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 
TomP – fleg and QueenPic (sadly, not the band Queen) were features of my upbringing, and then fleg and Pres-pic. As you may have noticed, I have a sincere revulsion to this. It never leads to anything good.
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@Thaum – there was some grumpiness at my work today. You know that container ship in the Suez Canal? One of those containers is ours. :(
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Refit – that’s a kick-arse Starmer video; shared elsewhere.
Sorry to hear of your work woes.
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“Hot Nationalism is the province of excitable foreign types.”
Stands to reason that all the different nationalisms of Britain and Ireland would be various combinations of cold and/or wet.
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There will be people out there barely able to contain their anger at discovering these flags weren’t already hanging about.
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In pretty much every African country, you have to have a mugshot of the President in every office of every public building, plus the relevant Minister (Police, Home Affairs etc). Big on flags too. During apartheid when I did 2 years in the Army, my Colonel at Defence HQ had all the requisite photos – PW Botha, Magnus Malan (Minister of Defence) and Kat Liebenberg (from memory, Chief of the Army) – plus Naas Botha, placed slightly higher than PW Botha. And TomP wonders why I have such a love affair with Pretoria.
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My granny used to have a picture of the bloody Pope in the hallway.
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Bloody Pope has scared everyone away. Although probably didn’t get past reading the rogues gallery in the post above that.
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Perfectly reasonable to harbour a hatred of a place that’s home to over 2 million people because of 4 photos on a wall.
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The Pope, JFK and Jackie Charlton was the Holy Trinity in some homes in the early to mid 90s.
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Some stuff was renamed – Sackville (who he?) St was renamed O’Connell Street but a lot was left as it was – Grafton St, Wellington Rd (prob helped that Wellesley/Wesley was notionally Irish) – renaming has been piecemeal and there’s a strong line that we shouldn’t airbrush or re-write history (well, I guess not beyond a certain point)
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John XXIII I hope!
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DeeBee, I recalled that story of the pics as I read through the posts this morning – straight out of Tom Sharpe.
Wasn’t Jebus just below Nass Botha, too?
On flags/flegs, Owen Jones was on tv news this morning suggesting that we show patriotism by looking after our citizens properly.
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Naas Botha was there too
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Sackville is the family name of the Earls of de la Warr, trisk. Maybe something to do with that.
Only American state named after a non-royal individual is Delaware. Plus, one of the Earls has the best building on the south coast of England named after him:
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Shurely shome mishtake, TomP, the Holy Trinity was Bobby Charlton, George Best and Denis Law
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There’s along joke about the three of them going up through the pearly gates and Dog asking them what they believed.
Charlton believes in football as a way to give joy to people,
Best believes in expressing yourself to the best of your ability.
Law steps forward and says, “I believe you’re in my seat”.
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along?
a long, ffs.
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Bobby – good, Denis – better, George – best.
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I’ve never been to that pavilion, Bexhill is just that step too far.
I’d argue that just before it, coming from this side, is the most important, or one of them, buildings in England, Battle Abbey.
Pevensey Castle, too.
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You know what I can’t understand with vaccine supply? Why haven’t wealthy countries built more factories to make the vaccines (and the stuff they need like bottles and syringes)?
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ticht, I really really like Bexhill. Neat little train station, good 2nd hand bookshops / charity shops with books, and the Pavilion, which is outstanding.
About 15 years ago I was doing some work for a group of Ukrainian doctors in London, proof reading their work and that sort of thing. One weekend there was glorious weather so I decided to hop on a train to Bexhill, thinking I could do a couple of hours on the way down, go to the pavilion and have a swim, a late lunch and then a couple more hours on the way home.
Unfortunately, a storm blew in on the way down and the train was delayed because lightning hit a signal box. However, this meant that I finished the work i’d planned early. So, I get to Bexhill and the weather’s horrible but I was determined to swim.
Now I hadn’t swum off the coast of Britain for about 15 years since I’d cut my foot on a piece of glass at Sandbanks beach so was nervous. But I jumped bravely into the very cold water and started to give it the breaststroke. It was so enjoyable that I opened my mouth to let out a yelp of satisfaction and just as I did a wave crashed into me and I swallowed some sea water. I headed back to the shore and spent the next 15 minutes heaving it out of my system.
But Bexhill, definitely worth a visit. You also get the train going in and out of Eastbourne station and stopping at Hampden Park (not that one) twice.
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@dab
Only a very few companies have the ability to scale up biopharma production. You may notice that the likes of Pfizer, AZ, Biontech, Moderna etc are not actually making a single dose of vaccine – they’re all being done by contract manufacturers like Cobra, Oxford Biomedica, Lonza, Catalent etc. That system does mean you can manufacture anywhere (if anyone slags the UK off for not exporting vaccine you can point them towards UK government funded IP in the AZ vaccine being produced all over the world) but it does require companies to be capable of making it to the right level of GMP and GDP. Bear in mind we didn’t know until late last year which vaccines were going to be approved, so it’s hard to build a new factory to scale that up in a couple of months.
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“Cliff Morgan – not very good in class. His best asset is his buttocks”
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11 minutes in and “biggest asset” not “best asset”
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Squidge is back.
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butt-ox
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RL forwards have been kicking for years
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1965 Third Test at Lancaster Park in Christchurch. Match-winning kick by second rowerTiny Naude:
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With video:
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So Squidge reckons France are better with Ntamack than Jalibert. All JD2’s elbow’s fault in that case.
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Can recall Peter Brown the Scotland No8 kicking a few pens/conversions in the early 70s – but that was remarked on as unusual whereas seemed more common in RL (when I watched RL on BBC on Sat afternoons with Eddie Waring).
Only recent RU forward I can recall who was a regular kicker was Eales…. (and that’s 20+ years ago now) – we don’t even seem to get the Zinzan Brooke-style forward who’s fond of a drop goal.
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At least a couple of Wales-Scotland games from the 70s finished (and were decided) with a forward kicking at goal. John Taylor (who could pass as a back) got his of course, but Alan Martin (unmistakably a forward) missed. I love the idea of having an enormous second row to boot the long ones, think he was pretty successful with it for the most part.
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Keith Wood was a terrific kicker from hand.
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104,000 (probably more) in the crowd for that 1975 game, CMW.
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I should have made it clearer I was referring to Squidge who said we are in for an era of kicking forwards. So of course I pointed out that Don Fox was a famous goal-missing RL prop forward.
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The campaign to get Elliot Daly playing second row starts here.
The campaign to get Elliot Daly playing second row stops here.
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@OT – I knew what you meant, but seeing as you went for a kick at goal rather than what he was on about thought it was OK to do the same.
Anyway, kicking from hand it is. And at risk of being accused of showing favourite tries that upset the English:
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Scrum V chose that as one of their classic matches one time. That try was pretty much Wales’ only piece of attacking play in the entire game so it was more or less half an hour of Emyr Lewis talking about his kick.
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May as well show Peter Brown’s match-winner at Twickenham, then:
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Don’t worry. You can’t hear any actual bag-piping on the video.
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Now that isn’t one of them (I had to check and was reminded that England somehow also lost to Mick Galwey etc that year), but I find myself wondering about the sub-genre of tries that ultimately denied England grand slams even if they weren’t in the last game…
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A stone-cold classic. It includes kicks (fly-hacks) by both Irish second rows:
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Although it was last game.
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A massive favourite:
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Backs stripping the ball off second row forwards is almost the exact opposite of what we’re after.
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Ach. My misunderstanding. Apologies to all. Except Craigs.
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@tomp
That really is a brilliant try. Ireland had 7 players hanging back waiting for the kick return. It was helped very much by the England team having a collective “don’t panic Mr Mainwaring” moment. The fact they had 14 players offside didn’t help, or the fact that about 5 of these went to tackle Heaslip. It was almost like watching the England of the mid-80s.
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