The following four fixtures will be shown on the World Rugby site, and they will be available to watch afterwards, so even the most fevered rugby fans will not be found wanting for action.
Saturday, 20th November
Brazil v Kenya: (3rd/4th place play-off Stellenbosch Challenge, Men’s) Markotter Field, Stellenbosch – 10:00 GMT)
Zimbabwe v Namibia: (Final Stellenbosch Challenge, Men’s) Markotter Field, Stellenbosch – 12:00 GMT)
Russia v Chile: (Men’s) Yug Sports Stadium, Sochi – 12:00 GMT
Georgia v Fiji: (Men’s) Estadio El Deleite, Aranjuez – 14:30 GMT
Now on to the main attractions.
Italy vs Uruguay
Uruguay have qualified for RWC ’23 as Americas 1; however, they fell to Romania last week. Italy did better than most commentators thought they would against the might of the All Blacks but a loss against Argentina will mean they will be looking to make amends. Italy are currently ranked 14 against Uruguay’s 17. The visitors will not be overawed, but I expect the home team to win.
Scotland vs Japan
Scotland were overpowered last week by a very good Springbok side. It would have been understandable if many of those players were stood down, but Toonie has gone for a strong selection as he welcomes Scott Cummings back into the second row. There is rotation on the loosehead side with Schoeman and Bhatti swapping the starting jersey, and there will be new caps: the large shape of Scarlets’ Javan Sebastian, and Dylan Richardson from the Sharks (not the Sale ones) débuting in the back row.
Japan haven’t had the best results, losing heavily in Dublin and beating Portugal by 13, suggesting that this is not the Japan of the last RWC.
Scotland to win.
England v South Africa
South Africa will be after a full house from their three fixtures in November. They have selected a strong side: you know what’s coming, it’s dealing with it that is the problem.
Rodd, Blamire (Blay-mire), Sinckler, Dolly, Marler and Stuart will be under the microscope: it’s a well-known fact of life that you don’t out-Bok the Boks, so unless England can run South Africa around and keep away from set pieces, one would think this is only going to go one way, which is counter-intuitive when talking about England.
Elsewhere, Marcus Smith will be looking to sprinkle a bit of fairy dust on the Battle of the Orcs going on in front of him; he can turn his own Orc outside him in the formidable shape of Manu Tuilagi.
On the other hand, De Allende and Am are a very good midfield partnership; this is a tough game to call because Twickenham is a difficult place to go to play rugby.
I’m going to go for a very tight away win here, less than 7. Unless England’s pack end up as roadkill, like Scotland’s, then it will be a bigger margin: the Boks will be well up for this.
Wales vs Australia
Wales have had a mixed series. Putting out a B team against New Zealanders is never a good idea, but their hand was forced due to the international window agreements. They were five points short of South Africa and overcame the all-singing and -dancing (and big-hitting) Fijians.
Australia have had also had a mixed run of results. After downing the World Champions as a highlight of their year, they beat Argentina twice but lost to Scotland and were thumped by England.
Tupo being back will help their scrum, but they will be without skipper and talisman Michael Hooper, which kind of cancels out AWJ missing from the Welsh boilerhouse.
Wales at home is never a team to bet against, even with a relatively unfamiliar midfield.
Another tough call, but I’m going for a home win here.
France vs New Zealand
New Zealand don’t often lose two in a row. They did last year, but it’s only happened five times since 2000 in around 250 tests (I was surprised at how many they’d played, but then they do tend to play almost all the games possible at the world cup as well as the RC and tours).
Fabien Galthié has chosen partnerships for this match: Dupont and Ntamack at half-back, and Danty joining his erstwhile colleague Fickou in the midfield, which means Jalibert drops to the bench.
Elsewhere there are changes with Mauvaka coming in to the front row with Willemse joining Woki in the locking positions
Is this rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
I don’t think the current iteration of the All Blacks present as insurmountable a problem as before, but they are still the All Blacks.
The ABs side hasn’t been announced yet, so just for fun I’ll call this a draw.
Ireland v Argentina
Ireland were HUGE last week: a top-end performance full of fire, commitment, cool heads in the heat of the battle, and extraordinary focus. That is what it takes to beat the top teams, and Ireland had it all.
Can they back it up this week?
At the time of writing the teams have not been published, but everything points to a home win. For me, they have been the most impressive team over the series so far, and the only problem they may face is injuries, which will only serve to open the door for more Leinster players to make the step up to international level, the gits.
A comfortable home win.
Thanks to Tichtheid2 for the preview.
Onna telly this week
Friday 19th November
| London Irish v Saracens | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 20th November
| Italy v Uruguay | 13:00 | Prime |
| Scotland v Japan | 13:00 | Prime |
| Ireland v Japan (women) | 15:00 | RTÉ2 |
| England v South Africa | 15:15 | Prime |
| Wales v Australia | 17:30 | Prime |
| France v New Zealand | 20:00 | Prime |
Sunday 21st November
| Ireland v Argentina | 14:15 | Channel 4 / RTÉ2 | ||
| England v USA (women) | 14:45 | BBC2 / iPlayer | ||
| Wales v Canada (women) | 17:00 | BBC2 Wales |
Ovally Balls 
TomP – good question on the citizenship! Although Trisk seems to have put the kibosh on that with his Graun quote. Unless World Rugby hasn’t considered that angle?
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OT,
I give you Joost Mees – Luxembourg cricket international, Netherlands Antilles field hockey international.
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“He played for the Sharks in Glasgow about 2 weeks before the Scottish squad was announced. Must’ve liked what he’d seen.”
Scotstoun is practically in the West End, very posh, reduced chance of stabbing or casual violence
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My lad couldn’t play for SA despite being born there for two reasons as things stand at the moment.
The first reason is the citizenship requirement for the Springboks.
The second is he’s 7 years old and those lads that play international rugby are massive.
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Expro is probably playing League for the Netherlands Antilles now!
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Do Netherlands Antilles still exist? I thought that confederation had dissolved itself Aruba, Curacao, etc went their separate ways (can’t remember the 3rd one)
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I was born in Wales for two reasons: my dad got a job at Aberystwyth University and my mum was prepared to go there with him. Despite this the kids can only play for England and Ireland as I want Wales to win.
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I think ‘Pro is playing the property game in Turkey now, from memory. And sticking pins (unsuccessfully, alas) in England and Ireland rugby player dolls.
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@Trisk – Undoubtedly. But they still have to club together to get a League side out and even then to get a full team they need the ‘Pro to bring Fd along while he’s waiting for a flight to Dublin.
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@Deebee – Erdogan must surely have banned Sleeveless Behemoth T-shirts by now.
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May be the only sensible thing he’ll ever do!
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England Women could probably field all three of my lot and still win most of the time. Would make the games closer though which is what everyone wants and they’d get paid so it would suit all parties. Might write them a letter.
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Emirates Lions team to thrash Cardiff on Sunday. The Blues are so scared they haven’t named their side yet. Edwill van der Merwe we’ve poached from the Stormers, prolly ’cause he wants to get the ball occasionally. The Lions have one Bok in their starting 15, in Jaco Kriel, who last donned the jersey in 2017 and two more on the bench, in Ruan Dreyer and Willem Alberts – both last played for the Boks in 2016. Players to watch include the electric wing Rabz Maxwane and centre Wandisile Simelane, as well as our Congolese import, Vincent Tshituka. The Lions tight five is pretty big with Carlu Sadie (124kg) and Sti Sithole (112kg) generally not going backwards, with Reinhard Nothnagel (6’8″ and 115kg) and Ruben Schoeman (6’6″ and 124kg) in the second row. Ruhan Straeuli is, I’m assuming, the sprog of Rudolf Straeuli, infamous coach of the 2002 Twickenham Boks and 2003 Kamp Staaldraad embarrassment. Oh, he also has a World Cup winners medal, having come on as a replacement in the ’95 Final.
15 EW Viljoen, 14 Rabz Maxwane, 13 Wandisile Simelane, 12 Burger Odendaal (c), 11 Edwill van der Merwe, 10 Fred Zeilinga, 9 Andre Warner, 8 Francke Horn, 7 Vincent Tshituka, 6 Jaco Kriel, 5 Reinhard Nothnagel, 4 Ruben Schoeman, 3 Carlu Sadie, 2 Jaco Visagie, 1 Sti Sithole
Substitutes: 16 PJ Botha, 17 Morgan Naude, 18 Ruan Dreyer, 19 Willem Alberts, 20 Ruhan Straeuli, 21 Morne van den Berg, 22 Matt More, 23 Tiaan Swanepoel.
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He is the son. Oom Rudolf’s in management at the Lions now.
Matt Moore, the replacement centre, was in the Munster Academy for a bit.
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Rudolf’s been at the Lions for quite a while. Googled Matt Moore and came across this article, with Andy Dunne and Murray Kinsella tying themselves in knots justifying signing Saffer kids straight out of school. How is Kenyan Knox getting along at Munster?
https://www.the42.ie/keynan-knox-4505849-Feb2019/
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You could Google how he’s doing but he’s a squad member at the moment. They like him. He’s played some games this year.
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Could Google, but that’s what I pay you for!
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Andy Goram – picked on the bench for England u21 and later played for Scotland after his Scottish renaissance.
Also played cricket for Moorside, Austerlands, and Scotland.
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@deebee
Knox – yeah, good. Ryan and Archer the resident THs are probably towards the end of their careers. Archer is up there with most games played for Munster 233 – only O’Gara, Holland and O’Callaghan ahead of him. At the moment, Knox tends to start against the weaker teams and sub on against stronger URC/Heino teams.
I’d expect him to be #1 TH by next season – form and fitness etc etc
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OT,
Until 1950 it was possible to play for both IFA – Northern Ireland – and FIA (Free State/Republic) – teams and quite a lot of players did both. Johnny Carey of Man Utd played against England for the IFA at Windsor Park and then 2 days later for the FAI in Bohemian’s home ground Dalymount in Dublin. Both associations had teams trying to qualify for the 1950 World Cup and there were a few players who played for both in the qualifying tournament.
Fast forward a few years and Alan Kernaghan was born in England but moved to Bangor, Co Down as a young kid. He played for N. Ireland youth teams but couldn’t play for the senior team cos neither he nor his parents had been born in the North. He had a granny who was born in (what’s now) the Republic and qualified for citizenship and to play for them so he did.
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FAI not FIA. FIA would be the Italian Referees Association.
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Yes, IFA based out of Belfast was the original NGB. FAI was a breakaway. But until 1950 (or thereabouts) both claimed to be 32 county governing body – so IFA (Ireland) team picked players from both jurisdictions.
FIFA got fed up with this so one now plays under the banner of Northern Ireland (from Irish Football Assoc) and the other plays as Republic of Ireland (from Football Assoc of Ireland)
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Anyone want a good laugh?
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Goram obviously never played for England u21 otherwise he would never have played for Scotland. A similar thing happened to Stuart McCall. He quickly cottoned on he was only picked for England to stop him playing for Scotland:
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Different now, of course. Declan Rice has three caps for the Republic of Ireland.
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Callum Sheedy pulled out of a Wales Under 20 squad so he wouldn’t be tied to us. Before that he played for Ireland Under 18 7z team, after for an England XV v the Barbarians. Now he’s a full international for us.
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thaum, when they were whining about 80 grand a year not being enough to attract the best of the best to become MPs, I thought ‘Bollocks. 80 grand a year’s a very well-paid job in UK terms.’ Having seen that, I concede that they may have a point.
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it was that ghostbusters reboot wot drove me to bank robbery.
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Thauma, that’s beyond parody. As most of the comments on Twitter suggest too. Soche gets 82 grand a year for that? As a basic salary. Money well spent keeping him out of reality.
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Chimpie, the rot set in with Charlie’s Angels – they didn’t even HAVE male role models to start with! And then M – oh the horror! – drove me to wiping out first nations in the Amazon.
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TomP – I believe he’s one of the new ‘Red Wall’ MPs, so 80K is probably a lot of money for him!
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This is concerning: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/25/scientists-call-for-travel-code-red-over-covid-variant-found-in-southern-africa
Have the Cardiff boys travelled to SA yet?
Will Deebee have to cancel any planned lunches?
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Zebre, Scarlets & Munster also due to play in SA this weekend.
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‘Will Deebee have to cancel any planned lunches?’
The horror
Wishes and prayers for deebee
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There was a time in my working career (in the US) where I was the beneficiary of many vendor lunches, and indeed a couple of years when I worked in pre-sales and was the lunch (or dinner) donor. *sighs nostalgically*
But my favourite lunch place was not the sort of establishment that vendors took us to. Deary me, no.
It was called the Hogs [sic] Breath and it was in a bunker-type building with no windows. The clientèle were mostly bikers or toolies* or both. There were two employees, probably the owners: a hairy-arsed, tattooed (before tattoos were fashionable) bloke in the kitchen and a quite frightening middle-aged woman at ‘front of house’, ie tending bar. She was the only other woman I ever saw in there.
When you walked in, you crunched across the floor and shouted your food order at the bloke through the hatch. You could have a burger and chips or a ham and cheese toastie and chips. You then proceeded to the bar, where you ordered your drinks from m’lady, who would also hand you a plastic dish of monkey nuts. You proceeded to your table and started in on the nuts while waiting for the food. If you were stupid enough to tidily dispose of the shells back into the plastic dish, m’lady would come and smack you on the head and dump them on the floor where they belonged.
Once you’d eaten your food – which, amazingly, was not bad! – you kept on drinking and started playing pool and putting choonz on the jukebox. Some of these lunches lasted a long time, and quite frequently no-one went back to work, known as ‘pulling a nooner’. If you did go back, you were in no state to do any actual work.
Oh, and when you’d decided to leave, you had to remember what you’d had to eat and drink, because they didn’t keep track for you. Erm, ham and cheese sammich, two beers, five fuzzy nazels… I fink…. – Ten dollars.
I bet Deebee doesn’t offer this kind of full-on, immersive experience to his clients.
*People – well, let’s be honest: blokes – who worked in tool design and manufacture. A rough and politically-incorrect bunch. Probably mostly voted for Trump. Fond of firearms season and agin’ uppity wimmins.
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Flights already banned from tomorrow from southern Africa into England. Surprising (but welcome) that the govt have acted this quickly.
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You have to think this could have been avoided if rich countries had concentrated their minds on getting vaccines rolled out to developing nations.
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Thauma, a couple of things:
1) We have a vaccine surplus in SA and have asked Pfizer and J&J to stop sending more.
2) The reason for this is massive vaccine ‘hesitancy’ I think is the kind term being used. Basically only 35% of the adult population has had at least one jab.
3) We have a large portion of the population, across all demographics, that are swivel-eyed, knuckle-dragging luddite idiots who feast lustily on the evil concoction of religion, Internet conspiracy theories, mindless rumour and machismo (yes, male vax rates lag significantly behind female ones). We even had one relatively prominent party in our recent local government elections using an anti-vax stance as their key message for service delivery at local authority level. They should be locked up.
4) This is compounded by a useless government sending mixed messages about the rights of people to not get vaxxed and not enforcing their own draconian lockdown regulations in areas most prone to the spread of the pandemic and (I’m assuming) the mutation of it.
5) To add to that, my in-laws in rural Eastern Cape had to go three times to the local hospital for their jabs (for each one) because either there were no vaccines, no nurses or a combination of the two. Now, it’s okay for them – they have a car and it takes 20 minutes to get there, but for impoverished communities (around 50% of rural Saffers) who are debating whether to use their money for taxi fare to the hospital or putting food on the table, (literally, no exaggeration) it’s pretty obvious what you’ll do.
I am so angry I don’t know where to go with this. My business relies heavily on being able to travel within Africa and beyond and we’ve already had to start retrenching because of the constraints. Now we’re faced with another travel ban (it’ll move beyond the UK) and another few weeks, months or longer with no ability to plan or operate properly. I haven’t been able to travel since March last year with any degree of confidence that we won’t get stranded outside for weeks at huge risk to the company. So, damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
* It won’t affect my lunches, because, largely, don’t have any anymore.
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@thauma
This really made me laugh. I spend a significant proportion of my working life trying to explain to academics who think they understand the future of manufacturing technologies that this is their target audience. They are largely ill prepared for the conversation.
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Deebee – that’s a big shit sandwich, without any hopeful-looking solution in sight.
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OT what specifically do you mean by tool design and manufacture, to me that conjures up images of tools used by robots in car manufacture
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I read the other day that we are way short of the needed number of car mechanics who can work on electric vehicles , or will be in a few years.
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@ticht
The robot you describe is an example of a tool itself. It can so be a machine that cuts, drills, grinds, changes shape or form in some way. The people that design and make these things tend to be a) very salt of the earth and b) fearsomely clever.
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Thaum – that does sound like a good bar. When I google the name though all I get are websites describing weed strains.
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Commiserations Deebs although the last sentence is the worst for me.
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Thauma, we’ve been fed a steady diet of shit sandwiches by our government over last 18 months!
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Bon chance, Deebee
OT, my wife has come off the subs bench of retirement and is now working as a career consultant for STEM grads/undergrads.
That’s why my interest was piqued
She’s quite well placed as for years she sat on the other side of the interview table in tech
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Craigs, I’ve learned to fend for myself in the vicious world of providing one’s own lunch. Been hard, been degrading at times, but I’ve got through it and am a better man for it. I just wish that there was a male role model for me to get me through this, but Nigella seems to have usurped that.
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Deebs, there is a very expensive but excellent bakery up the road from me, when I throw financial caution to the wind I stock up on croissants, pork and fennel sausage rolls, seeded brown sourdough loafs etc
The area I live in is nicknamed muesli mountain as it’s a bit hippy posh, I feel I need to wear socks and sandals to the bakery when I go to buy my lunch
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