It’s the second weekend of the Six Nations, and this is where things get (even more) interesting!
Following on from his (unexpected, even by him) success last week, Predict-A-Bear is back! This time in full Technicolor! And with lots of exclamation marks!!!!
First up is Italy vs Wales. Italy looked decent in places last week despite losing. They’ll be hoping that being back home will give them a boost. Although they haven’t beaten Wales in Rome since 2007, but that was a very different Wales. Wales have Faletau back (again) and yet another centre partnership facing up to one of the best partnerships in the tournament in Brexoncello (sorry, not sorry). Predict-A-Bear is going for:
‘Second game on Saturday is England vs France. The Big One! Le Crunch! Even though it isn’t. Not this weekend. Anyway, England have an abundance of Smiths, plus a Willis (but perhaps not the correct one) and a large number of Saints in the backline. France have added a Jalibert and some guy called Penaud on the wing. England will have a good first half and not so good second half. France will have a good first half and a better second half.
Predict-A-Bear is going for:
And that’s it for this weekend!
What do you mean there’s a game on Sunday!? You mean I’ve got to preview it too?
Bugger.
Here goes then (and this is being AI’d before the teams come out). Scotland HAVE to beat Ireland. We haven’t since 2017. Ireland were (slightly) sub-par in Autumn. They have rather annoyingly got better since then (but they did only play England last week). Scotland have lost our captain (and all-round genius) Sione, plus the very underestimated Scott Cummings for the whole tournament. Toonie’s Tombola came up with Dave Cherry last week, and he actually played well! So expect him to be out of the 23 or something weird. Injuries permitting, the only change I would make is Jordan in for McDowall. Sadly, I think the James Lowe Smirk will be in evidence a lot come Sunday evening. Can’t even do the “heart says one thing, head says the other” result – mainly because P-A-B doesn’t have a heart….
Still, Predict-A-Bear is going for:
Predict-A-Bear’s prognostications transcribed by BorderBoy.
Onna telly this weekend
Showing matches that are televised in the UK and Ireland or on popular subscription services. Bold indicates that it’s on a free to view channel. Times are in the UK zone, so adjust as necessary.
Friday 7th February
| Italy v Wales (U20s) | 19:15 | S4C, iPlayer |
| England v France (U20s) | 20:00 | iPlayer |
Saturday 8th February
| Stormers v Bulls | 12:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Italy v Wales | 14:15 | ITV1, S4C, STV |
| England v France | 16:45 | STV, ITV1 |
| Scotland v Ireland (U20s) | 19:45 | iPlayer, RTÉ2 |
Sunday 9th February
| Scotland v Ireland | 15:00 | BBC1, iPlayer, RTÉ2 |
Ovally Balls 
BP for Bristol at the start of the second half!
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Cardiff have scored! 38-7.
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Booo! Luatua’s knacked his leg and had to go off. And Bill Mata’s just absolutely CREAMED the Bath 10, Donaghue,
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A 3rd yellow for Bristol – Batley tackling a Bath player while he was lying on a ruck.
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Somehow Bristol defended a 2-man overlap, Lane getting to the last man and dragging him into touch. Back for another penalty though – and another warning.
The ref’s arm is out and Mata’s in the bin.
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Somehow Bristol force a knock-on and get away without conceding.
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Sarries leading 54-28 in the other match.
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And Bristol win a pen from the scrum and clear their lines.
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Bath keep trying to force plays and knocking the ball on.
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Bristol just turned Bath over on their tryline and moved the ball wide to Nalango. He got as far as the Bath 22, but Bristol recycled and Will Capon got through a gap to score. 31-14 78mins.
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A 6th for Bristol. Pen advantage in the middle of the park and Ibitoye kicks to the wing. Naulago bats the ball back in-field to Mata, who galloped in to score. 36-14 and the clock is in the red. Bristol secure the restart and end the match.
Saracens beat Newcastle 75-28.
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Cardiff managed to score three tries in the end, but came up pointless.
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Treviso 19 – 0 Glasgow at HT.
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33-0 now chez Treviso, with 20 mins to go.
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Huge Owens has scored, so Glasgow are not nilled!
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Quins are currently doing a number on Glaws. They’ve just scored their 6th try, taking it to 38-7 on 56mins. And then Glaws cock up the restart, Quins get a scrum. Then an early engage, so a free-kick. Not a great 2mins for Gloucester.
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33-7 is the final score.
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Cracking second Embra try by Hamish Watson running down the left wing.
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Connacht have equalised. And seriously injured an Embra player, but nothing to see there, apparently.
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After more foul play, Connacht get a warning.
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Embra score their third.
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@bb
Derreennalomane isnt so far from my neck of the woods – in west Cork
(Cork people will argue the hind legs off any animal you care to name over the division of the county into approximate regions – north, west, east etc)
Generally, it’s in relation to the city – which because it’s in the south means that people generally think of north, east, West but they’ll argue for mid-Cork, etc
I wasn’t aware of the barium mining….
You’re on the way to Mizen Head – most southerly point on the island.
Close to Skibbereen – home of Gavin Coombes, and Bantry – home of the Wycherleys.
TomP had relatives from Bandon – so he’s the real west Cork expert ….
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We worked our way up to Limerick for the Munster vs Ulster game.
Good win in the end – patchy start but somehow managed to get try BP by half time
Played better in the 2nd half and two tries sealed the game – Crowley found his kicking boots as well.
I thought Ulster back row were very quiet. I was expecting McNabney and Timoney to cause problems but they weren’t prominent… Izzy was best.
Nice to see him and Milne and Josh Wycherely , and Kilgallen getting a photo after – they were all at school together.
Milne and Barron look good gets from Leinster.
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Last match at Thomond for O’Mahony, Murray and 300 match man Stephen Archer – next week’s game is in Cork and then if we’re lucky into the knock out phase – which will be away as far as it goes…. maybe that’s a good omen like 2023….
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Cork people will argue the hind legs off any animal you care to name
I met two donkeys today.
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Well if they had no hind legs they had probably been hanging out in Cork either discussing the division of the county into regions with the locals or possibly suffering the effects of barium poisoning if that’s a thing.
If they were Welsh ones they might have been involved in sorting out Mid/West/South/North/East Wales along the same lines. Or trying to make sense of how certain towns all manage to be in Powys or something.
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What’s going on with Saints? They’re 3 tries to 1 down against Exeter at the end of the first half.
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Looking at the Saints line-up, not sure many in their own families would recognise them, never mind Saints fans.
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Mrs Deebee reached a very accomplished half century over the weekend. With her twin, they cracked a century and we had one of hte parties of the century to celebrate. My liver is still feeling it this morning. Saw absolutely no rugby over the weekend, so it obviously didn’t happen.
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I guess the rugby that didn’t happen yesterday means Scarlets almost certainly qualify for the playoffs. Now in the great scheme of things that might well make it rugby that might as well not have happened, but well done to them for the time being anyway!
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CMW is Douglas Adams and I claim a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster!
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@Deebee – Well I mean it would only be rugby that might as well not have happened if it had actually happened which of course it didn’t. Nevertheless it has had an observable effect which requires further investigation. I will proceed with my method of not watching both rugby that happens and rugby that doesn’t happen and will report on my findings in due course.
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Spent Sunday playing cricket that I’m still not sure really happened. The scorebook says we chased down 253 with three overs to spare, but as that would be a club record by almost 20 runs and we’ve been going for 42 years it seems highly unlikely. I seem to have pulled a thigh muscle somehow though so must have been doing something.
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My brother-in-law pulled a muscle in his sleep a few weeks back (pipe down you dirty buggers), so you could have been doing that.
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@Deebee – Anything’s possible. I’m going to try not playing with absolute certainty this weekend and see what happens.
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If we were, however, to assume for a moment that the game did take place then we would have to believe that the following could have happened:
I turned up late just as the toss was about to happen and rather than cutting in on our stand-in captain and assuming command I agreed with him that he should carry on in charge. With them having scored a mountain of runs I then seem to have spent the tea-break telling him what a brilliant decision I’d made, dodged a bullet etc by leaving it to him to try to manage our pitiful fielding performance. And at the end I may have had to admit that I was perhaps a bit jealous that I hadn’t just captained the team to one of our greatest ever victories.
Obviously none of that occurred though.
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Ooh, this isn’t looking good
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Wondering who the Murray is in relation to Ulster?
Relations between Dan McFarland and the players had clearly broken down, which is a shame as we were doing a lot better under him. Certainly wouldn’t describe McCloskey or Mikey Lowry (for example) as cowards, but we’ve definitely been very poor defensively lately, and our once-fearsome maul is now a joke.
We’ve also lost our ‘best-disciplined club in the URC’ crown.
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Bernard Jackman’s confidence sounds like the most important thing there.
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Jenkins is a troll
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7s was Nucifora’s baby – but basically money isn’t there right now and Humphreys – who I presume is calling the shots – has decided to cut the mens’ program
Sad – in it’s way – but there’s very little – Zac Ward excepted – movement from 7s to 15s in the men’s game
I’d heard the other rumours on other blogs…..I’m guessing the unnamed “sauce” [sic] is TRK
On Henshaw, Leo is in a jam (of his own making admittedly)
– drop him and everyone’s saying why is one of our top players and possessor a central contract not starting? Plus contract is till 2027, so when Barrett is gone… Leo still has an unhappy player for 2 more years…
play him and the lads who paid for Barrett are saying they paid to see him in finals- not playing Zebre..
Same with Boyle – they wanted to give Healy a big send off in front of a big home crowd – they couldn’t do that in the final vs Toulouse (as might have been expected), hence the 20 min gimmick. Had they reached the final – Boyle would have probably benched.
Milne already left because he and Boyle were promised the same exposure
Barrett had pretty much put his mouthguard in his sock before the ball was kicked out at the end of the Northampton game – he was getting a big ‘chunk of change’ to come over and win the Heineken Cup…..
Connacht – things are weird there…constant stream of players leaving – Kilgallen, Farrell, Smith all to Munster, rumour of Devine to Ulster. I’d guess Connacht knew fine well Wilkins was looking elsewhere and were glad to accommodate it, as an alternative to firing him and paying out the remainder of his contract
Plus he didn’t cover himself in glory when Hansen called out reffing standards….
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Jackman is a decent enough pundit – played / coached at high level.
But a little too tied in to Leinster – and was very late in highlighting his ties to Prendergast after pushing hism very hard
Wondering who the Murray is in relation to Ulster
Maybe Murray Kinsella ? Another journo….
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On Ulster, Richie Murphy was an odd choice – experience was with U20s. But when McFarlane left – he was “around the place” at the IRFU.
IRFU play provincial head coach salaries – not Munster or Leinster etc, so Murphy meant to additional spend.
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It’s a pity Ireland are canning their 7s side. The 7s is really becoming a lot more competitive than it was even five years ago, with the emergence of France, Spain and Argentina as weekly contenders, the Kiwis back on the up after a couple of lean seasons (by their standards), Australia playing far better in the 7s than 15s, the Boks and Fiji consistently up there too, whilst Kenya, USA, Samoa and a couple of others are capable of big wins on their day.
Guys like Cheslin Kolbe, Werner Kok, Kwagga Smith, Seabelo Senatla, Kurt-Lee Arendse and others have all shone in 7s and used those skills superbly in 15s. Obviously lots of others from other countries too, although as usual some French bloke did it the other way round a couple of years ago.
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IRFU were late to support men’s 7s – it was primarily the Olympic inclusion that raised it’s profile here, and obviously as an “olympic” sport there’s govt support
Never really been a thing here – exception Kinsale but that’s really a drinkarama with rugby added on ….
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“Jackman is a decent enough pundit…coached at high level.”
It was time someone showed the Dragons a little love. I miss Mr Iks though I have a feeling he wasn’t Jackman’s biggest fan.
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Well, I was being kind….in case Iks was looking in
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Cardiff LH red carded for a shoulder to head tackle. Thought yellow was appropriate. Stormers 12-7 and 15-14 up after 30 minutes. Replacement LH hasn’t skimped on the pies!
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19-7 Stormers after a bit of a scrappy try. Cardiff backs overran the ball in their own in-goal, allowing Zas to dot down. Cardiff scrum is giving the Stormers hell! 3 penalties so far. Lineout on the 5m and the Diff have another penalty advantage. Ah! Lovely cross-chip (as opposed to kick) and Cardiff are in! They’re not giving up and not out of this, even if the Stormers backs look fairly lethal every time they have space.
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19-12. Some controversy over the conversion, which is missed.
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