There are no Irish teams in them, so hardly worth mentioning!
Might as well think about the Wee Cup too.
Bristol v Bordeaux
In a fight between Bears and Beagles, there can only be one winner, and I’m afraid it’s not the lovable hounds.
Racing 92 v Saracens
French home advantage to edge it.
Exeter v Toulouse
Probably another close one, but French inability to play away to lose it.
Toulon v Leicester
How did the Tiggers make it this far? They won’t get any further.
On the telly
Friday 25th September
| Bristol v Bordeaux | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 26th September
| Racing 92 v Saracens | 12:30 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 3 |
| Exeter v Toulouse | 15:30 | BT Sport 3 |
| Toulon v Leicester | 20:00 | BT Sport 3 |
Monday 28th September
| Harlequins v Wasps | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Tuesday 29th September
| Northampton v Sale | 17:30 | BT Sport 1 |
Wednesday 30th September
| Bristol v Leicester | 17:30 | BT Sport Extra |
| Exeter v London Irish | 17:30 | BT Sport Extra |
| Worcester v Saracens | 17:30 | BT Sport Extra |
Ovally Balls 
‘Tis the Tichtdug.
Anyway, time to get the prayer mat out for the Michty Wolves – who are losing!
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Iks’ Wolves playing more like Iks’ Dragons tonight. Which I have to say isn’t like them, usually enjoy watching Wolves.
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Was a bit dreading this. We sold two very influential players in Docherty and Jota at the same time the season kicked off. A couple of new signings might look like for like, but it doesn’t work like that in teams of the team dynamic.
We are losing games ranging from Citeh to Stoke to West Ham, so there seems to be bottoming out and rebuild going on from last season, with a bit of confusion thrown into the mix about how to change from one season to the next.
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terms of the team dynamic…
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Doherty…
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Maybe want to start all that again?
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Anyway Iks, a bit of Cat for you. Released on this day in 1972. Catch Bull at Four (very prog album title, that). Included this….
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And from 1994…
(Believe it or not I used to have this album – may need to revisit it on Spotify).
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And from 1995. This bunch.
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Bugger. Last two were released on the 26th not the 27th. Ach well, close enough.
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It’s the 28th now so I’m not going to listen to any of them.
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Seems I missed a good sign-off last night. I was completely obsessed with Cat Stevens in those days. So much so I can even remember the first time I heard songs from that record. Tracks from it were debuted on the radio (probably by Stuart Henry) while I was doing housework on a Saturday morning.
I was disappointed at first, as that acoustic wistfulness in Tillerman / Teaser was missing. Now it’s a tie with Foreigner as my favourite Cat record. Probably because of the proggier elements, eh BB? Anyway, I think they hold up pretty well still.
I know I’ve mentioned this before this before, but Angelsea from CBaF is an absolute cracker – I’d never really listened to synths and drums like that before. No doubt it pushed me towards buying my first stereo system – naturally in installments I couldn’t afford – and into the dangerous arms of Stereophonic Sound!
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@BB, believe it or not I also have that Massive Attack album. I liked them (and trip-hop) a lot. I went off MA after Mezzanine, which didn’t work for me, especially Teardrop with Liz Fraser. That was an odd feeling because I was a huge Cocteau Twins / This Mortal Coil fan, but the combination just didn’t sound right at all to me.
Saw Massive Attack live in or around 1997, and in typical fashion got blown away instead by the opening song ‘Battersea’ by the support band Hooverphonic, whose singer at the time, Geike Arnaert, was on top form.
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Without wiki….
Darley Arabian
Byerly Turk
Godolphin Barb
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My eldest son’s 14th birthday today – where does the time go? The day he was born is still crystal clear in my mind…. 8pm (give or take a minute) on a damp Thursday evening.
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Grassroots update – after a successful trip to Mallow n Cork last Sunday for a pair of “challenge” matches – we started the U14 West Munster League on Saturday.
We’re fielding 2 teams again this year (we hope – we’re basically operating off 15 + 2/3 subs for both panels). If we didn’t… we could field a panel of 23 (15+8) and the rest wouldn’t play competitively – hard to keep lads interested and a harder sell to “mom and dad” – when “Timmy” comes to all the training sessions but hardly plays a minute of any game.
Essentially, we’re fielding a U14 team (last year’s U13 group) and a ‘U13 team plus newbies’. The advantage of playing the U13s competitively last season soon became evident – we hammered our neighbours 48-7 (they weren’t so happy but then again last year when went down to 13 through injury – they refused to match numbers, so I’ve limited sympathy… in the end we won that game, anyway) . Although delighted, we weren’t prepared for the yawing gap – so had no plan B to “weaken” our team – and as we used our 2 subs due to genuine injuries…we were a bit at a loss. One thing I will say, we had a young lad (23-24) reffing – he was brilliant
U13s played against a club that didn’t manage to field at all at U14 last year – so as I suspected their team was mainly the younger age group. This is was a tighter game but we won out 22-5. We were ahead 12-5 with a few minutes left and got a pen in front of the posts – our 10 decided to take the easy 3 and get us two scores ahead – I was impressed. They’ll meet stronger teams – but there’s a strong-ish core who’ll get better as they play together.
U13s have got serious gas on both wings (one by the name of John Sexton) – our 3 tries came from the 2 wingers (they scored 3 between them in the friendly too). As I suspected a team mainly composed of U13s will play quite narrow as they’re just moving up from minis with smaller pitches and the gravitational ‘pull’ of the ruck tends to attract them too – if you can move it wide – you can wreak havoc. It’ll be knocked out of them by U16 or later in the season but early on you can fill your boots if you’ve any speed out wide (and a 10 or 12 willing to run straight and then pass).
Our seniors won a local cup – which was a nice pre-cursor to the season proper, the U18s won comfortably too and the U16 girls went to Shannon for friendly and won….so a clean sweep at the weekend – high standards to keep up.
Grassroots update ends
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Trisk, my son is exactly half my age now and the same age as I was when he was born. And I can remember his birth like it was yesterday too!
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My boy was 6 yesterday. Still remember the day clearly. We drove to the hospital at 8 in the morning and I was a bag of nerves.
To cut a long story short, the telly in the room mother and baby were in was connected to Supersport so I was able to watch South Africa v Australia in the afternoon.
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Happy birthday to all the Junior Ovally Ballers!
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Happy Birthday sprogballers!!!!
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Tomp knows how to make giving birth better for everyone.
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I reckon that if I’d put the rugby on during Mrs Craig’s labour then her suffering would have been cut by at least half. Maybe even 3/4.
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Wish I only paid £750 a year in tax.
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Does the fact you don’t call into question your accounting skills?
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Or are you just an honest upstanding citizen.
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Hi all!
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Good updates Trisk.
I remember when a team would occasionally show up short handed to play our school we’d either lend them a player or two (I played against my school for the year above me a couple of times this way) or if there was no one available to make up the fifteen, one of our side would go on to theirs to make it 14 v 14. This is kids rugby, “play it seriously but don’t be a dick” should be the motto
and yes, Happy Birthday to the young notabloglets.
Our eldest hits 24 this week, which is unfathomable.
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So ProWoo starts up again next weekend. all very exciting for the whole universe.
I think the premiereship is still going on, when does the current interminable season actually end? Plus there’s some eurofinals thingy
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Happy birthdays to the lads!
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Or are you just an honest upstanding citizen.
Like the prez himself.
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Ha , Craigs, my mate who is an accountant in UK reckons 500K is the magic number, if you earn that much you can effectively pay no tax. Donald isn’t alone, I reckon my accountant here is pretty good, I pay about the same as Donald in Federal taxes. Also bear in mind that his wife doesn’t work, and he has a school aged son, so he can also apply for working family tax credits, and free healthcare. I suspect that his increased income since becoming leader of the free world may mean that he is ineligble for the latter two benefits tho, so his next couple of tax bills may be slightly more. Oh, sorry, forgot, hotel industry has taken a pounding due to covid, he may be OK.
Also, you seem to be implying that Donald pays £750 in tax. That, sir, is most certainly fake news. According to todays exchange rate, he pays a whopping £584.07
# WhythefuckshouldIpaytax
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Could not agree more
The main thing is get a ball in their hands and get them out on the field. If people (of whatever age/sex ) want to play rugby then we need to give it to them and if necessary find a format that works rather than shoehorning them into a one size fits all format.
Our local rule in youth rugby (doubt they’d agree in Limerick or Cork) is match numbers. God knows we have few enough clubs – six run youth rugby, 5 have a J1 senior team, another has J2 (which is essentially social players plus last years U18s), 2 more have a “minis” (U12 and below) section. A couple (including us) have a “girls” youth section and there’s a single countywide women’s team. So, if we stand on ceremony insisting on nothing less than 15 at all times – we’ll go nowhere.
We trialled a system called Game On last year – borrowed from WRU – for J2 matches. Start with minimum 12 vs 12 – captains agree with ref to have uncontested lineouts or scrums as they see fit and agree to play 2 x 40, or 3 x 20 or whatever… anything to get a game started and not abandoned because someone cried off and as a result 29 guys don’t get a game …..
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Sbt – HMRC would rather go after the little guys anyway so he is probably right.
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‘# WhythefuckshouldIpaytax’
‘stheft. Or something.
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Chimpie – no, that’s property innit.
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I saw this and thought everyone* should know
*: ok, not everyone
http://geekxgirls.com/article.php?ID=8894&fbclid=IwAR1dyTSKYaZVkjhZS_v5qvMw4v9VcRG9vz6s9wmomp_TvrrILKTeMNF17gY
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yes , it is safe for work. Unless you work for/are some kind of sorcerer.
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Like a thaumaturge, say?
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Oops. Sorry miss. Do you have strong views on dragons/wyverns ?
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Badlyredboy – which one would win in a fight vs a great white though?
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Great whites are so yesterday, Craigs. In the Cape they’re in short supply because Orcas are apparently eating their livers as snacks.
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Craigs;which one would win in a fight vs a great white though?
The dragon is better in the air, so more of a fullback.
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BRB – well, there’s a poster on Cif called GreenWyvern who makes a lot of sense.
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Its probably Clyde.
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Nah, she said he makes sense.
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Thanks BRB, most informative. I will keep the link, so I can get the correct terminology should I ever run into one.
Is it likely that Iks has indeed been supporting the Wyverns all this time without knowing it ?
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Behave.
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Fantastic try from Marcus Smith! Finn-like chip over the defence, then he gathered it BEFORE it bounced and was away into the corner!
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@SBT – Impossible to tell as it’s just a tail.
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