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 FranƧais
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 lĆ lĆ , les MĆ©docs 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 FranƧais | 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 
“Fuck London Irish though.
Yes, now and forever more. Preferably very painfully.”
I read a rumour yesterday that Creepy is being considered for an international return. Hopefully it’s just a wind up.
On a cheerier note, has anyone been doing the daily wordle thing?
https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
I read about it last week and it raised a “pfft” from me, but now two days in doing it I’m hooked. The good thing is that everyone does the same puzzle and it’s only published once a day, so you can’t spend ages doing more and more of them.
It’s a word guessing game, You have six guesses. You put in five letter words and it tells you if you have any correct letters in the correct boxes, they come up green. If you have correct letters but in the wrong spaces, they come up yellow. Letters that aren’t in the word come up gray.
Wordle 213 4/6
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Then you can post your results as above
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Jackson was a “topic” on Irish twitter yesterday. Owen Slot wrote an article in the Sunday Times (I think or maybe one of those “Irish” branded UK newspapers) suggesting his selection for Ireland.
Apart from the fact that IRFU already sacked him and that being based in England he’d be ineligible for selection (in normal circumstances) – it was awful timing a few days after the murder of the woman in Tullamore.
But what was interesting/concerning was the assumption by a lot of tweeters (and I know I ought not to expect better) that somehow this had support from the IRFU and everyone in the rugby community here I’d almost feel the IRFU would need to get out and say “he’s done” rather than let this fester as if it was a genuine likelihood
Though as one tweeter noted says a lot for the relative amounts of British media we consume versus what UK consumes of Irish media to say that 1 article by a UK journo in UK newspaper about an English club player was treated as if it was from Thornley in the Irish Times.
(Sorry to contaminate the timeline with this topic )
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Ah, thanks Trisk, that’s the source of the rumour then
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Good news for refs as Dan Biggar finally has licence to speak to them.
Wales squad
Forwards ā Rhys Carre Wyn Jones, Gareth Thomas, Ryan Elias, Dewi Lake, Bradley Roberts, Leon Brown, Tomas Francis, Dillon Lewis, Adam Beard, Ben Carter, Seb Davies, Will Rowlands, Christ Tshiunza, Taine Basham, Ellis Jenkins, Jac Morgan, Ross Moriarty, James Ratti, Aaron Wainwright.
Backs ā Gareth Davies, Kieran Hardy, Tomos Williams, Gareth Anscombe, Dan Biggar (c), Rhys Priestland, Callum Sheedy, Jonathan Davies, Uilisi Halaholo, Nick Tompkins, Owen Watkin, Josh Adams, Alex Cuthbert, Louis Rees-Zammit, Johnny McNicholl, Liam Williams.
Bit worried that the Love Island producers might call on one of our forwards.
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England squad named.
Only name one needs to know is Ben Youngs.
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Wordle 213 5/6
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‘Good news for refs as Dan Biggar finally has licence to speak to them.’
Hasn’t stopped him in the past
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Am on the wordle as well. It’sa little like the old Mastermind game. My first guesses are usually “dream” or “reams”.
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With the Priest and Christ in the Wales squad, it goes a little way to making up for the absence of AWJ. Ratti to add a bit of bite as well.
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And Ratti was the family name of Pope Pius X or XI…
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Can’t see Paddy fuckface being recalled to Ireland and whilst he wasn’t found ‘guilty’ the facts of the case were fucking awful.
He also doesn’t seem to have done anything to try to become a better person. I don’t know what form that would or should take or if it would or should be public but appearing in that video a while back suggests he hasn’t moved forwards.
Fuck him and fuck London Irish. Fuck shmarman barb* too if the rumours are true.
Apologies to shmarman barb** if the rumours are false.
** name changed for legal reasons.
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I see Eddie has gone for form in the training squad (apart from the players he is ‘motivating’ by not picking them) which is odd.
Can’t see Elliot Daly coming back soon either. Can understand Faz given his experience. Manu and Underhill are close to coming back too. Your* grand slam winning team:
Stewart
May
Slade
Faz
Norwell
Smith
Randall
Dombrandt
Curry
Lawes
Itoje
Hill
Sink
Lcd
Marler
Genge
George
Stuart
Quirke
Malins
Barbeary
Merchant
* Craigsmans
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Is shmarman barb a play on Craigsman by any chance?
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Fuck off Deebee
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Also, just finished the Expanse. What an amazing show. Haven’t read all the books but I will do. That’s how you finish a series.
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I’ve been finding Wordle a good deal easier to unpick than “shmarman barb”.
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CMW – google is your friend (not for āshmarman barbā, mind you). Non-UK sites have done the not-complicated detective work.
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Craigs – the last few books jump forward in time from the end of the TV series. Still to watch it, but I’ve just finished the final book so I’ll give it a bit of time between the two.
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Craigs – I’ve just got the last episode to watch, but I’ve read all the books. They’ve done a really good job of adapting them into the show, I would highly recommend them and the accompanying novellas.
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BB – the show doesn’t jump and hints of more to tell so I’m expecting a film or season 7.
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Refit – it’s superb.
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@Thaum – I’d already asked the internet before I posted. A publication calling itself ‘The South African’ (Deebee should sue) did the detective work for me. I’d forgotten he played for Sale or for that matter that he existed.
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Played Wordle five times. Got it in four goes four times and in three the other. Can’t see that getting it in two would ever be more than an outrageous slice of luck so feel it has its limitations though I agree the one a day thing works really well.
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https://postimg.cc/T5Wn1wzP
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hrmm
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@Trisk – Top poping knowledge, Sag would be delighted. Turns out it was XI who had the foresight to die in 1939 and avoided some tough years for poping.
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CMW @18:53 – that’s exactly the same one I found. And ditto.
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Just tried this Wordle thing. Had to think a bit!
Wordle 213 4/6
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Must. Resist. This. New. Wordle. Thing.
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thing is the only halfway decent guess there.
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Still a bit slow after he got three greens for ‘This’ though.
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It’s halfway decent but all greys.
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There are two five letter words I’ve thought of that contain all the vowels, those are my starting two guesses from now until I think of a better strategy.
Seemingly there is movement afoot to get rid of the silly little entitled boy at No10
I’d rather keep him there to ensure a change of party in government in two years time
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All the vowels?
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The five normally presented as vowels, not the other vowel sounds or whatever else
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I (mis)read it as the individual words containing all five vowels as opposed to the two words doing so between them which of course couldn’t be the case, wonder if TomP did the same?
I’m not sure there isn’t a case for eliminating or establishing a good number of common consonants early as it helps position any vowels you do land on. I chuck something in with e and a plus some 1 point scrabble consonants first up and go from there – once you do find a vowel if it’s in the wrong place then finding where it goes is possibly as important as establishing the (likely) second one.
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Done the latest one – four goes again though could have had it in three as my fourth guess was a more obvious word and would have been better for elimination purposes than my third.
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“Can understand Faz given his experience.”
Not to mention his huge amount of recent game time, thus ensuring that he will be fully fit and firing.
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I have no idea what Wordle is, and like Sudoku, I shall stoically ignore it whilst the world goes gagga over it. Been stoically ignoring weird trends since Rubik’s cube, pet rocks and Tamagotchi, so no need to get swept up in the hysteria now. The nadir of human civilization (‘civilization’) of course was Pokemon.* I spent several years being dragged to Hamley’s by my (then) young son to buy those evil cards and to the cinema to watch that abominable film.
Autocorect wants me to spell Pokemon differently. I refuse. One small victory for me, one giant victory for humanity.
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I’m very surprised Wordle has took off like that. It appears to be related to a daytime ITV gameshow called Lingo. It’s a poor man’s Tipping Point
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There it is. The Wordle experience would be better with Paul Daniels’ lad there. It looks better than Tipping Point.
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ticht and CMW, yes, I (mis)read it that way.
deebee, probably wise to ignore Pokemon and especially PokemonGo:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/11/lapd-officers-pokemon-go-robbery-fired
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Seems there’s a dumbed down version of Lingo for the Woke Snowflake generation in which the words are of four letters in length. At least you can get EUOI out first go:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCENDSqjv0kQXiDltyjfvf3g
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My strategy paid off today
Wordle 214 3/6
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Wordle 214 4/6
Got it quickly in the end…..
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@Ticht – You’d better have a prize!
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I bet these celebrities showing how clever they are by doing well at Wordle are cheating. It’s really easy to do. I believe Ticht and Trisk mind……
Wordle 214 1/6
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@OT – Good work! I didn’t think the clue in my previous comment would be so obvious…
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Didn’t do as well today.
Wordle 214 5/6
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To be fair I did it this morning on my phone (think I got 5/6) and then just did it again on my laptop. I bet the celebrities get their PA to do it first and give them the answer.
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