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 
In that case it might be investing in the brass version of the bust – a snip, nay, a steal at 2,800 of your Euros.
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Really you need twelve. Obviously you’ll then want twelve more, but hopefully by that point people will have noticed and you might get some for your birthday or Christmas.
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McGuigan gets three weeks suspension.
I have to say that I lolled at that.
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Baxter hinting that LC-D, Jonny Hill AND Jonny Gray will return to face Saracens this weekend.
That’s quite a big ask and I cant see LC-D and Gray lasting 80 – I expect they might start all 3 as Saracens are not usually fast starters ………………….
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………or vikki-verka
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Should be a great game Slade – I’ve got Sarries by a couple of points on ‘Bru, so Exeter should win comfortably.
Because of Boris, our teams will play each other again this weekend for about the 27th time this year. Not sure I can be bothered, really. Only interest is to see if the exodus of Vermeulen and Big Trev will depower the Bulls much against the Sharks, who will have Siya Kolisi and Bongi Mbonambi starting after joining from the Stormers.
Very different sides to those that toured the grim north a few months back, with the Sharks fielding 7 Boks in the run-on side and the Bulls four (albeit a couple retired ones) and both having a number of Bok 7s players as well.
The Lions will field three Boks in their squad – 32 year old Jaco Kriel starting, with Jannie du Plessis (39) and Willem Alberts (37) on the bench. So powerful a side it is, that the Stormers aren’t announcing theirs.
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Club Appreciation night is not, unfortunately a Ministry of Sound nite, the players are wearing the socks from the clubs they came up through, or in the case of Bill Mata or Boan Venter, have some kind of connection too, whether it’s that they live near them or have coached them or something similar.
Magnus Bradbury makes his 100th appearance for Edinburgh.
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Very Orwellian erasing of their rugby history and which clubs produced them, I think we can all agree. Scotland’s quest for global domination should have all good folk worried.
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I recall Munster did this – with the socks – when they played NZ Maori shortly after Anthony Foley’s death.
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Emiliano Boffelli is famous for loving a good zoo so that explains his choice.
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I always used to like going to see the corstorphines at Chester Zoo when I was a child.
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Am I evil for laughing at that?
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…………………….yes
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Thought so.
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Can’t believe they let him wander around like that – immediate reaction in any game I’ve ever played in is that everyone makes sure you keep still and I play at the bottom level that there is. Have to wonder about the other chap as well – what’s he doing on the field if he isn’t on his way to help the injured player?
It looked a poor piece of wicketkeeping in the first instance, perhaps he had a hangover.
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I think I’m definitely going to the Bad Place after sniggering watching that clip
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You’re evil, Mickey numbers.
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Wonder if he went back out and carried on, wouldn’t be the first.
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Bristol looking strong.
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And the Glaws team they’re facing
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Should be a cracker, Refit. See Zammo in for Sideways, dunno if he’s injured, tweaked his knee last week. In Beadles absence, I’m going with Glaws, great to see Englands best No 8 back where he should be.
Deebee and Numbers, yep, Evil triumvirate, I had a good chuckle too.
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I snickered at the first bit, but the second brought tears to my eyes. (Of laughter, obvs.)
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The fact that the wicket keeper is an old bloke does add something to the humour. But if you look how he’s moving he’s fit as a fiddle – there’s older keepers at our club like that. Sickeningly fit.
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Played wickie once – long long ago – enjoyed but yeah, you need to be fit and athletic. Suit a gymnast type….
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The old guy’s knees are probably wrecked, but he’ll still do it because it’s what he does.
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There’s a few I can think of whose keeping style has got a lot more vertical over the years with a good deal more use of the pads. Or in this guy’s case the head.
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‘Your’ Exeter (Big Mans) team to face Saracens:
Hogg, Nowell, Slade, Whitten, O’Flaherty
Simmonds, Maunder
Hepburn, LC-D, Iosepha-Scott
Gray, Hill
Ewers, Armand, Simmonds
Yeandle, Kenny, Nixon, Capstick, Kirsten, H.Skinner, Hendrickson.
Happy returns to some players and Sam Skinner rested. Should be good but some of the above must be a bit rusty
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Then again having had another look this chap does start quite low and doesn’t really get high enough quickly enough with his hands so maybe his knees are OK and his reactions are now too slow or his eyesight is going. That said perhaps he still starts low even though his knees are shagged and that stops him going up quickly enough? It doesn’t look like it bounces excessively* and you’d imagine the pitch is probably fairly consistent as it’s artificial so maybe he should think about calling it a day or find a team with slower bowlers.
*Though it does hit him on the head so maybe he’s just standing too close for the combination of this bowler and his abilities.
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I saw that tweet when I looked in here earlier, I was standing in a queue at the time, I’m glad I didn’t play it then.
:-)
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‘some of the above must be a bit rusty’
Bit of oil will sort that out.
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Wicket keeper update. He really is a great keeper
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He’s a good guy:
https://www.ecn.cricket/series/fancode-ecs-malta-2021-1970/news/john-grima-magic-man-in-malta
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There doesn’t seem to be a lot to say about the matches this weekend, especially as half of them are cancelled.
Unless Connacht also beat Leinster, which will be fab. :-)
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Sounds as though the BaaBaas cancellation wasn’t as straightforward as the last one….
https://www.rugbypass.com/news/what-really-happened-behind-the-scenes-of-the-barbarians-cancellation/
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‘Mon Embra! Let’s see if you can get some Scottish revenge for last week’s result. Although it won’t be easy. Benetton are a really stuffy (and good) side.
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7z Japan-style:
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Connacht take an early lead. Playing really fast and on penalty advantage Carty puts in a beauty and Aussie winger Hansen leaps over Larmour spectacularly to grab and score.
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Rhys Ruddock blasts over but Connacht come back and may just have scored a strange try. McNulty chipped over the defence, second row Ryan Baird knocks the ball back over his line and fails to dot down but the ball’s on his body. McNulty sees his and goes for it.
Ref rules no clear grounding.
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Some very good play in this game. Connacht scored through Sammy Arnold and now Leinster score through Ringrose, their 13, after a long multi-phase move that went from side to side and back again. Excellent rugby.
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3rd try for Leinster. Dan Sheahan making like Gerald Davies to beat Mack Hansen with an sidestep of his right foot and the pace to finish.
19-12 at half time. 5 tries. First-class entertainment.
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I hoped that the Marsa that the wicketkeeper plays for was an abbreviation of Marsaxlokk as it’s my favourite Maltese placename. Turns out they’re different places though.
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Loads of odd place names in Malta. Think they must have had a lot of spare ‘x’ and ‘k’s lying about.
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Arabic in a Latin script, innit. Sort of.
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Larmour’s got a score. 26-12.
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Dai the Fact, contact me by email with postal address, need to ship a box before xmas.
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For some reason, thought Leinster v Connacht was tomorrow. So have just put it on. Now wish we hadn’t.
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Peacock doing me fine in UK with Glaws Bris game. Even stevens, two sides not quite clicking, great Glaws defence, but Radrada might make the difference.
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Harris making the difference tonight. Bristol need to get a score soon.
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