Cooney. Baloucoune. Stockdale. McCloskey. All injured last week by the brutal Weegiegibbons. This means Ulster are starting nineteen-year-old Nathan Doak at scrum-half. Good luck to the lad!
Today’s picture was inspired by today’s walkies, where we ran across an enormous Doberman carrying a rugby ball in his mouth (a real ball, not a toy as in this pic). Owner hastily explained that Dobie had ‘found’ the ball and there was not a crying child somewhere.
My own dug was enormously impressed and tried her best to get him to do a bit of rough-and-tumble, but he was disdainful. Or was not going to be fooled into dropping the ball.
Onna telly this week
Friday 1st October
| Scarlets v Lions | 19:35 | BBC2 Wales / Premier Sports 2 |
| Connacht v Bulls | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Bristol v Bath | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 2nd October
| Argentina v Australia | 08:05 | Sky Sports Main Event |
| South Africa v New Zealand | 11:05 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Treviso v Edinburgh | 13:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Lyon v Bordeaux | 14:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Leicester v Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Glasgow v Sharks | 15:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Biarritz v Toulouse | 16:00 | FreeSports |
| Zebre v Ulster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ospreys v Cardiff | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Munster v Stormers | 19:35 | RTÉ / Premier Sports 2 |
| Castres v Toulon | 20:05 | FreeSports |
Sunday 3rd October
| Dragons v Leinster | 14:00 | S4C / RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 1 | ||
| Sale v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 | ||
| Clermont v Racing 92 | 20:05 | FreeSports |
Ovally Balls 
TRY Reidy!
It’s very nearly over. At last.
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Lowry on kicking duty and slots it nicely.
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FT, hoorah! 3-36. Leinster would have scored 150 points.
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(Against either side.)
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0-15 with five to go to half time. Nobody with cash in their wallet would have put it on the Stormers being 15 up right now.
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Because Munster score just before the break and it’s 7-15 at oranges.
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Stormers forwards have been pretty decent so far. Can they keep it up for the 80?
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Warrick Gelant shows why he isn’t in the Bok side: all the time in the world and he strolls into the defence and flings the ball to nobody. Too sloppy.
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Deebee, the young 8 looks good for the Stormers
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Jean Kleyn over for Munster’s second and they’re right back in it. 14-15
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Tale of 2 halves? Stormers need to regather. Munster hitting their straps.
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Ticht, Evan Roos. He’s definitely destined for higher honours.
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“, Evan Roos. He’s definitely destined for higher honours.”
He’s signed for Edinburgh then?
:-)
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Munster have clicked in the last 15 minutes and are looking ominous.
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Think he’s got a little more ambition than that!
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Glasgow then.
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At least the development side.
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Galant busts a few tackles to show why some rate him. He’s very good when he’s good, just isn’t good enough consistently within matches, never mind consecutively.
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A future Prog classic!
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Aaron Hickey doing what only Graeme Souness, Joe Jordan and Denis Law have done previously. Not bad company for a 19 year old left back to be in.
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Well! Nicely done, Dragons, although it’s a shame you didn’t quite get the win. But keeping Leinster to one point is magnificent.
If Burns had made just two of his conversions yesterday, Ulster would be topping all – as it is, it’s Munster.
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Great try from Exeter and Slade! Made by a break from that rubbish Scottish fullback they have….
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Ooh, that looks like a red to me.
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And it is!
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And then Slade goes over. He’s having a good game.
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And Witty seems to have gone over too!
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Now that was a try from a forward!
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That was fun; he sort of dribbled the ball down the pitch.
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Hi all… update from Munster vs Stormers.
First half, Munster were awful – could have been 20+ points down. Stormers 8 and 12 very good.
Second half – got some field position and strong-armed the Stormers. But nothing much happened behind the scrum. Carbery was disappointing again….
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Cheers, Trisk – I think! Hope Carbery recovers some form, or we are shagged.
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Not the Leinster of today’s match…. credit etc etc to the Drags but they were pretty bad in all aspects….
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‘Tis a beautiful day.
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great win on the road by Exeter – played the conditions and their opponents really smartly
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We went to Tayto Park yesterday so avoided the Blacks-Boks score until watching it this evening. A terrific game. Carley is a very irritating ref.
Earlier today bought tickets to Leinster v Zebre at the RDS next week. This afternoon watched Dragons v Leinster. I think thaum was wrong. Leinster’ll be lucky to get 110 against Zebre.
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Carley is a very irritating ref
Agreed until the 82nd minute. In hindsight, I think he’s one of the best ever.
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We went to Tayto Park yesterday
So did the All Blacks on that final scrum!
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They’re there for our entertainment but am amazed the Boks could pick themselves up for this game. 4 months in various bubbles must be awful.
Fat Frans was brilliant when he came on. That tackle and rip on DMac was superb. Carley called it against him of course.
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TomP, he was very good. The 50-22 law suits his booming boot to a tee as well. That said, at 34 and without any pace, he’s not much more than a stop-gap on the bench. We need to settle on a new 15 quickly, with the next World Cup only 2 years away and Willie le Roux looking increasingly erratic on defence (under the high ball and tackle) and also at 34 by the next WC will be a bit long in the tooth.
Options include shifting Kolbe to 15 (has significant support down here), giving the jersey to Aphelele Fassi now (definitely the most popular option), or going with Damian Willemse or Warrick Gelant. Neither of the last two is consistent enough, although DW does offer options at 10 as well. Definitely not Curwin Bosch. He’s useless, wherever you play him and only offers a booming boot. Cost the Sharks big time over the weekend with his dithering and wrong decisions.
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It’s a shame that Curwin isn’t going to be a big Springbok. He’s a lovely runner, a good passer and has the boot. He might be a megastar in Rugby 12s or whatever it’s called.
You’ve certainly got options there. Even Goosen can do a job.
They like the two pivots that Pollard and le Roux offered and Willie is a great reader of the situation on attack but he looks fragile. Ah, well, he’s got a World Cup winners medal and played some great rugby over the years so if his time’s up he should be congratulated on a superb career.
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Play acting aside, Jordi Barrett was really good at 15 for the Blacks on the weekend.
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My youngest started playing rugby in the u9s 2 weeks ago and had his first festival yesterday.
Main thing I’ve noticed so far is that the coaches are much nicer to the kids than when I was their age…
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“the coaches are much nicer to the kids than when I was their age”
They probably make some effort to teach them something too.
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Managed to watch a couple of games and a few highlights, have to say the Sale- Chiefs game was magnificent, certainly until Sale 13 departed, which I think was fair. If he had wrapped his arms I think he may have got away with a yellow. The scrum was a superb battle, two front rows really going at it, and both defences were tight and brutal. Hoggy and Slade showed up really well, and it was like a high speed game of chess from both sides, as they tried different approaches to unlock the other defence. Not much in it at the end, Sale look to be quite the package at the moment, suspect they may have won if they had kept a full complement for most of the game.
Breakdown skills were pretty damn fine from both sides, tho I do wonder at how often after a line break the second or third man in steps over the ball to protect it, leaving it exposed while waiting for the 9 to arrive. Ought to be able to nip in from the other side and nick it, IMHO. Quite often looks like it would be advantageous to pick and go.
Is Manu broken again ?
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Sanderson said they were easing him back in gently because they know how often he breaks.
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Up to a certain age, I think the emphasis has moved towards participation and enjoyment – we don’t have a right to have those kids – so we need to make it fun.
Now part of that is doing enough drills (the boring bit) to get their ‘skill’ levels up (and that might mean making sure they can tackle safely or take a tackle securely) so that when we play they’re confident enough to try stuff (might only mean running straight and seeing who you can “flatten”)
We’ve huge distractions with soccer and gaelic football** (never mind xbox etc) , so we need to make the game attractive.
I do notice my eldest son’s group (U16) are highly technical – lots of drills at training, not much game play… but it’s a more serious age group. We (U14) would be more 50-50 drills vs actual matches, maybe even 40-60 in terms of game play. The U16s are more 80-20 drills vs games.
**It’s not bad here the codes tend to co-exist happily enough – and lots of coaches overlap.
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SBT
van Rensburg’s red card was correct. Also it wasn’t his first attempt with no arms on Skinner which I think is why the Exeter players were getting pretty angry.
Both teams missing many key players and new boys stepped up.
Good game, as you say- Exeter’s patient possession game often pays dividends at the end of each half.
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Exeter also have Gray (J), Hill (J), Skinner (S) and Simmonds (S) to come back. I think they’ll be fine.
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Brutal, honest interview with Siya Kolisi in the Graun. It really does reveal how many problems we still have to overcome in South Africa:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/oct/04/siya-kolisi-my-sin-was-exposed-he-told-me-i-needed-to-stop-drinking
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Some moving stuff there Deebee. Don’t go posting anything about this guy any time near when the Boks are playing, I don’t want to end up supporting them.
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That’s some back story Siya Kolisi has.
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