Only two games this weekend, with Ireland treating Italy like a Welsh prop’s face and England facing their sort of nemesis in Cardiff. France and Scotland have had their game postponed as a result of an outbreak of lurgies in the French camp which was due to Galthié being a messiah very naughty boy. Craigsman, of course, would never do this.
Italy vs Ireland – Rome
Gonna be a spanking. I was going to leave it there but to be honest I should explain why. Ireland will be hurting after a disappointing run against Wales and France and will be keen to get back on track by putting a lot of points on Italy (who last won against them in 2013). Ireland also have an almost full strength squad too. They are just missing Cooney who, for some reason isn’t included. No one apart from Big Faz knows why this is and it really needs to be a talking point on the notablog. Has anyone mentioned that? Someone should mention that.
Italy will score one or two tries but are always a few years behind the curve and they don’t have the players. I can see them holding out for the first quarter before the floodgates open and we can all talk about whether they should make way for Georgia.
13 – 45 to Ireland
Wales vs England – Cardiff
I’m not sure about this one. Have Wales been spawny this year or have they been tenacious when behind and fought back valiantly to win? I think it’s both. You have to be good enough to capitalise on your luck and some of the tries have been great. They have fielded a team with a mix of old and new heads and seem to be finally getting to grips with Pivac’s style of play. If they can get it right and build an early score, then it will be tough night for the Saes.
England seem to be wobbling a bit. With Eddie emphasizing defence and several players out of form they haven’t set the world on fire recently. That said, they should be tough to beat and I’m hoping that they will have a bit more confidence about them this week. Expect a lot of kicking and muscle which hopefully will see them home in a tight game. Some might complain about this, but not me.
30 – 22 to Wales or 20 – 15 to England
France vs Scotland – Paris(ish)
So this has been postponed. What a bunch of les muppets, eh (who I hope will fully recover)? I can’t even ask ‘which France will turn up’ just to sound like a knob. Ah well, let’s pretend that it’s going ahead and look into my crystal ball…
I reckon France at a canter. They are looking very good at the moment and will likely stuff the Scots up their holes. There will be some nice stuff from the visitors but ultimately France are becoming more and more evil every year. It started with some strange glasses, then came a blunt talking defence coach and a change of culture a few thought would be unpalatable and then selection of form players and a sensible game plan going forwards. Who’d have thunk it? Witchcraft, I tell you.
I could be wrong. No good ever comes from a postponed game. None at all.
35 – 15 to France
As foretold by Britney Spears
Onna telly this week
Friday 26th February
| Treviso v Connacht | 17:30 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Sale v Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
| Cardiff v Munster | 20:00 | S4C / Premier Sports 2 |
| Ulster v Ospreys | 20:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
Saturday 27th February
| Edinburgh v Scarlets | 12:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Bristol v Leicester | 13:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Italy v Ireland | 14:15 | ITV |
| Newcastle v Harlequins | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Wasps v London Irish | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Gloucester v Worcester | 15:15 | BT Sport Extra |
| Wales v England | 16:45 | BBC1 / S4C |
| Zebre v Dragons | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
Sunday 28th February
| Northampton v Bath | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Leinster v Glasgow | 17:30 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
The squad? That’s a bit extreme.
Not many near the 23 for the tests though. May, Watson? Sinkler? Curry is still putting in some performances. Ford looks ace with front foot ball in attack, no jib though.
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I’d probably still pick Itoje. Not many others, though.
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There will probably still be more English players than Scottish players in the Lions squad.
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I’d like to see (from a rugby point of view) England get Itoje carrying the ball a little more. He’s a very skilful player, quick and big but he hardly ever seems to get hands on. At the moment he’s there for the defensive side of things and he’s not playing so smart.
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TomP – maybe he can’t pass? Don’t really recall ever seeing him do so.
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I see that I missed out on commenting on the worst of Floyd. Both the Seamus/Nobs and Rog’s Pict nonsense certainly rank highly but for bland emptiness the 1987 onwards years as a lump just edge the horrifying ego-led moaning of a post Wish You Were Here Floyd-as-Rog’s-backing-band. I appreciate other views are available (even if they are sadly wrong). I did meet Nick Mason at Silverstone as a teenager and was suitably awestruck.
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THERE WE ARE THEN!!!!!
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“I generally like Gauzerre. He’s no Steve Walsh but who is?”
He just needs to take a long hard look at himself.
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He can pass it ok:
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How long before a decision is made around the Lions squad? The lack of game time must be hurting the Sarries players
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Oh well, another match on its way to oblivion. But before it disappears entirely…
1. Well done, Wales. They scored four tries with great skill and commitment — it’s not their fault that two of them shouldn’t have been awarded. They defended heroically and took their opportunities well, and they played the game in the right spirit. A good afternoon’s work and things are looking up – some really good young prospects arriving.
2. Some people are due a rest to get their form back. Gauzère and the TMO, of course, who will no doubt be getting a call from the IRB standards panel just about now (and a congratulatory one from Steve Walsh) — though I hope the IRB deal with it behind the scenes, without hanging them out to dry as they did with [name I’ve forgotten] in the [year I’ve forgotten] World Cup. Referees have a hard enough job as it is without that sort of pressure.
3. Of the players, whatever Daly once brought to the team, he’s not bringing it now and it’s time for someone else to show what they can do while he tries to regain his form. He’s the most obvious candidate, but I’m sure there are others. The passing seems to have gone backwards in entirely the wrong way, and the ball retention was pish. Still, they did look the most dangerous in attack they’ve looked for a while.
4. England could still have won, despite Wales’ 14 point head start, it’s their own fault they didn’t. Leaving aside the final try (the sort of thing that happens when you’re chasing the game in the last couple of minutes), what cost the match was those three penalties on the run (two by Genge immediately after he came on) on 24-24, when England were starting to look sharp and dangerous. Gauzère gave plenty of ‘interesting’ decisions against England, but those three were fair enough and they probably cost us the chance of winning.
5. Some consistency would be nice on TMO referrals: they went back five minutes to check Curry’s (legal) tackle, but they didn’t bother even to look at the coat hanger tackle on Youngs as he was scoring his try? May have escaped a red, but looked like a stone cold yellow these days. If Youngs hadn’t scored it would have been a penalty try and a yellow, so why the double standards on head injuries — we’re going to treat them extremely seriously unless you score a try?
6. Well done, Wales on the Triple Crown!
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CMW – fuck’s sake. Now I have a mental image of Steve Walsh taking a long hard look at himself. Mind bleach, please!
TomP – fairy nuff!
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@Thaum – Long. And hard.
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You bastard!
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“Ford looks ace with front foot ball in attack, no jib though.”
Sheedy was jibbering like nobody’s business.
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Brookter – I noticed the seatbelt on Youngs, but it was pretty glancing – would probably have been a penalty only, I think?
Fine post though!
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@Beadle
Peak Floyd™ is Meddle through to The Final Cut — there are good songs before and after that but 71-83 is where the consistent quality is to be found. Honourable exception to Amused to Death of course, and whose Best Of collection can be said to be complete without Free Four and Corporal Clegg, but still.
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@Brookter – I thought the decision for the second try was correct. Bloody lucky but it went backwards off LRZ.
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Sheedy looks a good prospect. Actually he looked a million dollars against what he had to deal with today.
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It’s one of those sad facts of life that Roger Waters seems to be a complete synt, and Dave Gilmour a very nice guy, but the Floyd without Waters is crap.
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@Thaum,
I think it was more than glancing — it was obviously instinctive and entirely unmalicious, but it was a clothesline tackle to the face and players are getting reds for that sort of thing these days. But my point is, we didn’t get the replay after replay of the incident that we did after the Curry tackle, and if they’re serious about head injuries, perhaps they should have looked at it rather than ignoring it completely?
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“Peak Floyd”
Some of the early stuff is funny. The rest isn’t.
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Brookter – sure, there was some bizarre refereeing today.
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Dab, I get that. I really do.
But that decision therefore has been called wrong 99 times out of a 100 in the last 10 years. Why today look for a reason to give it when the player himself clearly thought it was a knock on?
Bah! It’s nonsense rule if it is right and has never been really looked at before. If this is a change imagine what you could do with it? Lob it forwards over the tackler so they can’t tackle you off the ball and scoot round them and volley it back to a team mate?
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Thought Billy was better today. Not amazing but better.
Think we had our chance under Eddie, it’s going to be a bit crap for a few years now. Not entirely his fault. Building a team around the sarries players and then sarries going down the shitter wasn’t his fault but I’m not sure how to fix it.
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I agree with Brookter on the clothe line tackle.
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@Dova – If “Lob it forwards over the tackler so they can’t tackle you off the ball” was really a goer then why would you “volley it back to a team mate”?
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Craig’s. I could do with some help moaning about the ref here???
I’ve made my excuses already but some support wouldn’t go amiss.
All this reasonable and diplomatic comment! We just lost to Wales with a bent ref in charge!!
FFS
For clarity, I’m pissing about now.
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I pissed about half an hour ago, but I’ll need another one soon.
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You can’t intentionally throw it forward.
O’Driscoll did something like it for Leinster once but got away with it.
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About the cloches line tackle, I seem to remember in the old days the game would restart, after the conversion, by a penalty (awarded to the team that just scored,) taken from the middle of the pitch. Not seen that for a long time.
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CMW because it wouldn’t be a knock on as it hadn’t touched the floor.
You could apply it to slapping it forwards off your finger tips over the defence and reaching on the full to back heal it an inch. No knock on.
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Dab,
It’s irrelevant now of course, the decision was given, but I think he clearly knocked it forward into his body first.
Still, here’s some good news about referees to cheer you up…
(No reflection on Joy Neville — really good news that she’s getting a 6N game. I *think* it’s the first for a female official — is that right?)
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Clothes for cloches. Ding dang!
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Triple crown? Well I never. Didnt realise until someone mentioned it. Duh.
Wales rode their luck at times over recent weeks but congrats. And they can beat 15 players! Whodathunk before 6n started…
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@dova
I’ve seen that penalised before.
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@Dova – As TomP says (and I hoped I implied) you would just catch it if it was a legitimate thing to do deliberately.
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Damn. So France get Brace again? Will he spot last minute knockons this time?
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TomP – obviously that should have been a straight red, but only because they were playing Ulster.
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Be bloody brilliant way to beat the rush defense
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Flair,
At least both sides will go into the game with equal confidence in Mr Brace….
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Don’t see the difference. The rule apparently says the ball can travel forwards from your hands (deliberately, as per the case today ) but its not a knock on if it doesn’t hit anything else and then hits your leg and go backwards.
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“I think he clearly knocked it forward into his body first.”
Now it fairly obviously can’t be possible to knock it on into your own body or almost any juggled catch would be a knock-on. I think the rules should somehow make it a knock-on, but I can very easily believe that they don’t.
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Well call me Spawny Ap Spawny-Jones, but I could get used to it and I’m going to accept it gracefully. Great, if bonkers, game to watch. Just as well there was no crowd there as there could have been a case of spontaneous crowd combustion. Sheedy and Hardy to start next time and suddenly the team looks a lot younger. Maybe Dai Halaholo to start as well.
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LRZ hit the ball with his right hand, it then went down to his thigh, then the back of his right leg then fell to the ground and an England player pushed it backward (towards the England try line) into the line of the oncoming Welsh player. The ONLY thing I can think of that the TMO saw, was that the ball went DOWN from his hand on to his thigh, then BACK onto his leg. I’m not saying that was what happened though, just that could be the reasoning they used.
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In October 2017, together with Andrew Brace, George Clancy and John Lacey, Neville was one of seven referees offered professional contracts by the IRFU. (Wiki)
She’s in bad company. I thought she had previously reffed a 6N match, but no, it was European Cup, as well as some Pro14. She TMO’d Wales v Georgia in the Autumn Nations Cup as well.
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I often think dropping the ball should result in a scrum regardless of whether it went forwards, backwards or ‘backwards’, but I can see that this would make things difficult with regard to knocking the ball backwards when you don’t have control, passes that bounce etc so think it’s probably best the way it is.
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BB (and Dova) – not quite. It went forward from his right hand onto his left hand, where it went backwards onto the leg.
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Anti-Rugby Dropsie.
Well, it’s better than Rugby Dropsie.
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Dov – clearly bent ref in the shaft of all shafts.
In all seriousness he made some mistakes but we shit the bed in the last quarter. We showed dog to get back to 24 all and then fucked it.
Some of the decisions against Itoje were harsh though.
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