Two matches. Two Cups. Two minutes to create a new post.
Tonight 20:00 on BT Sport 1: Lyon v Toulon for the Little Cup.
Tomorrow 16:45 on Channel Four or BT Sport 2, Leinster v La Rochelle for the Big Cup.
150 thoughts on “2022 European Cup Finals”
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Ovally Balls 
The thing that I’ve noticed in this phony war between the Royal Family and Harry & Meghan is that it’s really just a PR war between two different showbiz platforms, in this case the Royals vs Hollywood. They’re both used to controlling (or trying to control) the narrative but can’t quite manage it when one of their couplings has a foot in both camps.
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I like pizza
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Mrs Craigs just told me that the whole high street is covered in bunting and we have to do something. Going to print out Johnny Rottens face and put that in my windows. Maybe Harry in his Nazi costume too.
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Virtue signalling
This is my neighbours and their siblings businesses so it absolutely is all to do with promoting the brand.
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The great Jonathan Meades has an article in the new London Review of Books about “The Firm”. It’s spectacular. Some of the choicer insults:
Rolf Harris, an ignorant nation’s best-known painter, soon to become the people’s paedophile, was commissioned by the BBC to make a Bayswater Road portrait of the queen for her eightieth birthday.
Who advises (or orders) Kate Middleton to dress like a Women’s Institute frump?
such emperors of the moralistic gutter as Murdoch, Dacre, his loyal valet Stephen Glover and the blowsy fishwife Piers Morgan
They greet yesterday with sashes and oriflammes, speaking in stiff anachronistic formulae standardised many years ago by the queen mother, the nation’s favourite charlady – a grasping charlady with a £4 million overdraft who believed she should be exempted from income tax
Their nation, of whose actuality they seem to possess only the frailest knowledge: Prince Charles, already well into middle age, was surprised to learn from a bibliomane that Charing Cross Road had once been the centre of the London book trade. He is constantly bemused by farmers using pesticides.
Prince Andrew, as ‘international trade ambassador’, complained, at a Jeffrey Epstein party of all places: ‘I don’t know why people don’t pay us royals more respect.’ Brown ascribes this boorish clot’s problems to the Dunning-Kruger effect: people believe they are smarter and more capable than they really are. The Duke of York may not be the only member of the Firm to suffer from this syndrome.
The volume of the Firm’s special pleading and entitled clamour is in inverse proportion to its usefulness.
It appears that the Firm suffers a collective gullibility and heightened enthusiasm for flattery and bungs, no matter what the source. Toadying has been democratised. Sir Jimmy Savile, knighted for services to necrophilia, ingratiated himself with Prince Charles by preparing a guide on how the Firm should react to disasters: the fireman was a pyromaniac. Charles, a repository of worthy wrong-headed convictions, believed that Savile ‘knows what’s going on’ – which is one way of putting it.
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@tomp
That is glorious.
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I’ve just read that review. It’s a remarkable piece of writing – with most articles I can get away with skim reading but he doesn’t waste a single sentence. It takes ages to read it because it’s too easy to miss something interesting otherwise. I get the impression Jonathan Meades would be a good bloke to have a beer with.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n11/jonathan-meades/hatpin-through-the-brain
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Wonder how our Meades is doing?
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Slightly unbalanced groups but this looks good:
https://www.irishrugby.ie/2022/06/01/u20-summer-series-to-be-hosted-in-italy/
Ireland are drawn in Pool A alongside England, South Africa and France, with matches held at the Payanini Centre in Verona.
Pool B will be made up of Scotland, Wales, Georgia and hosts Italy, with all games played at the Stadio di Monigo in Treviso.
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Scotland losing 0-2 to Ukraine and by the sounds of thing they are lucky to be only two down
“Tom English
BBC Scotland’s chief sports writer
What’s the Ukrainian for gubbed? Two going on six here. Steve Clarke picked the wrong team in the wrong system and a terrific Ukraine team have made them pay. Looking for a miracle now.”
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They’ve got one back just to make it more upsetting.
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1-3 full time. Wales get the chance to be the bad guys instead. And if they win they get to play in the World Cup that we should probably all not watch in any case.
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Wales must have a decent chance, good home record and Ukraine might be a better side but may well have used a lot of themselves up tonight so perhaps Wales can take advantage. The two games being so close together is pretty unfair and would have been whoever won tonight even if it obviously didn’t come about through sporting considerations. Sounds like Ukraine were very good tonight though so I guess if they can reproduce it they’ll win.
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South Africa did the decent thing and deliberately didn’t qualify for Qatar on human rights grounds. Very proud of our lads. I won’t mention that I’m flying Qatar Airways to the UK next weekend either.
It’s also at this point that I have to fess up to Thauma that I probably won’t make it for drinks in Leamington Spa, because my son casually told me last week that he’s in the UK at the same time as me, so I’ll be spending most of my time in London with him! Apologies Thauma – I haven’t seen him in three years now, with Covid playing havoc with our plans to meet in Vietnam (where he lives) or the UK (where he visits to renew passports and work visas etc). I had planned to travel to Birmingham for a work thing, but that’s looking unlikely, so I’ll stay in That London.
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8 minutes to go.
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Stokes has already lost the toss. New Zealand batting first, looking for 350/1 on Day 1 of England’s Brave New World™
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Cheetahs are to play in the Challenge Cup next season.
Kerrrching.
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….which would then require a 349 run second wicket partnership, after Jimmy gets his man in his second over!
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2/2 as Jimmy snaffles a second! Both caught by Johnny Bairstow in the slips!
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Broad gets 1.
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7/3, with Broad cutting Conway down to size! And who took the catch? Yes, Johnny Bairstow! The Black Caps must be seeing him like this:
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Manu out of the tour to Australia, meaning the England Centres Debate is back, front and er, centre! Henry Slade apparently also in doubt, meaning that the pivotal outside centre position is likely to go to Joe Marchant. Graun talking about someone else as well, but I can’t be bothered to go and look because….
……. it’s 12/4 and Potts has put a lid on Williamson as a first Test scalp with his 5th ball!
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Potts strikes again! Mitchell chops on and the Kiwis are hanging on for dear life here, like a boxer on the ropes still needing to see out the last minute of the round! 27/5. Can England get a couple more before lunch?
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Fair enough, Deebs! Of course, you could bring him with you….
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Rinse and repeat! Potts gets another, with Blundell blundering by offering no shot! What a clanger! Potts has 3/6 off 7 overs. Easy stuff, this Test cricket lark!
36/6 having won the toss!
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37/6 at lunch! Poor old Jack Leach is out of the Test having concussed himself trying to save runs on the boundary. Being replaced by debutant Matt Parkinson, who is apparently up in Manchester, not at the ground. The big question is, I suppose, whether he’ll make it down to Lord’s before the Kiwis get bowled out in the first innings.
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Ah, Thauma, I’d love to pop up for a drink, but I’ve got a short time in England, loads to get done, and a natural – sensible – fear of venturing north of the Watford Gap. If I do head up to Birmingham (looking unlikely) I’ll give you a shout!
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Current cricket performance not a good omen for the Manuless tour to Australia. Jones apparently sees full back Tommy Freeman as an outside centre. Strange,( Ok, not for Eddie) seeing as he insists on playing Daly on the wing or at fullback, where he is shit, and is actually a pretty decent outside centre. Marchant is pretty handy, but with Faz at 12 that leaves us pretty short on bosh in the backline.
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at least three years have passed since the Player last represented their former Union;
Adriaan Pieter Esterhuizen – could be eligible after August :)
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I’ve been in such a crap mood today (English politics, too hot and humid, plumbers etc) but out of the blue:
– Jonathan Meades
– DeeBee’s cricket predictions
– England centres
However, Nowell, LC-D and Jonny Hill are all available to tour down under!
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p.s.
I watched Argentina vs Italy on French terrestial. Italy were not good – how the mighty are fallen and Argentina still have that magic formula of arch cynicism plus lethality in front of goal. They will take some beating.
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SBT – it will be up to Esterhuizen ‘cos EJ is sure to fast-track him in……………..
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Esterhuizen isn’t qualified, is he?
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Is Esterhuizen playing 13 in England? He’s always played 12 in SA, from memory and is considered by most (outside of Cycloptic Sharks territory) to be back up for de Allende at best. Obviously it would still be useful to have him in the Bok frame and I hope the powers that be here have told him so to keep him out of Evil Eddie’s Empire.
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Nick Evans, his coach at Quins had this to say in October last year: “He still strives and wants to be part of the South African set-up. I certainly thought his form warranted a close look towards the end of the season and he was probably pretty unlucky in the end not to get a call-up. We are working really hard to try and get him back into the South African squad.”
Jones Out!
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It’s never much talked about but Esterhuizen picked up a ban for using racist language when he was a schoolkid.
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mmm – all going swimmingly…………….
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Deebs – the sensible fear is venturing south of the Watford Gap. It’s only just over an hour on the train to Leam.
No pressure intended, though!
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From what I can read in the Graun’s over by over…. he’s only just made it before England get bowled out in their 1st innings…..
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Phew, England collapse, Aussies in for a torrid time.
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Am a big fan of RSVP magazine’s features on Irish rugby players and their homes ( https://www.rsvplive.ie/news/celebs/gallery/inside-ronan-ogaras-cosy-traditional-27118780 ). Lots of details in this that are genuinely insightful:
“They have a large dinner table for family meals”
“They have a gas fireplace”
“Their kitchen has grey countertops”
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Feel sorry for Jack Leach with his injury, but really someone should be telling the bowlers not to do that sort of thing. The replacement had to be ‘like-for-like’ which presumably meant a spinner who can’t really bat. Not sure whether the ‘like-for-likes’ have to be announced in advance and agreed by the opposition or how it works, might just be ‘don’t take the piss’. England went beyond the call of duty on that front by summoning a spinner who really can’t bat as opposed to one who can’t really bat. It doesn’t look like either team will need a spinner at all or at least if one of them does then they will already be in big trouble, but there we are.
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TomP – that is so bad you’d think it was a spoof.
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CMW wins the internet for that searing analysis of England selection policy. Ouch!
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Since I’ll be over soon, which day is the 2nd Test being played on?
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It’s only just over an hour on the train to Leam.
I should have news one way or another later today.
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Think we can still win this by an innings.
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Not anymore. The big question is whether England will be able to chase down anything over 100 at this stage. Especially now they’ve gone all defensive with only four slips, a gulley and short leg. Whither the Brave New England, eh?
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Brave New England kills blog.
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New post for the semi-finals: https://ovallyballs.sport.blog/2022/06/03/now-it-gets-real/
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