Six Nations have announced that they are ringing the changes for next year’s tournament. OvallyBalls had an exclusive mole in the decision room.
Six Nations Clown Five: Listen, chaps, I’m awfully sorry we failed to get the Six Nations behind a paywall so that we could destroy the popularity of the only tournament that is broadly watched, but we’ll try again in a couple of years.
SNC2: I’m not a fookin’ chap.
SNC4: Ah, bellissima! Like me, you are wearing a molto clever disguise to our top-secret meeting in this luxury ristorante.
SNC2: Catch yerself on. I’m wearing what the boss told me to wear: blue.
SNC5: Can we just get back to our onions? We have a tournament to ruin here.
SNC6: Onions? Oignons? En France, we return to our moutons.
SNC3: We quite like our lovely sheep as well.
SNC1: Ach, can we knock the tired wee 70s jokes on the heid? We’ve two major things to discuss here: playing matches on a Thursday (a THURS-DEE!), and deep-sixing one rest weekend.
SNC3: Thursday matches! It was bad enough, look you, when the Friday ones started. Working people are not going to be able to get to these matches, or maybe even watch them on the telly.
SNC5: Surely they will just have their servants do anything necessary on those particular evenings?
SNC6: Bah, the British do not know how to live. They eat their dinner – and quelle horreur d’un repas – at a silly time. They are weaklings who cannot stay up to a reasonable hour.
SNC4: Sono d’accordo.
SNC1: I dinna like the Thursday match, but I’m a wee bit more concerned about losing the rest weekend. That’s 5 Test matches in six weeks. Do we not have a small concern about player welfare there?
SNC3: We’ve not got a huge squad to field from the valleys.
SNC4: È vero, this also concerns us.
SNC2: Agh, it’s all right, we’ll just call on Leinster’s academy if half the squad end up in the hospital.
SNC6: Eh ben oui, we have many teams in the Top14, and perhaps we can bend the rules on players being called up.
SNC5: No worries here either, chaps … heh, heh: and chapesses. So is it all settled, then?
SNCs 1, 3 and 4 (simultaneously): Fuck off / vaffanculo.
SNC5: Perhaps I have not yet properly explained the emoluments available to those who agree to these proposals.
[whispers]
All: Crack on!
Ovally Balls 
Beautiful-looking arena.
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Another Portuguese injury. At least this one’s hobbling off.
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Another rather unexpected Irish try (Bolton).
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Crowley with his first miss, a difficult one from the sideline.
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Hugh Gavin scores at half-time. Although I’m not sure what’s going on as the clock has been reading 40:00 for quite some time, but they are re-starting.
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Brutal half for Portugal, 8 tries conceded.
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Half-time is called at last. 0-54, 8 tries.
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Here we go. Casey scores under the sticks.
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Another score by Prendergast (Cian).
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Portugal score. There was a forward pass, but the TMO is out of action!
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Portugal have done a score!
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I’m glad they got some points on the board. They’re quite inept, but I have no animus against the Portuguese!
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Calvin Nash scores shortly after coming on. That’s 11 tries for Ireland 7-78. On 58 minutes.
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And Prendergast scores again!
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More stadia should have trees and flowering shrubs surrounding them.
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Yikes!
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Ow!
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I did a bit of a Refit nearly four weeks ago, although not nearly as serious. I walked into a tiled room with a completely unexpected puddle on the floor (plumbing leak), and my bare left foot shot out in front of me as I fell backwards. For a horrible moment, I thought I was going to do the splits, but instead I landed on my bent right leg, smashing everything flat to the floor.
Foot and ankle turned black and swelled up massively, and knee (already dodgy) also injured. Just getting back to normal now.
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Clearly heard someone in the crowd yell “oh fuck off!”, when the ref blew for an Irish penalty just then.
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Ouch! Glad to hear you’re healing Thaum.
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5mins for Ireland to score another 8 for the century.
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Meanwhile, first (metaphorical) blood to England, Seb Atkinson on the end of a nice move. 0-7 5mins.
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Cheers, Refit! Not as spectacular as yours, but quite painful for a while. I’m quite good at injuring my right ankle/foot.
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It’s all a bit rucksy-dropsy in Argentina at the moment.
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Yeah, at least you didn’t end up with a dozen screws in you 😅.
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And Ireland end with a penalty try to crack 100 points: 7 – 104, 15 tries.
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Evil Irish bastards. Get a pen after 80, stick it in the corner and end up with a pen-try. 7-106.
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Refit: and spend months in the hospital! Quite trivial, really.
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Oh, I missed the conversion (again)!
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A problem I’ve got with Argentina, at the moment, is they’re making Freddie Steward look good.
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Steward is good at one thing, which is catching high balls.
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Ben Curry’s getting a card. Put his shoulder into Matera’s head.
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Yellow & review. He may not come back – he wasn’t wrapping with the arm.
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Argentina are going full Harlem Globetrotters, throwing the ball around with abandon.
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Argentina get done reward for all the razzle dazzle, with a lovely try. 10-7
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Just a yellow for Curry. Lucky lad.
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Thaum – genuinely one of the most annoying things, about being out of action for so long, was that work took away my perfectly good desktop PC and gave me a laptop. Even 8 months later, I’m still finding annoying things in Windows that I’d previously ‘fixed’ and I have to look then up again.
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Just seen a comment in the chat, of the stream I’m watching:
“You don’t like Earl because he’s English. I don’t like him because he’s a Saracen. We are not the same.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣
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What a jammy score. Arg put a chip into the England 22 and Steward is in the deadball area, to catch it. But it glances off the upright, just into where Mendy is running in and he gets to the ball first. Arg go into half-time, leading 17-14.
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Refit – it’s the small things that get you. Reconfiguring a computer is an annoying hassle.
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Bugger, Theo Dan’s just knackered himself.
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Yikes! Uruguay smashed Romania 70-8.
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Yellow for Matera, for lying all over the ball after an England maul in the corner goes down.
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Oof, Carrerras just sparked himself out, trying to tackle Murley.
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England keep getting close to the Arg line, then cock it up.
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Mendy too upright tackling Underhill and got himself bounced and dazed.
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For some reason, the SA comms keep calling England “the Red Roses”.
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Have England pinched it? Pepper breaks into the Arg 22 and pops the ball to JvP, who scores. Conversion missed 17-22.
England take the restart and Ford puts it off the pitch.
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Hope you’re okay Thauma! Sounds awful! Speedy recovery.
Refit – that SA commentator sounds suspiciously like Hanyani Shimange. Bless him, nice guy, decent player in his day, but an awful commentator. His other favourites include “soft hands from the big man” every time a tight forward passes the ball no matter the quality of the pass, and “it’s tough in the Jukskei Derby” whenever someone puts in a tackle in a Lions-Bulls match.
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