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 
To combat covid Corbyn would have made the drinking of green tea compulsory.
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It’s infuriating that it takes something like this for them to twig that yes, manufacturing and other manifestations of self-sustainability are actually important. Farming is another good example, and I expect that lesson is to come in the next year, as Brexit kicks in.
Politicians like to say that the UK has some of the highest welfare standards for agriculture in the world, and that’s actually true. But there isn’t anywhere near enough food – animal or vegetable – produced here to feed us all, and hasn’t been for I think about 200 years. The same politicians prioritise building shitty housing on farmland to prop up the ridiculously-overpriced housing market. Food should be twice as expensive, and housing a quarter of the cost it is. It should be illegal to build on farmland.
*Waves glass angrily at the screen*
*Lights last (sustainable) fag of the evening*
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@slider
If you can get behind the FT paywall there is an interesting article on UK vaccine manufacturer: https://www.ft.com/content/662ab296-2aef-4179-907c-5dba5c355d86
Basically by insisting Oxford Uni worked with AZ rather than Merck we’ve made sure the UK is good at making vaccines on the adenovirus platform. Now we’ve just signed a massive deal with CureVac to make mRNA vaccines in the UK so we’ll also have a future supply of vaccines from that platform as well.
(You can conceivably make any vaccine from these platforms, not just covid).
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Oooh, wait, somebody’s mentioned Corbyn.
I think Jeremy Corbyn would have paid attention to the recommendations on the PPE stocks and other pandemic preparedness. If he’d won the 2017 election, we’d have been in a better position; 2019 would have been a bit late.
I’ve no idea what he would have done re closing borders, lockdowns and so on. I’m not convinced that he’s got a particularly pro-science viewpoint, although perhaps I’m attributing the faults of his idiotic brother to him. It’s probably safe to say that NHS and other front-line staff would have been better protected, and would have had a pay rise by now.
Free broadband doesn’t sound so idiotic now either, although I thought it was a step too far at the time.
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I actually think Corbyn would have coped reasonably well. My fear is that politicians being ideological, he’d have also made mistakes but from the opposite end (I doubt our vaccine programme would have gone as well as it is currently).
My fear would be he would consign labour to another decade in the wilderness, because all the economic impacts of the pandemic would be blamed on ‘Labour Profligacy’. Of course, given that they can’t seem to square the demands of their different wings and those who will vote or not vote for those wings, that might still be a long way away.
The idealist in me wonders that come 2024, an electoral pact is made by the non Tory parties to not split the vote anywhere, and having gained power, change the voting system to a form of PR, and then call another election. Make it a manifesto commitment before the election so there’s no referendum after it, like the fudge of 2011.
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Slider – yep, agree with that. I don’t think he’d have made the huge spaffing investment in unproven vaccines, but on the other hand, we probably wouldn’t have been in such a dire position. And yes, only the Tories can get away with shaking the magic money tree.
I like your 2024 dream, but can’t see it happening.
Now NN!
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He’d’ve been coup d’etated within a week of the first case.
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On broadband. Look at what we could have won:
https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784
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OT I can’t get behind it but IIRC I read elsewhere Merck wouldn’t agree to certain guarantees about first destination of supply, which were a redline for the vaccine taskforce or Oxford themselves.
The nasty bit of me is quite glad the Oxford vaccine works, just to spite that Emily Cousens person who wrote in Huff post she wanted it not to be first because Boris would claim British exceptionalism. Of course Boris would, but that’s a fucking horrible sentiment to come out with.
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I’d seen that before about broadband. Terrible decision.
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“I like your 2024 dream”
I do and don’t. We need a better system and we need to get the Tories out somehow. But what we really need is 5-10 years of a Labour government before we solidify the gains of having one by moving to a system where it’s much harder to change anything. That was perhaps the biggest missed opportunity of the Blair years.
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If you want to read the FT article, copy and paste the headline into google and click on the link there. That normally works.
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2024 is a long way off, but I can’t see there being a case, just based on having Starmer as PM (or anyone else who might replace him from the current PLP) having the power to cut through and get enough votes for a majority anyway.
I’d maybe hope for a Lab-SNP coalition, but that might mean a change to PR in exchange for indyref2.
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Good catch up tonight.
One thing I can’t really square is the idea that this pandemic came out of the blue and the govt had to react on the fly. Shirley they had disaster planning around this and Shirley there were lessons available from SARS et Al. I’m literally working on this risk at work. What happens if you have business interruption from natural disaster, pandemic, social unrest etc? We should have been more prepared.
It can’t be the case that each country has to learn to cope individually.
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TomP – good article, that. I knew the UK’s broadband was shit, but didn’t realise Maggie was behind it. Should have guessed.
Craigs – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/revealed-the-secret-report-that-gave-ministers-warning-of-care-home-coronavirus-crisis
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We have a PR system in South Africa and it’s an absolute disaster. All it means is that MPs are beholden to the Party for their seats and lunch, rather than their constituents. You run the real risk of MPs not being accountable at all in their constituencies (I actually have no idea who my MP is and doubt very much if (s)he has ever set foot in my neck of the woods) and becoming distant from voters and their needs.
Ours may be an extreme example of how PR can be used to destroy a country in the interests of a venal and corrupt elite, but the ANC voted to keep Jacob Zuma as President 8 times in Parliament despite the overwhelming evidence of his corruption, looting of the state and destruction of institutions meant to keep the executive in check. By it’s own calculation, in the Zuma decade, ANC officials looted over R1 trillion from the state (around £100 Billion in PPP terms) with no threat of censure because the party is built on patronage from the roots up, with those higher up having to pay off those lower down to keep their spot on ‘the list’ and all the wealth and opportunity it brings for massive corruption. It’s probably the biggest Ponzi scheme in operation today.
From a UK perspective I doubt it would ever get this bad, but it’s worth remembering that in 2015 UKIP would have returned 82 MPs to Westminster. Anyone comfortable with that? And just because they’ve faded as a force for now doesn’t mean that an equally unpalatable party won’t emerge in the future.
I have no idea what the answer is to balancing the inequity of FPTP and the disenfranchisement of millions of voters, and the risks that PR creates in having MPs beholden to the central authority of the party at all times, lest they lose favour and lose their seats.
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@deebee
Yep, very comfortable. UKIP weren’t really extremists – they were really just the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservatives who have been around longer than I’ve been alive. Labour used to be dominated by their own Eurosceptics once so it’s not an extremist view to want to be out of the EU.
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NZ had a Pandemic Plan, but it was the wrong plan for the wrong pandemic.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/new-zealand-wasnt-ready-for-a-pandemic
The trick was to realise that, and then to ignore the pandemic of instant epidemiologists that threatened to overrun us.
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@bk
Morning! Quick question that I don’t know the answer to – when did NZ close its borders to flights from China?
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Given the number of people that voted UKIP they should have got representation. Also as there was quite a propensity for UKIP candidates to embarrass themselves in various ways and more of them would have got a lot more exposure if they’d become MPs then that might have turned out to be a good thing for the next time round.
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Sweet Georgie North knacked. They’ll be singing in the Border trussocks of Hoick. Scotland by 31.
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I know I’m not on his medical team, but if there is one individual who stands out particularly as a CTE risk, it’s George North. I really hope he stops playing soon.
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Deebee, to be honest, I was more uncomfortable with the fact that UKIP got close to 4 million votes and won one seat. That is unfair. If there had been PR, and what kind of PR, then they probably wouldn’t have garnered so much support in that election.
This absolutely happens in the UK. Once you become an MP, you get your head down and you’ve got a job for life. However, if at some point you don’t, you can get slung out. See how Johnson kicked out 20 or so Tory MPs in 2019 before the election. You can argue that the Tories don’t have a democratic party structure and I’d agree. When there were whispers that Labour might go for mandatory reselection, there was a terrific fuss.
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So back three will have to be Liam, Halfpenny and LRZ with an extra scrum half on the bench or something. Some people will play centre. Gareth Davies will start where he left off against Ireland. The pack will be taken to the cleaners unless Scotland have at least two forwards sent off.
Scotland by 2.
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“When there were whispers that Labour might go for mandatory reselection, there was a terrific fuss.”
Stalinist purge etc etc . Think I’ve even been told on here that that’s what it would be.
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OT – I think late Jan we were flying nzers back from China and putting them into isolation for 14 days – not sure when that stopped. Early Feb they really clamped down on most travel from china – waited for WHO to decide there was an issue. That was long after the opposition were demanding that the borders should be shut, and not long before they started demanding they were opened up again.
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Initially it was 14 day self-isolation, scout’s honour style. Eventually they put people in hotels, then had to get the military in to run them, only to find that fit young guys in uniform were catnip to bored 20-somethings whose big trip to London had been cut short.
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Those Dickensian stalwarts Watkin and Tompkins in the centre.
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Vietnam closed it’s borders with China immediately it became apparent that a pandemic was brewing in China. Border villages in compulsory quarantine. Lockdown was more a case of ‘you better have a very good reason to be out’ than anything else. They border China and I think have comparable numbers to New Zealand.
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Hi Deebee – a fully list PR system doesn’t work, as you don’t end up with any local link between representative and voter. Scottish Parliament system seems to work reasonably well.
But I don’t think you can look at voting percentages that resulted under FPTP, as the politics of a PR system make for different parties and agendas. UKIP was single issue but if one did one of those ‘polotical compass’ things their politics weren’t all right wing, even if their people all seemed to be half a step removed from the BNP. But they took as many votes off Labour as they did the Tories, because people in those areas perceived they weren’t being listened to by either the incumbent or their main opposition. A PR system would probably mean that both Labour and Tories would split into four parties, rather than the uncomfortable coalitions that exist now. And it’s not inconceivable that over time it wouldn’t be seen as traitorous for the blue centrists and the red centrists to form a coalition government. If we’d had PR, it’s likely there would be a eurosceptic party of the right and a socialist (and somewhat eurosceptic) party of the left, both garnering significant numbers of MPs but unlikely to be anything other than the opposition. We’d have a green party that has far more representation but is actually far more centrist and practical than the watermelon greens.
It’s certainly better than the outcome for the liberal democrats here in the UK, who despite having a manifesto in 2010that clearly put them in the centre with a hint of left, were happy to make the compromises needed to form a government with the right, but ‘betrayed’ all their voters who were left leaning but couldn’t quite stomach the idea of voting Labour to keep out the Tory candidate in their constituency. Coalition doesn’t happen often under FPTP and doesn’t seem to work for the junior partner when it does.
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‘”Unfortunately, the Thatcher government decided that it wanted the American cable companies providing the same service to increase competition. So the decision was made to close down the local loop roll out and in 1991 that roll out was stopped. The two factories that BT had built to build fibre related components were sold to Fujitsu and HP, the assets were stripped and the expertise was shipped out to South East Asia.
“Our colleagues in Korea and Japan, who were working with quite closely at the time, stood back and looked at what happened to us in amazement. What was pivotal was that they carried on with their respective fibre rollouts. And, well, the rest is history as they say.’
Classic
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I can see the weekend sporting headlines already:
‘Injury hit Wales put in a backs-to-the-wall performance against disappointing Scotland’
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I’ll stand up for PR – at least our STV version. The Dáil pretty much reflects the way the country votes – last time a 3-way split between Fianna Fail , Fine Gael and Sinn Fein ( the parties themselves overlap a lot – SF are ostensibly left-ish, and the others centre-right – too long to go into more details). STV means you vote for individuals. The multi-member constituencies also lets voters choose between candidates of the same party – so hard to impose a party ‘apparatchik’ – “all votes is local” here.
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Thaum – that’s madness. It’s happened before. Why not have a plan for something that has happened before? Why wasn’t there a plan from years ago?
This shit should be there across governments. I could do this. Just need to meet Matt Hancock inna pub and I could roll out a project that would look at future risks and then I could save down some lovely PowerPoint presentations and excel spreadsheets on on a share point for future fuck wits to read.
Only cost them £35m.
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I try to be charitable to them on this Craigs. It was a clear risk, but I guess they figured it would manifest itself in something similar to Sars and mers. Both risk and impact not correctly calculated, and as a consequence, the overall priority (and spending) reduced. We certainly weren’t alone in Europe in this regard.
The counties that seemed to have their heads screwed on about this seem to have had similar types of thing before, and those sufficiently isolated and low of population density that effective quarantine didn’t have the economic impact it did in Europe. A mistaken decision by the UK, we should have quarantined hard from the outset.
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New law variations, the Captain’s Referral sounds like a whisky to me, but they all seem worth trying, except for one – roosting the pill in the 22 means it can’t be marked.
I can see where that will go.
https://www.world.rugby/news/615176
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@ticht
They started doing the “captain’s challenge” in NRL last year and it worked really well. If the ref makes a howler, rather than jumping up and down and moaning the captain can just challenge it calmly and they can arrive at the right decision without everyone falling out.
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Deebee, wasn’t PR insisted upon by the National Party for SA elections as part of the settlement? Am not sure you can say the country’s been destroyed by PR, especially as it gives the impression that everything was fine and dandy when you had a FPTP system in place and that there wasn’t financial corruption at the time, let alone the immoral policies of the Apartheid system.
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I think it’s a good idea OT.
Who can or can’t prompt the captain to initiate the referral in RL if they miss it themselves?
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They got big offices and nice cars and 5 p on plastic bags and Nick Clegg landed on his feet at facebook so all in all it worked out well for them. If they’d had a hint of left about them, they’d have gone into coalition with Labour. They didn’t as they ruled that out from the off and jumped into bed with the Tories who played them all too easily and whom they enabled all too happily. They deserve everything they’ve got since.
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@ticht
You can tell your own captain you think the ref has made a mistake and he can then challenge it. I’ve even heard refs when being spoken to by the captain ask “do you want to challenge it?” which I think is great because it means they are open to the idea they have made a mistake.
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Not quite the same but a couple of times in English club games I’ve seen the ref ask a player if he thinks he grounded the ball for a try and then going to the TMO if the player says yes.
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Perhaps they could have done confidence and supply rather than full coalition.
But the proposed rainbow coalition looked almost impossible on the numbers, it would barely have a working majority.
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I think the review system in cricket would work quite well in rugby. Might bring us back to the ref giving the onfield decision when it’s a try under a pile of bodies or if a pass was a tenth of an inch forward, rather than endless tmo reviews
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TomP – from memory it was van Zyl Slabbert ex-DA (PFP or DP at the time) leader who was the architect of it and roundly calls for its abolition. The opposition parties were terrified that the ANC would get a 2/3 majority that would allow them to change the constitution and nationalise the economy, which they didn’t do. And I don’t think you can compare the system under apartheid with democracy, given that only 15% of the population was eligible to vote, with constituencies largely gerrymandered to suit the NP.
Where I will argue with you is that South Africa was broadly moving in the right direction until Zuma took over: Eskom was a decent power producer with largely decent management that made a small profit each year until the Zuma cronies took over and its debt now threatens the country as a whole. Ditto for many of the state-owned entities, which if not great were at least functional until Zuma’s mob destroyed them through sheer greed. A lower percentage of people have access to clean water today than under apartheid. Let that sink in: in 27 years of ANC rule (the same number of years as Nelson Mandela was in jail), the ANC has gone backwards in service delivery, with the majority of that happening under Zuma’s disgusting reign.
And why? Because everyone in the ANC was instructed to vote for him and his allies’ policies at every unaccountable level of political structure in South Africa or face expulsion from their cushy jobs (or worse, if you look at the factional murders in the ANC in KZN and Mpumalanga). There is no excusing Zuma and the ANC at any level for their treason, but to bring it back nicely to your comparison with the apartheid regime, his supporters are now holding him to the same low standards as PW Botha!
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endless tmo reviews
Cricket is pissing me off badly with the review system at the moment. It takes forever to reach a decision and the sequencing is 100% wrong, especially on LBW:
They start with checking for a no-ball (fair enough), then move to seeing with the naked eye if there was any contact with the bat, then to snicko if it’s close, with endless replays of both of those, then to ball tracking to see if it pitched in line and would have hit the stumps.
Surely you start with the last one? Has it pitched outside leg? Yes – move on. No? Would it have hit the stumps? Yes/No – move on. Then you can go to your bloody interminable snicks, hotspots and naked eye analysis.
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@OT – I can only think they do it the way they do as it adds some drama. I’m with you. It also annoys me when we don’t get to see the ball tracking at all because they decide there was a faint edge when I’d already given it not out five minutes before for pitched outside leg/hit outside the line/missing the stumps. I want to know if I was right!
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@cmw
I’m honoured that you think I’m Deebee but must agree with you both.
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over-confident Scots forget the force that is Thomas Francis……………………………………………
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