What a day of rugby we have ahead of us! After France trounced a poor Italy with some lovely rugby last night, we have a couple of palate-teasers in the form of Wales v Georgia and England v Samoa, either one of which might possibly throw up (not boak – well, maybe) an unexpected result.
Then we are on to the main course, where obviously what we want Ireland to do is quickly score four tries and then let Scotland have the ball undefended (see graphic). This is because I hope (for his sake) that Dupont will not be playing in the first quarter-final match, and the French squad has also lost other valuable players. Mind you, they are still a very scary team to face, and so far we’ve only seen the All Blacks against seriously inferior competition, apart from France. So perhaps we should go for the outright win after all.
Our chances of this have improved what with having one Ulsterman (Henderson) starting, and one on the bench: McCloskey, who will come on and show Aki how to play properly.
Pudding has to wait until Sunday, where we have the tasty prospects of Japan v Argentina, Tonga v Romania and Fiji v Portugal.
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Onna telly this week
Friday 6th October
| France 60 – 7 Italy |
Saturday 7th October
| Wales v Georgia | 14:00 | ITV1 / STV / RTÉ2 / S4C |
| England v Samoa | 16:45 | ITV1 / STV / RTÉ2 |
| Ireland v Scotland | 20:00 | ITV1 / STV |
Sunday 8th October
| Japan v Argentina | 12:00 | ITV1 / STV |
| Tonga v Romania | 16:45 | ITV3 |
| Fiji v Portugal | 20:00 | ITV1 / RTÉ2 |
Ovally Balls 
Tadjer was the one who put the brilliant kick to touch from his own 22. Top Tadjer.
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Must remember it wasn’t Fiji’s 1st XV – which is noticeably stronger
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Patrick Lagisquet: manager of Portugal, son of Arcachon and archetypal French waiter on the wing……
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Top 10 polluters in the world
China, with more than 10,065 million tons of CO2 released.
United States, with 5,416 million tons of CO2
India, with 2,654 million tons of CO2
Russia, with 1,711 million tons of CO2
Japan, 1,162 million tons of CO2
Germany, 759 million tons of CO2
Iran, 720 million tons of CO2
South Korea, 659 million tons of CO2
Saudi Arabia, 621 million tons of CO2
Indonesia, 615 million tons of CO2
We’re all responsible though, the internet and all the devices connected to it has a larger impact on global warming than the aviation industry.
Rugby.
From the games I saw the better team won in each case. The quarters on the A/B pool side compared to the C/D side are farcical, but it is what it is.
From a one-eyed Scottish perspective we aren’t going to rise above fifth in the world rankings until we can get a defence like South Africa’s or Ireland’s on the back foot and scrambling, rather than smothering our backline. We need more dynamic carrying.
We also need a defence like South Africa and Ireland, and France for that matter.
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How much of that is exported from consumer countries, like USA and UK, I wonder?
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I think an important feature of Ireland’s performance is the aggressive quality of its midfield defence and attack
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Slade, that and I think the backrow combination, which has been sublime on attack and defence as well.
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Slade, it’s a chicken and egg question I think, what comes first, the cheap single use item or the desire to use something once and throw it away?
It’s certainly a recent phenomenon
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@Ticht
Ever since the 1950s çheap ‘made in Hong Kong’ era we’ve developed an over-demand for low quality dispposable stuff
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I am still wearing clothes that are 30 years old, ie older than most professional rugby players. BUT – I certainly have relatives that are despicably into throwaway culture, and these are the same ones that think nothing of jetting all over the place. Their only saving grace is that they (mostly) haven’t reproduced.
And it’s true that the global West tends to export its environmental delinquency.
We can talk about inflation and the NHS and Israel/Hamas and Ukraine/Russia until we’re blue in the face, but the one thing that will affect everyone on the planet not quite equally, but enough, is global warming, which bloody Sunak has decided to not care about at all. Presumably he has a billionaire’s bunker somewhere where he thinks he’ll be safe. Well, I’ve got news for him.
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*I suspect his ‘bunker’ is in Santa Monica, which is really bad news for him!
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Hmm, I had a slight rant on Sunday about the evils of the global north (apologies Flair, was a bit snippy), but in truth, almost anyone living above the poverty line in a modern state is almost certainly a net polluter and contributing to the destruction of the planet. I do stand by my point that consumption in the global north has a detrimental effect on Africa, with dumping of goods both stunting local economic development as well as, literally, poisoning the environment. Time for humanity to take a long, hard look at the foundations of our modern societal structures.
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I blame the Industrial Revolution. I think its fair to blame the Quakers for that. Mind you, even before , colonial superpowers were doing a fair job of worldwide natural resource stripping. Organised agriculture could be held responsible, come to think of it, so a return to hunter gatherer subsistence might be the order of the day. Can I keep my V8 ?
It’s difficult, if not unjust, to restrict developing Nations (India, China, Indonesia on that list ) from all the toys that the west has had, if the UK , for example, wanted to make the change, it would require selfless refusal of everyday luxuries on a massive scale. If you take the view that the seeds were sown in the British Isles in the 18th century, it would be appropriate for the next phase of human development to start there. Probably not going to happen tho.
Looks like the ball is in your court, Deebee. Africa must lead the way, and show the rest of us how it should be done.
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Apologies for flippancy in the previous post, its a default setting. When you look at the issues, we have a massively overpopulated planet, and no coherent pathways to sustainability. Even the most basic realities are not faced by the Western world. There is no sustainable growth, for example, the phrase is an oxymoron, yet every government talks endlessly about it. The man in the street is far too busy paying rent and putting food on the table in every society to have an ability to make the radical changes necessary, often just about all they can do is vote in leaders who will take the necessary steps, and we have developed systems throughout the west that are more effective at maintaining power and financial self interest than they are at effecting actual radical change. I personally cannot see a clear and obvious solution.
Looking forward to a weekend of fantastic rugby.
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I think the speed in which a vaccine for Covid 19 was found shows what can be done if there is a will and people work together to achieve an aim. I’ll leave the distribution of the vaccine for another argument because it was the usual suspects hoarding it for ourselves.
We need a techno fix for electric heating because there is no real alternative to gas boilers just now, not one that will allow people to live as they currently do – it’s all very well to say well they shouldn’t live like that but that is not going to bring people with you. Last winter our thermostat was set to 18 degrees, as it has been for a good few years but that is not warm by any means and you need to wear warm jumpers indoors, which is not a hassle at all.
A 5kw solar array will give enough power even in the winter months so that you will rely less on gas, but the outlay is close to £10K, that is the sort of avenues we should be exploring, whow do we bring down this costs and make them work better, can we store the energy produced in the summer months? (I’ve just read a story about an electric Porche which spontaneously combusted at the factory – it was quickly thrown into vat of water for three days before being taken out for examination, at which point it went on fire again and burned down the factory – I’m a bit wary of electric vehicles still, but again that is the sort of techno fixes we need.
It’s not just domestically though, we need to be powering industry and business with renewables
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Oh and something that rarely gets mentioned was a point that was brought up on this morning’s Farming Today – the recent flooding in Scotland will only increase and make farming very difficult.
I follow this amazing fiddle player from Aberdeenshire on social media, he’s from farming stock and he was showing photographs of his surrounding area which made it look like the lochans saturated lands were back – they had been drained in the middle of the 19th century for agriculture.
The point the president of the Scottish NFU was making on the radio this morning was that it’s no good saying, “oh we’ll just have to import more food from abroad” because this will be happening elsewhere too, and we really should be looking at how to make our own food supply sustainable.
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Ticht, nothing new in that, see model farms built after the Napoleonic wars, when French blockades got self-sustainability on the menu in the early 19th century. Also similar drives post world war one, and the chemical fertilizer boom post world war two. I lived on a small dairy farm for a couple of years about 20 years ago. Renting a room and some space off a friend, I doubled his monthly income. He was eventually driven out of business after 200+ years in the family, the Maff advisors had spent years trying to convince him that there were grants available should he wish to convert to light industrial units and horse livery. It appeared that the governmental push was to eliminate small scale agriculture because it was a pain in the arse. He had 80 head, and was very careful with his land. Not organic, ( cost ) but as low chemically as he could get. Very sad. The area in East Kent was covered with smallholdings set up after the first world war as land provided for veterans, taken up by non conformist socialist leaning folk with an intense dislike of chemical usage.. The in season produce available locally was superb, I particularly miss the cherries and plums, but there were all sorts of small scale meat and veg production too, and obviously apples. Most of them were being run by elderly couples of second generation, who didn’t even need to go to a farmers market, as we all knew where they were, and you often had to drop in for a cuppa and a bit of education to make sure you got your share. Most have gone now.
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SBT, it’s been known for a while that the UK householder spends less on food that most of the EU countries, what I didn’t know was that it was the least https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20201228-1
I have this idealised version of France in my head from when I lived there, the village markets were stocked with lovely fresh food and they weren’t expensive. Supermarkets had proper food in them, you’d cook a burger from them rare because it wasn’t made of crap and you didn’t risk a rushed trip to the pan a few hours later.
Items such as butter, ham and even flipping Nescafe tasted so much better than the bland rubbish you get here, though the proper coffee was the best.
I really hope it is still the same.
We’ve gone for low price rather than quality and agribusiness keeps that going. Ultra Processed Foods is the catchphrase now, anything prepared is just junk and not really food, it’s just empty energy calories with very little nutritional value.
Our children are the first generation for centuries that are supposedly going to have a shorter life span than us, just because of the shit they put down their gullets.
I’ll stop because I’m even dressing myself now.
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dressing for fuck’s sake!
depressing
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Was about to congratulate you on dressing yourself , Ticht. Any progress at our advanced age is good progress.
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“Apologies for flippancy in the previous post”
I liked the bit about the Quakers.
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“In terms of being public enemy number one, we are happy to take that mantle on,” said Billy Vunipola……..
Speaking as an Englishman (whatever that entails) – if that’s how they feel, they will win
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Ireland Team & Replacements (v New Zealand, Rugby World Cup Quarter Final, Stade de France, Saturday, October 14, 8pm Irish Time)
15. Hugo Keenan (Leinster/UCD)(35)
14. Mack Hansen (Connacht/Corinthians)(20)
13. Garry Ringrose (Leinster/UCD)(56)
12. Bundee Aki (Connacht/Galwegians)(51)
11. James Lowe (Leinster)(25)
10. Johnny Sexton (Leinster/St Mary’s College) (Captain) (117)
9. Jamison Gibson-Park (Leinster)(29)
1. Andrew Porter (Leinster/UCD)(58)
2. Dan Sheehan (Leinster/Lansdowne)(20)
3. Tadhg Furlong (Leinster/Clontarf)(71)
4. Tadhg Beirne (Munster/Lansdowne)(45)
5. Iain Henderson (Ulster/Academy)(78)
6. Peter O’Mahony (Munster/Cork Constitution)(100)
7. Josh van der Flier (Leinster/UCD)(56)
8. Caelan Doris (Leinster/St Mary’s College)(35)
Replacements:
16. Ronan Kelleher (Leinster/Lansdowne)(25)
17. David Kilcoyne (Munster/UL Bohemians)(55)
18. Finlay Bealham (Connacht/Buccaneers)(35)
19. Joe McCarthy (Leinster/Dublin University)(4)
20. Jack Conan (Leinster/Old Belvedere)(40)
21. Conor Murray Munster/Garryowen)(111)
22. Jack Crowley (Munster/Cork Constitution)(9)
23. Jimmy O’Brien (Leinster/Naas)(6).
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Not a bad side. There are several weak points, but unfortunately for New Zealand they’re not on this team sheet!
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Jimmy O’Brien (Leinster/Naas)
Wow! They’ve named a club after him in Ireland!
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Well that kicked the notablog into touch.
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We were probably all wondering what you were on about until we did an internet search.
The sub-heading on that article is slightly unfortunate.
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I trust the neutrals will be supporting the plucky underdogs in black this weekend? (even if only to improve your own team’s chances in the Semi-Final).
We also have an election, with our perennial cynical opportunist leader of a populist minority party looking likely to decide which major party gets to form the government. Again. This time he has campaigned on a list of talking points culled from the conservative and conspiratorial fringes of the internet (trans people are bad, teachers are corrupting our youth etc), plus the suddenly on-trend Maori-bashing (bilingual road signs! Indigeous names for goverment departments! Where will it end!). Small positive – once in power he has a near-perfect record of ignoring everything he campaigned on.
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Sorry, BK, me old mucker, but I’ve taken the knee and bowed the head to our new colonial overlords* so won’t be supporting the All Blacks or Wallabies this weekend. Which reminds me, time to make my picks on ‘Bru.
* Except against France of course.
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Done my picks! The Wallabies don’t seem to feature?
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Delightful to see that Borthwick is planning to drop our best player in favour of his Fazness.
Ye Gods!
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Belay my previous comment!!!
Guardian has it that SB will drop Ford and Steward and have Farrell at 10 and Smith at 15………..
………………………against Fiji?????
I give up. The only time England have played well is when Ford was running it.
A win now, however scrapey, will be used to justify SB, the RFU and Brexit!!
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Have you seen the rumour that Andy Goode was putting about? Far and Arundell had a set to on the training park and that has been the end of Arundell’s World Cup, well not the end end, but you don’t stand up to Farrell, apparently.
Of course, this comes with the caveat that it might be bollocks.
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……… oh dear ………
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New Zealand: B Barrett; Jordan, Ioane, J Barrett, Fainga’anuku; Mo’unga, Smith; De Groot, Taylor, Lomax, Retallick, S Barrett, Frizell, Cane, Savea.
Replacements: Coles, Williams, Newell, Whitelock, Papali’i, Christie, McKenzie, Lienert-Brown.
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I’m not that familiar with the All Blacks’ players, but I am still quaking with fear over the names I recognise.
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That team needs to be good enough to beat Ireland one week and bad enough to lose to Wales/Argentina the next. I just don’t think they’ve got it in them.
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Thauma, you have post.
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I’m now officially beyond nervous. Apparently it’s too early to start drinking (and there’s – criminally – no booze in my office anyway). The Boks have shocked everyone again. Nope, they haven’t gone 8-0 on the bench, they’ve actually gone 5-3, with three very athletic subs in Deon Fourie, RG Snyman and Kwagga Smith. Looks like they thin the starting pack can subdue France and probably after 55 minutes or so, bring on some gas up front to really turn the screw. Interesting. Manie to start – will he be kicking, or will Damian Willemse do that? Cobus Reinach preferred to Faf, who drops to the bench, is also interesting. Certainly Reinach has been quicker to release the ball and has a devastating break and eye for a gap, but his box kicks are not in the same class. Are the Boks planning on running France ragged? I doubt it, but let’s see!
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Here’s the side:
South Africa: 15 Damian Willemse, 14 Kurt–Lee Arendse, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Cheslin Koble, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Franco Mostert, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Steven Kitshoff.
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Ox Nche, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Faf de Klerk, 22 Handre Pollard, 23 Willie le Roux
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England: Smith; May, Marchant, Tuilagi, Daly; Farrell (capt), Mitchell; Genge, George, Cole, Itoje, Chessum, Lawes, Curry, Earl.
Replacements: Dan, Marler, Sinckler, Martin, Vunipola, Care, Ford, Lawrence.
ah, well ………………….
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Disappointed to find that England Fiji is Sunday, was hoping it was first think tomorrow, so I could get the disappointing rubbish out of the way and enjoy a weekends good rugby.
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France:
15 Thomas Ramos, 14 Damian Penaud, 13 Gael Fickou, 12 Jonathan Danty, 11 Louis Bielle-Biarrey, 10 Matthieu Jalibert, 9 Antoine Dupont (captain), 8 Gregory Alldritt, 7 Charles Ollivon, 6 Anthony Jelonch, 5 Thibaud Flament, 4 Cameron Woki, 3 Uini Atonio, 2 Peato Mauvaka, 1 Cyril Baille
Substitutes: 16 Pierre Bourgarit, 17 Reda Wardi, 18 Dorian Aldegher, 19 Romain Taofifenua, 20 Francois Cros, 21 Sekou Macalou, 22 Maxime Lucu, 23 Yoram Moefana
Very strong! I think de Allende and Kriel are going to be doing a lot of tackling on Sunday night. The Boks bringing Vermeulen back at 8 is a good move against this French back row – he’s a much better organiser and reader of the game than Wiese, who is more of a bash ’em and hope kind of player. Boks will need to be near perfect for 90 minutes to get the better of this France side and their supporters!
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So Dupont really is back! I’m glad we’re playing NZ now.
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Seeing the photo at the top reminds me that I felt badly for Finn – you could see he really wanted to influence the game against Ireland but was squeezed out ……………….. well done by the Greens
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For Deebee
(I’ve not watched it, so I don’t know Squidge’s conclusion)
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Scotland get revenge on South Africa! Sort of.
Scotland’s women rugby team beat thei SA equivalents 31-17 in Cape Town as part of something called WXV2.
What’s that, I (don’t) hear you ask?
It’s this…
https://www.world.rugby/news/624272
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Hooray for the Scotswomen! New post up shortly.
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New post
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