This week has seen the shocking death of a national icon, and our heartfelt condolences go out to family, friends, former sparring partners, and the general public who will miss one of those who best understood the subtle nuances of international debate, and who intoned those nuances in the most mellifluous of voices.
Eddie Butler – we raise a glass to ye. You entertained us and, most importantly, you told us what was going on with the minimum of bias.
For anyone who’d like a trip down memory lane with FakeEddie, feast on this.
But Eddie would not want us to forget about the rugby that’s on this weekend. (It’s always convenient to assign our own wishes to the departed, but I suspect this is actually true.)
Deebee7 is really excited about the URC kicking off, although he’s picked some strange teams to obsess about. Me, I’m looking forward to Cardiff v Munster (although I bet the mister isn’t) and Ulster v Connacht (often our Nemesis – hopefully not this time).
Meanwhile, most of the English Premiership matches aren’t on normal channels again, although you can watch Evil Quins v Evil Sarries if you subscribe to BT Sport, or Bankrupts v Exeter on Sunday.
There is also some Rugby Championship and Top14 action.
Onna telly this week
Friday 16th September
| Treviso 33 – 11 Glasgow | 17:30 | Premier Sports 1 |
Saturday 17th September
| Zebre v Leinster | 13:00 | RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Harlequins v Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Cardiff v Munster | 15;05 | BBC2 Wales / RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Lions v Bulls | 15:05 | FreeSports |
| Scarlets v Ospreys | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Ulster v Connacht | 19:35 | BBC2 NI / TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Edinburgh v Dragons | 19:35 | S4C / Premier Sports 2 |
| Argentina v South Africa | 20:10 | Sky Sports Main Event |
Sunday 18th September
| Worcester v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Toulon v Clermont | 20:05 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
Glasgow have had one more penalty awarded than Cardiff, according to the URC match stats
LikeLike
Cardiff would probably never have won that, but of course it would have a very different match if Glasgow’s 10 had been sent off early.
LikeLike
That’s as good as I’ve seen Glasgow play for a couple of years, Cardiff are no mugs
LikeLike
Not sure how many pre season games others have had, but I’ll take that result for Glasgow’s third game under Smith. Just needs to keep that going now.
LikeLike
I saw Rory Darge get injured, but I was called away at just that point.
I’ve read elsewhere that it could be very bad.
I hope not, he’s already had a few long lay offs, at 22 he’s really pushing Watson for the Scotland starting jersey as it is, I wouldn’t complain if he was selected ahead of Watson now.
LikeLike
Yes, Darge is superb. Hope he’s okay.
LikeLike
Here’s a question I posed elsewhere.
It’s only been a couple of weeks, and there was the death of the longest serving monarch we’ve ever had to contend with, but…
Is Boris Johnson already only the second worst PM we’ve ever had?
LikeLike
So far, yes.
LikeLike
Somehow Aus escape a red card after just 2 mins – NZ player lifted beyond the horizontal at the ruck and not quite dropped on his head, only saved by being dropped on an Aus player. Yellow instead.
LikeLike
Two yellow cards to Aus, a pen try to NZ. 0-17 at half time.
LikeLike
Missed most of that, busy washing dogs and watching them tear around the garden, rolling in the grass and flower beds and undoing my great work.
Sounds like the Aussies are doing the same.
LikeLike
Just a yellow apparently
LikeLike
Seems like he ticked all the boxes for a red card, except for, not sure what?
Wallabies clearly left it all on the park last week. Other than Koroibete’s disallowed try – a schoolboy error taking the ball with his foot in touch – they haven’t looked like scoring. Unless Aus score two tries here, it looks like the Kiwis have it in the bag. Can’t see the Boks putting 50 on Argentina which is what they’ll need now.
LikeLike
Well, Aus got one back.
LikeLike
Aus pull one back! Is there yet hope? FFS! How do you spill that with an overlap yawning out wide! Ah, fuck! That really could’ve set the cat amongst the Kiwis. Instead they cough up a scrum penalty and the ABs bulldoze forward.
LikeLike
Nick White doing his best impression of being a dickhead. Again. What’s that you say? He doesn’t do impressions? Oh.
And the ABs rumble it over from another penalty after another hot potato drop from the Wobblies. They need two more tries. Again.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Whitelock and Rentaghost have now played together 63 times, overtaking Bakkies & Matfield.
LikeLike
Impressive! And they’ve both been very good tonight.
LikeLike
Aus get a consolation with the ball in the red, but that was a shoeing. Final score 40-14.
SA need to win by 40-something points, to win the championship.
LikeLike
@Deebee – did you see Whitelock’s try? How he kept hold of the ball throughout beats me
LikeLike
I knew Aus would have won that cup-thingy they play NZ for if it hadn’t been for that decision last week.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Refit, I did see that! Couple of angles it looked dodgy, but as you say, how the hell did he keep control of that!
LikeLike
Also good to see that Cardiff have worked on their consistency. Very reassuring for the season ahead.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Ticht
“Is Boris Johnson already only the second worst PM we’ve ever had?”
No, he was a proven, self-serving, deceitful, lying ego-maniac.
Truss is simply stupid, doctrinaire and ill-advised.
The former chose to behave like he does, the latter is just opportunistically thick. He was dangerous because people fell for him; currently, she is unchallenged.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve never understood why Australia signed up to that Bledisloe thing in the first place. A contest involving NZ in which nobody else can do you a favour by knocking them out. If you somehow get a win then they get to put you back in your place the following week. And if you get ‘cheated’ out of a win you can’t pretend you would have won the next match. Absolute madness.
6N have it right – even if one team is demonstrably better than yours you still get a chance to ambush them with a one-off home game every other year and if you manage it nobody can take it away from you.
LikeLike
On the PM front it depends on what you mean by worst. Most despicable individual or most damage done? Johnson doesn’t win on the latter to my mind. On the positive side Truss appears to be prepared to have a go though!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well put, CMW. I am genuinely frightened of what Truss will do.
LikeLike
On a lighter note, the Rickman diaries are fascinating and very funny: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/sep/24/alan-rickmans-secret-showbiz-diaries-harry-potter
LikeLike
Suzie’s been at it again, Blair Kinghorn is out of the Bulls game with a stomach bug.
Jaco van der Walt steps in with Charlie Savala promoted to the pine. vdWalt is a better goal kicker than Kinghorn, but we lose so much in attack with BK out, he tore Dragons apart when he came on last week.
I think this might be a tough afternoon for us at Loftus, our best bet was jouer jouer.
LikeLike
WTF? Ulster are wearing Leinster’s kit. Well, let’s hope they win like them.
LikeLike
I like the minute’s applause (for RealEddie) instead of the mournful silence.
LikeLike
Ulster looking lively here
LikeLike
Hask levels of domination going on from Ulster
LikeLike
Fuck me that was terrific from the Norners
LikeLike
AOC furra liiinnneeeee!
LikeLike
TRY Moore!
LikeLike
Ulster’s carrying is quite something – very powerful
LikeLike
McCloskey doing most of the carries. Ignored by Ireland.
LikeLike
nice riposte from Scarlets
LikeLike
Some good play by Scarlets results in JDII touching down.
LikeLike
I don’t understand that, Thaum, McCloskey does a lot of that heavy duty carrying.
Ireland do have a few of those in the centres mind
LikeLike
Scarlets again!
LikeLike
Ticht – Aki is a penalty machine and drops the ball a lot.
LikeLike
thirty degrees at altitude, we’ve lost our main attacking threat, this is going to go well for Edinburgh
LikeLike
Fantastic defence by Ulster as they turn over the ball on their own line.
LikeLike
Looks like a red card for Costelow for tackling Sexton in the air.
Oh no – it’s a yellow, of course.
LikeLike
Sexton, who landed on his back, is going off.
LikeLike
Cooney touches down between the posts!
LikeLike
BP try (Marcus Rea) as the clock goes read for HT! Some brilliant play from Lowry – and others – on the build-up.
LikeLike
15-28 at oranges.
LikeLike