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 
Refit – tbh, the FSU gets a little cred from me for this. I wish more organisations in the UK cared.
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That’s absolutely outrageous.
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She’s been charged with breaching the peace. Here’s another, there’s been a few apparently.
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Some of the FSU fans aren’t very happy, under the above tweet. Funny that.
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Good on the FSU.
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Looks like the arrested folk are all OB regulars! Have you all been arrested?
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Help, help, I’m being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!
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This says it all really well: https://ko-fi.com/Post/Normal-Island-Mourns-By-Embracing-The-Cancel-Cultu-C0C2F0CVU
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The world has officially gone mad
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OT – I imagine there is a strong overlap between people who stay at Centre Parcs and monarchists. :-)
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My God. There are people who stay at Center Parcs for 14 days straight. Like a weird masochistic endurance test.
“Let’s go to Bella Italia again!”
https://twitter.com/dannymayzes/status/1569645048609775623
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Danny may not have been wise to make that public on Twatter.
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I have been to Center Parcs and after 3 days my patience, wallet and taste buds had reached their limit. My lad was tiny at the time and his favourite thing was picking up pinecones and putting them on the little wooden posts lining the paths.
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My lad was tiny at the time and his favourite thing was picking up pinecones and putting them on the little wooden posts lining the paths.
I’m guessing there are less expensive ways for him to have done this.
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I went to a family get-together on a cabin campsite on Lake Windermere once. Several cousins had young children. It was horrific. The one restaurant on the property was something hellish; fortunately there were cooking facilities, but we were forced to eat there one evening. The noise level was probably louder than Metallica, and less agreeable (and I am very much not a Metallica fan).
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Never been to Center Parcs.
As you were.
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Stupid Queen
https://twitter.com/CenterParcsUK/status/1569666674713923584?s=20&t=NbY_FQB9zCkBA5vDJqeIBw
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@craigs
Going to Center Parcs is just like growing up around Teddington/Hampton Hill etc
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Never been to Center Parcs. Mrs CMW and however many of the kids were alive at the time went with friends, but I left them to it on the grounds that I didn’t want to go to Center Parcs. Think I went to work instead, might have played cricket if they stayed long enough, can’t remember. Mrs CMW has a relative who works at the one in Cumbria and this is mentioned every time we pass the turning. I even mentioned it to myself the last time I went past on my own on the post-accident trip.
I’ve never been arrested either seeing as Deebee was asking.
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I’d consider finding a way to get arrested if the alternative was going to Center Parcs though. I expect that’s how Craigs has managed to avoid it.
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I would enjoy the pinecones to be fair. I throw pinecones at The Middle One whenever we go anywhere that there are any. She pretends to complain, but I know she wouldn’t still love me if I didn’t do it. She says I’m wrong about this, but I feel it would be too big a risk to put it to the test.
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It all started at a local nature reserve that has a treehouse with window slots at various heights on different sides. They would go in and I would run round it, hide underneath it etc throwing pinecones in through the windows pretending they were hand grenades and shouting ‘kaboom!’ every now and then. They’d try to pick them up and throw them back out again at me, but didn’t always manage it if they were crying because they’d been hit in the eye with a pinecone.
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They were at a bit of a disadvantage because they couldn’t reach most of the windows, but that’s life.
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There was also just enough room to poke a stick up the hole in the floor that the tree trunk goes through and make it go in circles round the trunk without them being able to see that someone was holding it. Great way to make an excitable small child run round in circles until they fall over and hurt themselves or to make a nervous small child go and hide in a corner of a treehouse and cry because something weird was going on.
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Also a good way to trip over a tree root.
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OT – not as exciting as Kent then?
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Cmw – Mrs Craig’s never wanted to go. I don’t like being stuck. Or feeling like I have no option but to stay in a place and spend money.
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@Craigs – To be fair to Mrs CMW she didn’t really want to go there either. She was trying to be friends with people only some of whom were worth trying to be friends with though so she only had herself to blame. She realised the error of her ways, but by then it was too late…
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” I don’t like being stuck. Or feeling like I have no option but to stay in a place”
In what’s notionally at least ‘the countryside’. Bit like being a pheasant or a grouse or something.
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Think I’d be frantically scoffing raisins in the hope they were laced with sleeping pills.
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Springbok rugby continues on its merry way, with Bongi Mbonambi flown to Argentina despite not having already got the all clear on his return from injury, and providing cover as a 4th hooker in the squad for the er, one match. Flown in despite the management not changing the hookers for the match either.
Elton Jantjies and the team dietician are flown the other way after apparently having an affair (both married) before the Nelspruit Test against the All Blacks, which may well have scuppered Jantjies chances of making the Bok squad for next year’s World Cup. His detractors in South Africa are calling for the dietician to be given a gold medal for taking one for the nation, whilst the Bok management are playing it down, saying it was all handled in a very professional manner. Putting them on the plane, not the affair, to be clear.
Meanwhile, poor old Frans Malherbe is scratching his head wondering how long the team has had a dietician for.
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CMW with a fabulous tribute to proper parenting.
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Cmw – “she only had herself to blame. She realised the error of her ways”
I imagine this was conveyed to her as tactfully and immediately as possible.
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Looking at the website they even have their own supermarket. So getting Sainsbury’s delivered is out of the question then.
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The weirdest thing about Center Parcs is that most of the people think it’s compulsory to hire bikes. When everyone turns up you see a massive queue for the bikes which for a family of 4 is something like 70 quid a day. Which means you’ve spaffed between £200 and £300 before you’ve even got inside the resort.
We found it quite funny watching people cycle past as we walked and our lad was putting pinecones on the little wooden posts.
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@Craigs – I think the phrase “Well you knew she was like that before you went” may have been employed.
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Intrigued now, CMW. What was she like ?
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This just gets better
https://twitter.com/CenterParcsUK/status/1569984527870885888
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Haven’t read the thread, but I hope ‘Amy’ isn’t getting uncalled for abuse on Twitter when she’s just relaying management decisions. Unless she’s the CEO, in which case give it to her with both barrels!
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Not wanting to interrupt Clyde’s parenting lessons, but this is a nice wee article about my hometown and its surrounding area.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/sep/14/moffat-walking-festival-scotland-southern-uplands-dumfries-galloway
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@SBT – She was selfish, ignorant and status obsessed. They sent their kids to the same childminder as us and the way she behaved toward the childminder had already told me more than enough about her. The trip to Center Parcs did apparently reveal that her husband was a spoilt child who expected to be looked after as though he was one of the children, but strangely enough I’m not convinced that was worth going there to find out.
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@BB – It is a beautiful area, I enjoy driving through and we sometimes stop in Moffat though we probably haven’t found the best places to get fed there. On the downside I’m not sure why buzzards make the headline and Lochcraig Head, Mid Craig and Craigieburn do sound a bit overly Craigy.
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It is. There is a nice wee cafe that we sometimes eat at when we’re down there, Cafe Ariete. Not brilliant, but it suits us for elevenses. There are some nice walks around the town too, plus its only about an hour from the house to travel there.
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I went to meet a local CLP person in the flesh for the first time today. By an astounding coincidence, she brought up the Centre Parcs thing.
Then I took the dog for a walk and we found a pinecone.
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Did the dog put the pinecone on a little wooden post?
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She’s had her dew claws hacked off, so she couldn’t pick it up, poor wee mite.
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OT – so I can’t even take my bike in now.?
Ok, starting to get ‘judgy’.
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Nothing can be ‘overly Craigy’.
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It’s unfortunate that the Queen died the same day as Jean-Luc Godard. No one will notice her disappearance.
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I just realised that NZ vs Australia starts in half an hour. Morning sorted then.
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