Pack your suitcases and prepare for Round Two of the European Cup.
Cardiff v Harlequins
Home advantage and Ellis Jenkins won’t do enough for Cardiff against in-form Quins. Quins by 10.
Castres v Munster
No-one will ever know the result of this match as anyone who attempts to watch it will die the most horrible of deaths from boredom, judging by the reverse fixture.
Wasps v Toulouse
Ooh. Toulouse by at least 35.
Ospreys v Racing 92
Surprisingly, Racing 92 are languishing even further down the Top 14 table than Ospreys are in the URC. I still think they’ll win, though – by about 12.
Connacht v Leicester
This could be the surprise of the weekend, possibly depending on the weather. Connacht by 3.
La Rochelle v Bath
Bath to take a Bath. La Rochelle by 20.
Exeter v Glasgow Warriors
Glasgow have been looking the business in their last couple of matches, and Exeter are not what they were last year. Weegies by 6.
Bristol v Stade Français
Neither side setting the world on fire this season, so home players by 4.
Leinster v Montpellier
Despite being toppled off the top of the URC, Leinster remain a team to be very scared of, and are at home. Blue Meanies by 17.
Bordeaux v Scarlets
Ooh là là, les Médocs par approximately neufty.
Northampton v Ulster
Will the return of Baloucoune and Hume mean an Ulster away win? Probably not, but I’m going for Ulster by 7 anyway. (This is why I never win the leagues.)
Clermont v Sale
Oh dear, Yellow Army by 30.
Onna telly this week
Friday 14th January
| Castres v Munster | 20:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Cardiff v Harlequins | 20:00 | S4C / BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 15th January
| Wasps v Toulouse | 13:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Treviso v Dragons | 15:15 | S4C |
| Ospreys v Racing 92 | 15:15 | BT Sport 3 |
| Connacht v Leicester | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
| La Rochelle v Bath | 17:30 | BT Sport 3 |
| Exeter v Glasgow | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Bristol v Stade Français | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 16th January
| Leinster v Montpellier | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 | ||
| Bordeaux v Scarlets | 15:15 | BT Sport 3 | ||
| Northampton v Ulster | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 | ||
| Clermont v Sale | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Suspect attempted to resist arrest, but was brought down by pepperoni spray.
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“the utilisation of Craigs’ asset”
Good God.
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A minor God, I’d hazard.
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Deebee, have you read Gaiman’s American Gods? If not, I think you’d like it.
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NFT? Nice 3-sided pointy-shaped scheme you have there.
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TomP – I’ve been reading that JK Rowling fanfic All The Young Dudes. It’s dreadful. But I can’t put it down.
About to start the Fourth Year. :-)
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‘Have you read Gaiman’s American Gods?’
Are craigs and his assets in it?
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Chimpie – everything is in it.
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Cmw/OT – better to just put them on the floor. Get it really hot first. Am going to use the oven as a tandoor this year. If I do a pizza I might stick a big chunk of meat in a pit inside overnight. Just clear out the embers first and it’s hot enough to slow cook anything.
I did have a tandoor in my old garden but we had a winter of discontent and the clay lining cracked and died. This saddened me greatly because I had built a brick cone on the outside and it was my first attempt at bricklaying. I was quite chuffed I’d managed it tbh.
I turned it into a big plant pot before we sold the house. The survey came back with a question along the lines of ‘is it supposed to be like that’?
I said yes.
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I haven’t read it, thaum. I’m reading this: Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon ( https://www.versobooks.com/books/3861-everything-and-less ). Sample sentence: “There is a case to be made for self-published Adult Baby Diaper Lover (ABDL) erotica as the quintessential Amazonian genre of literature.”
And Iron Annie, a story of drug-dealers and ne’er-do-wells in Dundalk told in Louth dialect.
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@Craigs – I can tell you now I’m the least likely person on here to be doing any such thing.
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I like it when I open the latest page of the notablog and seemingly random stuff is being posted.
Great stuff.
Craigs I have mates who are builders, they did my loft conversion. On the subject of bricklaying, the plumber built a barbeque in his garden and was quite chuffed with it and went off to do whatever and then buy beer for the Saturday even that was about to come.
One of the senior guys in the builders company was trained as a brickie and when he turned up at the plumber’s house he saw the BBQ and thought “what a fucking state that is”. so he knocked it down and rebuilt it.
When the plumber got back the brickie had gone, but he looked at the BBQ and said to his wife, “I made a better job of that than I thought”
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have you read Gaiman’s American Gods?
I haven’t read it – but I think I’ll order it once I’ve finished Shantaram. It’s War and Peace long, and I’m only about 60 pages into it, but so far, so good!
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Aaaahhhh!!!! Shantaram!!!!
*bangs face into pizza oven*
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Ticht – bricklaying is actually quite hard.
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it’s hard to do well. I’ve done it badly on several occasions.
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Ignoring the eligibility stuff and stealing saffa players, it would be quite funny if this actually happened.
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Chimpie – yes, but what about bricklaying?
Badum tishhhh
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‘it would be quite funny if this actually happened.’
Nice bit of morning Deebee bait
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Chimpie – I’m just thinking about the last time Andre played international rugby at Twickenham.
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Someone flagged this up on the Guardian – as ever LRZ doesn’t even look like he’s trying to run fast.
https://www.bt.com/sport/watch/video/clips/2022/january/rees-zammit-scores-sensational-solo-try-for-gloucester
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They need to ask him if he’s qualified to play for them? Jesus. A two-bit operation.
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@tomp
I agree. Much better to go the Colin Charvis route, pick him and ask no questions.
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@OT
Was it Charvis ? Thought it was Sinkinson and Howarth?
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@trisk
With Charvis it turned out he’d been playing all along despite having no Welsh antecendents. By the time they realised he’d qualified on residency by then so they just carried on.
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Aaah…..
Who was the lad Scotland capped – who was under the impression his grandfather was Scottish – turned out grandad wasn’t from within 500miles of Scotland? Hilton?
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I don’t think Ireland have an equivalent – not in rugby anyway. Tend to be fairly thorough…
(Cascarino of course – he was adopted and adoptive grandparents were Irish. I suppose it would get abused PDQ if you could legally adopt someone so they qualified for NT)
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Trisk, yeah it was Dave Hilton, an honest mistake, it turned out that it was his great grandfather who was from Glasgow, not his grandfather.
OT, there was a Scottish piper called Gordon Duncan, one of the best who ever lived, he was very influential as a composer and quite revolutionary in that very conservative world.
He worked on the bins, collecting behind the bin lorry.
Nowt wrong with that as a living of course, but one of the country’s greatest artists should not be doing it
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This is quite a good insight into why he did the day jobs: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/04/philip-glass-taxi-driver-composer/558278/
Turns out he kept losing money going on tour and had to make it up somehow, until eventually he was able to make enough from music. And I get this bit – makes a lot of sense:
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Nice bit of morning Deebee bait
Luckily I’ve been too busy today to check in and see this, but it doesn’t surprise me. It’s why I said last week that I hope SARU cap him soon to keep the greedy English clutches off him. Read the article in the Graun t’other day (more accurately, ANOTHER article) about how the 6N is the greatest sporting spectacle in the history of the known universe (and the unknown universe, as well as the known unknown and unknown unknown universes). Every second comment was about how awful it would be if South Africa participated in it, but I reckon it wouldn’t be too tricky to put a South African side together from players currently or recently capped or being tapped up by the current 6N sides: the Scots go for our front rows, the French our locks (and Rory Kockott!), Ireland had Stander, the Italians have a few as well, Scots have Kyle Steyn in the backs and I think one of our 10s got capped recently by Scotland too? Green would simply be next cab off the rank.
I think the last UK-born Springbok was Nick Mallett, from memory, and he grew up here anyway.
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@deebee
Nonsense. It’s the Rugby League World Cup.
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@Deebee – Don’t leave us out, we’ve got one now. His route to playing for Wales suggests he might not be a household name back home of course, but still. Surprised we haven’t had more to be honest, the Regions obviously don’t pay enough.
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The ones Italy have got are rubbish, though, Deebs.
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Deebs, there was Tommy Allan’s uncle, John Allan, born in Scotland, moved to South Africa as an 8 year old (ty Wiki). He played for Edinburgh Accies just after I did, or there was a small overlap from the dated I can see, but I don’t remember him. He was a hooker so if I’d played with him I think I would have remembered
He went on to play first for Scotland and then the Springboks.
He’s younger than Mallett, so presumably came after him
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CMW, Rhys Thomas (dad Welsh), Luscombe (sort of project player) and Andries Pretorious (not really a project player but got a couple of caps) are the pro era ones. Tom Botha’s qualified now apparently.
There’s at least one from the 60s as well but I can’t remember his (very common Welsh) name – let’s so Jones or Thomas or Williams or Davies.
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Why do I think there was a prop when Henry was in charge who was something to do with SA?
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Remembered his name now – Peter Rogers. Turns out he was born in England, went to school at Llandovery College, but had then gone and played in SA which is where I’m getting that from. Think he had that steely-eyed Saffer stare thing going so I’d always thought he actually was from there, but it seems you can maybe learn it.
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Ticht, you’re right enough about John Allen, forgot about him.
CMW – not sure, but there’s an SA-born bloke playing hooker who is now Welsh qualified I think. Of course the Irish had Jean O’Kleyn in their ranks too.
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@Deebee – He’s the one I meant – Bradley Roberts. Seems to have played a few seasons of second division Irish club rugby and then got picked up by Ulster last season and after a few games for them he’s now playing for us. He’s 26 so not exactly an up and coming highly rated Bok prospect. He’s got a granny from Llandysul – it’ll have taken her a while to get to South Africa from there.
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CMW, The Western Mail or Wales Online did an interview with him last year. He was brilliant in 1999 and then it all went wrong somehow.
He grew up in Wales as well as going to Llandovery and his dad’s Welsh. He’s a care worker now. A good bloke.
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@TomP – Yes he was really good for roughly the same period that Chris Wyatt was.
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So what’s the notablog prediction for the 6N?
I’d go:
Ireland
France
Scotland
England
Wales
Italy,
with no GS for the winner but BPs (or lack of ) being the difference.
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No idea really
I think Italy will be better than last year but still come last. Reckon Ireland and France are slightly ahead of England Wales and Scotland but going to be unpredictable.
Have a horrible feeling Scotland are going to have a horrorshow.
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Flair – your scenario is plausible, but I might swop the first two around!
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Did Tommy Allan say he didn’t want to play for Italy?
I seem to recall hearing something like that, that he wanted to concentrate on his game at Quins first.
He has played very well in the games I’ve seen him.
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Scotland have England at home, Wales away, France at home, Italy away, Ireland away.
It’s not outside the bounds of possibility that we go to Dublin chasing a grand slam.
It’s equally possible we go there trying to avoid a whitewash and wooden spoon.
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Ha, quite
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No way are you losing to Italy. The first three? I wouldn’t put money on any of them right now.
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