinburgh v Ulster | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
Tuesday 8th September
| Bristol v Northampton | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Wednesday 9th September
| Exeter v Gloucester | 17:30 | BT Sport Extra |
| Wasps v Leicester | 17:30 | BT Sport 1 |
| Sale v Saracens | 18:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| London Irish v Harlequins | 19:45 | BT Sport Extra |
| Bath v Worcester | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Ovally Balls 
As soon as I clicked on “POST COMMENT”, I realised I was talking about the Scottish football team and that I might have been too optimistic about their chances.
The Czech coach has you down as favourites but reckons his lads’ll give it their all.
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That Brian Moore radio piece Frankfurterin recommended is up on the Beeb. Good listen, although the interviewer is a bit of a luvvie.
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The Oldham lockdown means it is a very quiet news period in that neck of the woods
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Some story:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54026807
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OT, a friend of mine loves those local newspaper stories. One of his favourites was headlined “Bus nearly hits bridge”.
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I demand FD returns here and explains this
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It’s Bacup Coconut Dancers in (thin) disguise
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I just want to reassure everyone that the ‘cuddly underdog’ up there is not Happy Ianto.
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I found the Oldham Chronicle article to be both newsworthy and heartwarming.
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As TomP said, tonight’s game is Scotland’s to lose. Which is why we’re losing…..
‘Sigh’
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It was a composed finish at least, BB.
Have Scotland got the wit to break a packed defence down?
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Iks – yes, but ‘Bus Nearly Hits Bridge’ is very amusing!
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Yes, but knowing us, it would probably be our own packed defence we break down.
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Back in the game!
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Thank dog for that.
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This game is hard to watch with that Staropramen advert popping up every few minutes.
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You could have stopped after the sixth word.
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Yes it is Thauma. No quibbles from my side.
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Phew. Looks like a thoroughly unconvincing win for us. As opposed to our usual convincing defeats.
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Scotland won?
*falls off chair*
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“Bus nearly hits bridge”.
A friend of mine went for something along the lines of “Cow crosses road” as his front page on the small local paper for which he was reporter, photographer, editor etc. Promptly abandoned his post(s) and went off to live on a kibbutz. Never saw him again.
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He was one of a number of unlikely people I met in my first job order-picking in a Tescos depot by the (old) Severn Bridge. And the only one I made friends with.
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He had a horrifyingly randy King Charles Spaniel called Hector that would jump on your lap as soon as you sat down and spunk on you. “Oh Hector you beast” he would scold it. Apparently it once took the vicar’s dog up the arse in the garden while his mum and the vicar stood looking out of the window at them while having a cup of tea.
The cow and the road were somewhere upcountry from Chepstow.
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The vicar’s dog was know for bad habits, leave Hector alone!
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Probably Rogiet, CMW, probably Rogiet.
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@Iks – it was the lot who used to cycle back along the M4 to Newport in the middle of the night that you had to watch.
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By which I mean the workers from the Tescos depot. Not cows. “Cow crosses M4 on bicycle” would have made the front pages of all the nationals.
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Especially with the mystery angle of why on earth it wanted to go to Newport.
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Perhaps to commune with equally bovine inhabitants? *
* He says never having visited Newport.
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Don’t think so Deebee. “Sex-crazed dog cycles to Newport” wouldn’t even have made the local paper though.
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Good sunny afternoon!
“Your” CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE GLOUCESTER
15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Jack Nowell, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Tom Hendrickson, 11 Ian Whitten
10 Joe Simmonds (capt), 9 Jack Maunder
1 Ben Moon, 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 3 Harry Williams, 4 Jonny Gray, 5 Jonny Hill, 6 Dave Ewers, 7 Jacques Vermeulen, 8 Sam Simmonds
16 Jack Yeandle, 17 Alec Hepburn, 18 Tomas Francis, 19 Sam Skinner, 20 Jannes Kirsten, 21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne
22 Gareth Steenson, 23 Ollie Devoto
Strong.
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Gloucester Seconds for Chiefs game
15. Tom Hudson
14. Charlie Sharples
13. Henry Trinder
12. Tom Seabrook
11. Matt Banahan
10. Billy Twelvetrees ©
9. Charlie Chapman;
1. Corne Fourie
2. Henry Walker
3. Jamal Ford-Robinson
4. Charlie Beckett
5.Danny Drake
6. Josh Gray
7. Jordy Reid
8. Ruan Ackermann.
Replacements
16. Todd Gleave
17. Alex Seville
18. Ciaran Knight
19. Cameron Jordan
20. Will Crane
21. Joe Simpson
22. George Barton
23. Alex Morgan
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A bit of a spanking for glaws I fancy.
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Wouldn’t the prem have been better cutting the no. of games? The number of mis-matches seems rather high and surely skews the results just as much as reducing games.
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Not a bad way to blood some youngsters in the pack for Glaws tho, Chimpie, and they would be expecting to lose anyway.
Avs in for a shock today, yesterday in the 90s, and dropping below freezing later today in parts of the Rockies. Ooof.
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Guardian really plumming new depths of journalism today. The article on AI, an essay written by a coputer, is actually edited from 5 essays written by a computer. Err whats the point.
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Journalism as a whole innit. Not wot it woz bak wen I wuz yung.
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Ironic joke about their (and others’) coverage of politics in the UK, I reckon.
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A very subtle one if so
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No it’s Guardian journalists worrying about being thrown out of a job “proving” that AI is worse than them at writing articles.
And they are right. No AI protocol could possible have come up with the stunning success that was Mike Read’s “I’m Backing Boris” article – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jul/17/imbackingboris
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Couple of classics in there
‘I’d like to see Boris push for a police officer on every tube entrance/exit so that underground miscreants know that their exit route is effectively sealed’
That’ll learn those underground miscreants. But what about the overground miscreants? I’m very concerned about them. Need a copper at every street corner to apprehend those miscreants.
‘Let’s train traffic wardens to exercise common sense and reward Londoners who work hard, rather than hitting them with constant stealth taxes.’
so wardens should only give tickets to the illegally parked vehicles of those who don’t work hard. I’m not entirely sure how they’re supposed to tell the difference. Maybe if one put a sign in the car saying ‘I’m working really hard’ it would excuse blocking the street.
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Dunno about that, OT, I reckon it is some techie who wants to prove how coherent AI can be, and so won’t give us the straight results. Either way, it is just plain lazy, they say they have used exerts from 5 different essays, they should have at least stated which bits were which. Maybe naive, but I always expected more of the Guardian, and recently they seem to have moved further and further away from straight enquiring journalism to agenda propaganda, and if that is not a thing, it should be. I have a default setting to oppose anything that is supported by massively skewed journalism.
Like what Chimpie said, maybe I am just becoming a grumpy old conservative (small c).
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Trouble with that is, Chimpie, my dear fellow, that when the copper on the street corner apprehends the overground miscreants, and has to go down the nick to book em, the underground miscreants will move in on the overground miscreants turf and miscreantise out of their recognised area, and vice versa. Create a control situation, then remove it, and you will have a power vacuum with people decreanting, uncreanting and miscreanting at will wherever they want, at the direction of organised miscreantweeting, and soon they will get organised, tool up, and fight turf wars over control of the streets. All sounds a bit horrendous, maybe best left just as it is.
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Need a whole lot more coppers for adequate miscreant coverage then.
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I thought we wanted the police to be defunded?
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I think the Met use a tried-and-tested method when deciding who to stop on the streets.
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Mike Read’s not really a journo, though, OT. I think that article was a tee-hee-hee let’s laugh at the Tory piece. Possibly published when Seumas Milne was Comment Editor.
The Readster is responsible for this banger:
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Defunding could simply mean making policing more cost effective. Pay coppers on a miscreant-apprehension basis, I can’t any problems with this kind of incentivisation.
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