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 
If you want to buy a cliff to drop off I’ve got quite a few available:
Four heavily eroded ones, some higher than others, you can take your pick as I’ve decided I only need three.
A very big one.
One that’s only 22 yards high with some odd wooden things at the top and bottom, but has people constantly climbing up it and falling off. It’s fun but exhausting.
For the garishly minded a yellow and green one with a cave that has an echo that makes you sound like a yokel.
Something for everyone or everything for someone…
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Trisk, I don’t think Ireland are at Liverpool FC levels of Catastrophe Theory just yet! Wales, on the other hand…
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@cmw
Brings to mind the quote about Peyton Manning … offensive coach was asked why the backup QBs weren’t getting more practice
“Fellas, if ’18’ goes down, we’re fucked. And we don’t practice fucked.”
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“Liverpool FC levels of Catastrophe”
11th in a League of 20. Don’t know the meaning of the word.
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Argentina not happy with Tom Curry, by all accounts. I didn’t see the match (or the incidents, alleged or otherwise) so can’t really comment on what happened. Actually, can’t comment at all.
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Yes, it’s a first.
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On the Curry-Conteponi thing I have to say Conteponi’s press conference doesn’t make me warm to him in the least. He may seem keen that we should find out or even see more of what went on in the tunnel, but I doubt we really will and if we do I would be amazed if it does anything other than show everyone involved in a bad light. Such is the way of minor physical altercations, I would certainly never want to see a replay of any that I’ve been part of even those where I would argue with much justification that I was ‘in the right’.
Bit of a dose of ‘there’s a conspiracy against us’ guff in some of his words about the onfield incident which, for all I can understand them being upset about the injury, wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary. Sort of thing I associate more with Match of the Day though probably unfairly at this stage as rugby has headed in this direction for some time. The most successful head coach in the world is the chief weasel on that front after all so we should expect it from the rest.
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English (and South African) players are out-and-out thugs. End of.
Obviously. to really believe that I would have to close BOTH eyes to what happened in Dublin this weekend.
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11th in a League of 20
12th now – below Everton
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Happy for Everton on that front (and would quite like Arsenal to win the league), but still not impressed. Norwich are 23rd out of 24 with only Sheffield Wednesday (a team I also vaguely follow) below them by virtue of them having more or less gone bust. Lost eight out of the last nine, the exception being a draw against… Sheffield Wednesday. We’re off to the third division for our second season there since 1960.
O’s, Dragons and Scarlets have one win between them and are 14th, 15th and 16th out of 16. One of them might end up higher because they get to play each other more than the rest of the league do. And one of them will cease to exist.
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On the plus side I half-support Cov and they’re top of the Championship and look very likely to go up. Not as enthused by this as Thaum will be of course.
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I’ve soft spot for Everton – their mid-80s team was denied success when English teams were banned from Europe. They looked to be on the verge of greatness
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May I sincerely apologise for introducing a football thread, it was entirely unintentional.
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Living in the Borders in the early/mid 70s, we could only get English Border TV and English BBC* (and the signal was pretty awful as well), so I would mostly be seeing English games. I tended to gravitate towards those clubs that had Scottish players, or which there were quite a few then. So, ‘Dirty’ Leeds with Bremner, Grays, Harvey, McQueen, Jordan, Lorimer, then later Liverpool with King Kenny, Souness, Hansen. Forest had Kenny Burns, John Robertson, John McGovern, Archie Gemmell. Bobby Robson’s Ipswich had John Wark and George Burley. Plus loads of others.
*In those days you could try and move the channels, like you could with a radio, so I was messing about one day and managed to get BBC Scotland. Think the signal was even worse. Like watching TV through a snowstorm…
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@Deebee – I think one of my cliffs was the first football reference so you’re off the hook. Thaum won’t mind anyway as she loves the Sky Blues so much.
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I leaned towards Everton back then, partly because they were the only serious challenger to Liverpool when I was a kid and also they had Neville Southall and Kevin Ratcliffe from Wales along with a few Scottish and Irish players I liked. Southall is definitely a contender for being my favourite ever footballer. Unlikely looking, amazing goalie, seems to have turned out to be a good person too. I also played most of my football in goal and wasn’t bad at it though admittedly a lot of that was five or six a side as I wasn’t really big enough and couldn’t kick the bloody thing far enough to do it well in proper football.
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I’m not sure whether the fitba or the krikit is worse. I shall be sure to bring more snooker updates.
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Keep the snooker updates coming! Who’s up for providing the darts updates?
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Forest had Kenny Burns
I still think that’s one of the greatest transformations I can recall – Clough turned a good centre-forward into a great centre-back.
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Who knows the truth of this, but regardless those were different times:
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Malia out (ACL) for the rest of the season.
I think the player responsible for any foul pay should be suspended not just for the offense he commited but also with some sort of proportionality according to the seriousness of the injury he caused. We need more deterrents, not fewer.
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Speaking on long term injuries, Dupont should finally play again tomorrow with Toulouse from the bench. Everyone wonders if he will be still the same player as it was the second nasty injury to his ACL. February was a long time ago, we shall see.
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Fingers, toes and everything else crossed for Dupont, he is a joy to watch. Plus I relieve some of the dread and despondency that comes with being an Edinburgh and Scotland supporter by following Stade Toulousain.
For UKers, with the Not Heineken Cup approaching, you can get a discount on Premier Sports until Sunday. The code is BLACKFRIDAY25 – that gives you a year’s subscription for £80 as opposed to £120.
All URC games, All Champs Cup, selected Not Champs Cup plus several Top 14 games a week
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Most ‘Guardian’ headline ever? (And there may be a lot of competition for this one…)
“You be the judge: should my partner stop compressing the coffee in the moka pot?”
I am the judge – who the fuck cares?
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South Africa to face soon-to-be-paste Wales
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Refit, we’ve only got 24 players in Wales! I hear that Duane Vermeulen is getting twitchy in the coaching box at the prospect of having to play off the bench.
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Only 24?
But Wales have a bet with Ireland: Can they finish the game with fewer than 12 players?
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It’s a weird match, with some alleging it’s just about the money, but according to the Bok management, they couldn’t afford to keep more players in camp. Wales B against Bok bits and bobs (albeit all of whom have been in the system for a while).
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Actually, whilst it’s not the full cavalry, it’s a very good Bok side, with plenty of grunt and game breakers starting and off the bench. In the backs, only De Allende at 13 is out of position (by one), whilst in the starting forwards, four of the tight five play for the Bulls, with Jean Kleyn the odd man out. The loose trio has plenty of grunt, even if Mostert isn’t really a blindside flank.
Replacement bench is billed as 7-1, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kwagga in the centres later on.
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TMO reviews galore in the Prem. Tom Curry had a yellow for not wrapping in the tackle and Tom Hooper just got one for head contact. 14 players each for Sale & Exeter. Also Hassell-Collins, in Newcastle v Tigers, gets one for head contact too.
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Hassell-Collins was unlucky. Very minimal head contact, if any at all. For once I sort of agree with Healy.
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I would simply bend at the waist and not take the risk.
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That doesn’t always save a player from a card.
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Missed the first half of the Ulster match. Don’t know what me uncle was complaining about; they are playing well in the second!
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I asked the internet if Jude and Pete Postlethwaite are related, and the AI thingy told me that Jude is both Pete’s grandson and nephew. Backed up by nothing at all.
I thought that they have the same cheekbones, but then I also thought Pete was from Norn Iron, which turns out to be wrong.
Bizarre decision in the Leinster match. Clear head contact, but no problem!
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And now Leinster score the BP try, when Dragons didn’t even get a penalty down the other end.
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Oh, there’s a belated yellow against Leinster as the clock turns red. Too little, too late.
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Somehow Exeter came back from being 20 points down at the start of the second half, to pinching it by a point, 26-27.
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That’s a genuinely insane decision. That ref needs to be removed from reffing for a while.
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Lions up 29-19 against the Bulls in Pretoria! Quite entertaining, albeit handling errors on both sides not great. Weird that after this match, I’ll be watching the Boks in Cardiff, whilst Cardiff are in Parma.
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19-36! Lions are battering the Bulls! MAKE THAT 19-43 AS THEY SCORE AGAIN! It’s a hammering with some great running lines by the Lions. 5 minutes to go. Definitely having a big juicy steak for dinner to celebrate! Luckily, Zambian beef is excellent quality!
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Crikey! The Bulls score two in two minutes and it’s 33-43 with two minutes left! The match has been fun, but Supersport’s coverage has been abysmal. Hanyani Shimangi has spent most of the match blathering on about the fucking QR code you can download to vote for MOTM. They keep putting it up on the screen too to make it worse.
When he’s not doing that, he’s talking about community and identity in the rugby fraternity. Just call the game, FFS!
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Hope the commentators can find something to talk about other than the game in this next match…
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Well, that’s going on Moodie’s blooper reel.
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We won a ball from a high kick a minute ago.
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Will be ‘interesting’ to see if there’s a scrum in this game from now on that isn’t a penalty.
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Murray had the right idea there, but it’s ended up probably the biggest mistake possible to make.
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Edwards doubles down with the kickoff.
Pitiful defence from the Wales backs before that, missing a tackle would at least be something rather than just leaving them run through.
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