And now, the end is near….
That sounds good. I should put it in a song.
That can wait, though. The real reason you’re reading this gibberish is to find out what the results are going to be on Saturday.
First up, Wales against Italy. Wales have scored 5 tries to Italy’s 4. That makes you think it might be close! Until you realise that Wales have conceded 7 to Italy’s 24. Which is a bit of a problem for Italy. (Nae shit, Sherlock). Italy played better against Scotland than they had in the other games, so is this the time they can back it up with another good performance? Probably not.
Wales have struggled a bit this year. Thumped by Ireland, scraped past Scotland, somehow losing to England despite scoring all the tries and never really looking like they would beat France. So, can Italy pull off a huge shock and get past Wales in Wales?
Let’s ask Predict-A-Bear!
Answer: Nah. Might be closer than expected, but probably Wales by 15.
Next up is Ireland against Scotland. (Sob). This was going to be The Year! The year to end (Way too many to count) Years Of Hurt! A brilliant start! And then everything turned Scottish. A disappointing – to say the least – defeat in Wales, thumped by France, then showing what we can do against Italy, before deciding that things were far too easy and that we should turn Scottish again.
Never mind, it’s only Ireland. The team that has been reinvigorated under Farrell The Elder. The team that beat the All Blacks. The team that thumped Wales, gave France their closest game so far and who managed to be disappointed in only scoring 57 points against 15, 14, 13, 12 man Italy. They have scored 20 tries to our 10, conceded 3 to our 11, Sexton’s on his Neverending Farewell Tour and have the might of Ulster (cheering them on from the sidelines).
So. Any hope for Scotland? Well … Ireland’s scrum looked strangely out of sorts against England. They also seemed a bit too rushed at times. And Finn bloody owes us one! So of course, Toonie sticks him on the bench. But probably none.
But let’s find out from Predict-A-Bear!
Answer: Nah. Much as I would love to be wrong, Ireland will win this fairly comfortably, by about 15 (at least). Can’t see us even getting any sort of bonus point. (Sobs again.)
Finally, the main event! France against England! France at home and going for a Grand Slam against a (fairly) average England team. (I mean, come on, WE beat them!) Eddie’s playing mind games again, although the only people he seems to confuse with these are his players. They have looked fairly toothless in attack (7 tries scored – and they’ve played Italy!), wonder boy Smith hasn’t quite lived up to the hype (but he will), the midfield has a Manu-sized hole (but then it frequently does) and Jack Nowell will probably end up hooking in the front row. And please (don’t) let Joe Marler take more throw ins. On the good side, Maro’s been a right annoying bastard on the pitch.
But France! They have everything: they can play tight; they can be expansive as (cliché alert) only France can. They have the best player in the world, and a few others who would probably be in a world XV, strength in depth and Shaun Edwards as defence coach. They haven’t perhaps scored quite as many tries as their play would suggest and had to tough it out against Wales.
So who will win?
Predict-A-Bear to the rescue!
Answer: A France win and Grand Slam!
Predict-A-Bear whispered sweet nothings into BorderBoy‘s ear.
Onna telly this week
Friday 18th March
| Bulls v Scarlets | 17:10 | BBC2 Wales / Premier Sports 2 |
| Glasgow v Edinburgh | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Newcastle v Leicester | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 19th March
| Lions v Munster | 12:00 | RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 2 |
| Wales v Italy | 14:15 | BBC1 / iPlayer |
| Sharks v Zebre | 16:30 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ireland v Scotland | 16:45 | ITV |
| France v England | 20:00 | ITV |
Sunday 20th March
| Stormers v Cardiff | 12:00 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 | ||
| Wales v Italy (U20s) | 14:00 | BBC1 Wales / iPlayer / Website | ||
| Ireland v Scotland (U20s) | 17:00 | BBC1 iPlayer / Website | ||
| France v England (U20s) | 20:00 | BBC1 iPlayer / Website |
Ovally Balls 
Looks like both Earls and Slade touched the ball at the same time, but ref gives the try.
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squeaky………………
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Brilliant defence fromExeter.
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Fickou with another imperious performance puts in a Star of the Match performance as Racing beat Stade Fra 9-22
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what the actual fuck?
I haven’t even had a beer yet
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coo – that was exhausting……………..
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Fra Angelico, perhumps?
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See Fickou had another great performance…
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The Embra v Pau highlights, I post this not because of Edinburgh tonking an uninterested Pau team, but because of the try the visitors scored near the end – it starts about 5mins 50secs into this.
It’s one of the best screen/dummy run/player coming in late to the line tries you’ll see – perfectly executed. I had to replay it twice to see exactly what they did.
I wish they had show it from a wider angle.
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Belated Happy Birthday Ticht!!
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I don’t want a re hash of the JKR convo you were talking about but let’s just say other opinions are available. Also, to be clear, JKR and the other rad fems aren’t concerned with limiting the rights of trans people, they want to preserve the hard won rights afforded to females. Agree/disagree but I find it valuable to listen to these people who have, in many cases, campaigned all their lives for these (lgbt and women’s rights) issues.
Calling them ‘TERFs’ and threatening them with physical and sexual violence surrenders any high ground the other side may have. People have used police complaints to harass women for stating their opinion on twitter ffs.
Listening to a dude on his YouTube channel is not going get a clear representation of their arguments. I’m not even sure if many advocates like Shaun even understand what ‘gender critical’ means. And yet it has come to the situation we have now.
Imo, the worst thing to happen to the left recently is politicians not being able to coherently answer the question ‘what is a woman?’ Bojo is already using that to the tories advantage. The Lia Thomas situation in the US is causing a stir. And there’s something happening in cycling that is causing a similar backlash.
None of this is good for debate and finding a way forwards. I’d like to see both sides happy.
Like I said, don’t want to argue (but I do find the demonisation of JKR pretty disgusting), and agree to disagree etc.
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Interesting to see Exeter remove both Ewers and Vermeulen less than half way into the 2nd half.
Looks like Baxter wants them both to play the full 80 next week-end.
Very impressed with Munster’s captain – a leader in word and deed.
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@cmw
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Grassroots update:
Huge tournament for Under 8s at Old Belvedere this morning. Loads of clubs from all over Leinster – ticht’s boys Skerries (very smart kit), Ashbourne, Naas, Greystones etc etc- and many of the Dublin clubs too.
My lad played for the first time in 2 months after the broken collarbone. He was very nervous beforehand but loved being back on the pitch and scoring tries. He was a bit fearful about tackling but gave it a fair go a few times. It was great to see the development of many of the kids. There was one boy who had been a virtual spectator previously, hardly ever involving himself. Today he was magic, carrying the ball in two hands and running through tackles. Lovely to see.
Had a little chat with the ex-international player I know whose son is in the same class as my boy but who plays for the dread Lansdowne. He introduced me to his ex-teammates Dave and Rob Kearney. RK I’d spoken to earlier cos he was playing with a ball near our bikes.
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Montpellier battering Quins (so far). 3 tries and Quins with a man in the bin.
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Make that 4 tries, just on half time.
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Mercer with the 4th.
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Craigs – sorry, gonna have to disagree with you there. People like Kathleen Stock (cancelled so hard she got a book deal and several TV interviews) have signed a declaration written by the ‘Women’s Human Rights Campaign’, who have explicitly stated that one of their aims is the elimination of trans people’s rights and even trans people themselves – see here and here. They even submitted to Parliament, advocating for the abolition of the Gender Recognition Act.
And as for the term “terf” – that’s what they named themselves. Not trans people’s fault they’re now taking offence at that.
Trans people are not a threat to women’s rights. In fact, forcing people to use spaces that ONLY match the gender assigned at birth, will cause real problems:
And the bigotry and scare tactics used by the GC crowd are already causing serious issues for non-gender conforming women. Have a look at the number of stories of ‘butch’ lesbians being confronted and even assaulted in women’s bathrooms.
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And Craigs, if it’s so easy, can you please define “woman”?
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A minute into the second half and an excellent try by Montpellier.
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41 seconds into the second half, Montpellier have another. Not sure even Quins can get back into this.
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Quins break their egg. Pretty good score
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iirc Zach Mercer would have taken up a contract in Scotland if he’d been offered one, having qualified through his time at school in Edinburgh.
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I think he signed for Bath and then didn’t get picked for Scotland youth. I remember he played for England Under 18s while at a Scottish school, which is pretty rare.
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Ai, ai. Marchant in for number 3. 34-19 now.
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Time to break out the world rugby video where the player running forward throws the ball back over his head and it lands a couple of meters in front of where he let it go
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Aye, that’s pretty much how I remember it Tam.
He doesn’t seem to feature in Eddie Jones’ plans, he’s not the only talent in that boat, mind
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blooming auto correct, metre is my preferred spelling
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I’ve never been to Montpellier but I think I’d like to live there. I’m told the food market is fantastic and the beaches are too.
I watched them a lot when Johnnie Beattie played for them, I always thought they should have been more successful than they were/are
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Refit – not condoning violence against butch lesbians but you seem to gloss over the very real harassment that Stock faced. And I’m not sure what she’s supposed to do. Gotta earn a living.
Anyway, a quick Google….
woman
/ˈwʊmən/
noun
an adult female human being.
“a drawing of a young woman”
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Good read by Lynagh on a Pollard cutout pass and Harelquins got another 7 points. Should be a good game next week. Montpellier 11 points ahead.
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Craigs – do you know why Stock first came to prominence? Some students put up trans flags, in protest at Donald Trump, near her office and she said that scared her. Then she lied and said that they had been put up to “threaten her”. link.
Stock has since gone on to be involved with the ‘University of Austin’, an ‘anti-woke’ educational establishment, along side such ‘progressive’ luminaries as Stephen Pinker, Peter Boghossian and Jonathan Haidt.
She’s a bigot that got called out and ran away.
By ‘female’, are you referring to sex or gender? Because trans women are female by gender. If you’re talking about sex, please define ‘female’.
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Refit – female doesn’t refer to gender. At least it didn’t until we got into this debate. Male and female are defined biologically by the types of gamete their bodies produce or are set up to produce. Females produce large gametes (eggs) and males produce small ones (sperm). Even if your body doesn’t produce gametes it still (in the vast majority of the time) has the apparatus to produce one or the other. These are the primary sex characteristics.
Note: people with DSDs are either male or female and have variations in their secondary sex characteristics. See the language used in this article:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/
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ticht, I looked up the England Under 18 team that Mercer played in and Sam Yamayawa was also in the squad. I recognised the name from a Scotland Under 20 squad so checked his career out. He was a Scotland Under 16 player out of Firhill school and then went down to Leicester for his 6th form – presumably on some sort of arrangement with the Leicester club. He went back to Glasgow and is now at Chinnor via London Scottish.
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Fritz Lee, Parra, Lopez and Fofana all playing. Clermont Vets’d be a cracking team.
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Ok, so you’re going to somehow inspect people’s gametes, before they enter certain spaces? Or is it just the genitals that are being inspected? Do people that are born with multiple characteristics, have to have some removed, before they can walk through a certain door?
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Tom, there is an army barracks in Edinburgh that have a good many Fijian soldiers stationed there, so there is a community in Edinburgh when players go there, the Glasgow Weedgie’s from Fiji spend time with them too.
I don’t know Yamayawa’s background and how he ended up going to school in Firhill
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Refit – suggest you do some research on this.
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No, I’m serious, Are you suggesting that everyone has their gametes tested at birth and they have to have some kind of card they produce, to allow them into certain spaces? Because that’s the extension of “female = big gametes, that’s how we define people”.
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That’s an unfortunate collision, but red seems to be a fair outcome.
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Smart thinking by Potter, getting closer to the posts.
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Refit – I’m suggesting that humans are like other mammals and extremely accurate at recognising the sex of people in front of them. And that consequently is observed. For my kids, in my wife’s womb; not at birth and not assigned by anyone. Also, after death, you can tell the sex of the person observing their skeleton.
I wouldn’t use a card. Social convention and norms around sex segregated spaces is fine. And I don’t really care about male spaces either. Females assaulting raping males whatever their gender is a far smaller problem than the other way around (and when I say males I mean all of us).
Like I said, didn’t want an argument or to fall out over this but just to say that other opinions and stances are available.
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Ah, the “we can always tell argument”. You would identify all the trans men in the tweet above as AFAB? Or how about:
We can always tell:
We can always tell:
We can always tell:
We can always tell:
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I just want to add, trans women (and trans men) have been using toilets/changing rooms for their assigned gender for decades, with little issue. It has only been in the past few years that it has become a ‘downfall of civilisation’ issue.
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I didn’t say it was 100% and I don’t think it’s a downfall of civilisation issue. Re sex recognition:
For example, ‘Sex differences in face gender recognition in humans’
Alessandro Cellerino et al. Brain Res Bull. 2004.
Abstract
Human faces are ecologically-salient stimuli. Face sex is particularly relevant for human interactions and face gender recognition is an extremely efficient cognitive process that is acquired early during childhood. To measure the minimum information required for correct gender classification, we have used a pixelation filter and reduced frontal pictures (28,672 pixels) of male and female faces to 7168, 1792, 448 and 112 pixels. We then addressed the following questions: Is gender recognition of male and female faces equally efficient? Are male and female subjects equally efficient at recognising face gender? We found a striking difference in categorisation of male and female faces. Categorisation of female faces reduced to 1792 pixels is at chance level whereas categorisation of male faces is above chance even for 112 pixel images. In addition, the same difference in the efficiency of categorisation of male and female faces was detected using a Gaussian noise filter. A clear sex difference in the efficiency of face gender categorisation was detected as well. Female subject were more efficient in recognising female faces. These results indicate that recognition of male and female faces are different cognitive processes and that in general females are more efficient in this cognitive task.
Re mixed sex bathrooms, for example:
The vast majority of reported sexual assaults at public swimming pools in the UK take place in unisex changing rooms, new statistics reveal.
The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Times, suggests that unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities.
That one is from Breitbart though. Oh no wait my mistake:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html
To emphasise, this last point has nothing to do with trans people, it has everything to do with males.
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I never mentioned mixed-gender changing rooms.
Cool, so don’t let men mix in changing rooms. Trans women seem to be perfectly safe though.
I just want to add, as an aside. In the recent(ish) BBC article about women being “pressured into sex” with trans women, one of the main women they interviewed has actually been convicted of sexually assaulting a women, in a public toilet. Maybe we shouldn’t allow women in there either?
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Refit – come on. You mentioned genital inspection as an entry requirement for ‘certain spaces’ and gave me some anecdotal twitter posts where people had been mistaken for the opposite sex/gender. I posted an abstract from an academic article stating that actually, sex recognition is pretty good and posted a report from the independent about why you would want to protect single sex spaces for females.
I’m bowing out now.
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Craigs – there are some circs where I would not be comfortable sharing with men: locker rooms, shower rooms, etc. But trans women? No problem. We are talking about people who completely identify with being female, and who are prepared to do some pretty radical things to prove it.
Your rapey-type blokes are not generally ones who would be prepared to dress and act as a woman.
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Nope, not having that. You brought up gametes and sexual characteristics as a way to identify who is female and who isn’t. And while, yes people are generally good at identifying the gender of someone, it sure as shit isn’t a fool-proof method, and trying to rely on that is a guarantee that people are going to get abused and assaulted (as per above). In fact, one thing that scares trans women (especially after surgery) is being ‘clocked’ as not a women and catching abuse for it.
The constant fucking insinuation is that trans women in female spaces is a danger to women and that is a fucking abhorrent accusation, that ALL trans women are potential rapists and should be treated as such.
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@Thaum, if you want someone who seems to be an actual threat to cis women, I think it might be Graham Linehan – https://metro.co.uk/2021/02/23/graham-linehan-joins-queer-womens-dating-app-her-stunt-14130662/, supposed feminist champion.
(He’s now crowing about starting the ‘trans people are groomers’ thing that’s going about too. I think I know why his wife left him.)
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