Rejoice, northern hemisphere rugby fans! For there is actually some rugby on the telly tonight, in the form of a pre-season ‘friendly’ between Ulster and Exeter. Scarlets v Bristol and Leinster v Harlequins are also tonight, but on some dodgy channels I’ve never heard of. On Saturday and Sunday, there are Rugby Championship and Top14 matches.
Ulster are putting out a slew of new/little-known faces, including five new signings. Jake Flannery (10) and Michael McDonald (9) start at half-back, with the other three newbies – Jeff Toomaga-Allen, Frank Bradshaw-Ryan and Sean Reffell – in the pack.
There’s a massive replacement list that will have to be whittled down before kick-off, but Jacob Stockdale is expected to make an appearance.
Ulster: Shea O’Brien; Aaron Sexton, Angus Curtis, Ian Madigan, Rob Lyttle; Jake Flannery, Michael McDonald; Callum Reid, Declan Moore, Jeff Toomaga-Allen; Frank Bradshaw-Ryan, Sam Carter; Harry Sheridan, Sean Reffell, Jordi Murphy (capt).
Replacements from: Eric O’Sullivan, Tom Stewart, John Andrew, Marty Moore, Gareth Milasinovich, Alan O’Connor, Cormac Izuchukwu, Matty Rea, Marcus Rea, Greg Jones, Nathan Doak, Conor McKee, Billy Burns, Jacob Stockdale, Luke Marshall, Craig Gilroy, Stewart Moore, Rory Telfer.
I can’t find any info on the Exeter side, but let’s hope it’s equally experimental. Perhaps Slade can enlighten us.
Onna telly this week
Friday 2nd September
| Ulster v Exeter | 19:00 | BBC2 NI / iPlayer |
| Scarlets v Bristol | 19:00 | recast |
| Leinster v Harlequins | 19:30 | 247.tv |
Saturday 3rd September
| New Zealand v Argentina | 08:05 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Australia v South Africa | 10:35 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Racing 92 v Castres | 14:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| England v USA (women) | 15:00 | ITV4 |
| Stade Français v Clermont | 16:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| La Rochelle v Montpellier | 20:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 4th September
| Bordeaux v Toulouse | 20:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
Ovally Balls 
With all this talk of energy crisis’s and utility nationalisation it’s important to know that the energy crisis caused in my car wasn’t the fault of someone who shall remain nameless.
New battery being installed right now. Annoying coincidence. Nothing more.
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Obviously this is a giant sigh of relief from everyone.
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Bojo – fancied himself as Churchill reincarnated;
Truss – fancies herself as Maggie reincarnated
Next Tory PM – better hope Dave is still alive lest they resemble a pork pie, cough.
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Apparently the Queen ain’t in the best of health. I wish Sag was around to comment
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OT – Prince Charles has ‘mixed’ feelings apparently.
Maybe this would be a good time to take a break from having a royal family. See what happens.
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Slay…
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Somewhere, Brian May is sitting in a room with his head in his hands, thinking, What the fuck are we going to do now to end our concerts?
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Why does having a king feel somehow worse? I guess we were used to the Queen but a king is new but old at the same time.
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“a king is new but old at the same time.”
The next one will be younger if that helps.
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Cmw – it all feels very silly.
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@Craigs – Well yes, but no sillier today than yesterday.
Despite a somewhat harder life my granma has outlasted the queen though she is a year or so younger. Perhaps she will enjoy going back to ‘God Save the King’. It’s been a while, but I gather there was a lot of it about in her early days.
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Cmw – it is a bit sillier. We could just draw a line under it all now.
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@Craigs – If it’s a job that can be done by a woman my granma’s age then it can be done by a man my mother’s age. And if it doesn’t need doing they’ve got the right man for the job anyway.
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And if it doesn’t need doing they’ve got the right man for the job anyway.
Lol. I can’t argue with that.
I’ve seen a lot of snark from Irish and Americans on twitter. They think a woman they hate dying of natural causes in her 90s (having lived a life of ridiculous luxury) is some kind of win for them.
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None of that is to say that you and I and a whole host of other people are not being sillier about it than we were this time yesterday as the act of engaging with it achieves that in itself. For my part I would say that at least I’m not silly enough to do so in anything other than a silly way. The underlying silliness remains unchanged though.
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On other silly matters we were having a bit of a clearout and The Eldest found a ‘Things to do tomorrow’ list written by The Little One earlier this year. My favourite section reads:
Waicup.
brexit.
Wochtteevee.
If there’s any doubt that she should have got Liz Truss’ job then her responses to a few queries on some other items clinch it:
Maicintee. – “I don’t know why I writed that, I don’t make my own tea.”
Sortintheflat. – “That was for you to do.”
ttrog Sdras. – “I don’t know what that means, but I did when I writed it.”
And yes, brexit really does mean breakfast.
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The phonics enthusiasts among you will doubtless be delighted by her use of the ‘ai’ digraph in wake up. Unfortunately she had a bit of an accident with the ‘igh’ trigraph when expressing her intention to do some rihgtin. Obviously I have discussed these things with her in exactly these terms.
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Cmw – I thought Waicup was a place in the North Island of NZ?
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snark from Irish and Americans on twitter
General feeling here – is its sad but not unexpected (and some curiosity as to how the handover will go…)
And the general tone on my twitter to those providing snark is “behave yourself”.
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https://twitter.com/kieran_hurley/status/1568194883424292866
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@Craigs – “I thought Waicup was a place in the North Island of NZ?”
That would have to be with a kicking kuh rather than a curly cuh I reckon.
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Waikup would be where Little Suzie lives, I reckon
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It’s the chorus to this, innit. Little One been raiding your vinyl, CMW?
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Ospreys going well:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/10/such-a-rare-thing-ospreys-spread-their-wings-again-over-england-aoe
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So, the Bristol match has gone from being the first match of the season, televised on BT TV, to postponed 22 hours and now only on twitter or radio Bristol. Fabulous.
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Bristol squeak a win over Bath (31-29), Genge scoring twice.
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At a gig for the first time in ages and the lead singer looks like a ginger Exeter player haircut wise.
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For clarity he looks like shit. But I’m old sooooo….
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Wuss got humped and Arundell did this
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Nice to see Bradbury get on the score sheet for Bears. Hope he does well down there.
Saw most of the second half of Exeter/Tiggers. Good win for Non-Racists, but by dog it was pretty boring. Exeter kicked it to Leicester who kicked it to Exeter who kicked it to Leicester who kicked it to Exeter who kicked it to Leicester who kicked it to Exeter who ballsed it up and gave Leicester a try.
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I can’t really be arsed with gigs now, not unless they are in small venues. We went to the tee ahh tahh last night, there was a huge queue for the Dome – The Big Push were playing. I’ve never heard of them, I had to look up who was playing just now.
Anyway, around the corner at the Theatre Royal we saw The Doctor with Juliet Stevenson in the title role.
I was on the verge of tears, it was shocking, sometimes funny, some times enraging, sometimes frustrating.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/aug/21/the-doctor-review-robert-icke-juliet-stevenson-almeida
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@BorderBoy – you forgot Youngs throwing it into touch.
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Didn’t see that bit. May have temporarily blacked out at some point…
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………..it was L’ster who dictated the licking game – it’s a core strategy for them and they have a lot of kickers and a good kick chase
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Exeter had to be careful as they were missing:
LC-D, Sio, Vermeulen, Ewers, S. Simmonds, Slade, Hogg, Devoto (+ J.Hill departed for Sale) from their starting 15 plus 3 or 4 playing for the first time.
A useful win I would say (L’ster were down some players too).
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Just watched that old cliche of ‘Game of Two Halves’ coming to life. Wasps 21-0 up on Gloucester at half time. Lose 27-21 (and lose two players to yellows during the second half as well).
Also contained LRZ Wonder Try.
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LRZ’s try
https://twitter.com/rucked_mag/status/1568982030268125188?t=PurJmzGxNQeZg7fNQobrxw&s=19
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Ticht – it was a small venue. The Joiners in Southampton. The main band was Tony Hawk Skateboarding cover band. It was glorious.
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I was in the mosh pit and someone told me I am ‘really old’.
Harrumph!!!
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Morning all. I saw no sports this weekend. Weekend sports update over.
Where is TomP, by the way?
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@craigs
Do you remember a club just off Kingston Bridge? One night I was in there with my mate lured in by the advertised “indie night”. We weren’t too impressed with the choice of music so I went and asked the DJ if he had any Stone Roses. He said “mate, they’re, like, 10 years old?” and looked at me like I was his Grandad (I was in my mid 20s). A few minutes later they started to play some Garage music and the punters loved it. We walked out in disgust.
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OT – hahaha McCluskey’s was such a shit hole. And I went to one of their ‘Indie’ nights and I think something similar happened.
I think he thought I am too old to mosh. Which is probably true but fuck it (there was another guy the same age as me). Also, the computer game which the band was covering came out before he was born. They finished with Ace of Spades as well.
What happened to kids writing new music?
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Arundell v LRZ would make for an interesting match up for a long scoring/tackling chance
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I saw a twentysomething woman wearing a retro Iron Maiden shirt yesterday. Maybe her granny gave it to her.
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People arrested in Scotland for protesting the Queen.
Mel Gibson is turning in his grave.
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The freeze peach warriors will be along any minute.
Any minute…
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