The briefest of all possible previews.
Georgia v Fiji
Fiji are a very good side, but have not played a test match due to their Covid problems. Georgia were much improved last week. Georgia by 5.
Ireland v Scotland
Both sides looking rather pedestrian at the moment. With the inexplicable void where Hamish McFuckface should be, as well as the return of Sexton and Ireland’s home advantage (and despite the dropping of McCloskey), Ireland by 10.
Wales v Italy
Wales by 25. You know why.
England v France
With France putting out a C side, there is not much doubt: England by 15. Although I suspect France will throw some surprises England’s way.
Onna telly this week
Friday 4th December
| Bristol 18 – 17 Saints | ||
| Connacht 31 – 14 Treviso |
Saturday 5th December
| Australia v Argentina | 08:45 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Georgia v Fiji | 12:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Ireland v Scotland | 14:15 | Amazon Prime |
| Bulls v Cheetahs | 14:30 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Leicester v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Wasps v Newcastle | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Worcester v Bath | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Wales v Italy | 16:45 | S4C / Amazon Prime |
| Golden Lions v Western Province | 17:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Glasgow v Dragons | 19:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
Sunday 6th December
| England v France | 14:00 | Amazon Prime |
| London Irish v Sale | 14:30 | BT Sport Extra |
| Gloucester v Harlequins | 16:15 | BT Sport 1 |
Ovally Balls 
Sorry Chimpie and BB! Wrong Scotsman!
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I know. We all look the same…..
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Sorry Ticht for leaving you out altogether! Ooh! Look! A rabbit hole! Let me dive straight in!
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Jonny! Sadly, he’s scoring for Exeter. And a yellow for Johnston too.
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Connacht are being spirited. Racing are just a lot better than them. 3 tries in 20 minutes already. The 3rd was a gem. 19-3.
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At this rate I’ll be turning over to watch Finn and co at half-time.
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Smashing try by Connacht. Healy jumps over Thomas to get it from Carty’s cross-field swipe. Excellent, back to 11 points down and looking ok. Racing need to concentrate a bit.
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We’re only 14-0 down at half-time, but we haven’t really looked like scoring. Glasgow won a penalty at the first scrum, which I think just annoyed Exeter. We’ve had two players off to head injuries and we’re playing into the wind in the second half. Apart from that, everything’s fine….
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– the conditions look very difficult for both teams
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Slade – it’s not as though a Glasgow team is not used to playing in wind and rain (Scotstoun is known as The Wind Tunnel for a reason), it’s more the fact that we haven’t looked doing anything in attack tonight. We were spoiled in the past with having Finn, Hoggy, Niko, Tommy and so on in our attack. Now there’s Hoggy scoring against us!
‘Sob’
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The Connacht chooses not to kick and is rapidly turned over and Vakatawa strolls in. Bit of a shame as they’re putting in a great effort.
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Disallowed for a knock on but Racing get a penalty anyway.
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And drive over from the subsequent line-out.
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Magic bit of play by Russell puts Beale into space but Connacht stop the attack. Racing still come again and Alex Wooton steps in and intercepts before running 95 metres to score. 26-15.
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More beautiful play from Russell. A gorgeous kick and then Teddy Thomas blows a 4 on 1 with a forward pass.
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I think we’ve been in the Exeter half for about 20 seconds in this second half. We’re in now, I’m just waiting for Exeter to get a penalty when we do something daft.
Yup – we’ve knocked the ball on. Then we give the penalty away. Exeter are really good, but we’re really bad at the moment.
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Conor Oliver scores for Connacht. They’re within a score with 5 minutes left. Played splendidly.
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Racing win a penalty at the breakdown to end the game. A fine game by Connacht. Racing looked brilliant but were hanging on.
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Lots of dogs supporting Munster. No wonder they win.
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At some point Racing will have to learn to go for the jugular. It’s OK to step off the gas, and save some energy for the next gruelling game but they let the brilliant Connaght back in the game. They could easily have lost it when they should’ve won with plenty to spare.
I’d be fuming if I were their coach.
In the other game Lyon were surprisingly brilliant. Didn’t know Gloucester sent their academy. This explains that, I guess, as Lyon are usually as turgid as Castres or Montpellier.
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David John Moore Cornwell, John le Carré has died at 89.
I love that genre of writing and he was among the very best, a long fulfilling life, I’d say.
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Just saw that on the news Ticht. Must look out the BBC version of Tinker, Tailor again. Still one of my favourite TV series.
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Me too, BB, iirc it was ypu who noted the original is on youtube.
The , sort of, recent film is pretty good, though.
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By coincidence, today I found a book my wife bought for me years ago when we went on holiday, it’s a three novel volume of Robert Ludlum containing The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Osterman Weekend and The Matlock Paper. I remember devouring it on holiday, so I’m looking forward to reading it again.
The Osterman Weekend was one I first read about forty years go, I remember as a teenager thinking it was pretty scary.
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ticht, I like those 60s and 70s books. A real writer. Bbut the 90s 2000sbooks are very very so so. And the life was mixed up. Did like his brother’s journalism for a bit. More of a fan of the Cockburn kids. And their dad was a boss.
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I have to admit, I haven’t read the more recent output.
I suppose it’s the subject of brothers you raise that made me think of this, but I’ve been pondering on the Hitchens brothers for some time. I find Christopher interesting, he was never really sure, he seemed to agonise over things, he seemed to do due diligence and explore topics, and was open to changing his opinion, I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with him, but he was always an engaging writer and speaker.
Peter writes for the Daily Mail
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I read a lot of Christopher Hitchens in the 90s and liked him much of the time but he was a bludgeon and the style was often too much . Then 2001 happened and we went wildly apart.
Peter’s another story.
They were both in the SWP way back when. Michael Rosen writes amusingly about Christopher in his memoir “So They Call You Pisher!”
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SWP. Usually meet in half decent pubs, but generally full of undercover cops and future tories.
Occasional stars tho, I have fond memories of a lovely old lady in her nineties, who was full blown genuine upper class volunteer from the Spanish civil war, and was still radical. Way cool.
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Tam, I liked Christopher’s assertion that he was still very much a Marxist but no longer a Socialist.
He wasn’t one for cheap ephemera or throwaway lines, he seemed to mean everything he said, even when he changed his mind.
Anyway, the Marxist/Socialist thing made me go back and examine my own thoughts.
Turns out I’m still both.
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“SWP. Usually meet in half decent pubs, but generally full of undercover cops and future tories.”
Tim, I am proud to call Dick Gaughan a friend, he is a singer and activist. He was General Secretary of the Communist Party in Scotland for a bit. He used to have fun spotting the special branch guys in the ill fitting clothes and the wrong hair cuts at his gigs, he used to go up and introduce himself to them, saying he had nothing to hide and they were welcome to come and listen to anything they said at the gigs or at meetings.
They didn’t like that, not at all.
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On the subject of fisheries this isn’t the article I read a while back but it’s interesting
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52420116
didn’t realise that Scotland had a greater quota, and a much lower level of foreign ownership. (4% – devolved issue). a lot of the rights in England & Wales were sold off in the 90s.
Other EU countries have different levels of foreign ownership.
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‘a lot of the rights in England & Wales were sold off in the 90s.’
By the fishermen.
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I know Exeter area a good side, but that is shockingly bad scoreline for Glasgow.
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Ticht/Tomp – Re Christopher Hitchens. I disagreed with his stance on the Iraq war but found that he seemed to have come to his position from a better place than a lot of others with the same opinion.
That documentary I mentioned a while back (For Sama) really challenged my opinions around this. Effectively we held off and the situation in Syria was atrocious. Basically, I can appreciate his position a great deal more than I used to.
Peter’s another story.
Lesser Spotted Hitch.
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Boa’d that
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Diyantyi banned for 4 years.
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How excited is everyone at the World Cup draw taking place today!!!!! A mere 3 years and more ahead of the actual event! The Boks may even have played another match by then, but let’s not get too carried away on that score! And as the Graun emphatically tells us, South Africa, New Zealand and England are the top ranked teams! Stick that in yer eye, Wales, you may be in the same pot, but you’re not in the same club! So, let’s see what mouthwatering possibilities we could see:
Band 1 South Africa, New Zealand, England, Wales
Band 2 Ireland, France, Australia, Japan
Band 3 Scotland, Argentina, Fiji and Italy
Bands 4 and 5: Actual qualifiers who play actual matches to qualify – 2 from the Americas, 2 from Europe, 2 from Oceania and Asia and 1 from Africa. Always just one from the home of humanity.
What would I like to see for the Boks? A pool with Japan, Italy, Uruguay and Namibia. What will we get? France, Argentina, Fiji and Georgia.
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The stage is set, the Graun announces with hushed breathlessness!
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@Deebee – Fiji are ours. Or we’re theirs.
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Exciting to see Wales in Band 1. Making the most of it.
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CMW, maybe you can try and organise to play only Western Fiji? No, hang on, that didn’t work out so well with Samoa.
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We have beaten both of them the last few times in World Cups, we just always get Fiji.
Anyway a group we can come second in and not have to play NZ in the quarters would be nice. Worked for SA last time.
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What’s the point of having more or less scientifically determined rankings if they’re done 3,5 years ahead of tve WC?
FFS, Wales are currently 11th, but thanks to Covid remain in Hat#1.
Hat#4 will have either Tonga/Samoa. Pretty sure both these would give a good game to most teams ahead of them. Happened once, if I recall. Cough, cough.. .
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The show is a go! Louise Ekland, British TV personality with a Scandi surname and active mainly in France gets us underway in a show of European solidarity alien to the Tory elite! She introduces Manny Macaron,
the delightfully sweet and crisp mascotthe President of France to make the usual nationalistic soundbites and bluster. I’ve no doubt that Bill Beaumont will crown it as The Best World Cup Ever after the final whistle too.LikeLike
Of course it doesn’t always matter which hatband you’re in as you can end up drawing the same teams regardless. Hope that this time it does matter and Wales get a nice if undeserved draw.
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It worked a charm for us! Especially with the shock (if it actually was) of Japan finishing second in their group, knowing that we’d hammered them a few weeks before in the final warm up match.
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Japan finished top and it was a shock as Ireland were obvious favourites.
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Beaumont only predicting “one of the great World Cups” thus far. Mate, this will be the 10th one in total. Hardly a massive pot to select from.
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And Ireland would still have been in a good position to get knocked out in the quarters if they had finished top.
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Sorry CMW – yes, Japan finishing top and us getting them as runners up in our group.
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