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 
Yes, well, Cooney left 6 points on the pitch, but I’m not complaining.
LikeLike
Mon the Gibbons
LikeLike
Uh-oh, here is the beginning of It All Going Wrong.
LikeLike
Yep.
LikeLike
It always seems like there are more than 15 Leinster shirts on the park
LikeLike
Doak on for Cooney? That’s a brave call, although the lad’s good. Suspect planned before the match, never expecting to be actually ahead at this point.
LikeLike
Thaum, Doak is Doak as in oak, wasn’t there a Doak as in Doe-ack ?
LikeLike
Ticht – may be accent-dependent. This lad’s dad also played for Ulster.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rob Lytle playing out of his skin since he’s come on.
LikeLike
@Ticht – There was a Diack.
LikeLike
BLOODY HELL!
In my wildest dreams….
LikeLike
Wey hey!
Gwan the Gibbons
LikeLike
CMW, that might be the chap.
LikeLike
I be dancin’ :-))))))
LikeLiked by 1 person
In fact, now it becomes more right-sounding, Diack
LikeLike
Thaum, crack open the good wine, that was a great win
LikeLike
Ticht, I’m on the brandy!
A sub-par Leinster, but still….
LikeLike
btw, Beverley
LikeLike
Yep, Robbie Diack. A forward.
LikeLike
That felt almost like beating NZ.
LikeLike
Luke Fitzgerald’s just gone way up in my opinion :-)
LikeLike
Robbie Diack – a South African flanker(?) who played a lot for Ulster in the heyday of Friday night Pro12 on the telly (BBC this, that and the other, S4C) and a very little bit for Ireland at some point. Must have retired a few years ago, maybe three or four.
LikeLike
@Thaum – Impressive result!
LikeLike
@SBT – “On another note, there is quite a nice article by Monty Panesar about Michael Vaughan in the kipper today, I also note a distinct lack of furore about the alleged anti-semitic comments between Azeem Rafiq and his buddies.”
I think Monty talks some sense about the Vaughan thing, not least “the fact that this alleged incident took place 12 years ago means that it must be unlikely Rafiq’s claims will ever be proven”.
As far as Rafiq’s tweets etc are concerned I can’t see that it has much bearing on the issues raised regarding his treatment by Yorkshire, Yorkshire’s pathetic and ridiculous behaviour in terms of how they’ve dealt with it, or the wider pretty obvious issue of a lack of Asian players making it into the professional game despite massive participation at amateur level. It doesn’t (/shouldn’t) matter whether we end up liking Rafiq or not.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Is it Ms Knight wot killed the blog, or is everyone still too stunned by Ulster’s stupendously wonderful victory over Leinster yesterday?
LikeLike
Ulster wot done it. Killed the whole internet.
LikeLike
Terrific performance by Ulster. Really did a job at the breakdown. McCann also showed up well at Number 8.
Old Belvedere Under 8 red pod bashed over their opponents from Lansdowne today winning all 4 games. Lansdowne didn’t bring too many kids so in each of the 4 games some of our lads had to play for the opposition, everybody at least once, and all of them did very well. Lots of great running from all over the field from players from both clubs.
In the last game one of the Lansdowne boys came running over to his dad and said, ‘I know one of their players. He’s from my class!’ Turned out it was my boy’s classmate, though I hadn’t recognised him or his dad. The dad (he’s the one I mentioned here before who’s an ex-international rugby player) and I had a good chat after about it and I said I thought the lad played GAA and soccer, not rugby. They were just off to a soccer game after the rugby. Gotta be good for him to try his hand at so many games.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hmmm. Saffacens vs S.A.-le. Who said Saffa rugby is moribund?
LikeLike
Off the crossbar! Not sure when I last saw that!
LikeLike
That would be Lindsay Peat – played soccer for Ireland at underage, international basketball, and won an All Ireland at football for Dublin before turning her hand to rugby. Retired from international rugby last week ….
LikeLiked by 2 people
Red card for Byron McGuigan – two ‘judo’ throws on Tompkins after the whistle had gone.
LikeLike
Trisk – yep, that was she! It was her last match.
LikeLike
An interesting weekend of sport, in general. URC matches (and some ODI cricket matches) cancelled in SA, although the teams are all still here as far as I know. A spectacular knee-jerk from the UK and others in their bans on SA travel when all that we did was highlight a new variant that has been found in Botswana, South Africa and Hong Kong – and now loads of other countries. So no evidence that it originated here, just that our scientists correctly sequenced its genome first. Some reward we got. Worse than fucking Rassiegate.
The Blitzboks were imperious in Dubai though, which was excellent. Some superb talent coming through that Sevens set up. Stuffed the Yanks up their holes in the Final. Only saw bits and bobs of the rugby, but the Saracens-Sale match was pretty good fare until the twit got himself sent off for his WWE impression. Not sure why he lost the plot so comprehensively, but he looked incensed at the time. Some choice words, maybe?
Sad I missed the Ulster-Leinster match, but was at a stag do. Very quiet affair too, but considering it’s the groom’s fourth, I should rather have watched the rugby given that Ulster wins against that mob are a rarer occurrence.
The weather in Manchester for the City-West Ham match was quite something! I wonder if any of our rugby players watched that and sighed a sigh of relief that they’re currently in warmer climes?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well, I bigged up the Leinster back row but it was Ulster’s that did a number on their’s. Lost count of the pens from holding on in the tackle (though I think a few were generous – hands on ground first, generous interpretation of ‘supporting’ your own weight).
However, Leinster can’t complain – low power performance, a lot like the one vs Dragons early in the season.
LikeLike
Deebee, the Scarlets escaped. Zebre were meant to be flying out at midday yesterday but not sure if they did. Cardiff and Munster had a couple of cases so remained in SA.
It throws rather a big spanner in the works in terms of the Heineken Cup and whatever the other Cup is called preparations for the teams. Cardiff are meant to be playing Toulouse on December 11th. I can’t quite see how they’ll manage to do it.
I saw Omicron described as ‘the African strain’ of Coronavirus earlier. A bit like with ‘Spanish flu’ you don’t want to be the place that identifies the virus.
LikeLike
“Lost count of the pens from holding on in the tackle (though I think a few were generous – hands on ground first, generous interpretation of ‘supporting’ your own weight).”
The spirit of Rory Best lives on. Well, assuming they weren’t actually trying to win the ball and were just holding it in against the tackled player which I’d like to think they were.
LikeLike
trisk, was very impressed by McCloskey and Hume in the centres as well. They hit very hard and cut off the wide ball a lot of the time.
Leinster’s half backs were disappointing. Neither of the Byrnes did too much and the scrum halves weren’t in the same class as either Cooney or Doak.
LikeLike
Yeah, couple if those for sure.
@Tom P – yes, Frawley probably created more than either Byrne
LikeLike
Deebee, you could have just said you’d catch him at his next stag do and watched the rugby.
McGuigan totally lost the plot, but Saracens look for that all game every game, Itoje is a wonderful player who would make my World XV, but his Gamesmanship is fucking awful, as a team Sarries are by far the worst and in a way Tompkins got what was coming to him. Maitland was apparently penalised for “gloating in someone’s face”.
Jamie Ritchie is bad for it, all teams seem to have their guys, but I’d quite happily see players yellow carded and penalties reversed for this, all the head patting and mock celebrations of opponents’ mistakes, it’s a blight, I hate it.
Same with fans cheering mistakes, tossers.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Anyone else see Saracens tactics at the ruck yesterday? When they were defending they would form a caterpillar with Maro (or whoever) at the back, and they’d shuffle round (all bound of course) so the ‘tail’ of the caterpillar was right in front of the scrum half. That meant whoever was trying to charge down/tackle the opposition was about a metre nearer to the scrum half than if they weren’t bound.
I quite liked it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@OT
if that doesn’t put an end to the conga line nothing will….
I’m guessing it could be viewed as wheeling/not driving straight – if it’s not legal in a scrum, why should it be legal in a “loose scrum”
LikeLike
“Same with fans cheering mistakes, tossers.”
I’m a bit ambivalent about that as it’s standard behaviour in football crowds and most of the live sport I’ve attended has been football so it feels normal to me. Hard not to react to a really bad kick or a pass into the stand or whatever.
Injuries aside the one sport where I can’t abide people cheering something (and is something I’ve had the odd slightly heated exchange over) is when punters cheer a horse falling in a race.
LikeLike
Never come across that… I recall at Cheltenham (winter meeting – not the festival), horse went down about 3 out and stayed down a long time…. looked bad. However, they got him back to his feet – and he cantered in about 6-7 mins after the rest – loudest cheer of the day.
LikeLike
@Trisk – I don’t think you’d ever get it from a crowd, but individual punters will do it now and again though more likely in the bookies or pub.
LikeLike
Saw the highlights of the Sarries/Sale match, thought Bilky looked better than he has for some time. Never say never innit.
LikeLike
And Billy. But let’s get Bilky back in the England shirt first.
LikeLike
Good old Bilky. What a leg end
LikeLike
Just saw a clip of McQuigan.’s card effort. He really lost it.
LikeLike
Yeah not impressed by all the head patting and gloating that goes on.
I think the ref should be allowed to deal out a boot up the hole plus penalty in these situations.
LikeLike