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 
*or older. Not worse. As Mrs Deebee says, only the lucky get older.
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There was an interview with PM Marin in the Guardian other day. I’ll find some of the choicest cuts.
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@Deebs
@Ticht, I just saw the World XV link you posted. Five Boks in it? Not bad for a bunch of knuckle dragging luddites in the age of footloose fancy flingabout!
I think Malherbe should probably be in there too, though I also think it’s an outrage that Fickou doesn’t make the cut
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World Rugby making waves in the Ponzi scheme market:
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Blockchain is something I’v’e heard about through musicians, though I can’t say I know what it is or how it works, but the point of view I’ve heard from “The Talent” as Sag used to call them was that the dosh would go to them rather than labels or ffs, streaming services where ten thousand plays of your song nets you 1p, but a tenner per month per user for the streaming bandits
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I got that way wrong, blockchain is crypto currency
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..and yet not, this is where I’ve heard the term blockchain before, I think I need an explanation -http://myceliaformusic.org
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Cryptocurrencies use blockchain.
NFTs confused me for a while. I wondered why the BFI had reverted to its former name. Then I realised it was nothing quite so interesting.
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I think we’ve established that Deebee is in fact worser.
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What’s an NFT?
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Australia collapsing! From 166-1 they’re 195-5 and Ollie Robinson is on hat trick! Carey on debut facing the hat trick ball! Calmly defended, but suddenly England have a sniff of getting back into this one!
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She added “I don’t see myself as young. I’m clearly younger than an ancient geezer like Deebee but so’s everybody. His birth is closer in time to the sinking of the Lusitania than it is to now. Imagine being that old.”
I walk in the company of greatness! I also burped Keith Richards, who burped Betty White.
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‘Nother one! 236-6 with Carey gone! Cummins in at 8. England need to mop this up ASAP, because whilst the bowlers have clawed them back into it, Australia are still 89 ahead with 4 wickets in hand.
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Head isn’t giving England an inch. Run a ball 50, which is taking the game back away from England.
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Travis Head is brutalising England here. He’s into the 80s off 66 balls and is taking apart a reluctant, semi-fit Ben Stokes, forced into the attack so that Root can preserve Robinson and Wood for the new ball, which is only a few overs away. Lead is past 150 and you fear that’s the match, save for some magnificent counter-attacking by a number of the English batsmen.
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Root picks up his opposing skipper and Australia lose their 7th wicket – but the problem is at the other end, where Head continues his onslaught. 93 0ff 78 now.
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That was a helluva day’s play! Australia got off to a flyer, with Warner and Labuschagne flaying the attack, but then lost a clutch of wickets, giving England some real hope of a fightback. It was in the balance for a while, but then Travis Head unleashed hell on England’s bowlers and Australia finished the day where they finished Day 1: in supreme command, having scored 343 runs in the day, for the loss of seven and Head still bobbing around out there. The lead is close to 200 and unless England mop up the last three wickets quickly tomorrow, it could extend beyond 300. Some day!
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@ticht
Blockchain is an example of a Digital Ledger Technology. Just a way of recording transactions simultaneously across several places to make it very difficult to cook the books. I’ve worked on a project applying Blockchain to Irish Whiskey for anti-counterfeiting.
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This an NFT that sold for over a million US Dollars earlier this year:
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OT, I know an anti-money laundering guy at a Czech bank. Blockchain technology is also used to help people wash their ill-gotten loot.
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Something that annoys me is when you’re watching something and you don’t really notice eating your bacon toastie.
This is what drew my attention, the show reel of Breakthrough player of the Year Will Jordan. He’s been terrific, a lot of it is down to the players around him but he does make the difference too.
It’s also great to see Ardie Savea fulfil his early potential.
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@tomp
Blockchain is another very hyped technology. It has its uses but it’s not the dramatic game changer many of its promoters claim it is.
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Ticht/OT – it’s a way of creating databases right? And creates a list of unique transactions which can’t be traced. Decentralisation of everything innit.
I listened to Balaji Srinivasan talk about it. He said you could use the technology for lots of things other than money; to make Internet reviews more verifiable for example. He then mentioned creating a crypto town and having a crypto mayor. Tbh he lost me there.
Re the crime aspect, non of the usual objections to using crypto can’t also be applied to actual money. People buy drugs on the dark web. Well, people also buy drugs with cash.
It’ll be interesting to see how the government backed virtual currencies take off tbh.
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Am going to have to sell an NFT.
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The crime aspect’s more about where the money goes to get clean I think. London is often the answer.
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@Craigs – El Salvador is way ahead of you, with the ‘crypto town’
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-59368483
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Bukele’s an absolute menace. A good line in couping himself, mind.
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According to the Glasgow stats guy Hamish Watson hasn’t missed a tackle for Scotland in well over 20 hours of rugby going back a couple of years, he is currently 279 – 0.
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Hamish Watson’s the new Jonny Grey, then.
Who’s the worst tackler in the Scottish team? That’s more interesting than player does job well.
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Well, against South Africa Hoggy made three tackles and missed three, Kwagga Smith has the same numbers for that game.
Getting back to Watson, that is an astonishing stat by any standard, and personally I don’t think it’s less interesting than doing players down,
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McFuckface’s perfect tackle rate was mentioned during one of the recent internationals by one of the commentators (probably Cotter).
The bastard also has an incredible jackal rate.
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It’s a great statistic, ticht. Am sure some teams will go at him sometimes just to get him on the floor and out of the game. He’s a top player
The missed tackles one can be brutal on full backs and it’s a pretty misleading statistic for some other players as well, eg in the blitz defence it’s not always to make the tackle as it’s about disruption. Anyway Hogg brings a lot more to a game than the occasional mistackle.
This is ok about how sometimes making the tackle can backfire later in the game:
https://thematchreport.co.uk/2021/12/06/why-tuilagi-on-the-wing-was-a-stroke-of-genius/
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Just watched the second days highlights. oh dear Rory Burns. needs a big score in the second innings, otherwise he is going to be having nightmares about Brisbane for years. England didn’t look that bad bowling, its just the fielding and the batting bits that we seem useless at. Oh well.
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Exeter looked as tough they were targeting to be tackled by Itoje – to get him out of the game temporarily….
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Slade, it’s a tactic that’s been used for a while, I remember analysis of sides who had to play against Pocock and Hooper in the same Wallabies team who looked to nullify them that way, but with those two in particular it wasn’t easy
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Well, cricket better today, wish the world was an easier place to get around and I had some money, as fifth tets is in Hobart. Went to a one day international there in 2001, and came back with a serious hangover and a Boony Army bucket hat and polo shirt. Do like Tasmania. Bellerive Oval is a lovely venue too.
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A man attacked by a pack of otters in a Singapore park has said that he thought he was going to die during the ordeal.
Graham George Spencer, a British citizen living in Singapore, said he was chased, pinned down and bitten “26 times in 10 seconds” by a family of otters while out for an early morning walk in the botanic gardens.
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Much better from England today and unfortunately it’ll lead to all sorts of contorted whatiffery and speculative hope about getting through the first hour, then the new ball, then the deficit, then putting together a decent total to avoid humiliation, then a total that may cause Aus some concern, then a defendable total – the beauty of Test cricket!
I see Scott Johnson is out of a job, anyone in Scotland looking for a Director of Rugby?
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/10/i-thought-i-was-going-to-die-otters-attack-british-man-in-singapore-park
The Queen would’ve handled them.
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Covid in Clermont-Ferrand:
https://www.rugbyrama.fr/rugby/champions-cup/2021-2022/champions-cup-clermont-face-a-plusieurs-cas-de-covid-a-un-jour-du-match-contre-l-ulster_sto8665758/story.shtml
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Refit – it was more of a crypto town within a normal country. Using the blockchain for ID verification and voting purposes. And then using crypto cash to provide services therefore subverting a normal council or local government.
Am happy for El Salvador to do the full bitcoin experiment tbh.
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oops, that was the wrong Embra tweet, I’ll get the team in a sec
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Henry Pyrgos managed to boot Blair Kinghorn in the heid last week, Kinghorn went down like he’d been the victim of a sniper from the North stand, almost cartoon line, like a broom handle falling over.
So young Charlie Savala takes over the reins.
I’m happy enough with the pack, through Ritchie is crocked, as are Darcy Graham and Damien Hoyland, they’ve both been in great form recently.
Even without a full-bore Sarries side this is going to be a tough game.
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13 internationals in that Saracens squad. Good starting back row and outside backs.
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TomP – that has brightened my day!
Are the non-vaccinated players not allowed to play by European Cup rules, do you know?
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Not the Saracens post, obviously!
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Looks weak.
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