This weekend sees the start of the new Pro-14 season, and the finish of the English Premiership. The only guarantee is that Saracens will be dead last, which will have rugby fans all over Europe crying disconsolately into their beer.
On the telly
Friday 2nd October
| Zebre v Cardiff | 18:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ulster v Treviso | 20:15 | Premier Sports1 |
| Leinster v Dragons | 20:15 | S4C / Premier Sports 2 |
Saturday 3rd October
| Scarlets v Munster | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Green v Gold | 16:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Connacht v Glasgow | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Edinburgh v Ospreys | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
Sunday 4th October
| Gloucester v Northampton | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Leicester v Harlequins | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| London Irish v Bristol | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Sale v Worcester | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Saracens v Bath | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Wasps v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
Ovally Balls 
Seedings for RWC
Band 1: South Africa, New Zealand, England, Wales
Band 2: Ireland, Australia, France, Japan
Band 3: Scotland, Argentina, Fiji, Italy
Band 4: Oceania 1, Europe 1, Americas 1, Asia / Pacific 1
Band 5: Africa 1, Europe 2, Americas 2, Final Qualifier Winner
“World Rugby and the France 2023 Organising Committee have announced that the Palais Brongniart in Paris will host the Rugby World Cup 2023 Draw. The Draw will be pushed back from the previously announced date by two weeks to 14 December 2020 owing to the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on rugby and event hosting activities.
Acknowledging the global COVID-19 impact on international rugby in 2020, with some teams not playing this year, and to be fair to all qualified teams, the Rugby World Cup Board has decided that the World Rugby rankings as of 1 January 2020 will be used to determine the five bands. This represents the fairest scenario given it was the last time that all teams were able to play.”
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You frightened me there, Ticht! For a moment, I thought it was the pools, and could see us coming dead last.
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Good luck with sorting out the next steps, Trisk.
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Cardiff get the first points of the season.
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Just to prove that even the vandals around one of my schools have taste….
Graffiti spotted on pedestrian bridge over railway near the school:
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (OK, maybe unusual but pretty well known)
Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter ( A ‘Stone’ cold classic)
and the clincher…
Planet Gong – Flying Teapot.
I’ll now be checking pupils next week to see if there are any pot-headed pixies among them.
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Obviously you will have to confiscate any stash found.
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TRY Cardiff!
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Red card for Josh Turnbull.
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Fucking hell I thought the same as Thaum.
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I see Wales can get Australia and Fiji again so I imagine they will.
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Sale over-Covided………..
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Slade – oh dear, 16 players!
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Ulster first-cap Moore makes a lovely break. Lowry at 10.
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This is an entertaining match. Youngster flair on both sides.
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TRY Ulster! (Hume)
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I started with the Dragons at the Dub, but I fear for MrIks’ lads tonight.
I switched to Ulster v Bennies, but I really can’t handle listening to Mark Robson’s non-stop nonsense, so I have to find some music to watch a game by
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Moore in for a try on his first start!
Bonkers match. Treviso playing some lovely stuff too.
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Oh, apparently not first cap for Moore, but first start.
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Thanks for the kind wishes MrIks.
Knowing Ireland’s luck at RWC we’ll get Argentina as third seed again – though in their current state of isolation hard to see where they’ll get sufficient quality opposition to get up to speed in a World Cup year.
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Planet Gong….well that takes me back to my teenage years…. Daevid Allen …no?
(For the youngsters here – that’s not a typo)
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Well-deserved Treviso try.
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My best mate through my late teens, 20s and 30s is an Argentine. Fortunately she’s not terribly interested in rugby.
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And Lowry in for a try!
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Yellow for Stockdale for a high tackle.
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And Treviso score again.
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@Trisk – If you’re planning on losing to Argentina then you’ll need to be beating one of the top seeds. And Wales will get Aus so that doesn’t look so good.
Good luck on the job front – for my part I’m quite enjoying redundancy, probably a bit too much.
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Treviso score their third, and if the conversion is good, it’ll be 21-all.
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And that’s indeed it at HT.
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TRY Ulster, after Treviso had sneaked in a penalty to go ahead.
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As Andrew says, there are worse things in the world than watching a labrador’s lugs bouncing around for 90 seconds…
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That was the BP try, but there’s no reason why Treviso shouldn’t also get one.
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Poor Olive seems to have the camera strapped to her back there. Pure exploitation.
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Shit, turns out Lowry is an inch shorter than I am.
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Cooney and Lowry subbed off.
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Ulster finally maul over for the 5th try, which will hopefully win the match. Treviso have lots of good things to take away though.
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Floodlights have failed!
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Whoever tripped over the plug has put it back in.
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No-one watching the Blue Meanies?
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Ooh, Treviso got close to scoring a fourth, but slid into touch.
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And that’s it: 35-24.
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That was very enjoyable.
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I think the world would stop spinning if Fiji were not in the same group as Wales.
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HOLD THE FRONT PAGE!
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I saw a beaver up close and personal on Thursday night.
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Are you sure?
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What was it doing? What were you doing? Do you have pictures or were you just living for the moment? Was it everything you thought it would be? So many questions…
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Where’s Karl when you need him?
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Invocations of Karl were only really needed for the unintentional. And anyway you’re an intelligent chimp and should be capable of using your own words if given enough time with the typewriter.
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Absolutely sure, CMW. I was in the moment though so my picture has a touch of Bigfoot about it.
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So the story is/was that this weekend meant a trip to Mrs.Iks’ Heimat because here mother is in a bad way. In good times we both get the dreads and depressive vibes coming down here, so bad times feel an even gloomier challenge.
So to help we left Thursday and booked into a nice hotel on the outskirts of Ulm to break the journey up. The hotel is set by a small lake and the banks of the Danube. Turned out that apart from being a duck watcher’s paradise there was also a small tributary that was theoretically home to a beaver colony. Pfft I thought.
Anyway, after dinner In the hotel I was stuffed, so decided to go out and have a walk around the place, and kaboom! there it was right in front of me, chewing grass on the lawns near one of the streams. I disturbed it so it strolled slowly across the path and back into the water. Marvellous.
The funny thing is that since we’ve had beaver-bantz on here I imagined I would see one one day, and there we are.
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