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 
@cmw
I think it was like a bubble. Everyone had to have their RU players, and as many as possible. All the good Welsh ones were snapped up by the moneybags at Widnes and Wigan, and the likes of Oldham were left with Nigel Heslop.
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The claim is always that recession in South Wales meant players going North. Definitely true in the 30s and the 80s were bleak in South Wales. The money was really good as well and the WRU were tight on expenses. Also, there were only so many jobs at the BBC in Cardiff so that traditional way of paying someone off wasn’t able to be as much used as a city job when you joined certain clubs in London.
In previous times it’d worked out well for Wales – David Watkins goes, Barry John in, Maurice Watkins out, John Bevan in, John Bevan out, JJ in – but the rush in the 80s / 90s was too much.
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We did see the reverse after professionalism in RU….
@TomP Maurice Watkins out ? Richards???
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Yes, Richards. He’s from a village about 2 miles from my Dad’s and all.
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George Graham (not the Arsenal one) and Alan Tait are the only two amateur RU players I can think of from Scotland who went to play professional RL.
There are probably others but those are the only two I can think of without Google
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George Fairbairn, though I’m not sure what standard of union he played.
And one of the GB RL captains was a Scottish lad, maybe a Borderer, who’d played a very good level.
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Dave Valentine it was. Scottish RU international and GB’s 1954 RLWC winning captain. From Hawick.
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Hawick? Pfft!
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Took the word(s) right out of my mouth there, Deebs.
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https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/20/meet-lewdle-the-dirty-version-of-the-viral-word-guessing-game-wordle
For Ticht, who introduced the sweary one.
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Took the word(s) right out of my mouth there, Deebs.
Well, it is a hot summers night.
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Alan Tait’s father was probably a Scottish Union to League convert even if it was for Workington.
There were quite a few mentioned in some book about Borders rugby I read (I’m sure other people on here had read it too). Think they were largely way back when though.
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Wikipedia has helped me find one from Selkirk! Let’s hear you pfft that.
Ronnie Cowan:
Selkirk, Scotland, Lions
Leeds, Hull, Other Nationalities
1960s
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Also Roy Kinnear, father of Roy Kinnear.
Heriots, Scotland, Lions
Wigan, Other Nationalities, GB
1920s/30s
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‘Other Nationalities’ seems to have mainly been a mixture of Southern Hemisphere types playing over here and Scots. A bit like…(over to Deebee)
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Update on the travels of a key player:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/20/henry-slade-availability-for-montpellier-trip-gives-england-six-nations-boost
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“over to Deebee” AKA the wolf with the red roses.
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@Slade:
“Henry Slade will seemingly be able to take part in England’s entire Six Nations campaign after he was declared available for Exeter’s trip to Montpellier this weekend”
If that isn’t asking for him to get injured in Montpellier I don’t know what is.
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Well obviously ANY player from Selkirk has to be the best….
Although in the Borders, Other Nationalities would mean any town other than the one you were from.
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Actor Rory Kinnear who has written very movingly in The Guardian about the death of his disabled sister from Covid is the son and grandson of the Roy Kinnears.
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Roy Kinnear’s 4th and 5th finest moments
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Wiki also tells me that the rugby playing Kinnear collapsed and died while playing union for the RAF during the war.
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CMW, the Cowan family story’s a little like the Taits’ – dad plays league, son(s) start off successfully in union and go to league.
The Heriots thing’s interesting I wonder if Roy Kinnear Sr. went to the private school. That’s almost certainly the reason why few if any other Edinburgh players went to League.
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https://www.peeblesshirenews.com/sport/13570108.rugby-league-greats-from-the-borders-enjoy-pitch-parade/
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The rules were relaxed during the war and also during national service afterwards. I remember reading about Bev Risman, a Welsh player who’s a league legend playing union during the conflict, though he’d hardly played senior union.
His son Bev played for England and the Lions before he turned pro.
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Turns out a former colleague of mine played with Ronnie Cowan for Leeds in the 1971 Challenge Cup final (they lost). According to one of the other guys at work our colleague (obviously a very good player) was the only one of the Leeds team who never played for Great Britain. Seems to be at least close to the truth.
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Tangentially, here’s Mike Catt getting a mention in Parliament:
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/11784/double-standards-of-the-rugby-football-union
(I notice Mr Jeremy Corbyn didn’t sign this EDM. No wonder the “Red Wall” was lost.
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The Leeds captain got sent off for headbutting Alex Murphy.
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Glad to hear that (Henry) Slade has Done The Right Thing. Just goes to show that a mandatory vaccination regime works. ;-)
Our family solicitor when I was wee was an Ulster and Ireland player. Think it must have been Harry McKibbon?
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thaum, I was christened by an Ulster and Ireland player.
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Well, I was christened (spit) by my uncle. Who is a very nice, if misguided, man but probably no rugby player. He’d want to sit the opposing teams down and discuss their differences over a nice cuppa and some wee buns.
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… Or it was more likely my grandfather, now I come to think of it (I was very young at the time, and don’t remember), but same applies. Both of them had the physiques for rugby though.
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McKibbin Sr, if it was him, was a Lion in 1938. One of 4 from Queens. One of the others was the “character” Paddy Mayne. Another was George Cromey. My gran was great friends with 3 of his siblings. One was a copper called Nat who my grandparents and their kids used to visit quite often as he was in the Met.
Even better my grandad’s locum in the mid 1950s was the cousin of legendary Ireland captain Karl Mullen.
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Syd Hynes – IIRC.
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TomP – the Met! *Makes sign of the cross*.
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My other grandfather (who wasn’t Catholic) thought the sign of the cross was very useful when preparing to go out. Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.
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@Trisk – Yes that’s right. I don’t know and Wikipedia does not relate at what point in the game this occurred, but as Murphy got man of the match I guess the game was already won. I believe there’s a school of thought that it shouldn’t necessarily have been seen as an offence.
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*as Murphy was stretchered off as a result but still got man of the match*
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Looked at a video of it and it’s just off camera. Murphy certainly down for a long time but seemingly not too badly injured. Murphy was a very good but very horrible little bastard from what I know of him. Good entertainment on the mic when I was watching it as a kid.
Leeds’s kit was lovely.
22 minutes in here:
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17-2 when the incident happened so Leigh 3 scores ahead.
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Well into the 2nd half I think – game was long gone from Leeds and in my memory seemed like Hynes just decided to stick one on Murphy …. who knows if there was “previous”
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OK, watched most of those highlights. They are almost exclusively a succession of high tackles, stiff arms etc resulting in penalties kicked at goal. There are a few drop goals thrown in – apparently the reduction to 1 point was coming the next season, presumably due to games like this one. Murphy does seem to have come in for some rough treatment, but Leigh were dishing it out as well – the chap who used to operate the milling machine outside my office window cops quite a bad one in the first half. A refreshing amount of the highlights package is taken up by the Leigh kicker kicking up divots!
From 11:45 to 14:00 might be my favourite two minutes of a highlights package ever.
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It’s a real shame the sending off incident isn’t replayed or that there isn’t a better angle. The rest of the game is just a repeated question of what did you have to do to get sent off playing rugby league in 1971. We then finally get to find out only we can’t see it!
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More Covid cases in Toulouse, including Dupont. Doubt the game will go ahead next Saturday. Not good for France either.
Ach…when the government finally says the public might attend the games from Feb 2, it’s the players who go missing.
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Other Nationalities
The only Saffa I know off-hand who played league at a high level was Tom van Vollenhoven, who was apparently quite good at St Helens for about 10 years. My dad used to rave about him, having been in the UK at that time and lamenting that he probably would have been an all-time Springbok great if he hadn’t switched codes. He played 7 Tests for the Boks, scoring four tries in a brief career before scoring 392 tries for St Helens in 409 appearances. Wiki has this to say:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_van_Vollenhoven
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The general consensus within RL circles is that Murphy took a dive. Look at him pretending to be half dead on that stretcher. Plus he was winking to the crowd as he was being carried off – very Alex Murphy behaviour
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Slade – it’s nice to see someone who’s ‘vaccine hesitant’ change their mind like this. Hopefully more will in time.
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Deebee, Ray Mordt and Rob Louw went to Wigan in the 80s but it didn’t work out.
My favourite is probably Wilf Rosenberg, aka the Flying Dentist. He was a Springbok. An amazing life story.
One-eyed Martin Pelser, the hardest man to play rugby I think Colin Meads called him, went as well. A slightly sadder but inspiring story.
There was a thing with players like Green Vigo and other “coloured” players who went to RL in England and made a success of it.
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The story of trying to get an RL established in South Africa is really fascinating. Will find a link after I teach my classes this morning.
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Meatloaf would have been a great RL prop. RIP
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