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 
Ooh, Steward’s had a catching upgrade.
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Pretty rude to drown out the haka like that.
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England start well. NZ score.
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Bugger.
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That was an amazing step, for a hooker.
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NZ in again! All started with a great 50-22.
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“I can’t recall Garbisi ever managing to kick goals consistently”
8 out of 9 in the two games they beat us in when he was the kicker the last few years…
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Aye, but I’ll bet the scoreline would have been worse if someone else were kicking.
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Clyde, how is your daughter doing?
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Cheeky couple of drop goals.
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Yep, 6 points in about 3 mins isn’t bad!
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Bit of a surprise yellow there. I’ll take it though.
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Ooh, Mitchell got lucky there. Could easily have been turned over going on his own.
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Ford looked slightly shocked that he scored there.
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Double bugger.
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Ford looked slightly shocked that he scored there.
For good reason, as it turns out!
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Oh, that was a lovely try.
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Theorising that Pollock is one of Boris Johnson’s undocumented offspring.
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Bristol getting properly humped by Ealing, in the Women’s Prem. 45-19 with 10 to play. (Two yellows haven’t helped)
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Bloody hell England!
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All Blacks have been very uncharacteristically incompetent.
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Great result for England, haven’t seen the game, but well done them.
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Ellis Genge holding his kid, wearing a mini ‘Genge’ jersey, is adorable.
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@Thaum – Thanks for asking. She’s physically in great order, but it does all seem to have left more of a scar than I’d thought. The anniversary of the op came up the other week and she’s been having some flashbacks and bad dreams. She’s now on a waiting list to see someone from psychology from the hospital, but whether that will come to anything is anyone’s guess, she probably (hopefully) won’t want or need it by the time it’s actually available. It has set her schoolwork back too and it’s really hard to catch up as there’s a lot to keep on top of with what they’re doing at the moment anyway.
The school (who were mostly very good about the actual op last year) have been absolute pillocks about her attendance recently which doesn’t help. She had a day off for a family wedding and then got sent home for having the flu and along with her ‘poor’ (!!!) attendance last year that was enough to trigger something in their system that caused her to be pulled out of a lesson and made to fill in some awful questionnaire (do you have any friends, various questions about lack of support and worse at home etc). She could have done without that and when they sent a similar form home for us to fill in Mrs CMW absolutely lost her shit and we ended up in quite a long meeting with them yesterday as a result. Think we got our point across for all the difference it makes, secondary education really is a crock of shit at the moment with pressure from the government to actively make things even worse.
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Just before Wales Japan kicks off, the big result is in. I’ll come back with a match report if and when but the short version is that it took the home side a long time to click into action this afternoon, the opposition played well and had some very good ball carriers.
Dunbar 53 – 22 Murrayfield Wanderers
This moves Dunbar out to a significant lead in the Arnold Clarke East Region League Div 1 (men’s), with the two nearest rivals having their games postponed today
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Always love it when the mascots are taller than the players. Or they put a tiny mascot in front of a lock.
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Good old Arnold Clarke.
Anyway to move on from one thing that gets me down to another. I’d love to say I was tense and nervous and can’t relax, but the truth is the rugby makes me miserable and grumpy and I find little joy in watching my team at the moment. I also don’t buy into any of the guff about this being important for the World Cup, we’ve got other things to worry about. I’ll still be pleased if we win of course.
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CMW – heartfelt wishes to you all.
We went through some scary times with ours and looking back now it’s almost like we’re looking in on someone else.
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Clyde – sorry to hear about all that. Adolescence is a horrible time anyway. Hope that – as Ticht testifies – it will all be behind you in time. Obviously we all know that you are completely supportive of all your daughters!
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Well, and that was quite a nice try that you don’t have to be grumpy about.
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It’s confusing that Wales are playing in white and Japan are wearing Cardiff colours.
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Going to watch the game after dinner, will give a grumpiness update later on!
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Best not to read on, then.
Nice Japanese try too!
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Japan now down to 13, with one yellow under review (but I expect it to remain yellow).
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Quite a few reasons to be grumpy now.
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I can see that being a straight red for Adams.
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Now Josh Adams is off with review for a dodgy clear-out.
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Yellow & review.
Well, that was certainly a half of rugby.
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Hard to know WTF he was thinking there.
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Maybe not quite as bad as 15 Welshmen hammering the line against 13 Aussies and still not scoring, but not far off it. Does seem to be a bit of, give the ball to LRZ and hope he does something.
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Not sure Josh Adams does a lot of thinking…
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Yes to both! LRZ not quite been able to finish anything since his return from Septic Exile.
And I don’t think Adams is a malicious player, but perhaps not the cleverest.
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20 min red for Adams. Can be considered lucky.
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Adams has a 20-minute red. Silly boy.
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Or ‘arrogant twat’, as the mister put it.
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LRZ with a finish, and a great conversion from the touchline.
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Japan score!
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Wales score!
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Wales score!
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Only the once, though, and then they fuck up the restart and Japan score a pen.
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