I was vaguely interested in rugby as a child; we used to play it in the playground, although we didn’t have a rugby ball (any kind of ball would do), none of us knew the rules, and it resembled a particularly vicious bout of British Bulldogs more than the game we know and love today.
Then, in my twenties, I found myself in Detroit working with a load of Brits and French, and there was a local Irish pub, Dick O’Dow’s, that put on all the Five Nations matches. Of course they started at an unreasonable time in the morning, and of course this did not deter us from assembling to watch them, and downing the Guinness in camaradic rivalry.
It starts like that: you think you’re just getting together with some colleagues for a little fun, then you start watching other Test matches, maybe a few European Cup matches, and before you know it, you’re obsessively watching obscure dead rubbers in the Pro-infinity and desperately starting a rugby blog because the one you’ve become addicted to has suddenly disappeared.
As a footnote, during the last World Cup but one, we went to a pub in Cardiff after one of the matches (possibly that horrible one where Ireland were knocked out by Argentina), and there was a bloke there who we overheard mentioning Detroit.
“Oh,” I said, “I used to live in Detroit. I went to watch all the matches at Dick O’Dow’s.”
Turned out the bloke was the one who’d brought the television rights to Detroit, so responsible for my addiction. Small world.
Right, on to the matches!
Italy v France
Teams
Italy: Jacopo Trulla, Luca Sperandio, Marco Zanon, Juan Ignacio Brex, Montanna Ioane, Paolo Garbisi, Stephen Varney, Cherif Traorè, Luca Bigi (c), Marco Riccioni, Marco Lazzaroni, David Sisi, Sebastian Negri, Johan Meyer, Michele Lamaro
Replacements: Gianmarco Lucchesi, Danilo Fischetti, Giosué Zilocchi, Niccolò Cannone, Federico Ruzza, Maxime Mbandà, Guglielmo Palazzani, Carlo Canna
France: Brice Dulin, Teddy Thomas, Arthur Vincent, Gaël Fickou, Gabin Villière, Matthieu Jalibert, Antoine Dupont, Cyril Baille, Julien Marchand, Mohamed Haouas, Bernard Le Roux, Paul Willemse, Dylan Cretin, Charles Ollivon (c), Grégory Alldritt
Replacements: Pierre Bourgarit, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Dorian Aldegheri, Romain Taofifenua, Anthony Jelonch, Baptiste Serin, Louis Carbonel, Damian Penaud
Blog ‘wisdom’
Anything but finishing first will be considered a failure in France. I doubt there’ll be a Grand Slam, given that France will travel to both England and Ireland, albeit in empty stadia. (Flair99)
France by 13 over Italy – the Italians will have their customary strong start to the 6N before injury and lack of depth give those following bonus point chances. (Deebee7)
That’s about all anyone had to say about this match.
England v Scotland
Teams
England: 15. Elliot Daly, 14. Anthony Watson, 13. Henry Slade, 12. Ollie Lawrence, 11. Jonny May, 10. Owen Farrell (C), 9. Ben Youngs, 1. Ellis Genge, 2. Jamie George, 3. Will Stuart, 4. Maro Itoje, 5. Jonny Hill, 6. Mark Wilson, 7. Tom Curry, 8. Billy Vunipola.
Replacements: 16. Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17. Beno Obano, 18. Harry Williams, 19. Courtney Lawes, 20. Ben Earl, 21. Dan Robson, 22. George Ford, 23. Max Malins.
Scotland: 15. Stuart Hogg (C), 14. Sean Maitland, 13. Chris Harris, 12. Cameron Redpath, 11. Duhan van der Merwe, 10. Finn Russell, 9. Ali Price, 1. Rory Sutherland, 2. George Turner, 3. Zander Fagerson, 4. Scott Cummings, 5. Jonny Gray, 6. Jamie Ritchie, 7. Hamish Watson, 8. Matt Fagerson.
Replacements: 16. David Cherry, 17. Oli Kebble, 18. WP Nel, 19. Richie Gray, 20. Gary Graham, 21. Scott Steele, 22. Jaco van der Walt, 23. Huw Jones.
BLOG ‘WISDOM’
There was a bit more interest in this match.
Full-strength Scotland at Twikkers confident of catching England cold, anticipating many England players off the pace.
As it turns out, Scotland, as usual, force the game and surrender numerous knock-ons in promising attacking positions.
Ford, Farrell, Slade, Daly kick, kick and kick. May secures two kick-chase TDs (Hogg missing his tackles) and Farrell doesn’t miss a kick – conversion or penalty. Slade intercepts a long, telegraphed Russell flat pass for England’s 3rd try. LC-D barrels over late in the game for the fourth.
Final score 40 – 10 as Ritchie gets the consolation and Genge gives up 3 points and a yellow card for lamping Watson.Dream on……………………………………………………. (SladeIs42)
My dark horse, as often, are Scotland, specially as they start with England. With a bit of wind in their sails, they could go pretty far. But then, that’s what we say every year. (Flair, ibid)
Dayboo for young Redpath, and probably Cherry off the bench
Hope Turner can keep the heid & his darts are a worry. Not convinced yet by Fagerson junior at 8 but hope he steps up a bit. Bigger Gray back is good, he’s been looking back in form.
England by 20. (Chimpie)
” Daly = Hogg in many ways.”
Good lord, Slade. What pills have you been taking ?
Was going to announce Ford to bench before the team came out, Eddie just couldn’t play Ford ahead of Faz after Squidge report. Could this be the day a total Owen meltdown costs England the game? Dunno about chipping in behind Farrell, I think running thru him is a better option, with a nifty little offload down low.
So, the scene is set for George to come on with 20 mins to go, and England 20 points behind, will he secure the comeback win ? Has Owen been practicing spiral bombs ??? Nope, cos Eddie rarely brings on subs until its too late for them to change the game.
Scotland by 10. (SunbeamTim)
England by 12 over Scotland – Scots passion, fury and flingaboutery will keep them close until the 65 minute mark when George Ford comes on to change gears and get the spluttering engine purring. (Deebee7, ibid)
Wales v Ireland
Teams
Wales: 15. Leigh Halfpenny, 14. Louis Rees-Zammit, 13. George North, 12. Johnny Williams, 11. Hallam Amos, 10. Dan Biggar, 9. Tomos Williams, 1. Wyn Jones, 2. Ken Owens, 3. Tomas Francis, 4. Adam Beard, 5. Alun Wyn Jones (capt), 6. Dan Lydiate, 7. Justin Tipuric, 8. Taulupe Faletau.
Replacements: 16. Elliot Dee, 17. Rhodri Jones, 18. Leon Brown, 19. Will Rowlands, 20. Josh Navidi, 21. Gareth Davies, 22. Callum Sheedy, 23. Nick Tompkins.
Ireland: 15. Hugo Keenan, 14. Keith Earls, 13. Garry Ringrose, 12. Robbie Henshaw, 11. James Lowe, 10. Jonathan Sexton (capt), 9. Conor Murray, 1. Cian Healy, 2. Rob Herring, 3. Andrew Porter, 4. Tadhg Beirne, 5. James Ryan, 6. Peter O’Mahony, 7. Josh van der Flier, 8. CJ Stander.
Replacements: 16. Ronan Kelleher, 17. Dave Kilcoyne, 18. Tadhg Furlong, 19. Iain Henderson, 20. Will Connors, 21. Jamison Gibson Park, 22. Billy Burns, 23. Jordan Larmour.
BLOG ‘WISDOM’
The Irish have been shy on this one. Not surprised, because I honestly don’t have any idea either.
Wales by 2 over Ireland – early season burglary by Wales over a fancied Irish side. (Deebee7, ibid) (boo, hiss)
I had the grizzles with Pivac’s Autumn teams, but this feels a tick better. Amos back (as NostradamIks predicted) is alright, not too bothered one way or the other. I much prefer Beard to Seb Davies, especially for his Aardman features.
I’m glad those run-outs for Botham and the Other-backrower-who’s-name-I-can’t-remember-but-it-was-hyphenated, are over for now. Don’t know much about the next big thing at centre called Williams since the last big thing at centre called Owen Williams, who turned out to be overrated and over-hyped – except by me of course. I hope to see what the fuss is about on Sunday.
Lydiate coming back is an odd one. I should be horrified, but I’m not, for some reason. I’m more curious to see how it goes than anything.
Positives are mainly a good pair of 9s, the usual suspects in Faletau and Tips, and two Drags to liven things up off the bench.
What I’m expecting is a stodgy attacking display, an improved set-piece, a mix of iffy and whiffy defending, and a right-good rogering at the breakdown.
Ireland’s to lose. (MisterIks)
I think we’d take them in a packed-out stadium. In a empty echoing cavern it’s theirs all day long. (TomPirracas)
My flabber is gasted by the absence of Wainwright. I simply overlooked it. Says to me that Pivac’s pendulum has swung from adventure to stolid, and Lydiate is there to stop the opposition, rather than start a bit of Welsh rugby.
Pivac out! (Iks again)
Some more general thoughts on the tournament:
Both England and Ireland seem rather stale at the moment, with little threat in attack but they can defend. It will be tight.
Wales look mediocre, Italy pffft…
England will probably bully every team but France, so should finish 1st or 2nd.
Wooden spoon beckons for Italy while Ireland and Wales should fight within the soft belly of the tournament. (Flair99, ibid)
Wales’ matches will in all probability be tedious affairs with depressing results. Or depressing affairs with tedious results. With it being the last hurrah for the Six Nations on proper telly and the unlikely occurrence of Test cricket on Channel 4 I expect to spend February watching an inordinate amount of sport from which I will glean no satisfaction whatsoever.
They’ll probably score the odd nice try either before hopelessly capitulating or more likely after the game is done as a contest. (ClydeMillarWynant)
Don’t think we’ve got a hope in hell, really. Haven’t played a Test since lifting the Webb Ellis trophy, half of our players are being denuded of their skills and enthusiasm by playing in England, we’ve got a long injury list and our domestic competitions have been pretty poor fare. (Deebee7, who frankly seems to be confused about which tournament we’re on about.)
Let the games begin! We all have the HOPEFEAR.
Onna telly this week
Friday 5th February
| Dragons v Connact | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Bristol v Sale | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 6th February
| Wasps v Northampton | 13:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Italy v France | 14:15 | ITV |
| Bath v Harlequins | 14:15 | BT Sport Extra |
| Leicester v Worcester | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| London Irish v Gloucester | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| England v Scotland | 16:45 | ITV |
Sunday 7th February
| Newcastle v Exeter | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Wales v Ireland | 15:00 | BBC1 / S4C |
Ovally Balls 
I see that Iks and Deebee both wanted me burned with a red hot potato
Eh? No idea what you’re on about. Kindly post the video on here so we can all have a good laugh though.
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Jimmy Anderson on fire this morning. 3/7 off 6.3 overs. Bowling beautifully. I hope he’s in this kind of form when the Ashes comes round. Be nice of course if he keeps this form for the whole India series.
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Chimpie:
‘chat wellington’ doesn’t sound too enticing…………………….
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We’re forgetting MVML who expressed disappointment at the hostile echo chamber and group think created here and left.
I do my best in his honour….
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Sag had a soft spot for Dova as I recall, so it is pleasing to see him back after what sounds like a pretty grim period of time.
I have a soft spot for everyone on here, being a kind person. Now where is that atomic potato… Let’s hope searing it’s way through Tales from Topographic Oceans before reaching its final destination in CMWs’ gob.
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England have steamrollered India here, although a huge part of that has been the double ton by Root. Absolutely dominated the Test. And that against an Indian side that won a famous series in Australia with a raw side. Will India be able to bounce back like they did after the 36 all out in the first test in Australia? I’m sure they’ll be better, but England are looking like the real deal, strong across the board.
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BTW, I should have said this earlier. Great to see you back slider!
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Deebs – and thus confirm cat’s theory about how the cricket team doing well fucks over the rugby team.
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Don’t remember MVML’s entry into the stroposphere to be honest. Been a couple of memorable ones, with ‘Pro on an almost weekly basis going off pop at someone or something. I think Tov was another who had a fair few strops before throwing in the towel (and throwing it far better than his four world class hookers too). The Kiwi contingent seems to have disappeared with Covid, maybe they think viruses are transmitted over the Internet? Although events of November 2019 may have played a pivotal role too. And I don’t mean any gloating from your gracious scribe, surely not, but the humiliation of defeat to England.
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Cat appears to have a new job that probably affords him less time messing about than his previous cushy gig.
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That’s a shame. I miss him. He was right about everything. And if he wasn’t right initially, he’d soon be after arguing with himself for several hours.
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He did an interesting podcast with Tony Collins … he went from GAA to RL – no intervening dabbling w/ RU
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And the Bloodborne chat. Never forget that.
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FD’s tiffs with CJ were always amusing because you know deep down they love each other really.
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OT – I think FD was jealous he wasn’t CJ’s favourite academic.
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Tov had left well before I dropped off from here, I even got in am argument with him back over at the mothership.
I think I was also in a near weekly dust up with Pro as well, mainly owing to his embiggening of talented Italians and Muricans into being the next Carter.
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Don’t forget the Irish contingent that seem to have disappeared. TCod and his stare, Lara the muppet and Larry, who I think is still working on his ATL.
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Woke up to take Toby for a walk (blue sky dawn, golden sunrise, frosty, very thin layer of snow, icy puddles, crusty deep mud) and England had India at 160 for 6. Returned home (deep brown wet filthy happy Labrador and servant) in time for the presentations. I’m now watching the session from the start in real time.
It’s a great achievement to have beaten India at home so convincingly — but why Stokes as man of the match instead of Root?
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Cat’s finest hour was, I think, an exposition of the meaning of Jerusalem to Pro (I think) for suggesting that said lyrics were a celebration of capitalism.
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BB – I think STATATTACK and some other less than friendly jibes from pro were at least partially responsible for that.
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Pro’s finest hour was a totally true story about how he had to return some condoms to a chemist because they were too small. He made sure to mention that the woman behind the counter was a Muslim too.
That and the thing about poor people being paid not to have families.
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How odd, buying condoms for someone else.
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Thinking about that, I’d forgotten how strange he could be.
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As for the ‘flounces’ — TBH, for me as the main moderator, the last few months of the old notablog felt quite fractious and I found it quite uncomfortable at times. I knew how much Sag put into the blog for years (and how much he spent on it), and while he enjoyed the banter as much as anyone (and was very good at it), we did worry behind the scenes when things got too personal.
I still don’t know the story of how the blog ended so abruptly, — we’d talked about handing the reins over, but there were not firm plans. I’ve not heard from Sag since. I do hope nothing happened to him, and he just decided to move on. I miss him.
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DCI, I may have contributed to that, I definitely recall having c-bombed Pro. My apologies for overstepping the line.
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Brookter – I always appreciated the effort and was happy to contribute. Just typing out an atl can be a challenge so running a thing must be worse.
I hope he’s doing what makes him happy: sat on a park bench somewhere, grumpily consuming drugz and coffee whilst glaring at those around him.
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We’re also missing LADOAB.
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Slider – you just waltzed back in here and won the Internet BTW.
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Seems to me that the nations hoarding the most Covid drugs are the ones missing from here? Aussies, Kiwis, Cannucks, Ki-mericans. On that basis, you’ll all be devastated to know, I’ll be here forever on account of our government having only collected a batch of drugs that’ll expire before they can be used and can’t be used anyway because they aren’t effective against the South African variant. It’s reassuring though, that the Minister of Health has been busy trying to get everyone to stop calling it the South African variant because of the negative connotations associated with that.
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And Baldy, don’t forget Baldy.
*runs away cackling*
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@craigs
The working class nanny thing must surely come into contention.
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@Slider,
The occasional outburst wasn’t the problem — that’s all par for the course for any community (and that’s what the blog felt like for a long time).
It was just that sometimes the sniping would go on and on and the comments would get increasingly personal and the atmosphere felt strained. There wasn’t a single person or incident you could point at, and of course, some people were entirely lovely throughout.
But part of that may have been that I’d being doing the moderating and writing / managing the ATLs for a couple of years and, as Thaum can testify, that commitment can be a bit draining after a while, and I may have been a bit jaded.
Overall, though, the whole AoD experience was wonderful — I felt I made a lot of friends (and am glad to see you’re all here…) and I learnt a huge amount about rugby and much else. Thanks to everyone who contributed both ATLs and BTL — I was very grateful….
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@Craigs,
I think it was the combination of ATLs from blog denizens, from knowledgable articles on technique, to travelogues, to more-or-less prescient predictions, to quizzes and crosswords and to stupid fake newspaper front pages (sorry about that) with the banter BTL which made the blog so different from most other places on the internet. It needed both elements to work. Just one on its own wouldn’t have been the same.
So, blog members needed to contribute to both elements, and you all did, very successfully — and it was a pleasure to manage the process.
It’s good to see that the same combination is still at work here on Daughter of Notablog — so gratitude and sympathy to Thaum….
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OT – that was always his tie back to normal people wasn’t it? He seemed to despise normal people though. He used the term ‘gammon’ more than anyone I’ve ever seen on the Internet.
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I realise I may have slightly messed up my post there. I don’t mean that non gammons are not ‘normal’.
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If it takes England losing to bring back all these old faces, then i for one am all for it.
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Ve ry very cold here in Prague so have got the old “True to the Blue” Bulls scarf out. A couple of people stopped me in the street earlier and offered congratulations on the Double-winning success of the side.
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Mary Wilson RIP
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It was brexit wot ruined AOD
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Anyhoo, welcome back to the frozen north east Slider. North Berwick is a pretty good place to live, you’ll have some lovely beach action come the summer.
Going to get dragged out sledging soon. Feel a half day of work coming on
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Thanks, Chimpie, it is. We moved at beginning of August so did get a few days here and there at the beach, but we were technically homeless for about a month.
We are in a lovely spot actually, on the eastern edge of the town – a ten minute walk down the cliff path to the Glen Golf Club and the beach, and about 15 minutes walk into town.
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“It was brexit wot ruined AOD”
I blame Corbyn.
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If only he’d pressed that Stop Brexit button.
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Pretty sure it was politics generally that did for MVML as he was clearly a Tory-inclined voter and what with everything that was going on some of us were a little less than guarded about the belief that you’d have to be at least a bit of wrong ‘un to even consider voting for the bastards. I found this strange as all the Tory voters I get on with in real life know that people like me (not that I was necessarily the worst offender) think that about them and revel in it, but hey ho. I thought it was a shame as I enjoyed his posts and the only real argument I ever had with him was to do with his blatant wrongness about what can be considered an attacking or defensive line for an offspinner on a turning pitch.
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Speaking of which I was genuinely surprised at how well England’s spinners did in the match that finished today. They do still both bowl a considerable amount of filth at times to go with the good stuff.
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CMW – wait, you have Tory FRIENDS?!?!?!!!!!!!
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sympathisers
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@Craigs – Friends, family, teammates, enemies. If former colleagues that I get on very well with are included then at least one UKIPper.
And more importantly The Middle One is going to need someone to vote for once she’s old enough.
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@cmw
I work in a very middle class environment so obviously voting to remain was de rigeur. After the referendum one guy comes up to me as I was brewing up and said in a hushed tone “can I have a quick word” and took me aside. He basically wanted to get off his chest that he had voted to leave but was worried about admitting it, and saw me as someone who might understand and not condemn him.
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I’m seriously considering a flounce over this potato business.
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