Preamble
Following the lead of the esteemed French rugby philosopher and Chef de Cuisine Flair99, I will try to keep this short, at least by my standards.
In keeping with the odd times we live in, the 6N Super Saturday ingredients are not all there for a grand finale, and we’ll have to pop France vs Scotland back in the popty-ping microwave at some point to truly finish the feast.
Scotland vs Italy
Move over France, because it is time to ask the question ‘which Scotland will turn up?’ Having got off to the best possible start to the tournament, the Scots have coughed and spluttered their way through the following games and were unfortunate to find their progress further stymied when the French overdid the ‘Liberté’ bit and burst out of their corona-bubble to do some coughing and spluttering of their own.
With Finn finally HIA-d after playing in a slightly detached dream-state for most of the tournament, we are going to be treated to Hoggy at 10. Could go well, but it might not as he has enough on his shoulders captaining a pretty unfamiliar lineup while playing out of position. Then as I ignorantly ponder on, are the two new second rows going to ease themselves into the set piece, especially in a line-out which had a torrid time against Ireland?
Hark! The voices of doubt grow louder. An exciting backline, but are the omens pointing towards chaos and a replay of that infamous match against Italy when Scotland opted to only pass to Italians for the first quarter of the match?
This Italian team must have one good rather than just brave performance in them. Brex and Mori at centre are likely to do better at defending and crossing the gainline. Garbisi is a dangerous playmaker at 10, and Stephen Varney just might orchestrate things as well as his uncle Manto did. Throw in a decent backrow led by the all-action Negri and what are we left with?
Italy by a score.
Ireland vs England
England played well against France last week, but it is worth remembering that France entered the game looking like they expected to give England a thrashing – similar in fact to how England started their RWC Final – and went a bit run-it-from-anywhere bananas especially after scoring such an early try. England maintained their structure, but also looked sharp when attacking through Slade and Watson particularly.
Ireland are entering the match in good form, playing to their strengths of playing controlled, driving rugby, going through the phases, loads of bosh up the middle and at the breakdown, and Murray re-joining Sexton for some box-kicking and pill-roosting to bring joy to the purists, and to remind Malins that he is not playing away to Worcester any more. Ireland will miss Ryan though, and I fear that Beirne’s influence will diminish at lock, and the lineout will suffer accordingly.
I see a close game, but the England camp sniffs off to me. Even after good performance and what should have been a cathartic win, it still sounds like it’s all a bit of an ordeal for Eddie and his boys. Choosing a solution which involves having your captain – who sounds like an over-tired 7-year-old at bedtime – stop talking to the referee altogether might well backfire. I’m not sure how this will work if Ireland’s phase play starts drawing a string of penalties out of England at the breakdown, and Faz’s frustration builds up in front of his dad.
Ireland by about 9, and a shoulder-to-the-head tackle by Farrell on Henderson, followed by the patented Faz-flop n’ roll on the grass. Yes, the game might depend on the rat-poisoned mindset of the English players, and a French referee.
France vs Wales
Is the Jam-Slam on? Possibly, he said with authority.
Wales have annoyed and frustrated France over many games in recent years, up to and including the last RWC, when Vahaamahina elbowed his way to the front of the early retirement queue. But lately the pendulum has swung back in France’s favour – a relatively easy win last 6N, and a thrashing dished out last October. Ominously, France have sensed they can score tries at will against Wales if they quickly move the ball into the outside channels, and the marvellous try they scored direct from a lineout against England last week doesn’t bode well for the Welsh defence.
An injury-free Gaël Fickou has been a delight to watch, seeming to almost effortlessly create time and space for himself and others. Both sets of forwards have a settled look about them, but unlike the rest of Wales I do have concerns about Navidi’s defending against a team adept at offloading and running into space rather than contact. Botham offers much the same off the pine, so I think the omission of Wainwright could prove to be a selection mistake.
On the other hand, I expect JD2 to have his best game of the series so far (a low bar) and hopefully his Foxy wiles will compensate for the injury problems he still seems to carry in his legs. I even dreamt he scored the winning try last night, in identical fashion to the one Hendo flopped on for Ireland in Scotland’s in-goal area last week.
France by 13, I just feel they will score more tries. Our best chance is an over-confident France being put on the back foot by a Welsh team determined to win, and one that keeps the scoreboard ticking over much to French annoyance.
As dreamt by MisterIks
Super Saturday Zoom Piss-up
We can’t let a Super Saturday go by without having a blog piss-up. This year’s will be via Zoom. Let us know BTL if you’d like to join, and I will email you at the address you sign in with to give you the details, or if that address doesn’t work, email Craigs at craigsman@outlook.com.
Expect the details on Saturday morning.
Onna telly this week
Friday 19th March
| Munster v Treviso | 18:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Newcastle v Wasps | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
| Ulster v Zebre | 20:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Leinster v Ospreys | 20:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
Saturday 20th March
| Harlequins v Gloucester | 14:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Bath v Worcester | 14:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Scotland v Italy | 14:15 | BBC1 |
| Exeter v Leicester | 14:30 | BT Sport Extra |
| Ireland v England | 16:45 | ITV |
| France v Wales | 20:00 | BBC1 |
Sunday 21st March
| Sale v London Irish | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Northampton v Bristol | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Dragons v Glasgow | 15:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
Monday 22nd March
| Scarlets v Connacht | 20:00 | S4C / Premier Sports 2 |
| Cardiff v Edinburgh | 20:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
trisk, the soccer division was really strange as there were two teams called Ireland for a long long time after 1922 and players could play for both teams. Johnny Carey of Man Utd played for the IFA (NI) team on a Saturday in Belfast and two days later turned out for the FAI (RoI) side in Dalymount. When both teams tried to qualify for the 1950 World Cup 4 players represented both sides in the qualifying tournament.
They almost reached agreement in 1932 but it foundered on who would be represented on an international body.
With the rugby, it was more that it was a very (upper)middle-class game in terms of who ran the Union, which wasn’t appreciated in Cork and Limerick. They didn’t allow Sunday play and even ordered a Cork Con v Sundays Well game to be cancelled because it was on the day of George V’s funeral – in 1936.
There was also the tradition of 1 international a year in Dublin and 1 in Belfast. Lots of squabbling and anthem annoyance. All came to a head in the 1950s when Jim McCarthy said they weren’t happy about GSTQ being played before the game so they decided to stop the Ravenhill test. Rouse suggests they were making a whole load more money from the Lansdowne Rd games and this might have been the main reason both tests went to Dublin.
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“individual sports are most popular to play”
I’ve heard that milk carrying is very popular.
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A lot of very unkind things were posted on here yesterday. I mean, I can cope with the Ieuan Evans try, but anyone posting a video of Toby Flood in an England shirt should be done for a hate crime.
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Dab,
A bit harsh on Tobias. How can you forget the day he was 6 out of 6 from the tee v Italy?
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@TomP
Yep, the IRFU was small ‘u’ “unionist” in many ways.
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Edinburgh Rugby team to play Dragons at the Principality Stadium in the Guinness PRO14
Sunday 28 March (kick-off 2pm) – live on Premier Sports
15. Blair Kinghorn (96), 14. Jack Blain (11), 13. Mark Bennett (51), 12. Chris Dean (105), 11. Eroni Sau (21), 10. Jaco van der Walt (69),
9. Henry Pyrgos CO CAPTAIN (47)
1. Murray McCallum (61), 2. Sam Kitchen (1), 3. Lee-Roy Atalifo (7), 4. Marshall Sykes (2), 5. Jamie Hodgson (18), 6. Magnus Bradbury CO CAPTAIN (93), 7. Luke Crosbie (52), 8. Mesu Kunavula (6)
Substitutes:
16. Patrick Harrison (0), 17. Shaun Gunn (0), 18. Angus Williams (2), 19. Andries Ferreira (8), 20. Connor Boyle (3), 21. Charlie Shiel (30),
22. Matt Currie (1), 23. George Taylor (31)
Unavailable on Scotland duty (10): Simon Berghan, David Cherry, Grant Gilchrist, Darcy Graham, Nick Haining, Willem Nel, Jamie Ritchie, Rory Sutherland, Duhan van der Merwe, Hamish Watson.
Unavailable through injury (17): Lewis Carmichael, Nathan Chamberlain, Andrew Davidson, Dan Gamble, Sam Grahamslaw, Damien Hoyland, Charlie Jupp, Stuart McInally, Viliame Mata, Fraser McKenzie, Dan Nutton, Harry Paterson, Charlie Savala, Pierre Schoeman, Ben Toolis, Boan Venter, Mike Willemse.
Just the 27 players unavailable this week.
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Dragons (v Edinburgh Rugby): Jordan Williams, Jonah Holmes, Aneurin Owen, Jack Dixon, Ashton Hewitt, Sam Davies, Gonzalo Bertranou, Brok Harris, Richard Hibbard, Lloyd Fairbrother, Joe Davies, Matthew Screech, Aaron Wainwright, Harrison Keddie (c), Ross Moriarty
Replacements: Elliot Dee, Greg Bateman, Leon Brown, Ben Carter, Ben Fry, Rhodri Williams, Evan Lloyd, Nick Tompkins
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I guess technically until 1937 constitution was passed UK sovereign was head of state – so he was (and had remained) head of state – we’ve had a “prez” since then. I recall reading somewhere (apochyphral it may be) that the Free State had to approve abdication of Edward VIII – so all sorts of legislation went through the Oireachtas quickly and all sort flew under radar (which at that time hadn’t been invented!)
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Rouse makes a big play of Sunday being the day for sport in, for want of a better term, Poor Catholic Ireland, while the wealthy could play on Saturdays or during the week. Rugby became so popular in Limerick cos of the work done by Garryowen RFC and Sunday games.
Do you know this book by O’Callaghan? https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Rugby-in-Munster-p/9781782053644.htm
I’ll probably invest 20 Euro in it soonish.
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I think Garryowen are entitled to be called just FC – as they pre-date the IRFU
I’m aware of the book (I think a friend of mine has it) – we’re trying to research the history of our club – but there’s
very little on rugby in Kerry. Technically, Killarney RFC was founded in 1929 (and restarted about 3 times) but we know from newspaper articles and other archival stuff that rugby was played hereabouts in the 1880s and 1890s – Tralee up the road date back to 1880 – and we know Laune Rangers GAA club from Killorglin was founded by ex-rugby players (in the main) – so there had to be some other opponents…
We got a great photo from 1915 – so there was some rugby played even between the newspaper articles and the official founding. What we’re trying to prove is that club was really started in 1880s.
Another interesting snippet is that Killarney hosted and travelled to Aberavon a couple of times in the late 50s – and at some point started wearing red/black hoops (older photos show plain shirts) – which are Aberavon colours too. We think the connection to Aberavon was via Welsh international Tony O’Shea whose father was from Killarney.
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That’s good about Aberavon. My aunt is a Crowley from Port Talbot and there was a big Irish community there. One of the local clubs is the Aberavon Green Stars. There were a couple of Welsh internationals from Aberavon called O’Connor in the 50s and 60s so probably one of them.
The only O’Shea I can think of who played for Wales was John O’Shea, who got sent off for the Lions in SA in 1968. His son is (was?) a frequent contributor to Scrum V.
Irish heritage players used to be a thing in Welsh rugby and still is I suppose with the likes of Sheedy but we’re even more exotic now with Croat, Maltese and Iranian connections in addition to Tonga-Pontypool.
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Tony O’Connor was who I meant not O’Shea – mental block (about 30% of the population around here are O’Shea)
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Just read up on the history of the club on its website. Were the earlier incarnations down to families who’d learned at school or bank employees (that seems very important in Irish sport) or is it just unknown?
Had a look at Belfast Collegians – now Belfast Harlequins – and their history. They were touring to South Wales as early as 1901. My great-grandfather scored a try at Stradey Park on the 1914 tour but they got hammered by the Scarlets. Weirdly they seem to have played an away game at West Hartlepool in the early 1900s but not as part of a tour just one Saturday in the middle of the season. They then seem to have struck up a relationship with Selkirk and played them home and away quite a lot in the 1920s and 1930s.
This is about Aberavon Green Stars, the club of the other O’Connor, who was a famed tearaway back-rower. Speaking of tearaways, Daff had some connection to them as well I think.
https://aberavongreenstars.rfc.wales/club-history
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What time does HADRIAN’S WALL outgun the MAGINOT LINE?
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Deebs – you’ll have to wait for the upcoming new post to find out!
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New post is here.
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