You wait bloody ages for an ATL, and then two turn up at once….
No prizes for guessing which is the work of Craigsman, and which of Deebee7.
The Glorious Series Continues
Pre/Ramble
So it’s a bit weird that, with a Lionz series in south Africa being poised with one game each, rugby fans seems quite deflated about the last match in this series. No fans, empty stadiums, accusations of biting, of slowing down the game, of racism, of influencing the referee have all played a part. But really it’s the fact that the rugby hasn’t set the world alight that’s the problem (Springbok tries aside) in this Craigsman’s opinion. Both sides seem to be playing low risk stuff seeing who breaks first. Kick, kick, kick. The Kiwis would lap this up. Form-wise, apart from the last half of the second game (and a bit in the first half of the first game) the Lions forwards have been able to get the dominance needed to win but they have been blunt in attack. Here’s hoping that rugby* wins and we get a game on Saturday. Let’s have a look at the teams innit.
LionzTM
So this makes me wonder what the feck Gats is playing at with his selection for the third test. I am but a simple accountant, unused to the complexities of rugby coaching, but I’m trying to work out some of the choices made at 9 and 10 and 21 and 22. Starting with a live wire scrum half and a … solid fly half and then ending with a … solid scrum half and a live wire fly half seems to be negating the strengths of each player. Either start with the live wire options and when the Springbok defence proves too miserly to score tries against or a nice healthy lead has been built, end with the … wise old heads who like to kick and do the game management stuff. Or, do the opposite to chase the game. What do I know? Everything else in the team seems reasonable. Courtney Lawes has done well to ignore the instructions from Dan Biggar and the rest of the pack looks solid. I would probably have Tadhg MK II in the finishers but hey ho. The back 3 look like they could negate a dastardly kicking game and we have two lumps in the centre to negate the Boks and the “amazing” Elliot Daly to come in against the tired legs at the end. So, I’m sanguine there.
Springboks
The Springboks look rubbish and will get hammered whatever happens look like a settled unit right now with the only changes have come from injury and OH MY GOD IT’S MORNE FECKING STEYNE!!!!!!!!!! Maybe it’s just more trolling from Rassie and we’ll see a last minute ‘injury’ and a proper player like Wynand Olivier will replace him. Just ignorant speculation on my part. Other than that, I can’t see anything to pick at. It’s a formidable side and Lionz supporters everywhere will have breathed a sigh of relief that Duane Vermeulen hasn’t yet come back from injury. I think they will rinse and repeat what worked in the second game. And why not? I hope that their fantastic wingers see some more ball in this game though. If only for them to be bundled into touch at the last second.
Prediction
Whoever gets the forward grunt and manages the ref will win. I really hope it doesn’t come down to the ref or some bs unseen citing or time wasting or whatever. Hopefully the ref will keep the game flowing and we’ll have a classic* on our hands. So who do I think will win?
Erm… hopefully Gats will put me in my place and Finn will catch a perfect box kick to sling an amazing pass to Sam Simmonds for his record breaking hat trick and the Lions win by a point or more.
Or… the Springboks grind the plucky tourists into the dirt and they will win by 18 points. Morne Steyne kicking the final penalty from the Springboks 22.
Or… the test never bloody ends.
Ok, ok Lions 24** – 21 Springboks. There, come at me you bastards.
Final ‘thoughts’
The real question on everyone’s lips is ‘what will this mean for England’? I’ll be btl to give my thoughts on this shortly.
* Which means the Lions win. Anything else is one for the purists.
** Have I mentioned that Siya Kolisi has a special place in my heart? I’ll have another poster to put on my bedroom wall after this series so all is not lost if the Lionz lose.
My Way, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb Squad
Gats and Rassie loom into view through the smoke-filled karaoke bar, each picking up a mike and ignoring the other, before launching into their tuneless non mea culpa est:
And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain
My friends, we’ll kick it clear, we’ll force the pace of which we’re certain
We’ve kicked a ball out full, we’ve launched the oval skyway
But more, much more than this, we did it our way
Attacks, we’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention
We kicked what we had to kick, and soar it through without invention
I planned each scrumming force, each sideways step and passes astray
But more, much more than this, the blame is his way
The lights dim, the mikes clatter emptily to the floor, clunking soullessly as they slink to the exits, grim, with regret etched on their faces. But enough of my whisky and chocolate addled dreams last night.
The third Test. The series is alive, if not exactly kicking, if you ask many followers. The changes have been wrung, the die is cast and now we’re 80 minutes (or up to 120 depending on how things pan out) from anointing the victors with bragging rights for the next 12 years. Enough has been written about the quality (or absence thereof) of the first two Tests and the series in general, much of it accurate, much of it bilge, so let’s focus on the match to come, shall we?
Six changes in the Lions camp and 3 (one positional) in the Boks. The Lions have been roaring all week about speeding up the game, gaining tempo, running the Boks ragged and raiding the trophy cabinet in the process. In come Price at 9 to speed up delivery from the base – but to Biggar at 10 who hasn’t set the world light in ether teste thus far. Outside him, Bundee Aki, a poor man’s Damian de Allende, comes in to allow Henshaw to move to 13 in an attempt to create more space in midfield, whilst at the back, the Welsh duo of Williams for Hogg and Adams for Watson on the right wing aims to get more incisiveness in attack. On the bench, Connor Murray and Finn Russell are paired, a conservative slower 9 with a heads-up 10, seems strange, to say the least and suggests that Gatland remains conservative and not trusting of an all-out assault on the Bok defence.
Up front the Welsh duo of Jones and Owens are slotted into a front row that struggled last week, despite the Lions leading at oranges, the second and back row is unchanged, slightly surprising given the backseat they took and enormous energy expended seven days ago. AWJ, warrior that he is, must be feeling the effects, whilst Lawes was fairly anonymous last week.
The bench looks strong, but not overly stellar and there must be some concerns in the Lions camp that six new players who’ve spend much of the last month carrying tackle bags will be disruptive – if it is early one, the Lions will be playing catch up.
The Boks have two enforced injury changes, with talismanic 9 Faf de Klerk and indispensable blindside PS du Toit both out. These are huge blows, however much Bok fans will try to sugar-coat things. De Klerk is without peer at the box kicking game and all-round nuisance value, whilst du Toit is an 80 minute machine across the park. It’s resulted in considerable rejigging in the Bok side, with Lood de Jager back in the second row to partner Eben Etzebeth and Franco Mostert moving to blindside in du Toit’s place. Big moves. De Jager back is great news, adding considerably to the scrumming department and lineout, as well as carrying in heavy traffic, but is more limited out wide. Mostert has played flank, but with limited success. That said, du Toit only played 20 minutes last week, half of them knackered, and the Boks coped just fine without him. The rest of the pack is as is for the starters, and that’s good news.
The bench forwards are the same front row, which is formidable and duffed their opponents last week, whilst Mostert will slot back into the second row later on, with Kwagga – far better on the flank replacing du Toit than playing at 8 as in the first Test – and Marco van Staden coming on later to pinch ball, slow things down and add some vim to the forwards.
The backs have Cobus Reinach at 9, a different player to Faf, without the pinpoint kick accuracy, but absolutely electric around the fringes and in open play. If he brings his ‘A’ game (assuming he’s given licence) he presents an entirely different headache for the Lions – and possibly his own side. The rest of the backs are the same as the first two Tests and pick themselves. Perhaps Reinach can offer some space for Kolbe and Mapimpi to snipe down the blindside every now and then? However, an inaccurate display by Reinach could set the tone for the Lions to dictate the pace and shape of the match. It’s a critical piece of the jigsaw.
Key areas to watch, then, are:
- Whether the Lions can maintain parity up front for the full 80 (or near enough) to dictate what happens behind the scrum;
- Will six new players be too disruptive to the Lions, despite much of it revolving around national combinations – some of the guys are pretty rusty;
- How Gats introduces his bench – do Murray and Russell join the fray together, and if so, what’s the point?
- Will the Boks be able put down a marker from the get-go and dominate the Lions up front to dictate the pace (and crucially the scoreboard) to negate the threats out wide;
- Will Faf’s absence prove too disruptive to a Bok plan that has been well honed for a couple of years now and will allow the Lions to move the ball wide to their very good back three;
- Will the Boks surprise and give it a bit of width themselves earlier in the piece; they’re certainly more than capable of scoring tries whilst maintaining a mean defence;
- Will the refereeing quartet come out unscathed? In many respects, I think the last point is maybe the most important.
Prediction? I’ve gone Boks by 2 on Superbru, which portends, unfortunately, a Lions win based on the last two matches…
South Africa
15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Franco Mostert, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Steven Kitshoff
Substitutes: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Marco van Staden, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Herschel Jantjies, 22 Morne Steyn, 23 Damian Willemse
British & Irish Lions
15 Liam Williams (Wales), 14 Josh Adams (Wales), 13 Robbie Henshaw (Ireland), 12 Bundee Aki (Ireland), 11 Duhan van der Merwe (Scotland), 10 Dan Biggar (Wales), 9 Ali Price (Scotland), 8 Jack Conan (Ireland), 7 Tom Curry (England), 6 Courtney Lawes (England), 5 Alun Wyn Jones (captain, Wales), 4 Maro Itoje (England), 3 Tadhg Furlong (Ireland), 2 Ken Owens (Wales), 1 Wyn Jones (Wales) Substitutes: 16. Luke Cowan-Dickie (England), 17 Mako Vunipola (Saracens, England), 18 Kyle Sinckler (England), 19 Adam Beard (Wales), 20 Sam Simmonds (England), 21 Conor Murray (Ireland), 22 Finn Russell (Scotland), 23 Elliot Daly (England)
Ovally Balls 
the defence coach for the opposition is probably staring at the world through the bottom of a whisky bottle.
What’s terrible about that?
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How did those Fijian players end up in Scotland, ticht? I’d imagine there’s a strong pull-factor now seeing how the trailblazers succeeded.
The South African who might be this year’s Jasper Wiese is Juarno Augustus at Northampton. He was World Junior Player of the Year in 2017 but never really got going at the Stormers. And was in competition there with Jaco Coetzee now of Bath, who’s a fine player in his own right, and some others. Now they have a new wunderkind in Evan Roos.
Also, van Staden at Leicester. He’s brilliant and already capped. Could be an all-SA back row there with Wiese and Liebenberg.
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“What’s terrible about that?”
The whisky bottle’s empty.
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Ho! Chimpie………..
…………….on that theme, I’m looking forward to Exeter getting a good start BUT: they are playing Tigers who I believe will be aggressive and fast this year – Ford behind dominant forwards could be interesting plus their carzy prop is now captain – to set the tone………………
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also -Exeter are very short of back row players – due to injuries/recuperations
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Tom, there’s actually a Fijian community in Edinburgh, there are quite a few Fijian soldiers in the Royal Highland Fusiliers who are barracked just outside the city, part of the draw for players is that community, the Weegies from Fiji come over and get together with their Edinburgh counterparts and the army guys regularly, they all have their families with them, so it’s quite a big deal .
As far as I remember Niko Matawalu was the first to come over to Glasgow, then Nakarawa, they became stars by playing for Glasgow .
Bill Mata was a 7s player and had practically no experience of 15s when he came to Edinburgh, the same is true of Mesulame Kunavula and Eroni Sau, though he has now departed for the Pro D2. Lee Roy Atalifo came to us from the Jersey Reds
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Aye. A lot of Fijian soldiers in redford & dreghorn barracks & associated accommodation. Not a couple of miles from where I live. See them a lot in the local Tescos.
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Rugby, Fijians, Tescos, soldiers, Scotland and a llama all in te same sentence, Can I claim my 5£?
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In today’s Grauniad, there is a review of a film called “La cha cha”. The first sentence contains the words: ” daft as a brush Welsh comedy” . Anyway…
Did I spot Alun Wyn Jones in a yoga pose, in the photo ilustrating the review? Or is it a look alike?
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Is it about Welsh club rugby?
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@tomP
Get’s fairly heated in Munster – big senior clubs esp in Cork city don’t have much at age grade mainly because players get tied to their schools and aren’t released for club games* – so they tend to recruit promising junior players at 19, 20 (promising them the world – AIL – and often not fulfilling their side of the bargain – they end up on the bench in senior seconds or thirds).
This was much worse – with anything up to 40 players named in squads – now, only 25 can be captured but relations between schools ctte and age grade/youths are generally bad.
And as you know a lot of Munster players have emerged from the junior clubs (Bantry, Skibbereen, Waterford City) – when they join the academy they get notionally attached to a senior club, but I’d bet the Wycherleys or the Coombes have played few enough for their supposed “club”
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flair, that’s AWJ. James Hook’s also in there and a fighter guy. It’s made by a guy called Kevin Allen, who directed Twin Town in the 90s. His brother’s a well-known actor and irritant called Keith Allen, famous for lots of things including playing a biggish time drug dealer in Trainspotting and being (step)dad of Lily.
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Just watched the RL prop video. I missed that it was League earlier, and in my mind it was very, very different. Nice of the opposing #27 to give him a supportive hug on the way up the pitch.
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Tom, on the plus side he was responsible for the best football song ever
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trisk, I read the O’Callaghan book on Munster and recommend it. The last section’s a little out of date now – the 2019 edition I read is the same as the 2011 version as far as I can see – but was still good on how quickly Munster became an identity ahead of Garryowen or Cork Con, or even Limerick or Cork.
One thing that had always intrigued me is why Dolphin were called Dolphin. It was as simple as the lads from the Dolphin swimming club set the rugby section up in 1902. He mentioned the centenary history of the club and it’s available online. One of their stars of the 1920s was a guy called Wesley Wellwood. My Methodist eyes lit up at both the names as, well, Wesley speaks for itself and Wellwood was the surname of a lady called Lily who was my great-grandmother’s younger cousin who was orphaned and became her companion. She lived with my great-grandparents and my mother knew her as Auntie Lily.
Wesley was from Cork city and a Methodist, but his dad was born in Laois, where the great-grandmother came from, so was probably a relation of some sort. Wesley played a few times for Munster but qualified as a barrister and moved to London. Am still finding out more about him but he stood as the Labour candidate in a 1954 by-election in Croydon East. Unfortunately, he lost.
This led me down a rabbit hole and I learned that the then 3 Croydon seats were abolished the next year and replaced by 3 new Croydon seats. The Labour candidate in Croydon North-East (the almost successor seat) in 1959 was Walter Wolfgang, who got thrown out of the Labour Conference in the early 2000s for heckling Jack Straw.
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ticht, here he is looking cool at the recording. And Peter Beardsley looking how footballers should look:
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My computer has a picture of Staithes, Yorkshire on it when I fire it up. Looks like a gorgeous little town.
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Slade – Tiggers have just been defeated by the Drags, iirc.
TomP – The Labour candidate in Croydon North-East (the almost successor seat) in 1959 was Walter Wolfgang, who got thrown out of the Labour Conference in the early 2000s for heckling Jack Straw. Good lad.
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Scarlets beat Leicester, thaum.
Drags lost to Leicester but beat Wasps this weekend just gone.
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Jesse Lindgard plays a beautifully weighted, defence splitting pass for the winning goal in Switzerland! Unfortunately for Man U, it was a pass back to De Gea that never got there and Young Boys beat Utd 2-1 with the final kick of the game!
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The last time I saw Keith Allen on TV was in Danny Dyer’s documentary about his (Dyer’s) relationship with Harold Pinter. That was an unusual piece of television.
He was quite good as the Pembrokeshire Coast Path murderer in an astoundingly boring miniseries earlier this year. My stepfather vaguely knew the chap he played.
I still think his best cultural contribution was as another murderer in an utterly hilarious episode of Morse way back when.
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Twin Town was shit so I would imagine this new thing will be too. Certainly doesn’t sound promising.
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Thanks Tomp. I was pretty sure it was AWJ but I couldn’t find his name on the credit list. Won’t be enough to entice me to watch the film as the critic was rather scathing but who knows…
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“I still think his best cultural contribution was as another murderer in an utterly hilarious episode of Morse way back when.”
Getting done in very early in a film set in Edinburgh was another high point
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He also gets his head smashed in in Edinburgh in the telly series based on Kate Atkinson’s detective books.
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Good suggestions. However, he needs to be smuggled out of somewhere like Broadmoor in the boot of his psychiatrist’s car so that she can use him to settle old scores. He needs to end up wearing a dress and someone needs to dress up as a goat while almost everyone else worships the devil. Nothing else will cut it.
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He’s pretty much entirely responsible for my understanding of what life in Oxfordshire is like and for that I thank him.
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Watch the Dyer/Pinter thing if you can by the way.
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Allen deservedly gets shot dead while in drag at the end of that Morse episode. Quite why the devil worshippers let him kill one of them while dressed as a goat is more of a mystery.
Danny Dyer doesn’t get shot at the end of the Pinter thing, but I’m sure he would ‘take a bullet for Harold’ if he had to. He might even say that. He stays in character throughout which could well mean that his public persona is exactly who he is. It’s kind of good though, but in a way that defies description.
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@cmw
Well he DID go on that all-day yoga retreat with my missus so I have some insight into The Real Danny Dyer. What you see on the telly is a very exaggerated version of him. By all accounts he’s a very thoughtful and reflective bloke but fundamentally he is still the same person.
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Turns out I know one of the producers of the AWJ film.
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@tomp
Does The Real AWJ do yoga?
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Just watched the first 10 minutes of Dyer/Pinter. It’s good. There’s a picture of Dyer, Pinter and Kenneth Cranham early on. I love Kenneth Cranham.
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OT, the answer is he knew what he was doing but was acting. He’s a sound bloke. (But she knows I’m a Wales rugby fan so would say good things about him even if they weren’t true).
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“By all accounts he’s a very thoughtful and reflective bloke”
This is how he came across. And perhaps surprisingly so to those of us without the yoga retreat connection. However, he retained his turn of phrase and manner making the whole thing somewhat bizarrely pitched though thoroughly enjoyable. I guess he’s one of those people with larger than life persona, partly based on playing up to itself, that he lives in almost constantly. I always think it must be hard work, but I suppose it just becomes second nature.
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I think the psycho-Keith/cross-dressing/goat Morse had an element of cryptic crosswords to it (they often do). Almost certainly a reworking of one of Brookter’s old real life cases. I don’t imagine Cheshire to be that dissimilar to be honest.
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Danny D presents The Wall, which is staple viewing in our house. So my missus asked him about it, in particular about one really annoying woman on there who a) was really annoyed at her husband because he answered a question wrong and lost all their money and b) we were delighted at when she lost all the money because she was so odious.
Not only did he remember her, he too was delighted she lost all the money for the same reason.
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Ah, I’ve seen the bit from this documentary when DD goes to Cable Street before. A very good bit of telly.
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Dog, what an annoying bloke. ‘The Waw’, indeed.
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Francois Truffaut, the slag, said British cinema was “a contradiction in terms”. Sadly, Truffaut died in 1984 so never got the chance to see himself humiliated when Run for your Wife opened:
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Climate Change: exhibit 4,123,456
-we live on the top of a hill and the ground floor of our house has just partially flooded due to the weight of thunderstorm rain………………
grrrrrr.
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ps not much soaks away on tile floors – and they are easy top mop up but, hey!
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Hope there’s no real damage, Slade.
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thanks Thaum- lots of soggy cardboard, otherwise ok……………..
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We’ve had some real rain here in the last few days, but the worst of it was to the south of us, out to sea, on the maps it was sweeping across France.
I hope you can dry out quickly, Slade, Bonne Chance.
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Thanks Ticht
The last few days have given extraordinary thunderstorms – very intense and wet
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Our poor Border is the one who really suffers……………..hides under our bed
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