It has come to my attention that sports that are not Rugby Union not only exist, but have enthusiastic fans. Here is a brief round-up.
Cricket
As I remember it from Primary School, cricket is a sport played with a tennis ball and tennis racquet (see also: Rounders). It didn’t have a very clear objective other than whacking your opponents in the heid with the ball, if you were batting … or indeed if you were fielding.
Fast-forward about twenty years, and find yourself working in Detroit (the horror), when there is a departmental sports day. Your department is IT-related, so it has a fair number of Brits and a lot of Indians. You have to choose between cricket, rounders baseball, and some other shite I don’t remember, probably American Football or possibly Association Football.
You decide the cricket has the most congenial participants.
What you are not prepared for is the level of trash-talking.
You are throwing the ball worse than my very honoured old, old grandmother.
Happily this was not directed at me.
Sheepdog Trials
I am quite enthusiastic about this sport, at least as a televisual spectator. It has cute, furry animals – as well as dogs and sheep – strategy, tactics and drama, and a Four Nations type of rivalry.
In this year’s One Man and His Dog (although many participants are female, and for the adults there were two dogs), tragedy struck when the most horrendously uncooperative sheep ever bred were assigned to the Irish adult contestant, after the junior Irish contestant had had his dog spooked by a fly-over plane. Even the English commentators were awestruck by the recalcitrance of the sheep. Yer poor man had to call his dogs off before their hearts were broken forever.
Everybody smelt a fix-up.
Ice Hockey
Easily the most watchable sport of the popular North American ones – although there may be some interesting Mexican sports what I wot not of – ice hockey is fast-paced and vicious. Players are not afraid to use their deadly-sharp blades against opponents if they can get away with it.
Yet it’s all kindergarten stuff when compared to girls’ hockey in primary school, where there were no proper refs or television replays of fouls. You will notice that a hockey stick is perfectly curved to hook around the ankle, and hard enough to do serious damage if whacked on bone, by ‘mistakenly’ missing the ball.
I played centre forward, and there are no more exciting yet chilling words than ground sticks, ground sticks, ground sticks, ball. Like rugby, you never knew if you would finish the match with the same number of bones or teeth.
Tennis
Tennis is another one of those sports played with a tennis racquet and tennis ball. It can be a good background to a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Recently we had the spectacle of the relatively unknown Brit Emma Raducanu unexpectedly working her way up from the qualifying rounds, without losing a set, to beat a Canadian meringue for the US Open title. She then sacked her coach, and lost the next match in straight sets.
Maybe she will learn from Cardiff, and hire Dai Young.
Dressage
Dressage is a highly under-appreciated sport* in which the goal is to keep your horse’s head tucked into his or her chest and have him/her prance around in various ways. It is much more difficult than it looks, and especially difficult when your horse is a ‘rescued’ Thoroughbred who is more interested in being scared of everything and consequently galloping blindly over everything that exists in the whole wide world while looking more like a panicking giraffe than a tucked-head dressage clone.
It’s therefore very rewarding when you manage to win a minor ribbon.
*All right, it’s boring as hell to watch, except possibly at the very top levels.
Snooker
This is another sport at which I have some competitive experience. Or, as the mister puts it, You played pool, not fucking snooker. Stop telling them to pot all the balls.
I’m sure we can all agree that he is wrong and that Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins – who indeed tried to pot all the balls – was the greatest snooker player to ever live.
Equestrian Cross-Country (see also: Steeplechasing)
Avoid. These people are more insane and fearless than the Terminator.
Onna telly this week
Friday 29th October
| Gloucester v Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 30th October
| Castres v Brive | 14:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Scotland v Tonga | 14:30 | Prime |
| Northampton v Leicester | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Montpellier v Lyon | 16:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Wales v New Zealand | 17:15 | Prime |
| Bordeaux v Clermont | 20:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 31st October
| England v New Zealand (women) | 14:30 | BBC2 / iPlayer | ||
| Harlequins v Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 | ||
| Racing 92 v Toulouse | 19:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
Yeah it was a good show. A couple of missed chances from the bits I saw that could’ve seen it even tighter.
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Courtesy of me mate Habib:
A statement on the company’s website reads: “We were upset to read about the experiences of Azeem Rafiq during his time at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. We wholeheartedly believe that cricket should be a sport for everyone, but his experiences and the way the panel report has been handled don’t reflect that.
“Our current partnership with YCCC was naturally coming to an end but we have taken the decision to end it with immediate effect.”
ref:
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/yorkshire-tea-ends-deal-yorkshire-22060452
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Good for Yorkshire Tea.
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Very hard to know what’s really gone on with Yorkshire CC until we get to see the report. There may very well be legal reasons etc why it couldn’t all be published, but whatever the truth of that is they lost any belief that they might be acting in good faith when they released what they were prepared to of the findings at exactly the same time the Test Match with India was cancelled. Whoever made that decision (hard to imagine it wasn’t the person right at the top) needs to go first and then they can work from there.
Whatever the truth is I’m also sure that England are glad right now that Gary Ballance’s massive flaw in his technique got found out in international cricket.
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Jerry Collins would have been 41 today. Was genuinely sad when he deid.
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I’ve been reading about The Raeburn Shield, an invented trophy (along with the women’s equivalent, The Utrecht Shield). It tracks international results giong back to the very first game between Scotland and England in 1871 which was played at the home of Edinburgh Academical Football Club, Raeburn Place.
A team holds the shield until they are beaten and the winner becomes the new holder, and on …
Australia are the current holders, so Scotland have the chance to regain the shield they won in that first match one hundred and fifty years ago
https://www.raeburnshield.com/
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Aus have been a fair bit better again recently so that doesn’t aga too well for Scotland’s chances.
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C’MON SCOTLAND!
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CMW, I think Oz have to be favourites, we can only beat these kind of teams if we are at our very best and Scott Cummings and Johnny Gray are going to be big misses for us. We are also lacking depth at tighthead through injuries and WP Nel being eighty seven years old, Oli Kebble will probably be on the pine on the “wrong side”.
However, it’s as old as rugby itself, if we can match them up front and at the breakdown, I think our backs have some firepower about them these days
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Oh and Rory Sutherland is out on the loosehead side too
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“we can only beat these kind of teams if we are at our very best”
or if they get a guy sent off for a shoulder charge to the heid.
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@Deebee – I gather you’ve already given up on Bangladesh then.
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@CMW, I only just got the aga gag – well played.
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@Ticht – It was all I was saying really…
I do give Scotland a better chance than Wales have against the Boks, but agree it would be an upset.
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Now that I’ve looked through the list of previous notional holders of the Raeburn Shield I’ve decided not to attach too much importance to it.
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I know it wasn’t exactly the high-point of his career, but I still can’t really believe Jerry Collins was an Osprey.
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Romania won it off Scotland, I believe.
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@cmw
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Jerry Collins was one of my favourite players of all time, I loved his ball carrying.
They do put out a decent back row, the Kiwis.
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@CMW – yes. Was hoping after that awful start that they’d somehow cobble together 100 or 110 just for our NRR purposes. Looks like we’ll have to thrash England on Saturday now. Oh well, at least we’re not playing England AND Wales.
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@OT – Amazed it wasn’t given out – any umpire (and they would mostly be players in the match) at the lowly level I play at would give it out. Some have waited decades for the chance and some players are also keen to get out that way to tick it off – the most common circumstance in which it happens to be honest.
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ticht, don’t worry about imaginary cups when your side is defending the prestigious Hopetoun Cup at the weekend.
Wales are defending the Prince William Cup v South Africa. Shameful brown-nosing by the WRU in that case.
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9 quick wickets?
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More Deebee-pleasing news (not), Durban-born Bradley Roberts is reportedly to be named in the Wales squad to play the Boks this weekend.
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“Wales are defending the Prince William Cup”
Regardless of the awful name I don’t see why this is the case (I understand it is) given that they won the last match between the sides.
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They being SA of course.
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He’s already named the team, ticht.
It’s here:
Wales team: Johnny McNicholl; Louis Rees-Zammit, Jonathan Davies (c), Nick Tompkins, Josh Adams; Dan Biggar, Tomos Williams; Rhys Carre, Ryan Elias, Tomas Francis, Will Rowlands, Adam Beard, Ellis Jenkins, Taine Basham, Aaron Wainwright.
Replacements: Bradley Roberts, Wyn Jones, WillGriff John, Ben Carter, Seb Davies, Gareth Davies, Gareth Anscombe, Liam Williams.
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Ellis is back. Great player who had one of the best individual performances of the last decade against SA last time he played an international.
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CMW,
It’s not played for in World Cup games. Same with the Calcutta Cup, Bledisloe Cup and all of them. Not sure why not.
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If only he’d been subbed…
Front five will almost certainly be taken to the cleaners, expect it to be a hard watch.
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ticht, Roberts really is way down the list in South African terms. A bit like Mortitz Botha when he turned out for England.
When we called him up a couple of weeks ago, I checked out his history in SA rugby. Not much after Under 19s at the Sharks. However, he did play in the same prep school Under 13 as Tristan Tedder of Perpignan and James Hall of Stade, who played against each other 3 weeks ago in the Top14.
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We’re moving house over the weekend so I’ll miss it. Thankfully.
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Scotland have called up Javan Sebastian again, along with Nick Auterac and Robin Hislop, as our prop crisis continues.
Mind you, Darryl Marfo played very well for Scotland under such circumstances, so here’s hoping.
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Wales have nipped in, capitalising on the 25-year-old’s eligibility through his paternal grandmother, who hailed from Llandysul in Ceredigion.
Strong lineage there. Dusting off my Spanish heritage (Gibraltar) to see if they need a chippy aging 9.
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I remember playing in a game (at uni) where the umpire called “one short” and no-one had any idea what he was on about .
I managed to (gleefully) call no-ball when the opposition had more than 2 fielders behind square on the leg side.
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Front five will almost certainly be taken to the cleaners, expect it to be a hard watch.
In recent times the Boks haven’t stuffed the Welsh pack, despite sometimes licking their chops at the look of the pack and replacements. I think we’ll gradually get the upper hand, but don’t expect us to steamroll Wales up front, much as I’d like us to. Maybe it’ll also encourage the Boks to go beyond 10 and the boot if the Welsh backrow get into their stride in the tackle and breakdown.
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Umpired once at cricket and once at hockey and never again. Have great respect for those that do it.
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The manager of my lad’s u9 cricket team both umpires and simultaneously scores on the app on his phone. So when we’re watching it we also follow the score on our phones, which is a little bit Cricket 4.0.
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I’ve only given one person out obstructing the field and that was one of the old giffers who wanted it for his collection. Never given Trisk’s no-ball, but that’s because if necessary I advise people to move before the ball is bowled on a Sunday (could have given it loads of times).
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AWJ not made of girders after all. Just wonder if that shoulder hadn’t fully healed after all.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/04/alun-wyn-jones-to-miss-waless-2022-six-nations-defence-with-shoulder-injury
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Deebs/BB – without AWJ, Wales’ pack will be easier to deal with.
TomP – am about 2/3 way through Night Boat to Tangier. It’s brilliant: what a writer! Why have I never heard of him before? Thanks for the rec.
There is definitely a Beckett influence in it.
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@ticht
RE Raeburn Shield
Interesting animation – interesting how late NZ come to lead and Ireland’s latter day leap ahead of Scotland, Wales, and France
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@Trisk – I guess NZ’s record against the Boks not being just under 50/50 prior to the 90s and maybe them not playing as much at all as the Europeans anyway has something to do with the former.
A lot of Scotland’s total seems to be pretty early on (I think this is also true to some extent of their all time win/loss records against Eng/Wal/Ire/Fra*). Wales don’t seem to have made much impression on the Raeburn Trophy even when we had good teams and barely nose ahead of Ireland throughout it as far as I can see.
*It’s true of Wal/Eng/Ire records against France too of course.
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rogue ‘not’ in that first sentence.
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thaum, pleased you’re enjoying it. He’s really good. I knew of him as a short-story writer.
Look out Christine Dwyer Hickey, Claire Kilroy and Kevin Power as other good Irish novelists.
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trisk, I think it’s just that they didn’t actually play too often. It took them almost 60 years to play 100 tests and a plurality were against the Aussies. With the Springboks, they were one of the two great consistent powers of the amateur era. Since professionalism they’ve actually improved their winning record.
They still hold the best record in rugby – 3 September 1949 they played 2 tests on the same day and lost to Australia in Wellington 11-6. Later in the day their other test side lost 9-3 to South Africa in Johannesburg.
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@BB:
“Pivac, whose team won the Six Nations title last season and start their defence against Ireland in February, said: “I don’t think he will be available for the Six Nations. You learn a lot about the worth of people when they are not there. I think a lot of people take Alun Wyn for granted – he has always been there and got seniority. That leadership is really important. The essence is on others to step up and take that role on.””
Although he’s amassed a huge number of caps he hasn’t always been there. Almost without fail when he missed a game under Gatland we were complete and utter rubbish. There was usually one every November even if he wasn’t injured (which he rarely has been until recently – the only 6N that stands out with him having missed a big chunk was 2013 when Andrew Coombs did surprisingly well until he came back in at the end). For the last few years most Wales supporters have been anticipating a time when he’s not there any more and we properly go to shit…
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@TomP – Presumably the Boks didn’t play that much either which makes it something of a surprise that they were doing so well on this measure until NZ took over. I guess luck in the timing of winning/losing to NZ probably has something to do with it, last game of any given series would be important.
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Even fewer before 1960. NZ didn’t have as good a record in Europe as SA, which I think is the big difference. They had lost tests in three of their first 4 tours in the UK and France and there would’ve been no way of getting the Shield back for a while after that whereas South Africa lost their first test in Europe and then did 4 Slams in a row and didn’t lose to a European team in Europe between 1906 and 1965 – 22 tests.
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South Africa lost their first test in Europe and then did 4 Slams in a row and didn’t lose to a European team in Europe between 1906 and 1965 – 22 tests.
I believe Mary sang this in our honour.
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